Letting Go

Letting go of negative emotions created by our thoughts and beliefs has problems you will more than likely encounter – regardless of the releasing technique you use.

I urge you to read this material, think about it and follow my suggestions to help make emotional releasing work for you.

How Habits Are Formed:

The following explanation is a distilled version of what I have learned reading information from some of the world’s foremost brain researchers.

The example I will use is the emotion “anger” but this information can be applied to any unwanted habits or thought patterns.

When we witness anger repeatedly as a child; usually from a parent, we learn their behavior.

In the beginning, there is no neuron group associated with anger. The more we see this, the more it becomes part of our thoughts.

As we continually experience the anger, it then becomes a part of us. The neurons in our brain associated with the emotion of anger continue to grow.

Then, one of the following will happen:

1. We begin expressing anger ourselves and this reinforces that neuron group, strengthening it, helping it to grow even larger.

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2. We don’t like the anger and begin to “resist” the temptation to act in anger. In resistance, we are unfortunately also focusing on the emotion of anger – again reinforcing that neuron group.

Every situation that triggers either the anger or the resistance to anger creates a different neural pathway leading to that neuron group.

The neuron groups in the brain that are largest and strongest are the ones that fire first, fastest and easiest.

Now, in adulthood, we have this large group of neurons that is associated with the emotion of anger with numerous neural pathways leading to that group.

Think of the anger as a city. Think of the neural pathways as many roads leading to the city.

As you can see from the above explanation, we have the large, strong neuron group associated with anger and numerous paths leading to that emotion.

Now, as an adult you have this unwanted negative emotion – or thought pattern – and you want to get rid of it.

Three Cautions:

1. You begin using a releasing technique, such as Sedona Method or Emotional Freedom Technique. The following are two possible outcomes.
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   a) It works immediately and the habit disappears. Unfortunately, at a later time the habit reappears when something happens that “triggers” a thought pattern down a different neural pathway leading to the same unwanted emotion.

   b) It doesn’t work immediately and you keep “trying” to eliminate the unwanted emotion with no immediate success.

   In both of the above situations, realize that like a city with many roads, if you close off one road, there is still access to the city.

   Most don’t understand how our brains work this way. Therefore, with either no results or returning unwanted negatives, there is a high probability you would abandon your efforts and now “believe” emotional releasing either doesn’t work or is not worth the time and effort.

2. Let’s assume you were successful in eliminating the emotional attachment. You go about your day to day living confident in feeling you have slain the dragon. Unfortunately, nature abhors a vacuum. You once had a negative emotion, now eliminated and you have done nothing to fill that void.
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   Can you guess what happens next? Yes, you pick up either a different unwanted habit or re-ignite your previously released one.

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3. An even larger problem is when the habit has been a part of you for many years. Now it’s gone. Even though you no longer want to deal with the anger, you miss it. You are not conditioned to “act” differently. The urge is strong to let the anger back in, to allow it to again be a part of who you are.

Four Suggestions To Deal with Setbacks

Now that you have been armed with an understanding of how your unwanted habits and thought patterns are formed in the brain, here are 4 suggestions to help you deal with some of the setbacks you might experience while practicing emotional freedom.

1. When you are releasing and the results are either not immediate or even if they are, but the issue returns, remember my explanation of how habits were formed and the different neural pathways (roads) leading to that habit (city). This will help you to understand you are being successful. Remain vigilant with your releasing and stay on the path of progress.

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2. Release on “Not Having” the negative. Using the “anger” example, you not only release on the unwanted anger, but you also release on no longer having anger. This helps to eliminate the emotional attachment felt when your old friend “anger” is no longer with you.

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3. Obviously, since you are releasing on “anger”, what you probably are trying to achieve is to be calm and patient – at peace. Since that is the motivation behind your efforts, you then need to release on your desired outcome – being calm and patient. If you do not release on this, you will be frustrated and develop internal resistance every instance you find yourself not being as you wish to be.

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4. Fill the void by refocusing your thoughts on something positive that fills you with love and happiness. By refocusing your thoughts (without any resistance or struggle) you are building a larger and stronger neuron group focused on “happiness” which will fire faster and more often.

I keep a repertoire of 2 or 3 really amazing “feel good” memories in my awareness to help me change the direction of my mind at will.

No worries f you don’t have any such memories to rely on. The human mind cannot tell the difference between real and imagined. Create your own memory of a situation that you know would cause you to feel full of love and happiness.

I sincerely wish you great success in your emotional releasing and I believe if you follow my suggestions, it will help you immensely to get past some of the unseen hurdles experienced while working on your own emotional freedom.

Have fun doing this! None of your self- improvement efforts should be frustrating. Just accept things as they are right now. This helps eliminate any internal resistance.

Once you have accepted who you are, it then becomes much easier to make change happen.

If you have other insights to help with emotional releasing, please feel free to leave comments below and share your knowledge to help others.

Happy Kids

Chances are good the images that come to mind are along the lines of your ideal mate, dream home, new car, money in the bank, or your career.

Ask yourself this: “why do I want these goals?”

If you are honest with your self, you can easily see that all goals have only one true purpose – to make you happy!

I believe this is one of the reasons why so many struggle with success. That is, we mistakenly believe if we “have” something, it will lead to our happiness.

Actually, this is a backward approach to goal achievement. You see, if you are “happy”, achieving your tangible goals is no longer a challenge.

When you are focused on being happy right now, you are no longer functioning from a position of lack. Actually, you have eliminated your internal struggle and resistance to success and are now sending out good energetic vibrations which helps tremendously to attract all the other “stuff” that you had previously been lacking.

Self improvement and goal achievement shouldn’t be a struggle, yet far too many are doing exactly that. You have probably been “trying” this far too long. How about taking a different approach?

Take time each day to focus on being happy right now. Focus also on how you can spread your happiness around and help others to feel good about themselves. Look for the grudges and resentments that your subconscious has been holding on to and make a conscious effort to let go – to forgive.

Changing how we think takes time and effort. We make little steps at first. Each action we take to focus on happiness builds, and our lives begin to change for the better in constantly increasing magnitude.

My favorite place to help me remain focused on happiness is this fairly new website:

Revelri – High On Happiness

I love this site. Aside from the freebies you can download, you can learn about “happiness” actions to enhance your life, pay if forward by sending healing to others less fortunate, tell the universe about your goals – your intentions, and make a “Gratitude Journal” – all online.

You get to choose whether anything you write is public or private.

You also are involved in something bigger than just yourself – that is, a “happiness revolution” where like minded people are focusing on being happy in the now and also focusing on helping others to be happy.

It’s a win – win for anyone and everyone who joins… And it is “FREE”.

Click on the banner below and begin your own “Happiness Revolution”. I’m confident you will begin feeling so good about your self, all your other dreams and goals will magically begin showing up at your doorstep.

Let go of all the effort and struggle and just be… HAPPY!

Foot Steps

Most of us have “assumed the worst” in a situation, only to discover later our thoughts were totally wrong. Unfortunately, our assumptions led us down a path that ended in conflict.

Take a few moments to think of how you have “assumed” the worst and more importantly, how your incorrect assumption led to conflict.

Recall something recent where you didn’t get an expected phone call or perhaps your child or mate didn’t show up when they were supposed to.

Maybe your employer made a comment or gave you a “look” that got your thinking about the worst.

Chances are, your subconscious began working overtime, feeding you all kinds of negative thoughts such as:

• Why are they late? I hope nothing bad has happened.
• What if the person I was expecting to call didn’t want to talk with or see me anymore?
• Maybe the expected party was in an accident.
• What if my boss is disappointed with my work and wants to fire me?

I’m sure you can easily recall many times where you feared the worst, only to discover your thoughts were not true.

At first, you might go through a lot of “fear” thoughts, thinking the worst and worrying about the outcome.

Then, chances are good these turn to “anger” thoughts. You have pondered the negative outcome so much, you begin to feel slighted – perhaps even putting your self down with thoughts of unworthiness.

As you go through all types of scenarios with your mind racing, trying to figure out what has happened you begin to experience feelings such as anxiety, worry, fear and even anger.

Then, by the time things sort themselves out, you are so full of negative energy, you are ready for a confrontation – an argument.

Can you relate? Have you been there?

Let me help you with this.

I once heard a little story called “What’s the Meaning of a Footstep?” Now, think about that question and try to answer before reading on.

Okay, you give up?

Visualize you are in a loving relationship. You live in a terrible area with a lot of crime. Your mate works until 11:00 p.m. Every night at precisely 11:15 p.m. they arrive home and you hear their footsteps approaching the front door.

What do those footsteps mean to you? Chances are, because you are in a loving relationship, you are filled with positive emotion and anxious to embrace your mate. So, we can say the meaning of a footstep at this point is love and happiness.

Now, look at the fact it is a crime ridden neighborhood and you hear footsteps outside the front door at 10:30 p.m. More than likely, those footsteps would have negative emotions attached to them such as fear or worry – totally different meaning than the previous example.

Realize it is possible the footsteps at 10:30 could have been your mate arriving home early, and therefore your fear thoughts were incorrect. Also realize your mate could have been delayed at work, so the 11:15 footsteps could have been a criminal and not your spouse.

The whole point of this little exercise is to show you that the “footsteps” have no meaning whatsoever – except what you give to them.

This is true of pretty much every situation where we “assume” the worst and let our minds take us on a journey through all the negative thoughts and feelings. It is difficult to shift gears and go from being scared or angry to being happy and peaceful.

It is at those times when we fear the worst has happened or is about to happen in which we become vulnerable to creating our own problems. We are in such a negative state we could easily say or do things which impact our lives in a negative manner.

There is an alternate to allowing your self to assume a negative meaning to your personal “footsteps.” You can remain positive and assume the “best.” Don’t misunderstand, I am not encouraging you to take potentially dangerous situations and pretend they don’t exist. Self-preservation is vitally important and you should always listen to your intuition or gut feeling.

However, when your mind begins to race out of control with potentially incorrect assumptions, do your self a favor and make a “gut check” to see if you are in danger. If not, then let it go and focus on something positive.

You will save your self a ton of emotional turmoil and reduce potential tension in your relationships.

Feel free to leave a comment and let us know what you have “assumed” and how this created a negative outcome.

Happy Holidays

The entire marketing aspect of the Christmas Holidays and gift giving creates unwarranted fears and/or worries.

We have expectations about how others should act. We expect we should “receive” specific gifts. We stress over what to buy our loved ones – or worse yet we feel inadequate for not having the funds to buy someone special that “ultimate” gift.

I want to help you with this.

Ask your self “What if…”

• This Christmas you made the decision to just accept your self as you are right now?
• You chose to begin practicing self-love today?
• You decided to accept others as they are?
• You were to begin forgiving all those who have caused you pain or suffering?
• You stopped worrying about money, finances, loan payments and instead focused on all the “good” in your life?

Can you imagine how great your Christmas Holidays would be if you made those “what if” decisions?

What’s stopping you?

NOTHING – except your self!

I know, I know – what about so and so who did this or that to you; or perhaps something traumatic happened in the past and it still creates problems for you today. EXCUSES!!!

One of the toughest lessons I ever had to learn is that I am solely responsible for my own love, happiness and peace of mind. No one can give these to me.

Everyone has a life story. Some of us have life stories that could easily be made into one of the saddest, tear jerking movies you can imagine.

The problem is not the past. The problem is that we still hold on to it, we remain the victim and give away our personal power.

Yes, by choosing to focus on all the “bad” in our lives we stay stuck in the past, reliving bad memories over and over. I’m quite sure you have suffered enough. Now, it’s time to let go and move forward with love and happiness in your heart.

This Holiday Season, make a conscious choice to do what ever it takes to just accept your self as you are right now; love your self and begin forgiving and accepting others as they are. Remember, they are stuck on their own life story and it affects how they think, what they believe and how they act.

Don’t be offended by anyone this Christmas. Just realize they are reliving their own pain over and over and be grateful you have made the choice to no longer take part in that type of self-indulgent, self-sabotaging behavior.

Understand when someone is emotionally healthy, there is no need for them to infect others with negativity.

Also, if you really think about it, I believe most of us have enough difficulty just trying to figure out what’s happening in our own lives. Therefore, doesn’t it make sense it is unlikely we can truly understand the hidden issues someone else might be dealing with?

This Christmas, let it all go. Just relax. Don’t “expect” anything from anyone and just be happy. If someone offends you, send them love. Refuse to take part.

Just accept what is. No struggle, no effort, no resistance. No need to control or change anyone or anything.

Love is an amazing healer. When we practice self love, it magically spreads to others.

Do this and I am confident you will enjoy an awesome Christmas – possibly the best since you were a child.

From my self and my family to you and yours, we wish you an outstanding Christmas filled with laughter, happiness and above all – LOVE!

Merry Christmas and a very happy New Year!

NOTE: Put the Universe on notice by leaving comments on what you intend to accept or let go and how you are practicing self love.

High Self-Esteem

In the life of every child, usually sometime between birth and age 6, something happens to have the child doubt him or her self. Someone says or does something that has the child believe that he or she is flawed, unlovable, not worthy, imperfect.

This initial stressful incident is the first real realization that the child is not perfect and fails to measure up to society’s standards in some important way. The initial upset can be one of two types.

The first assault could be an unkind word from a peer or authority figure, a spanking, an insult, an argument, a bullying or name calling episode. It could occur as a direct result of something the child said or did that provoked an attack on his or her sense of worthiness or ability to fit in.

The second type of self-esteem diminishing episode can be as a result of the child misinterpreting someone’s words or actions to mean that the child is flawed, unlovable, or defective in some way. In such a case, no insult or demeaning connotation was intended.

The facts were that someone said or did something. The child mistakenly made up that there was something wrong with him or her as a result of what was said or done.

Daily, there are hundreds of opportunities for a child to misinterpret life in a way that tarnishes their self-image over the long term.

The process of diminished self-esteem does not stop at such an initial decision regarding the child’s value. The child, armed with the belief that she is not good enough, now scans for additional situations that may serve as more evidence to reinforce this initial thought of being flawed.

During such potentially upsetting events, the child reinforces this idea of unworthiness by further interpreting life events to prove the fact that she is defective. After years of accumulating such evidence, their self-image deteriorates further with every episode.

Before long, there is no doubt in the person’s mind that there is something wrong with them. After all, they have created a self-fulfilling prophesy to cement this belief firmly in their self-perception.

Low self-esteem is the source of all of the ills we experience in society…from school drop outs, drug and alcohol addiction, broken relationships, poverty, violence, dysfunctional behaviors, resignation, lacking joy, divorce and even war…just to name a few.

10 Ways To Champion Children & Build Their Self-Esteem.

1. Teach children to gain clarity about what their intentions are and reinforce the value of acting in alignment with their commitments, rather than what is most convenient.
2. Teach children the power of decisive, focused action and the costs of procrastination.
3. Teach the value of daily exercise, sufficient sleep, and proper nutrition by being an example yourself.
4. Love yourself and give up your right to invalidate yourself and teach them this same worthwhile practice.
5. Include contribution as a family value, teaching children to contribute regularly to others and especially to those in need.
6. Eliminate negative influences from your life and show children how to focus on the positive in every situation.
7. Add balance to your life and show children the value of integrating work and play.
8. Enjoy the process of life and find happiness in the course of everyday.
9. Stress to children their ability to influence others by acting intentionally.
10. Remind children of their significance and that they are loved and accepted for who they are.

Whether you are a parent, teacher, grandparent, coach, or adult who has anything to do with molding children’s lives, and would like to learn more about helping children grow into well adjusted, successful adults go to “Certified Self-Esteem Coach For Children” and see how you can begin making a difference in the world one child at a time!

Dr. Joe Rubino is an internationally acclaimed personal development trainer, life-changing success and life-optimization coach and best-selling author of 12 books available worldwide in 23 languages.

Tibetan Buddhist Manifesting Secrets

Now This is really exciting news!

Tara Springett has just released her latest book – ADVANCED MANIFESTING

I have read an advance copy of this book and the information is – in my opinion – very powerful and extremely easy to apply.

You would be wise to pay attention to what Tara writes about. She is a Buddhist teacher, a fully qualified psychotherapist with post-graduate qualifications in gestalt therapy, body awareness therapy and trans-personal therapy and a published author.

Tara is not only my personal coach, but also a friend. I have spent years researching the self improvement industry and achieved a respectable level of success with what I learned.

However, when I first began working with Tara, I realized there was much more for me to learn. In the past I have successfully used techniques such as visualization, self-hypnosis, brainwave entrainment, EFT and so on.

Tara agrees these techniques play an important role in helping us to change and improve our lives, but…

There is a missing piece!

In Tara’ own words…

“In order to bring into existence what we desire we need to harness a much stronger power than our thoughts.”

Think of it like this… What you know about manifesting is like “fuel” for a rocket ship. You need that fuel to take you places most can’t even imagine.

However, before you can blast off, you need to “ignite” that fuel and get it to burn. The simple Buddhist practices Tara explains in her book are the “fire” that ignites what you already know to turbo charge your success.

You’ve no doubt heard about the law of attraction and you may have had a stab or two trying to put these teachings into practice. Maybe you had some success or maybe not. Perhaps you had success in the beginning and then could not repeat it.

Tara explains why so many are struggling to be happy. In her private coaching practice Tara’s clients have achieved seemingly impossible results with everything from relationship & financial problems to issues with physical or mental health.

This book shows you in detail the simple Buddhist techniques Tara learned to rid herself of internal struggle; improve her energetic vibration and attract pretty much anything she desires – from a great relationship, to improved health, inner happiness, a new home and financial success.

ADVANCED MANIFESTING reveals powerful Tibetan Buddhist practices to manifest your dreams. These techniques are highly effective and cannot be found in any other book about manifesting.

You will learn how to manifest from your very core – from the essence of who you really are. You are about to learn a simple system to bring good into your life through your heart – through love!

Tara now feels the world is “ready” to receive these Buddhist teachings and this is why she is revealing them now!

I highly recommend you grab yourself a copy of this book. At $14.95 it is probably the best investment you could possibly ever make in your future.

ADVANCE MANIFESTING is being launched on November 8th.

You can check out book and all the great bonus gifts offered by some well known and respected self improvement experts here:

ADVANCED MANIFESTING – Tibetan Buddhist Secrets For Fulfilling Your Dreams

Wishing you awesome success!

Gene

P.S…. Please SHARE THIS LIFE CHANGING INFORMATION. Tell your family and friends about this book. We are one and the more we help others, the more we help ourselves.

P.S.S. It doesn’t matter if you are struggling with relationships, financial worries, physical or mental health or simply feel something is missing in your life and you just can’t figure out what it is – this book is for you!

Here again is the link of opportunity:

www.best-self-help-sites.com/Buddha

The Angel Stories

First, when you sign up for her pre-launch competition before Oct. 30th, you get a chance to win either a copy of her new book or a complimentary healing session.

Second, even if you don’t win the competition, you get to download a sample copy of her ebook. So either way – you win!

Personally, I would love to win the “complimentary healing session” from Lisa. It doesn’t matter how much we learn, grow and change, there is always room to continue moving forward.

I’ve been very fortunate as I have witnessed first hand and enjoyed the positive results I achieved from healing sessions from a few different gifted individuals. If you are lucky enough to win, I would love for you to come back here and post your comments about your experience.

Let me tell you about the book and a little about Lisa Dorey, the Angel Interpreter:

If you are searching for ways to enhance your spiritual connection, or recognize your need to try something different to finally get past blocks you have been struggling with for a long time, then you should read “The Angel Stories”.

Lisa has noticed that the majority of her clients are facing very similar challenges in their life; such as self doubt, not feeling good enough, or struggles with money, or relationships.

Lisa connects with Archangels and the Divine Feminine to bring her clients a supreme and beautiful experience, where they enhance their own spiritual connection. The sessions take the form of stories told through metaphor, which have great significance for the client.

They are similar to guided meditations, but are actually deep energy healing sessions of a very powerful nature, which bring fantastic results. In the words of one of her clients “this is deep and fast”.

To get this exquisite healing into the hands of as many people as possible, she has written her book, The Angel Stories, which is a collection of the healing stories she has channeled.

Readers have already commented on how, just by reading the book, or listening to the audio book, they have experienced wonderful sensations of peace, support and enhanced spiritual connection.

If you want to learn how to bring the Archangels around you to support you in your own challenges, this book is for you. Each story is unique and very memorable, supporting you long after the original reading of it.

The book is available in various formats as outlined below. If you want to enter the competition go to her website TheAngelStories.co.uk where you can join the competition.

You can’t win if you don’t participate!

Remember now, you could win a copy of the book, and one lucky winner will get the chance to experience a healing session for them self – their very own Angel Story.

Right after I hit the “Publish” button on this, I am racing there myself to get the sample copy and enter the competition. Good luck!

Here’s the link again: TheAngelStories.co.uk. Enjoy!

Word Power

In my continuing series of the types of automatic negative thoughts we have that keep us stuck, I want to help you understand the words we think of and use; and how these words often keep us stuck in repetitive failure patterns.

Regularly, others tell me they have difficulty learning to become aware of, or catching their self limiting subconscious thoughts which sabotage their efforts to achieve. I can relate to their problem as I had great difficulty in understanding how I could be consciously working so hard to make positive changes, but yet my subconscious was resisting.

In this article, you are getting a “peek behind the curtain” so to speak.

You will begin seeing how easily you too can catch the previously un-noticed negatives running on automatic in your subconscious. More importantly, you will also learn how to neutralize these negatives to eliminate the power they have over you.

Let’s get started – first with a few examples of the “everything, everyone or nothing” words that help to keep us stuck:

• Always
• Everyone
• All the time or every time
• No one
• Never

The problem with using this vocabulary is we are thinking something will “always” happen and “nothing” will ever change.

Following are a few examples of how we might use these words to keep ourselves stuck:

• “No one cares about me.”
• “You always do that.”
• “I’ll never get what I want.”
• “Every time I ask you something you ignore me.
• “Everyone is out to get me.”

I’m sure you can easily recall using some variation of those words and probably quite recently. Allow me to explain what happens on the subconscious level and how this keeps us stuck.

Let’s use the example “no one cares about me.”

In this case, I am confident that although you might be “feeling” no one cares, if you look around, you will easily find people in your life who do care.

Unfortunately, because of a feeling “in the moment” the tendency would be to lump everyone together and make that blanket (but untrue) statement.

The “belief” that no one cares had to be created in your mind through repetition of that thought pattern (or a similar one) which for example, may have started out with an uncaring partner in a relationship.

Then, perhaps a friend ignored you when you needed them most. This reinforced the erroneous belief that no one cares. Soon, you regularly begin using the “blanket” statement that no one cares.

Effectively, those words will reinforce negative thought patterns in the subconscious. As you make the statement, chances are very good you would also be experiencing a lot of negative emotion.

The subconscious mind is greatly influenced by emotion. The stronger the emotion, the more we influence neurons firing in the brain. The more often those neurons fire, the larger and stronger the neuron grouping becomes.

The largest and strongest neuron groups fire the easiest and the quickest.

Making comments like this are simply not true, nor are they logical. When you catch your self making a similar statement, simply stop your self from continuing down that destructive thought pattern, write it down and take a realistic look at the validity of those words.

When we catch ourselves using these words and write them down, scientific research has shown we actually slow down the firing of that thought pattern in our brains. We have very effectively reduced or completely eliminated their power to continually influence our feelings.

The “feelings” associated with any of those “all or nothing” words are totally negative and frankly, depressing. Analyzing your own words and looking at various relationships in your life (parents, children, relatives, friends, etc.) you will quickly see there are in fact people who do care about you.

That is the true reality – people do care!

Just because we ‘think” something, that doesn’t mean it is truth – or reality! Questioning your own thoughts is not the beginning of a mental break down. Rather, it is the beginning of a new life, free of the emotional baggage that has been weighing you down.

I urge you to begin today watching for these “all or nothing” type statements and take action to defuse their power over you. It’s a conscious choice to take back control of your life and be happy.

When you catch your self using these or similar all or nothing words, feel free to leave a comment and let others know. The more we talk about this, the more educated we all become and the easier it is to make positive things happen in our lives.

The Blame Game

The blame game is a dangerous one to play! There are negative side affects you would be wise to learn about.

I was pretty good at blaming others before I understood how this automatic negative response adversely affected me – and I am confident as you read, you will see how you too have fallen into this trap.

When we blame others, we are passing responsibility for our life, our own happiness, on to others. In simple terms, we are now appearing as the “victim” of circumstances beyond our control.

Let’s be realistic. No one wants to appear to be the “bad guy or girl”. Blaming someone else feeds our ego and gives us the righteous feeling that we are okay and it is the other person who screwed up our life.

However, by taking this approach, we remain a victim and are powerless to make any positive changes. On the other hand, in taking responsibility for ourselves, we are empowered to make positive changes.

Think for a moment of a situation where you placed blame on someone else; such as a friendship or relationship ending or perhaps losing your job. Now, reflect on all the lost time and negative emotion that followed simply because you refused to accept any responsibility for your own behavior.

Don’t misunderstand here. I am not suggesting your behavior was right or wrong. It just is what it is. We cannot be responsible for how someone else thinks, how they act or their habits.

Keeping that in mind, things we say, how we say them or our own actions can easily be misinterpreted by others and taken out of context.

Perhaps something we did was in our mind appropriate, but in the eyes of someone else it was unacceptable. Even though our intentions were not negative, we still need to take our share of the responsibility.

It is much easier (and natural) to point fingers at others than it is to look at our own behavior and accept our weaknesses.

We devote so much time and energy to either hiding or ignoring our weaknesses and in doing this, we actually make them worsen. When we accept our selves as we are without judgment, our weaknesses immediately begin losing power over us.

How many people do you know who are still stuck after years of a bad relationship ending. They are so caught up in blaming their ex-partner they have become bitter and lonely and find it almost impossible to get into a new, healthy relationship.

It is not self-serving to pass blame on to others. It accomplishes nothing except emotional turmoil with no end in sight as long as you hold on to the belief you are the victim.

I urge you to look closely at your own life. See for your self how blaming others has produced nothing but negative results. Refuse to be a victim and take responsibility for your life.

The goods news is that once you accept responsibility and stop judging yourself or others, you free up a lot of personal energy which can be harvested to move your life down a path you choose.

Has this article opened your eyes?

Do you see how you have automatically pointed your finger at someone else and blamed them for your problems? Do you now understand how this makes you a victim and powerless to make any positive changes?

Leave your comments and let the world know you are now in charge of your life!

Mind Reading

By now, you have hopefully been catching your thoughts as you began predicting future outcomes and now see how the mind takes a thought and creates this negative feedback loop that just grows and grows.

Today, I want to introduce you to another type of automatic negative thought – mind reading.

We all do it and we all experience negative results from allowing it to happen.

I will use a very recent experience with my 4 year old daughter as a perfect example of “mind reading” in action.

We were in the DVD section at a major retailer looking for new kids movies. My daughter is a very happy child and she loves to sing, which is what she was doing while we were browsing.

The next isle over, there was a group of teens laughing and joking. My daughter became agitated and expressed that it was very rude of those kids to laugh at her. However, they were not laughing at her singing and they probably weren’t even aware of her presence.

Can you relate to this?

How many times have you “thought” you knew what someone else was thinking when in fact you weren’t even close?

Often we might even feel guilty because we “should have known” what someone else was thinking. In relationships, especially between couples that have been together for more than a few years, there is this mis-belief that our extended familiarity with a mate should tune us in to their thoughts.

Think of how many times arguments has been created in your relationships that were prefaced with the words “you should have known”.

Most of us have difficulty knowing our own thoughts – unless of course we are being vigilant in practicing self awareness – let alone what’s running through someone else’s mind!

Now, if most people don’t know what’s going on in their own minds, how in the world do you think it is even remotely possible you can read someone’s mind and “know” exactly what they are thinking?

Think about this! Just today or yesterday, how many times have you automatically read someone’s mind and “judged” them by the expression on their face, their posture or tone of voice and assumed you “knew” this person was angry, miserable, depressed or perhaps happy and loving.

There is absolutely no way you can know exactly what is going on inside someone’s mind. When I am intently thinking about something, I have a blank look on my face. Often others ask if I am in a bad mood, when in fact I am feeling quite happy.

Think of all the instances where a fellow employee or boss gave you a cross look, ignored you or even raised their voice and you immediately “assumed’ it had to do with something you “thought” was wrong.

In fact, they could have had an argument with their spouse, were feeling down, or many other reasons – all which had nothing to do with you.

Today’s Challenge:

Start watching your automatic negative thoughts and when you catch your self mind reading, remember it is often difficult to know your own thoughts and it’s not likely you have the expertise to read mind of another.

Reserve your judgment about what the other person is thinking and if the situation warrants further investigation, ask for clarification. Don’t assume anything and don’t allow your automatic negative thoughts to unravel out of control.

As always, I urge you to leave your comments. Let us know what automatic negative thoughts you caught and how a potentially negative situation turned out positive.