R-E-S-P-E-C-T

“I get no respect” was a frequent opening line used by comedian Rodney Dangerfield that made us laugh at his expense. Most of us, however, don’t joke about being disrespected and, in fact, take issue with anyone who treats us in this manner.

What does the word “respect” mean? According to one dictionary, it is:

1. A feeling or attitude of admiration and deference toward somebody or something.

2. consideration or thoughtfulness

If we aren’t being treated respectfully by others, then we first need to change how we treat ourselves: self-respect elicits outer-respect. The challenge is to recognize when we are treating ourselves with disrespect so we can change our behaviors: these familiar patterns bypass our consciousness much of the time because they just feel “normal”. So, with that in mind, I offer you the following:

We are disrespecting ourselves when:

We fear speaking up, telling our truth.

We allow others to take control of our lives.

We are inauthentic–saying Yes when we really want to say No.

We abuse our bodies with over-consumption and over-indulgence in any way.

We don’t support our body, mind and spirit with “proper” nourishment.

We knowingly put ourselves in harm’s way.

We stay in unhealthy relationships–ones we’ve outgrown or are abusive.

We suppress or deny our creative nature–our talents and desires.

We downplay our accomplishments and achievements.

We’re not impeccable with our word–speaking negatively about ourselves.

We never think we’re good enough–no matter what we do.

We compromise or conform to obtain approval from others.

We take things personally–making what others project onto us, about us.

We make ourselves a victim in life–blaming others for our choices.

We ignore our own inner guidance/intuition, doubting ourselves.

We play small in the world so we don’t appear boastful.

We put ourselves last on the list, making others more important.

We sacrifice our own welfare to “make” someone else happy.

We won’t be able to reach our full potential without self-respect because it equates to feeling worthy. And, as the Queen of R&B Aretha Franklin puts it:

“R-E-S-P-E-C-T,  find out what it means to me”. . .

Now that’s some sage advice worthy of consideration!

REAL-ize Your Resolutions

Have you made some New Years Resolutions for 2012?

When we make resolutions in the New Year, we do have good intentions about keeping them (for the most part anyway). If we have the belief that New Years is the time to start something new or make some positive changes in our lives, it is easy to feel motivated and take action, seizing the opportunity for a “brand new start”.  But what frequently happens is that we too easily lose our enthusiasm and those good intentions just fizzle out–sometimes only days later–along with our resolve. So how do we stay focused and keep the momentum going until we reach our goals–making changes that stick?

To REAL-ize Your Resolutions, try my  10-Simple-Step-Formula for Success: (Caution: use at your own risk!)

1. Examine your desires and set a goal: Meditate on the following questions: Why do I want it? What is my motivation for it? Is it really for me or to please someone else? In what ways will my life change when I have it?
2. What do you believe about it? Do you have faith that you can achieve it? Pay attention to how you feel. If you feel good, then you are headed in the right direction. If not, then reexamine and rework it until you do feel good about it.
3. Are you putting frequent attention on the achievement of it? Formulate new thought patterns that support your success. Create a story in the “virtual reality” of your mind that includes the end result; how your life will be when you’ve achieved it.
4. Leave the past where it belongs: Your past has no power to sabotage you, only your thoughts do. Don’t compare to any previous attempts or “failures.”
5. Act AS IF it’s already yours: You will see it when you believe it. Daydream–imagine with feeling: when it feels real–like it’s already yours–it is on its way to becoming your reality.
6. Look for the signs of manifestation: Perception is reality. . . Notice when things begin to change and focus on even the smallest signs. Celebrate every bit of it and more will show up: what you focus on expands!
7. Relax your way into the new you:  Stop struggling with details. Line your thoughts and energy up with your goal and wait for the inspiration–listen for inner guidance–before taking action.
8. Let go of all labels: Free yourself of negativity, doubt,  judgments. Don’t ask for OPO (Other People’s Opinions), trust yourself. Use supportive and encouraging words. Don’t allow seeds of doubt to be planted in your mind.
9. Practice Mindfulness, live in the N.O.W (Not One Worry): Pay attention to where you’re putting your attention. Stay Present and breathe deeply, using C.P.R. (Calm, Peaceful, Relaxed) as anchor words. Focus on loving and appreciating yourself and life.
10. Cultivate a new Consciousness and an Attitude of Success: Notice what you learn about yourself as you expand: the beliefs that have been running you will become apparent. Have fun with the process and enjoy the journey: Remember that your only job is to focus on what you want and let the Universe handle the details!

Persistence beats Resistance . . . Success is a gradual progression toward a predetermined goal . . . Repetition creates the Master. . .♥

Holiday Hoopla

Well, it’s that time of year again . . . a time for gift giving, Christmas tunes, feasting on food, sweets, and partying it up–and yes, it’s also time for that yearly family gathering that often includes some old-fashioned drama!  But, no matter how we choose to honor the season–with some holiday hoopla or on the “down-low”–this time of year has its own unique way of affecting our hearts and minds.

Why does the holiday season have such a powerful effect on us? Perhaps it just gives us permission to bridge the gap, to free ourselves from intolerance and separation, judgment and criticism and share authentically with others. It does seem to be easier this time of year to be generous, open up in loving ways to each other, because we are encouraged to do it in our society as the “right” thing to do.

The holiday season is stressful in many ways, but it also has the ability to bring some peace into our lives as well: We may be behaving badly–disrespecting ourselves and others throughout the year–but then the spirit of the season magically transforms our hearts, making good little boys and girls out of us all!

This may not be “the most wonderful time of the year” for everyone, as the famous song touts. If we’ve lost a loved one, if we don’t have family or friends to share the holidays with, we may feel isolated and alone, sad or even depressed.  And if one happens to suffer a trauma or a tragedy occurs around the holidays, this joyous season may have the reverse effect and become ”the most dreaded time of the year”, serving as a yearly reminder of the pain we experienced.

We are conditioned to feel differently around the holidays, from the time we are very young. Even if we don’t formally celebrate Christmas–as my family didn’t–our mindset changes from all the Christmas cheer that surrounds us. It seems to be easier to lighten up, see life through child-like wonder because we are flooded with enchanting music, beautiful decorations and colorful light displays that can be simply entrancing.

May you feel the love and peace in your heart this holiday season, my friends, and continue to live “The Spirit of the Holidays”, even after the season ends on the calender. . .

Happy Holidays, Happy Life, Merry Everything to One and All!

What Do You Think?

I watched a segment on the television magazine program “Sunday Morning” that questioned the effectiveness of positive thinking upon our health in general, and healing from cancer in particular.  I found it not only misleading but a bit disturbing that they would take a subject as complex as this one and even attempt to examine it in a 5 minute report–supposedly in a fair and unbiased manner. What good they may have done by covering a few of the pros on the power we have in our mind to heal our body was overshadowed by the seeds of doubt that positive thinking may end up just being wishful thinking because there is no “hard-core scientific evidence” to prove that our thoughts make any difference at all. I am curious, though, just how they managed to put together a study on this subject in the first place and then who or what organization sponsored it . . . inquisitive minds want to know!

Many books have been written about the power of our thoughts by some very well-respected experts including Deepak Chopra, Ernest Holmes, Napoleon Hill, Gregg Braden, Don Miguel Ruiz and Wayne Dyer; these teachers have much to say about the science of the mind and how our thoughts create things.  However, no one is suggesting that thinking positive thoughts is all we need to do to bring about the results that we want, in some magical way. . . that would be akin to saying that all we need to do to defy gravity and fly is to jump up into the air over and over again! There’s nothing that we can do that will trick the Universal principles into ignorance: these laws are immutable–they work 100% of the time, whether we acknowledge them or not.

Perhaps we’re under the impression that “positive thinking” is synonymous with speaking our own truth–or that when we use positive affirmations repeatedly they will automatically bring about their physical equivalent.  Whatever we believe to be true will be created as our reality and no amount of saying “I am healthy and am now healed” will go anywhere if our conscious mind doesn’t accept it as at least a possibility. 

We don’t always know what we believe; that is for sure! But all we need to do is to pay attention to what we have manifested, what we’re experiencing as our reality, and trust that it is an accurate reflection of what beliefs we have in our subconscious, programmed mind.

The truth is, “You will see it when you believe it.”

And that, my friends, is the bottom line!

Fail Safe

A facebook friend recently posted something on her wall that I found quite interesting . It happened to be a very simple question: “What would you do if you knew you could never fail?” The comments she received were varied in nature, but they all were overwhelmingly imaginative. That got me thinking about why we wouldn’t pursue what would make our lives an amazing adventure–why we would settle for mediocrity rather than go after our dreams.

Failure is a just an idea, a concept, that we often use as an excuse to stay in our comfort zone: If we believe we don’t have what it takes to get what we want, then we are setting ourselves up to be a failure in our own eyes. The world may be filled with people who haven’t succeeded in achieving exactly what they set out to do, but does that mean they they’ve failed?  I’ve heard it said that most millionaires have lost it all at least once along the way to becoming rich. What does that say about the idea of failure to a successful person . . . Does that word even exist in their vocabulary?

Maybe everything we experience are mere stepping stones to success to the one who doesn’t believe in failure and forges through the challenges: “Success is a gradual progression toward a predetermined goal.” In this definition, success isn’t the end product but rather the process, the journey along the way.

If we have a belief that we will fail, that no matter what we do it won’t be enough (because we don’t feel that we are enough), then we won’t acknowledge any successes we do experience.  It has been determined that many of us are more fearful of success than we are of failure. As the famous Mandela speech declares, ”Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us”. . .  Perhaps one reason we “buck the current of our desires” is the fear that becoming successful would bring more changes in our life than we believe we could handle.

If we attempt something and it doesn’t live up to our expectations–or to the expectations of someone else–we may interpret that as “failing”. However, the way I see it, the only we could ever fail is if we don’t take a risk, if we don’t at least  give it a shot.

“Success is seldom achieved by people who contemplate the possibility of failure.” William Feather

Risky Business

LIFE is a “risky business”.

We’re hearing more and more these days about newly discovered ”risk factors” associated with our physical heath. Do you ever wonder how they come to the conclusions, figure out the details, of what they present as scientifically sound evidence?

There are so many mitigating factors that can cause our health to be compromised that it would seem nearly impossible to come to any conclusions at all! So, the question becomes this: is our attention to the risk factors presented creating the diseases because we believe they are real? 

We are not just a physical body: We are emotional beings at our core and the state of our emotions is always reflected in the physical.  Holding on to anger, resentments, grudges and regrets do put us at risk for struggling, poverty, illness/disease and a life filled with suffering. . . Perhaps a closed heart poses the greatest risk to our health when all is said and done.

RISKS

(Author unknown)

“To laugh is to risk appearing the fool.

To weep is to risk appearing sentimental.

To reach out to another is to risk involvement.

To expose feelings is to risk exposing your true self.

To place ideas, your dreams before a crowd, is to risk their loss.

To love is to risk not being loved in return.

To live is to risk dying.

To hope is to risk despair.

To try is to risk failure.

But risk must be taken, because the greatest hazard in life is to risk nothing. the person who risks nothing may avoid suffering and sorrow, but they cannot learn, feel, change, grow, love and live. Chained by their certitudes, they are a slave; they have forfeited their freedom. . .

Only a person who risks is truly free!”

Take a Risk  and Dive into Life!

The Heart of the Matter

I was recently nominated for the “Versatile Blogger Award” by a fellow blogger.  Although I don’t write with the intention of receiving awards, I really appreciate being recognized as versatile for writing on various subjects that are meaningful to me and matter to many.

Thank you, Ariel, for the honor and the nomination: http://arielkprice.wordpress.com/2011/10/08/im-a-versatile-blogger/

Versatile: adj. able to adapt or be adapted to many different functions or activities

There are three simple rules to the Versatile Blogger Award. They are as follows:
1. Thank the person(s) who shared the award with you by linking back to them in your post.
2. Pass this award to 15 recently discovered blogs and let them know that you included them in your blog post.
3. List 7 things about yourself.

So, here is my list of 7 things about me:

1. I love to sing. I used to sing in bands, as a soloist in different venues, recorded original music in studio and for years, had my heart set on making it in the industry.
2. I am the baby of my family–the last of 5 (3 brothers, 1 sister) and was a tomboy growing up.
3. I am looking forward to turning 60 on my next birthday and am rather enjoying my gray hair.
4. I learned the art of beekeeping (my ex was in the business) even though I was deathly afraid of bees at the time.
5. I was a hippie, had hair past my waist for years and lived in a commune (with the same ex) when I first moved to AZ from MN in 1975.
6. I am a rebel against society’s rules–like to do things my own way–and have proudly passed these qualities on to my children.
7. I gave up red meat in 1975 and eat mainly a vegetarian diet.

So, that does it for my list. I’m working on a list of bloggers as required and will post those soon. (It appears I’m rebelling a bit at the rules I’m supposed to follow!)

Now, a few words in closing:

I appreciate all of you who follow my blog and comment on my posts. I want to address any subject that matters to you, so please let me know. You can always email me, if you don’t want to write on my blog: gaeawellnesscenter@yahoo.com

Until next time . . .

My 59th birthday with my "peeps"!

‘Tis Our Fate

One thing we all have in common with every other living being is that some day our physical bodies will not be able to sustain life anymore and we will make our transition: this is the fate that awaits us all.

What we choose to do with our lives–the legacy we leave behind–is all that remains “ours”: No material things–our bodies included–ever belong to us.  At the end of our life cycle we will know our Truth; whether we’ve lived in a way that made our journey a wonderful adventure. If we do have any regrets, they probably won’t include not working hard enough or not having collected enough stuff: Remembering what’s really important will help us keep everything in perspective while we’re here.

I am writing this post in honor of a very dear friend who has added so much to my life over the past 12 years–helping me in more ways than she even knows. Over this last year, she has been going through her own life changing event with the diagnosis of stage 4 breast cancer. She is one of the bravest people I know, even while going through some intensive chemotherapy that has taken her down to levels that she has never been before. She is a teacher to her core and my hero, exemplifying how to really be present to life, letting go of what is not important and focusing on what is; love and appreciation for everything and everyone. Knowing what my friend is going through helps me remember how precious life is and that how we choose to live each day is all that matters: making what we did in the past or what may happen in the future moot points.

This is not just about my friend or me, though: This is about us–all of us. If we don’t wake up every day and realize that there will come a time when we will not be able to touch, smell, hear, feel and be with those who are dear to us, we may miss out on living our best life: facing all of it with an open mind, loving heart and fearless spirit. We can make our life a comedy–or a tragedy. We can remove the mask of pain and be free . . .

Life is too serious to take it seriously!

No Matter How You Slice It . . .

. . . Life is an Equal Opportunity Experience!

Every one of us has been given a mind by The Divine that we are free to use however we choose: we’ve always had free will!

We have equal opportunity to:

Create a life by our own design.

Make new choices anytime we want.

Free ourselves from the prison of pain and the illusion of fear.

Pursue what we want to be, do or have.

Love unconditionally, compassionately.

Take responsibility for ourselves and our creations.

Stay Present to what is and dream of what can be.

Create heaven on earth.

Be free of poverty consciousness and live abundantly.

Do our best every day and be free of the judge in our head.

Stop being a victim–period.

No matter how you slice it, Life IS fair:

You will, however, need your Spiritual Eyes open to see that!

What Will They Think of Me?

  Are you holding yourself back in life because of  Other People’s Opinions?

Change is the only constant in life and yet we often resist and struggle against it. Why is that? The answer is simple: It boils down to being afraid of what the changes will mean to our lives.  Might we be “rejected” by our friends and/or family if we don’t fit their mold of us? Maybe we will. . .maybe we won’t.  And I say “oh well, so what, who cares?” If someone doesn’t like what we are doing, we can choose to ignore them and do it anyway.

We humans get way too comfortable with our habits–whether they serve us or not–and it can seem pretty darn daunting to venture into the unknown: We have no guarantee that it won’t rock our world off its center! When we don’t allow our expansion to naturally occur we will become contracted: depression or physical illness may be the result because we were never meant to be stagnant–it defies our creative nature.

It takes a brave person to risk doing whatever is necessary to live with an open heart and care more about feeling good than pleasing others. We may realize we need to make some changes but (and this is a big but) if it means we will no longer be a “match” to our friends or we fear being shamed by family members in the process, we could choose the path of least resistance and ignore our truth. If we are afraid of exposing what we have become because we’ve opened our eyes to a new way of seeing and thinking, straying from the norm,  then it’s time to ask the all-important question “whose life is this anyway?” When we unconditionally accept ourselves, it is easier for others to accept us also.

As I’ve heard from the Abraham teachings (Abraham-Hicks.com), “there’s never a crowd on the leading edge.”  It isn’t easy being on a path of enlightenment seemingly alone among our present friends or our family. Keep in mind, though, that new friends will show up and even family members often turn around when we are firmly planted on the side of Truth.

So the next time anyone labels or projects their disapproval onto you, just borrow this little nugget from childhood:

I’m rubber, you’re glue; whatever you say bounces off me and sticks back on you!

Be your own "Superhero"!

 And if all else fails, remember that “sticks and stones will break my bones, but names will never hurt me!”♥