…Liking yourself.  When you like yourself, you accept yourself.  As life twists and turns, you respond with humor and compassion.  You allow yourself mistakes without judgment, as you know that nobody, including you is perfect. 

 When you like yourself, you aren’t threatened by another’s success.  You know there is enough for all and you are grateful.

 And best of all, when you like yourself, it shows.  There’s a certain glow of self-worth that radiates from those who like themselves.  It is attractive and you’ll notice, those who like themselves seem to have people around that like them too…

 How about you, do you like yourself?  Can you laugh with yourself, instead of at yourself?  Have you discovered the secret to happiness?

Using your Natural instincts to empower your Life

 Hopefully you have discovered which one or two instincts drive many of your life choices.  Now the question is how to make it work for you?  Simple answer, detach.  It may seem kind of complicated or cold at first, but it’s easy once you get the hang of it.

 When you discover the drivers of your behavior, you are able to cross into the next level in life transformation – becoming the witness.  For example, say you have a dominate social instinct – guess what?  You automatically know how groups work and you can use it to your advantage as to which careers you follow or simply in any unknown social environment.  If you feel yourself being pulled into an old pattern of trying to please everyone, this can now signal you that something is amiss.  Now you can stop and re-assess what’s really going on by detaching from your pattern and stepping into a witness space to ‘see’ what’s really going on.

 A dominate sexual instinct can be fun because you always know who’s ‘got-it’ and that’s not always who you would expect.  Usually with a strong sexual instinct you are able to feel not only individual energy shifts but situational or environmental shifts.  Being so closely aligned with the physical, helps you identify even the most subtle energy shifts – thus listen to your body.  When you get that icky feeling, it’s time to go, no questions asked.

 A strong self-preservation instinct can help you see solutions and options where others can not.  You are willing to look at all the sides to discern the best path.  Sometimes this can delay or even paralysis your decisions, but it can also lead to the most empowered decision – you aren’t going with your gut, you’re making an informed decision.

 All three instincts can lift you up or cripple you, depending on how you choose to use them.  It’s an opportunity.  An opportunity to live your most empowered life, if you choose. 

Valentine’s Day – Not my favorite holiday.  It’s seems to be a completely manufactured holiday by Hallmark and the florists, but still it is there on the calendar each year.   If you are alone – well, this holiday can really magnify that reality in sometimes frightening questions.  (Don’t you have a Valentine?  Why am I alone?  What’s wrong with me?)   STOP!  Take a breath – it’s 24 hours – pull yourself together and give these tips a try…

 1.  Reality check – this day shall pass.  Gratefully the day falls on a Sunday this year, so if you work in an office, school or the like – you do not have to witness the relentless parade of delivered flowers and chocolates.  Mantra – this day shall pass (and if need be – think how chocolate goes straight to the hips…)

2.  Turn on the tunes and dance – clothes optional.  Pick out the silliest, most danceable music and play loudly.  As you are busting a move and are grinning like an idiot, you may just start enjoying yourself. It’s hard to be too sad as you are shakin’ your bootie.  Suggestions: Black Eyed Peas, Michael Jackson, ABBA and the bad boy, Kanye West

3.  Make a plan.  Maybe you want to stay under the covers all day, but I encourage you to get together with friends and do something fun.  Go bowling or ice skating – do anything completely out of your norm.  This will take your focus off whatever negative spiral you may be slipping into and distract you from “poor me” thinking. And who knows who is ice skating today…

4.  Humor – if you are in a pitiful state, try to find just a little humor.  Watch silly movies, call friends who make you laugh.  Try anything that can get you giggling as it will help you move through your emotions.

5.  Go outside.  Take a walk or go for a drive if it is too cold, but get out of the four-walls closing in!  A change of scenery will allow you to stop the incessant thinking of, “What did I do wrong?  Why me?  Will I ever be happy again?”  I promise you will feel better and be happy again (you were before, so why not?)

6.  Big girls/boys do cry.  It’s ok to be sad.  The tears do eventually dry up.  Just remember your tears are a wave, maybe of the tsunami variety, but a wave – you are the vast ocean.  Waves pass and the ocean remains.  You remain.

7.  Get a new haircut, outfit and/or bedding.  Have you ever noticed how many people look better a few months after a break-up?  This is the upside of the break-up diet, i.e. can’t eat due to depression and sleeplessness.  As the song goes – wash that man (woman) out of your hair…and your bed too.

8.  Buy yourself something special the day before, if you like flowers and chocolate – go for it.  Whether you’re heart-broken or attached – don’t wait for someone else to tell you, “I love you, I value you.”  Do it yourself – anything else that comes your way is gravy.   

 *Remember this is one day – 24 hours – this too shall pass…Happy bowling – don’t forget your socks!  

“Friendship is a privilege, not a right.”  A friend of mine said this to me one night as we were painting our nails, watching trashy Melrose Place and gabbing about boys.  She doesn’t remember even saying it.  We were discussing something about mean girls in college and friendship…The details don’t matter though, it’s the words.

 Friendship is a privilege, not a right.  You don’t have to be friends with everybody, simple – right?  Drop the mean ones and real friends don’t do bad things anyway?  Really?  Friends don’t make mistakes?  You don’t make mistakes?

 About eight plus years ago this same friend of mine kind of lost it.  She had gotten married and well, things just weren’t working out the way she had envisioned.  She was lonely and one day I received a scathing email about not being there for her, her new baby and supporting her new life.

 I was shocked.  She was absolutely right, I had not been there for her, that much was true.  For I was in my own hell – my 15 month old son was struggling with constant seizures and a multitude of other health issues.  I wasn’t sleeping.  I was trying to find answers to these unknown seizures any where.  Doctors appointments, diets, remedies - we were in the midst of a very real health crisis…Frankly I had every right to send the hate right back to my so-called friend, but gratefully, somehow, I could see through the words to the real message – I miss you and I’m scared.

 Instead of getting mad and screaming at her, I told her what was going on in my own life.  Then I said I missed her and loved her too, but I couldn’t have a friend treating me this way.  I reminded her of her words and she found sanity again.  She was aghast at herself, apologizing and most importantly, we became closer.

 I have never held this against her because it allowed me the opportunity to be truthful, kindly and find resolution peacefully – things can work out.  This incident helped me transcend into a better me.   Oddly I never took any of it personally (how could I honestly say I have never pulled something like this before with someone else?)  I let any negative feeling go easily and effortlessly, only keeping the gratefully lessons. Conflict does not have to lead to destruction, it can lead to a better way…

 Conflict is a part of life.  With yourself, with your friends, with your family…How you react to conflict is often dependant on your prior experience with conflict.  You could have been taught conflict is best to avoid at any cost or even that conflict is exciting. 

 Instead of allowing conflict to be what it used to be or the end-all, I invite you to see it for what it could be, a new beginning…So be it.

5.  What is stopping you from living the life you have always dreamed of?  Money issues?  Spouse?  Relationships?  Family?  Responsibilities?  Could it be a fear of failure?  What if it doesn’t work? 

 This is the hinge point in transformation – can you transcend your fear of what if?  I bid you, courage – walk through your own unique fire and see what’s on the other side.  Use your own tools to support you – humor, intuition, friendships and a focused eye on what you do want.  Take a chance on you, you are worth it and after all, what if it’s fantastic on the other side, just waiting for you to take a chance????

4.  Are you trying to keep it the same?  Why?  Does the cost seem too great to make a change?  Does it seem impossible?  Are you afraid of hurting someone else if you do shift? 

 Whether you like it or not, this is your life.  Right here, right now.  When you place the needs of others always before your own, guess what?  You are always last on the list - your list and everyone else’s too.  You are teaching yourself and all around you that you come last. 

 Of course, there are times when it is appropriate to place the needs of others in front of your own, but you would be surprised by how few and far between this is in normal every day life.  People are not infants forever and illness, well, this is tricky, but I assure you, you just you, whether a caregiver or a patient, need to put your own needs at the top of your own list.  We all serve best from a place of fullness, not lack…

 How about if when you place the needs of others in front of your own – this does not inherently mean you are last?  Maybe move yourself down to second of third?  Do you run into any hang-ups or negative thoughts?  Around deserving, enough or possibly love?  Well now, you are getting to the foundation of the problem – what do you want and what if you deserved it?  What is stopping you? 

3.  Notice the word my in the above question, my truth.  It’s no doubt you are relaying the facts as you experience them, but are you feeling them?  Are you really listening to that internal voice that is naggingly right?  Are you going along to get along instead of voicing your own needs?

 Sometimes in life we find ourselves in unexpected places.  It didn’t just happen, there were many choices and compromises made along the way that lead to this less-than place, and even though you may not have intended it, you are here.  

 Instead of blaming or getting angry that someone else isn’t showing up the way you would like, ask yourself, what do I want?  I’m betting you don’t have an easy answer to that, but you can probably tell me what you don’t want.  Your focus needs to shift from what you don’t want (this thinking only attracts what you don’t want – where your thoughts focus, things expand…) to what you do want.  Begin making a list or dreaming about what you do want. 

 More importantly begin taking responsibility for your own dreams coming true.  Yes, those around you can support and love you, but you and you alone are the writer of your own life.  Players come and go, but you continue to create your life every day. 

2.  Ok, you’ve identified you are in a pattern, now it’s time to look at your part – what are you doing the same?  Stop with the reasons why you are doing it the same and just focus on your part.  There is no one person to blame. 

 For a pattern to be established everyone has to go along with their part over and over again – especially if it’s a negative pattern.  The reason you are always broke isn’t because the universe is out to get you, it’s because not only do you make the same poor money decisions over and over, but you also believe yourself to be someone who is always broke.  The universe is just showing up how you believe it to be.  (Tip: Got to change your belief…)    

 As I have previously said, it does not do you any good to berate yourself for not getting it yet – you will.  To change anything it takes practice and time.  You have to intentionally respond differently to the same problems. This takes energy and a commitment to being present – you are not going to respond how you always have.

 It won’t feel normal at first to respond differently and that’s ok.  Some people around you may not like you changing the pattern and that’s ok too.  When you are ready, you will make a change.  For the alternative - staying in this less-than place – becomes more and more unacceptable as the days pass… 

1.  Is there a pattern?  Have you been here before?  It could be painful and frustrating to acknowledge, but if you have been in these shoes before, you still need to learn something.  Instead of getting bogged down in beating yourself up for being in this place again, I encourage you to try something new.  Respond differently.

 If you and your partner always fight about the same thing, I’m betting you are really fighting about the boundaries of your relationship or unmet needs.  If you are always broke, this is not about a job, but you and your deserving or being enough.  The problems are in fact opportunities for transformation, but first you have to transcend the beating up of self (ego trap.) 

 Beating yourself up keeps you down, stuck in your ego.  What if you responded with compassion and curiosity?  What if you used humor?  One of my self-defeating patterns is worst-case scenario thinking, because if I think of the worst thing, I’ll be ready, right?  Wrong, I’ll just be tired and anxious. 

 Here’s the compassion part – this strategy was born in my frightening childhood.  I was raised in a violent, alcoholic home, thus worst-case scenarios happened, but I am not a child any longer.  I don’t live in an alcoholic home; hence those strategies are hurting me today, instead of helping me. 

 Here’s the curiosity – what am I afraid of?  Afraid of losing?  Afraid of change?  Afraid of success? 

 We all will find ourselves in a pattern every now and then – it’s ok, we are always growing and expanding.  The key is to not get stuck in a pattern, but to use those moments to readjust and transform to what does work in this new day.

Instead of getting stuck in “Why me?”  Ask yourself, “What for?”  What do you need to learn?  If you are having trouble understanding your responsibility in this situation, ask yourself the following questions.

 1.         Is there a pattern?

2.         What am I doing the same?

3.         Am I telling my truth?

4.         Am I protecting someone’s feelings by keeping it the same? (can be your feelings…)

5.         What am I afraid of?