Articles To Help With Life’s Bumps and Bruises

TOPICS:

• Asking for a Raise (Or anything Else)
• Ten Top Reasons to Let Go
• When to Let Go
• How To Make Gratitude Work
• How To Be Congruent
• How To Create The Life You Love
• Inner Peace: Finding It and Keeping It
• Symptoms of Inner Peace

 

ARTICLE: Asking for a Raise (Or anything Else)

Asking for a raise or anything else can be fraught with emotional peril. Why? Because when we ask for a raise, we usually don’t know the outcome! No wonder it’s anxiety provoking.

Yet, asking for a raise is hugely important.
As Wayne Gretsky, the famous hockey player always said, “I always lost 100% of the shots I didn’t take.”

If you don’t ask for a raise, you have no chance of getting it.

So, taking a shot at what we want is vital. And there are some ways to make asking for a raise or asking for anything else easier as the following example will demonstrate.

I was working with someone a few months ago who wanted to ask for a raise but was plagued with fear. “What if he turns me down?” she asked me over and over. The prospect of being rejected had been crippling her until she hired me as her coach.

My suggestion helped her take a significant step forward. As you will see, it paid off big time.

I suggested that she ask about asking. I suggested that in her next review with her boss, she ask him boss what she needed to do to make asking about a raise successful.

Luckily for her, he said, “Nothing,” and she got the raise right away. But in other situations I’ve worked with, the boss has made a few requests and/or tasks that my ‘coachee’ had to do first. But as you can imagine, there was a lot of eagerness once a carrot like this was dangled so close and the raise was a done deal once the tasks were accomplished.

So, ask about asking. Get clear on what needs to happen before you make your pitch.

Here’s some language: “What do I need to do to be eligible for:
a) a raise?
b) this team?
c) membership in this club?
d) this mortgage?
As you can see, this phrase has lots of applicability?

My second tip to make your asking more effective is to ask early. Sometimes people don’t ask until they are so frustrated that the asking comes out charged. It can sound like a demand or have a whine to it. You don’t want that. You want to be squeaky clean in your tone. That’s what will get you the best result.

And lastly, keep asking. I just got an email today with a second request for something. A woman had sent out a group email to several ‘creatives’ asking for some exercises to give a class she was leading. With the school break happening, I guess none of us answered. Did she stew in resentment? No. She simply asked again. And guess what, this time, I found the time and replied.

ARTICLE: Ten Top Reasons To Let Go

Whether you are letting go of someone you love, or some thing you love, letting go can be brutal.

Even when we no longer want to be with someone, for example, when we choose divorce, letting go can still be difficult, both emotionally and mentally.

Yet life asks us to let go all the time. Even our breathing involves this process – in order to take in a new breath, we have to let go of the one in our lungs. It’s just the way of life. Here are some other great reasons for letting go:

1. Letting go of a relationship, letting go of the past, or letting go of something you no longer need will make you will feel lighter. Holding on takes energy, energy you need to create your life.

2. You will feel looser. Controlling people and situations tightens us up.

3. By letting go of what doesn’t work, the Universe is now able to bring you what does!

4. Your stress level will lessen.

5. You will release negative emotions that go with holding on: anger, resentment, fear……

6. There will be room for new, positive things.

7. You will gain experience in creating a great habit. Letting go is such a part of life, we often have to practice it over and over. So, letting go isn’t optional, but deciding how much we struggle is optional.

8. Others will appreciate it. When you’re not constantly controlling someone or something – you become more authentic and relationships will improve.

9. You find out more about yourself. When you’re not busy fixing someone else, you have more time to fix yourself!! You can explore and get to know yourself.

10. Letting go brings deep inner peace.

______________________________________________________________________________

If you’re finding these articles helpful and would like more help in dealing with a life challenge, click here for a free 30-minute, over-the-phone ‘Idea’ session. Fill in the details of the contact form and make sure you mention your time zone. We’ll set up a time to talk. Remember, there is no obligation to go further and you’ll get a lot of ideas and strategies for how to great Your BEST life. Besides, the long distance is on me

______________________________________________________________________________

 

 

ARTICLE: When To Let Go

Letting go can be difficult. As a coach and as a person I’m always trying to help myself and others delineate the difference between when it’s right to push harder and when it’s right to let go.

An acid test for me is to imagine letting go or even to let go a little and notice what that feels like. If there’s relief, that’s usually a sign that I’m going too hard at something.

Letting go is not just an excuse for not working hard.

Working hard is good, but sometimes it’s just not the right thing to do. The true skill is knowing when to let go and when to keep on pushing. To me, working hard is appropriate when we are “helping” something to happen rather than “making” something happen. When we are “helping” something to happen, it assumes there is some energy already there. This is important. To me this means “congruence”. In other words, we want something to happen, but forces around us, which I’ll call the “Universe” for lack of a better term, also want it to happen.

Here is an example of Letting go that will help. A few years ago, when I was returning to Canada, I looked at a wonderful apartment on the river. I thought it was too expensive and turned it down. The owner rented it to someone else. I kicked myself for weeks, realizing that it was just my fear of meeting the rent that stood in the way. Yes, the rent was a little high but not outside of my reach if I stretched.

Luckily for me, even though I had let go, the ‘Universe’ still had a grip on the apartment and all was not lost. So, even though I had taken note of the lesson and moved on, a few weeks later, the landlord called and said that the new renters hadn’t worked out – was I interested in renting it? Of course!

When something is right, there is a general fitting that involves more than you.

This ‘fitting’ can be relied on. When you let go, there are other energies that continue to hold what you want in place.

To the contrary, when something isn’t right, often no matter how hard you push, you can’t make it work. In these situations, you get the feeling that you’re pushing a rock uphill and that if you stop your push for a second, what you want will come tumbling to the ground. In the event that there is no support like this, it’s simply exhausting to continue pushing.

So, when you aren’t sure whether to hold on or let go, imagine letting go. You might even place something symbolic in your hand and then let that item go. Notice how that feels. Our bodies often know things that we don’t. Besides, even thinking about letting go will help us loosen our grip and it’s that very grip that can strangle the life force out of something in itself. And once something is free to come or go, it can find its rightful place, either with you. Or not.

ARTICLE: Coping with Job Loss

Examples of coping with job loss are listed below
Many of the greatest people on the planet
have had atrocious hardships.

Joanne Kathleen (a.k.a.  J.K.) Rowling was canned from a secretarial job after she got caught using the company computer to write creative stories. She used her severance pay to write Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone. She is now a billionaire.

Lance Armstrong was dropped from the French cycling team after he began treatment for testicular cancer in 1997 (with just a 50 percent chance of survival). They even refused to pay his remaining salary or his medical bills. Big mistake. Armstrong not only beat the cancer, but he also won a record sixth consecutive Tour de France in 2004.

Elvis Presley was fired from a music studio in 1954 because he “couldn’t sing.”

Walt Disney was fired from a newspaper for lack of ideas. The Walt Disney Company, with its animated movies, theme parks, and TV stations, is a multi-billion-dollar empire.

Larry King wrote a column for the Miami Herald before his CNN fame and was fired for being too chummy with his subjects. His way with people paid off, though; few politicians or celebrities ever bypass “Larry King Live.”

Steve Jobs, the co-founder of Apple, started the computer company in his garage, but got fired from his own company. Jobs picked up the pieces and nine years later, won an Oscar for Toy Story. In 1996, he was back at Apple.

Abraham Lincoln failed in business twice and lost his first election, then his sweetheart died and he had a nervous breakdown. He lost the nomination to Congress in 1843, was defeated again for Congress in 1848 and 1855 and lost the vice presidency of the United States in 1856. Then he ran for Senator in 1858 and lost. In 1860 Abe Lincoln was elected president of the United States. From these examples, you can see that even great people suffer from job loss from time to time. Some of them turned the ‘failure’ into a situation that made them hugely successful.

ARTICLE: How To Make Gratitude Work

When Life throws some hard stuff at us, it’s easy to start feeling hard done by. Once we do, we tend to find more things that aren’t going right and to feel even worse. One of the most effective ways of turning this around is to work with gratitude.

Gratitude can turn all this around. Here are some ways to make the practice of gratitude even more effective for you.

* Make them specific. Instead of saying “I am grateful for all my friends” say “I am grateful for Ken or Suzanne or Caroline. Or you can be even more specific and say “Im grateful for my friendship with Ron” or “Thank you for Paul’s caring”. Play around with the language until it feels right for you.

* FEEL gratitude as you say the words. Words carry vibrations and those vibrations have the ability to catalyze a variety of feelings. Those feelings will give your gratitude juice. So let yourself feel the abundance you have in your life. Let yourself be touched and moved each time you do them. Choose the words that will have the strongest impact on your heart and feelings.

* Do more than just think your gratitude. Say them out loud. Or write them down. Involve more than one of your senses.

* Give thanks for simple things like your furniture and car and job and children. Even if you dislike your job find something in it that you honestly feel grateful for and focus on that. It will lighten things considerably.

* Do your gratitude frequently. Many people do them as part of a morning practice but don’t limit doing them just to that time. Say them throughout the day.

* Carry your gratitude out into the world. You can do this by expressing your gratefulness to someone verbally or through a card. There are many wonderful Internet sites that allow you to send free postcards to people. Or send real postcards or notes! After one of my books came out I sent cards to all the people who had supported me. The cards were full of brightly colored flowers and I imagined them landing on various desktops that day and the joy they would ring. It was a lovely feeling. People had given so much to me and I wanted to keep that energy moving!

* Sow gratitude for the way people ARE not just for what they do. Express it when someone shows kindness or sensitivity or level-headedness. That’s a great way to encourage people to do more of than behavior too. This is especially important to do with children.

* Have regular gratitude fill-ups. Stop what you’re doing a few times a day and tune into all that’s going on around you that feels good. I just did this now. I’m grateful for my fish who just made it through a big house Reno. I’m grateful for the pine trees swishing in the sunlight outside I’m grateful for the free time I have this afternoon to write. Wow. I’m smiling now. As I’ve just demonstrated doing gratitude is a great way to energy boost.

______________________________________________________________________________

If you’re finding these articles helpful and would like more help in dealing with a life challenge, click here for a free 30-minute, over-the-phone ‘Idea’ session. Fill in the details of the contact form and make sure you mention your time zone. We’ll set up a time to talk. Remember, there is no obligation to go further and you’ll get a lot of ideas and strategies for how to great Your BEST life. Besides, the long distance is on me!

______________________________________________________________________________

 

 

ARTICLE: How To Be Congruent

Being “congruent” is a critical success factor. What does “congruent” mean? It means that every part of you is in alignment about something. Think of a car. Everything about a car says “Car”. If something about it said “Airplane”, you’d be incredibly confused, right? You wouldn’t know whether to get in it or not and if you did, you would probably feel uncomfortable. To relax and go with things, they need to be 100% congruent.

If you have things in your life you don’t want or don’t have things in your life that you do want, you can bet your energy field isn’t completely congruent. And if it isn’t, what you want is going to continue getting snagged as it tries to come down the birth canal into your life.

Have you ever met anyone who was saying, “Yes,” while shaking their head “No”? If so, you probably were not sure how to respond. That’s just how the Universe and others react when we fail to be congruent. There is so much confusion that it’s no wonder we don’t get what we want. We have no clear idea what that is!

Sometimes, although we may want something badly, there are other parts of us that are not so sure. Most of us simply try and step over these dissenting parts, but when we do that, we drives them further underground where, like jungle insurgents, they will continue their argument. The only way to deal with dissenting parts is to A) recognize them. B) Listen to them. C) Negotiate with them.

But before we do that, let’s search them out. Here are some questions you can use to find the incongruent parts of you. To do the exercise, pick something you want. Let’s call that “My wish”.

Ask yourself:

* is there any part of me actually afraid or nervous about having “My Wish”?

* what is the point of view of the part(s) that isn’t sure this wish is a good idea?

* how does it feel when I act as if “My Wish” is a reality?

* is it easy to have thoughts about “My Wish” being true?

* in what ways does it serve me NOT to have “My Wish”
come true?

* is it easy to take lots of action to make “My Wish” come true?

* am I regularly giving thanks for already having “My Wish”?

* if God or an angel or a scrutinizing friend were looking at my life, would it be obvious to them that creating “My Wish” is what I’m 100 % going for?

Don’t be discouraged if it turns out you have LOTS of dissenting parts. It’s far better to know about them than to have them fighting your forward motion from hidden places inside you. Let these dissenting parts know you hear them and see what they need to go forward. Sometimes they just need to be heard. Sometimes they need re-assurance. Dissenting parts always want what’s best for us. Or what they think is best.

Once their wisdom is heard and incorporated, we can move forward with all of our energy. When we have all our energy forged towards the creation of our wishes, that’s a powerful thing. AR

ARTICLE: How to Create the Life You Love!

Although happiness just seems to be something that just happens, or doesn’t happen, there are ways to cultivate it so you feel self-empowered to have happiness, even in challenging times.

Here are some ways to create happiness in your life right now

Here are ways on How to Create the Life that You Love:

Start listening to yourself:

What makes you happy? Start noticing what puts a skip in your step, a song in your throat? It’s easy to focus on chasing certain goals and miss doing what we truly love in the present moment.

Pay attention to the little things:
Often we are so focused on the big stuff, we forget the juiciness of little pleasures: letting ourselves watch the stars or clouds, have a cat-nap in the afternoon, or play with a pet. Remember some of the things you loved to do as a child and do some of them again. As Mary Oliver says, “Let the soft animal of your body love what it loves.”

Stop up the Leaks:
You know what they are – the conversations, people and tasks that drain you. Give less time to them. Much less time. Your energy is your most precious commodity – be a caring custodian of it.

Develop language skills:
You can say ANYTHING to anyone if you use both neutral words and a neutral tone. Learning how to do this will enable you to speak up for yourself more easily. The result? A far higher success rate for getting what you want. With no mess to clean up later.

Act as if you’re living that Best Life NOW:
This is hugely important! What you focus on you get more of. The universe provides you with a match to your energy. That’s why people who have it made, have it made. And why the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. The universe is one big mirror.

If you want to know what that Universal mirror is currently seeing, just look at your life. That can be discouraging if you’re unhappy but great news if you’re ready to make changes. So, imagine yourself doing great things, having the vacation or money you desire. Try on the clothes you’d love to wear. Then walk like you already have them on. This will get you excited and that excitement will pull things towards you.

Be grateful:
Say “Thank you” even before what you want has turned up. So simple, but so effective.

Learn energy modulation:
Minimize the loss of your precious life force from worry, anxiety and other distressing emotions. There are lots of tools such as EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique), Focusing, Affirmations and Meditation that can not only help you regulate ‘negative’ emotions, but that can install positive feelings. A great game to ramp your energy to a more positive place is the “Wouldn’t it be fantastic if…” game. Play it by completing this sentence 5 times in a row and I’ll guarantee you’ll feel more optimistic and energized.

ARTICLE: Inner Peace-Finding It and Keeping It

There is such a pervasive sense of uncertainty and unknowing. Once upon a time, you could find out the “answer” to almost anything by going to an ‘expert’. These days, however, even the experts
don’t seem to know what to do. Whether the issue is our financial situation, our health or relationships, there is a great deal of differing advice about what we should do.

The good thing about not being able to get an definitive answer about what to do is that we are being forced to tune into our own inner sense of things. When we truly know what is right for us, it does not matter what others say.

But how do we find out what our own sense is? The first step to inner listening is to become calm. We can’t look into the depths of our inner pool if the surface is chopped up with waves. We need to calm the waters and then look.

Here are some ways to settle yourself down and become calm.

1. Come back to your senses. Notice what you’re touching, tasting, hearing, seeing and smelling right now. Most of our fears and anxieties are based on what we’re worried about happening in the future. When we tune into the present moment through our physical senses, we get a strong and immediate confirmation of how supported we actually are. Take one minute to do this now–notice what your senses are sensing. Feel your lungs breathing and notice that all the air you need is there for you every minute of every day. Now notice the way the chair you’re sitting on supports you, holds you up. Allow yourself to experience how your basic survival needs are all being taken care of. Recognizing
this will help you relax. Inner peace lives in this relaxed state.

2. Belly breathe for a few minutes whenever you can. This will bring you into your body and help you access the peacefulness that is already within you. We often forget that Inner Peace is something that’s already inside us. Sometimes we get so caught up in paddling through the big waves on life’s surface, that we forget about the ocean on peace that dwells under the surface.

3. Do things more slowly. Again, this is a small intervention, but remarkably powerful. I think it works because inner peace is inherently a slow thing and when we move more slowly, we come closer to it energetically.

4. When faced with challenges today, ask yourself, “Does this really matter?” See if you can do this once a day. You’ll be surprised and
refreshed how often the answer is “No, it doesn’t really matter.”

5. Remember times you felt peaceful and go back to them. There is a beach in Greece and a few islands out on Georgian Bay where I’ve experienced deep peacefulness. When I return to them in my mind, I make my imaginings them as real in my imagination as I can. I remember the sound of the wind, imagine the smell of summer sun on rocks, feel my kayak bobbing in the waves. Just writing about this makes my shoulders relax. Remember, the unconscious doesn’t know the difference between an imagining and reality, so your body will respond to these remembrances. And the the more you do this, the more you will be laying down pathways in your brain, which means the easier it will get.

6. Turn Off the News. Studies have shown that people who watch the news before they go to bed don’t sleep as well. Not surprising, given the doom and gloom in the news. Remember, doom and gloom sells, but you don’t have to buy it. Limit the number of times you listen to the news or read it and choose wisely the time of day you let it in.

7. Play soothing music or nature sounds. This can have a strong subliminal effect.

8. Take breaks in your day. Our energy tends to balance itself naturally if we let it. Get out at lunch or take your computer to a park (that’s where I’m writing this from) and let your energy recoup.

Practice these ideas and you may find yourself feeling showing some of the following ‘symptoms’ of inner peace.

ARTICLE: SYMPTOMS OF INNER PEACE

1. Tendency to think & act spontaneously rather than from fears based on past experience.

2. An unmistakable ability to enjoy each moment.

3. Loss of interest in judging yourself or anyone else.

4. Loss of interest in conflict.

5. Disinclination to worry (this is a very serious symptom).

6. Frequent overwhelming episodes of appreciation.

7. Connected feelings of connectedness with others & nature.

8. Frequent attacks of smiling through the eyes of the heart

9. Increasing susceptibility to extend love to others.

10. Increasing tendency to let things happen rather than make them happen.