August 11, 2013 0

August 8, 2013 0

7 Negative People You Need to Ignore

Marc Chernoff writes:

Sadly, some people are so entrenched in seeing the negative side of things that they leave zero room for positive things to grow. People like this inhabit our families, work environments and social circles. It can be emotionally draining just being around them, and you must be careful because their negative attitudes and opinions are venomous and contagious. Negativity perpetuates itself, breeds dissatisfaction and clutters the mind. And when the mind is cluttered with negativity, happiness is hard to come by.

Ignore these people and move on from them when you must. Seriously, be strong and know when enough is enough! Letting go of negative people doesn’t mean you hate them, or that you wish them harm; it just means you care about your own well-being. Because every time you subtract negative from your life, you make room for more positive.

Here are seven such people you might need to put on your ignore list:

Get the list here: 7 Negative People You Need to Ignore.

August 2, 2013 6

Fall in Love With Yourself

Nicole Urdang writes:

What happens when you fall in love?

Your world suddenly shifts completely to the other person. You pay them undivided attention, listen to what they want, and try to give it to them.

Your heart opens.

You want the best for them.

You become wildly generous in all ways.

You show patience, tolerance, and understanding.

You give them the benefit of the doubt.

You focus on their best qualities and ignore the rest.

You are affectionate, considerate, complimentary, and loving.

You crave their company.

You trust them.

You even like their quirky behaviors.

You support and encourage them.

You feel protective and have their back.

You forgive easily.

Now, imagine giving all those wonderful things to yourself.

Really imagine it.

Slowly.

Meditatively.

Each and every one.

How does that feel?

If it’s fabulous, turn your reverie into action. Do everything you possibly can to show yourself tenderness, consideration, patience, and compassion.

Now, watch how your relationship with yourself changes.

Lest some of you think this is narcissistic, it is not. Falling in love with yourself doesn’t mean you think you’re better than anyone else, just equally deserving of kindness, compassion, and time. You realize how wonderfully healing it can be to appreciate and care for yourself. Paradoxically, the more lovingly you treat yourself, the more tenderness, compassion, and patience you will have for others.

via Fall in Love With Yourself | Holistic Divorce Counseling.

July 29, 2013 0

10 Reasons to Start Today

Craig Harper writes:

1. You’ll never have more time than you do right now.

2. Most people procrastinate because of fear, not logic or reason.

3. Unused potential is wasted potential.

4. Planning, thinking and rationalising, is not doing. Life is not a theory.

5. If you start today, a week from now you’ll be in the middle of a change process rather than talking about one.

6. Taking action builds your emotional and psychological muscles.

7. Transformation lives in the application of the information; not the knowing.

8. It won’t be magically easier a week or month from now.

9. The ‘Opportunity Fairy’ isn’t coming any time soon, so you may need to create one of your own (an opportunity, not a fairy).

10. You’ve put it off for long enough.

11. (bonus tip, no extra charge) I can’t be sure but I think people are on to your excuse-making bullshit.

via 10 Reasons to Start Today.

STOP MAKING EXCUSES! 30-Day Challenge (aliciaanabelsantos.wordpress.com)
Top 10 Procrastinating Cities (turbotax.intuit.com)
Is Procrastination Holding You Back? (powerhomebiz.com)
Why To Stay In the Same Job For 10 Years (debtconsolidationusa.com)
to fellow procrastinators (graceyck.wordpress.com)
What is your excuse? (missskippingalong.com)
10 Habits to Quit in Order to Be Happy (healthcarespectator.wordpress.com)
Change “the Change”? (gfsmiley.wordpress.com)

July 21, 2013 4

The freedom to just be

Madison Sonnier writes:

Every now and then I stumble across a really inspiring article about accepting yourself just as you are instead of constantly looking for ways to change or be better. We live in a world that is very fixated on self-improvement. Self-improvement is great and all, but I agree that sometimes it can be exhausting and debilitating to get trapped in the, “I can be better” or “I’m not quite good enough” mindset.

I don’t like preachy wisdom. I don’t like it when people look down on others just because they’re in a different or “lesser” phase of their journey.

I suck at so many things. I suck at being a grown-up. I suck at being super fast-paced and productive. I suck at busting through fear and anxiety. I suck at finding new ways to be a better person. I suck at living life to the absolute fullest. And in a way, these facts can be helpful. In fact, most of you may be thinking, “You can be a better grown-up! You can be more productive! You can bust through fear and anxiety! You can be a better person! You can live life to the absolute fullest!”

Continue reading “The freedom to just be” →

July 10, 2013 0

You are not a victim

It has been a long time since I quoted Melody Beattie:

You are not a victim.

How deeply ingrained our self-image as a victim can be! How habitual our feelings of misery and helplessness! Victimization can be like a gray cloak that surrounds us, both attracting that which will victimize us and causing us to generate the feelings of victimization.

Victimization can be so habitual that we may feel victimized even by the good things that happen to us!

Got a new car? Yes, we sigh, but it doesn’t run as well as I expected, and after all, it cost so much ….

You’ve got such a nice family! Yes, we sigh, but there are problems. And we’ve had such hard times….

Well, your career certainly is going well! Ah, we sigh, but there is such a price to pay for success. All that extra paperwork….

I have learned that, if we set our mind to it, we have an incredible, almost awesome ability to find misery in any situation, even the most wonderful of circumstances.

Shoulders bent, head down, we shuffle through life taking our blows.

Be done with it. Take off the gray cloak of despair, negativity, and victimization. Hurl it; let it blow away in the wind.

We are not victims. We may have been victimized. We may have allowed ourselves to be victimized. We may have sought out, created, or re-created situations that victimized us. But we are not victims.

We can stand in our power. We do not have to allow ourselves to be victimized. We do not have to let others victimize us. We do not have to seek out misery in either the most miserable or the best situations.

We are free to stand in the glow of self-responsibility. Set a boundary! Deal with the anger! Tell someone no, or stop that! Walk away from a relationship! Ask for what you need! Make choices and take responsibility for them. Explore options. Give yourself what you need! Stand up straight, head up, and claim your power. Claim responsibility for yourself!

And learn to enjoy what’s good.

Today, I will refuse to think, talk, speak, or act like a victim. Instead, I will joyfully claim responsibility for myself and focus on what’s good and right in my life.

via June 11 – Meditation from “Language of Letting Go” | Language of Letting Go.

June 11, 2013 1

Dealing With Anger

See on Scoop.it – Living Business

His Holiness the Dalai Lama talks about dealing with anger in this clip from his visit to Doon School in Dehradun, India, on October 28, 2011. The entire eve…

See on www.youtube.com

June 5, 2013 0

80+ Self-Care Ideas

Great post, Barb…

The Self-Compassion Project

Here is an amazing list of self-care activities. Feel free to add any other ideas in the comment section.

Maybe we can get the list up to 100!

(P.S. There are 49 comments with LOTS more great ideas!)

If you haven’t already, I’d love it if you joined me on

Facebook, where I share lots of other self-care ideas. Thanks!

Also, I have a new book coming out! You can read about that story here.

You might also like: 25 Women Writers Share Their Best Self-Compassion Tips

Here’s the list:

going for a photo walk

going to the forest

a bath at the end of the day

going for bike rides

finding overgrown grass and putting my bare feet and it

lying in the grass on the hill and staring up at the sky

cooking a meal for myself and being really present

getting up early and reading inspirational…

View original post 375 more words

June 4, 2013 0

Pema Chodron On Faith, Anger & Divorce

I like listening to Pema Chodron:

Here at MBG, we love Pema Chodron, and were thrilled to discover this candid conversation between the great Buddhist monk and Bill Moyers on PBS.

In this interview, Pema Chodron talks about the pain and anger she felt after her divorce and explains how her strong emotions drove her to her spiritual practice.

“If we could learn to not be afraid of groundlessness, not be afraid of insecurity and uncertainty,” she says, “it would be calling on an inner strength that would allow us to be open and free and loving and compassionate in any situation.”

With gems like this, the entire video is worth a watch.

via Pema Chodron On Faith, Anger & Divorce (Video).

June 2, 2013 1

Holding on to Anger…

From Evernote:

Holding on to Anger…

Clipped from: http://www.lifehack.org/articles/communication/30sec-tip-holding-anger.html

May 31, 2013 0

You Say, ‘Jesus Is the Only Way’!”

I might lose a friend or two over this post, but over the weekend, I read an article by Dr. Steve McSwain on the Huffington Post and it rocked my world! I curate it here:

To those who know me, it is no surprise that I was born with a WHY chromosome.

Because I was so fortunate as to travel the world during my teen years…those highly impressionable years…I’ve seen things, heard things, experienced things that became fertile soil to my many questions.

I was raised in a Southern Baptist pastor’s home. Everyone I knew was Christian. Most were Baptist. Even if you did not go to church, you regarded yourself as Christian and, very often, as Baptist, too. So, the nearest thing to me of a person of another “religion” was a Catholic.

Yet, on more than one occasion, I’ve stood with thousands of other actual Catholics in St. Peter’s Square in Rome…as they eagerly awaited a blessing from the Pope… and, as I watched with curiosity… wonder… questions.

Continue reading “You Say, ‘Jesus Is the Only Way’!”” →

May 20, 2013 0

Google Is Very Creepy [And That’s What Makes It So Awesome?]

The title belongs to writer Tony Bradley, not me, but I like the conclusion of his article in Forbes:

I wouldn’t go so far as to say that privacy is “dead”. Suffice it to say, our relationship with privacy has changed as a function of the benefits we can receive in exchange for that privacy. The reality is that you’re not completely giving up your privacy. Your neighbors, or the stranger you pass on the street won’t know anything about you. You’re choosing to enter into a mutually beneficial arrangement that exchanges personal information for services. You’re surrendering some of your privacy to Google, and you’re putting some trust in Google that it will both guard your personal information so your privacy isn’t truly violated, and that it will not do anything shady or unethical with your data itself.

That’s a lot of faith to put in Google–or any company for that matter. But, if you’re willing to take that leap of faith your technology can do amazing things and make your life simpler and more efficient. The more integrated you are in the Google ecosystem–the more Google services you use, and the more extensively you use them–the more value you will get from the relevant, context-aware features Google has put in place.

Source: Google Is Very Creepy, And That’s What Makes It So Awesome – Forbes

Me? I sold my soul to Google a long time ago. You, however, should think about the implications…

:-D

Google glass – cool or creepy? (bbc.co.uk)
Congress demands answers from Google over Glass privacy concerns (zdnet.com)
Google Glass is creepy, but augmented reality doesn’t have to be (venturebeat.com)
Google Sensors Are Data Mining I/O Attendees – And They Don’t Care (readwrite.com)
The Google Now dilemma: Yes, it’s kind of creepy – but it’s also incredibly useful (gigaom.com)
Google’s Privacy Director Is Stepping Down (Kashmir Hill/Forbes) (techmeme.com)
Plan your social media afterlife with Google’s creepy new feature (digitaltrends.com)

May 17, 2013 0

Step into Your Starring Role

Earlier this year I ‘discovered’ the ‘imposter complex’ thanks to my yogi Jackie Dumaine. The more I learned about it the more I understood why I haven’t finished my epic book on ‘Becoming Known’. I believe, you see, that if you can name it you can ‘fix it’. If something has a name, that means you can google it and find tools to help. There are a few reasons why my book remains 70% completed — one of them is that as soon as you put your thoughts into words and declare your expertise in an area, someone smarter can come along and prove that you’re a moron…

A few days ago, Tanya Geisler [the author of the following quote] was kind enough to track me down in Twitter and share her TEDx Women talk on the same subject — how I missed this, I’ll never know but as the Buddha said ‘when the student is ready the teacher comes along‘. She says:

Ever since November 2012, I knew that there would be a moment that my TEDxWomen talk would be available for all to see. And that I’d need to find a way to share it with my corner of the world. That is, YOU. I’d love to say that I was excited, but the reality is, I’ve been a little, well…nervous.

I mean, I KNEW I’d be proud of it…I spent weeks (and weeks) preparing, researching, training, practicing, finessing and getting it under the requisite 18 minutes. And I KNEW the content would be good…I know the Impostor Complex like the back of my hand.

But asking everyone, YOU, to go check out my TEDxWomen talk is just…so…selfish, right?

Me, me, me, me, me.

I’ve started and stopped this very post about 15 times. Each time I approached with this question:: “what huge, massive, COLOSSAL value can I bring to my readers AND STILL let them know that my talk is available for viewing?”…as though the two were mutually exclusive.

So I’m about to take a leap of faith. The huge value of this post IS my talk.

Whoa. Whoa. Whooooooooa.

That seriously just kind of took my breath away. The sheer audacity.

But there it is.

My friends, I know A LOT about the Impostor Complex. So much so, that I am indeed becoming an Authority on the topic.

I’m claiming that.

In my perfectly imperfect talk, I’ve outlined a process that moves us from feeling like an Impostor to feeling like an Authority. I use it with my coaching clients, and in my own life. It’s also the backbone of my Step into Your Starring Role program.

If you ever, EVER struggle with the Impostor Complex, then you WILL get value from watching this talk…because I wrote the talk for you.

And now, I leave it in your loving hands, and will go and celebrate (an ever-important step in the process, you’ll see) by busting my Kid out of after-school care early for an ice cream cone.

Because

I did it. I really, really did it.

And if you want to do it too, you can and will too. ”How do you begin? The answer is simple: you decide to.” – Anne Lamott

And maybe, just maybe this will guide you::

Source: Quite Simply…my TEDxWomen Talk | Tanya Geisler – Step into Your Starring Role

Can I recommend you take the time to watch her talk? I just did…

I believe that the danger and the opportunity of social media and transformational thought leadership is walking the fine line and finding the ‘golden mean’ between imposter syndrome and narcissism. This is such an important impediment to transformational thought leadership that I’m going to start a resource page here. I’ll keep adding to it so come back often…

May 6, 2013 1

Stop Judging Everyone So Much (Especially Yourself!)

See on Scoop.it – Living Business

Here’s what I say to you, to me, and to anyone that cares to read this: The long and the short is this: stop judging so much.

Todd Lohenry‘s insight:

The opposite of judging? Allowing. Abandoning judging and picking up allowing has brought so much more peace in my life. Go to the source to get the rest of Jen’s perspective…

See on www.positivelypositive.com

May 6, 2013 6

It All Begins With You

See on Scoop.it – Living Business

It all begins with you. If you do not care for yourself, you will not be strong enough to take care of anything in life.
See on feedproxy.google.com

April 30, 2013 1

More self-compassion…

I’m reading a new book on self-compassion that looks very promising. It’s called The Mindful Path to Self-Compassion: Freeing Yourself from Destructive Thoughts and Emotions. Here is an excerpt from the introduction:

Life is tough. Despite our best intentions, things go wrong, sometimes very wrong. Ninety percent of us get married, full of hope and optimism, yet 40% of marriages end in divorce. We struggle to meet the demands of daily life, only to find ourselves needing care for stress-related problems like high blood pressure, anxiety, depression, alcoholism, or a weakened immune system. How do we typically react when things fall apart? More often than not, we feel ashamed and become self-critical: “What’s wrong with me?” “Why can’t I cope?” “Why me?” Continue reading “More self-compassion…” →

April 23, 2013 1

All You Need Is Love — of Self!

Dawn Gluskin wrote:

“All you need is love.” The Beatles knew what was up! Love really is all you need… self-love, that is. The foundation of a happy life, healthy relationships, and achieving every bit of greatness you were put onto this earth for does not exist anywhere externally. Its all right inside! Tapping into love of self is what allows us to opens doors to infinite possibilities. Everything weve created in our outside world is a reflection of what is going on with us internally. So, if you have a tough time fully accepting and loving yourself because of past circumstances, or due to holding yourself up to ridiculous high standards, or because you dont believe the truth that you are meant to shine, than the world around you is going to reflect as such. When self-love is missing, it manifests into negative actions and emotions like insecurity, feelings of lacking, and unhealthy comparison to others.

Inner-peace, on the other hand, is the catalyst to rocking your outside world in a totally awesome way. Imagine being completely accepting of yourself, including all of your flaws and past mistakes: “Were not here to be perfect, were here to live and to feel and to learn and to grow!” Imagine being super-confident in your abilities and embracing the gifts that you have: “We all have our own unique talents that can literally change the world.” Imagine not easily being swayed by the opinion of others, I mean literally not caring what anybody else says or thinks because its just their opinion, which has nothing to do with you: “You know what you were born to do and nothing is going to stop you.” This is self-love, baby! Self-Love is not the same thing as vanity. But, we often get it twisted! Vanity and narcissism are actually the opposite of self-love, as they are based in fear and lack. It is when the ego mind wants to make you feel special or better than others and thus creates illusions to support the idea. Its when motivation comes from hopes of gaining attention or acceptance rather than coming from the heart and done with pure intentions. Confident people who love themselves unconditionally do not think they are better than anybody else. Contrarily, they tend to see the beauty and oneness in all. Having true love and acceptance of self allows you to love and accept others more deeply, as well as receive love more fully.

Please read the rest of Dawn’s post here: Dawn Gluskin: All You Need Is Love — of Self!.

Personally, I prefer the term self-compassion, but the message is the same; it is very difficult to aspire to thought leadership if you have not met your inner critic with love and compassion. How can you rock the world if your inner world is rocked by turmoil?

If this resonates with you, I encourage you to investigate the work of Kristen Neff on the topic of self-compassion. She has 4 great articles online at Psychology Today and if you like that her book on self-compassion by the same name will be a good investment…

Compassion Begins with Self (inspire1life.com)
The Chemicals of Care: How Self-Compassion Manifests in Our Bodies (toddlohenry.com)
Overcoming Obstacles to Happiness and Success (psychologytoday.com)
Time has a way of healing and providing clarity …by Dawn Gluskin (notsalmon.com)

April 14, 2013 0

All You Need Is Love — of Self!

Dawn Gluskin wrote:

“All you need is love.” The Beatles knew what was up! Love really is all you need… self-love, that is. The foundation of a happy life, healthy relationships, and achieving every bit of greatness you were put onto this earth for does not exist anywhere externally. Its all right inside! Tapping into love of self is what allows us to opens doors to infinite possibilities. Everything weve created in our outside world is a reflection of what is going on with us internally. So, if you have a tough time fully accepting and loving yourself because of past circumstances, or due to holding yourself up to ridiculous high standards, or because you dont believe the truth that you are meant to shine, than the world around you is going to reflect as such. When self-love is missing, it manifests into negative actions and emotions like insecurity, feelings of lacking, and unhealthy comparison to others.

Inner-peace, on the other hand, is the catalyst to rocking your outside world in a totally awesome way. Imagine being completely accepting of yourself, including all of your flaws and past mistakes: “Were not here to be perfect, were here to live and to feel and to learn and to grow!” Imagine being super-confident in your abilities and embracing the gifts that you have: “We all have our own unique talents that can literally change the world.” Imagine not easily being swayed by the opinion of others, I mean literally not caring what anybody else says or thinks because its just their opinion, which has nothing to do with you: “You know what you were born to do and nothing is going to stop you.” This is self-love, baby! Self-Love is not the same thing as vanity. But, we often get it twisted! Vanity and narcissism are actually the opposite of self-love, as they are based in fear and lack. It is when the ego mind wants to make you feel special or better than others and thus creates illusions to support the idea. Its when motivation comes from hopes of gaining attention or acceptance rather than coming from the heart and done with pure intentions. Confident people who love themselves unconditionally do not think they are better than anybody else. Contrarily, they tend to see the beauty and oneness in all. Having true love and acceptance of self allows you to love and accept others more deeply, as well as receive love more fully.

Please read the rest of Dawn’s post here: Dawn Gluskin: All You Need Is Love — of Self!.