I had the pleasure of attending Annie Lalla and Eben Pagan's Love Workshop last Friday, which they held only one day after their wedding! I want to share with you my biggest takeaway out of all the wonderful tools they shared so generously-- some Conflict Resolution Tools!
One of my strongest tools for dealing with fear and nipping it in the bud is compassion. The reason it works so well, is because it takes the focus off of the self, the ego, and places it on sharing love and kindness with others. I gave it some thought to see if compassion could combat all fears, and found that it is more relevant for some than others. For instance, compassion is probably not going to help you get over a fear of roller coasters or heights, but it can help you get over a fear tarantulas!
This is a topic that is near and dear to my heart, since I truly live for those moments of synchronicity that surprise me and show me that the world is not always what it seems. So you may be wondering, what exactly is synchronicity and why would I want to create it? Well basically a synchronicity is a coincidence that is so bizarre, it doesn't seem likely that it could happen merely by chance. It may be a huge experience that changes your life forever, or it may be a seemingly insignificant experience that could only mean something to you, based on what you are feeling and thinking in the moment. Such experiences can either drastically change your life or simply reinforce the connectedness of everything in the universe.
Do you ever dream about what you would be like if you had your ideal life? Imagine a life where you feel secure and confident, where you have your dream job, your perfect partner, or more money than you know what to do with. Or a life where you always know how to handle every difficult situation with wisdom, ease, and grace. Well, I want to share with you an epiphany I had recently about how to invoke your Higher Self, and the steps I've taken on my journey to become my Higher Self.
Are you so afraid of needles that you dread getting blood work done or trying acupuncture? I decided about one year ago that I needed to overcome my aversion to needles! I used to feel powerless and like a victim, when I would go to get blood work done. I would make a big deal to whomever was inserting the needle about how scared I was. The strange thing is, even though the person drawing the blood would be extremely nice and understanding, the experience was always awful. I later found that slightly mean, efficient- looking blood drawers drew blood more painlessly and quickly. Could there be a connection? Why We Stay Scared and Stuck
It's very difficult to manifest change and create new beginnings, if you're not forgiving yourself. If you don't have what you want in your life, ask yourself: Where are you not forgiving yourself? If you're feeling guilty about something and not forgiving yourself, you are probably holding onto "toxic guilt." 2 Types of Toxic Guilt There are 2 ways you can experience toxic guilt: 1) One way is feeling like a bad person, because of something specific you did--and you're carrying around feelings of guilt about this action with you every day. Maybe you don't believe you deserve to be happy or have all the things you want in life, because you feel this kind of guilt. 2) There's also another motivation for guilt that doesn't really have anything to do with being "bad." It's more about not being "good enough." If you're a perfectionist, you know what I'm talking about here. This kind of guilt is about wishing you had only tried harder or known better, so you could have suceeded rather than failed. Either way, all kinds of guilt are about beating ourselves up. So why do we do this?
Targeted Affirmation Tip #1: Creating Intentions: Intend to Have What You Want In recent years, there has been a lot of backlash against affirmations. Many people believe that they don't really work. I believe the reason for this is because many people tried what seemed like a great idea, didn't do it quite right, and then became discouraged. I'm actually one of those people! I've been getting a lot of questions about affirmations lately, so I decided to revisit this topic. My Personal Affirmation Failure I started using affirmations when I was in the seventh grade. I remember having a small book about positive thinking that recommended using affirmations to feel happier and more relaxed. I was feeling very sad and anxious at the time, and repeating the affirmations really wasn't working for me. I remember reading affirmations to myself like: "I feel good" "I deserve to feel good" "I feel relaxed" And they really didn't help me to feel any better. In fact, reading the affirmations frustrated me. I would say the affirmation and just feel worse, because it didn't match what I was actually feeling. It felt shallow somehow, like I was trying to fix something within me on a surface level without digging deeper. Have you ever had this experience using affirmations? Maybe our society and knowledge of how to use techniques like this is evolving, because I don't remember ever reading anything about how affirmations don't work, when I was younger. Everyone just seemed so excited to have a new technique to use. There wasn't a whole lot of talk about how to do it correctly, so that it actually works. Why Affirmations Don't Work (Sometimes)
I had always known that living consciously was an important practice in my life, but I wasn't always aware of how many things it could be applied to for life improvement. One day, I sat down and made a list of all the things I work with people on in my coaching practice. I was looking for a common theme. Once I looked at the list, it was very clear that living consciously is a theme that runs through all areas I use to improve my life and the lives of others Here are the 7 Most Common areas where you can benefit from Living Consciously: 1) Deep Relaxation Many people are drawn to living consciously or mindfulness in order to cope better with anxiety. But even people who are not suffering from anxiety can increase their awareness about when they need to slow down and find a space for relaxation. This can be tough in our fast-paced culture! There are dozens of meditation techniques for achieving deep relaxation. If you try one and it doesn't work for you, rest assured that there is surely one that will. Techniques for relaxation often make us more anxious and restless at first. This is because anxiety is often the first emotion that comes up when you start to settle down. In fact, the more anxious you are, the busier you tend to be to distract yourself. Would you like to feel a taste of deep relaxation right now? Try this 3 Step Technique: 1) Inhale while counting slowly to 4 2) Hold your breath while you count to 7 3) Exhale while counting to 9 I find when I do this even just once, I feel much more relaxed!
Defining Mindfulness If you've ever wondered exactly what mindfulness is, you've come to the right place. First, let me start with a basic dictionary definition. Mindfulness is defined by Webster's dictionary as: bearing in mind, aware, inclined to be aware and by the Oxford English dictionary as: a state or quality of being mindful, attention and also intention, purpose It is the underlying theme of all the areas that I practice and coach clients on for self-improvement and healing. It is how I approach my own life. What Mindfulness Is to Me To go one step further I'll explain what mindfulness means to me personally. For me, it is simply being aware in the present moment. It sounds very simple and basic, but this really applies to so many things! When you practice mindfulness in your daily life, you are completely in touch with what is happening in the present. Because time is relative, you may find that the true experience of mindfulness is not just a sense of the present moment, but a sense of no time or all time. It is a state of being connected to a deeper truth where no illusion is present.
There is so much happening in every interaction that is beneath the surface. So often communication goes awry, because we are not consciously aware of what is truly being communicated in a conversation. Have you ever stopped to think about the many layers that exist in a conversation? Have you ever had an argument with someone and you just weren't really sure exactly where or why it turned ugly? Or maybe you walked away with a strange feeling after a conversation that you didn't feel during the conversation (like maybe you felt good during the conversation, but afterwards you're not quite sure it went as well as you thought it did?) If you want to be a better communicator, it is really important to be aware of the conversation you are having beneath the conversation. There is so much more being said than just words, and often the true statement a person is making is not even in the words. The three layers taking place in every conversation are: 1) Verbal 2) Body language 3) Intention