Month: September 2008

Behind the curtain

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I’m parting the curtain to tell you why I’m posting all this inspirational, mind-set, self-growth info.  It’s because I’m studying and implementing it like mad.

It’s also because as a soul-entrpreneur, I believe that your mind-set is THE MOST important factor for your success.  Yes, I shouted, because I’m that passionate about the fact that having a positive mindset along with strategic marketing that promotes a good product will give you fantastic results.

In fact, I am writing a book about this very subject.  The book is about women soul-entrepreneurs, woman who have developed their passion, what they truly love to do, into six figure and in some cases million dollar businesses.  And, they are using the internet as their place of business.  They don’t have retail stores, they don’t sell shoes or widgets – they sell information.    And, their products are all so different yet they share these qualities – a positive mind set, courage and faith.  They also are givers – they give of themselves and get back far more than they give.  In fact, the more they give – the more they receive.   And, they want to impact the world in a positive way.  That’s big thinking.

So, here’s a peek at my other passion – business and marketing.  That’s why Seth Godin’s blog is the only blog I recommend at the moment.  He has such great insights into marketing and life really that I relish his posts.

So, you’ll start to see a mix of mindset and marketing here – I hope you like it.

Your past is your Present

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In a previous post I said that your past doesn’t exist to harm you.  That is true.  The only reason it’s there is to be a rudder, a guidance.  If you cut yourself – the skin closes quickly.  If it stayed open for a long time bacteria would flood in, which would end in your eventual demise from a massive infection.

Same with a mental wound – it needs to close.  Your only takeaway from a wound is what you can learn from it.  Use the wounding not to punish and beat yourself up – but as a wise teacher that has taught you an important lesson.  In my life I have had to forgive people who wounded me.  I learned that from my wounds I gained strength as I realized that they had no power over me.  When I realized that they were just events and they didn’t define me as a person.  When I could truly say that I love,  honor and respect myself too much to let events and circumstances define me.

Therefore your past is a present, a gift.   It’s a gift to learn a lesson from.    If you felt abandoned because you’re parents divorced – realize that their divorce had nothing to do with you and everything to do with their relationship.  Let that feeling of abandonment go and accept the fact that you are the same good person you were before the divorce.

You are awesome.  Gotta love that.  🙂

And, if you want to attract the good stuff into your life – you gotta believe it.

There is only one You

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I am accelerating the journey towards finding my Self and purpose by being a part of David Neagle’s mentor study program. I am on the verge of letting go of the baggage that my Ego wants me to hang onto, I h ave done it before and am doing it again. When I let go before in my life, amazing things showed up. When I realized that there was only one me and I was unique and special and loved myself for that (Yes, that’s a necessary component). When I did that I got a dream job of mine as talk show radio producer and I met my husband. Why didn’t I stay in that place of self-love and non-judgment if those good things were happening?

Don’t know. But, I think it’s because I let the past, my past drive my bus again. You know, that stuff that we carry around that defines us. Those, I’m not good enough feelings that were implanted years ago. Well, no more of that for me. I realize now that there is no past. If it did exist – where is it? It only exists as memories or pictures or old movies, but not in anything tangible. Here’s an analogy. You are a boat – make yourself whatever kind of boat you want – and you are on the ocean. As you move forward, behind you (the past) there is a wake. You look behind and see that the wake exists for a short time and then it just blends in with the rest of the ocean. The wake of the boat is your past. It can have only the control of your Self as you give it.

So, let it go. Let it merge with what it really is – nothing. From today forth – repeat this mantra to yourself. There is only one Me, I am unique and special and I love who I am.

You are not the third grade teacher who told you that you would never amount to anything, you are not the parent who scolded you or whatever negative events happened in the past.

You are an entirely new person, there is not even any cell of your being that is the same as when you were in the third grade (unless you are currently in the third grade!). All those cells have died and been replaced by new cells.

There is only one Me, I am unique and special and I love who I am.

Try it. And go through your day with that thought in mind. Your life will change – it has to.

You have immense power

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Consider this thought for the day.  If you cut yourself shaving you don’t use your conscious mind to heal that wound, do you?  You can’t tell your blood to clot, your cells to form a scab, new cells to generate to create new skin – you don’t consciously do any of that – it just happens with perfect precision.

If you have an emotional wound – then why would you try to use the same mind that can’t heal a cut to heal your emotional wound?  You can’t and never will be able to.  Instead you have to just let your subconscious mind do what it’s meant to do.  Your part in the process?  To neutralize any opinion of the wound.  In other words don’t qualify it as having any size or that it is good or bad.  Instead, think of the wound as just being or think of the event that caused the wound as just neutral.  The event was neither good nor bad – it just was.  It is your build up of that event that gives it energy.  You can neutralize that negative energy by just saying to your Self that it was merely an event.  The only power or energy it has to harm you is what you give it.   So, choose to give it none.

This is not to say that an event like segregation or slavery isn’t “bad”.   However, consider the woman who is segregated and then grows tired of being looked down on and acts accordingly.  Let’s give that woman a name – Rosa Parks.  Rosa was not the only woman of color to be segregated – they all were.  However, Rosa  through her action, united a world that put the wheels in motion so that segregation as she knew it would cease to exist.  Therefore for Rosa – that act of segregation was good, not just for her, but for all her brothers and sisters of color.

This is proof that it is never the event that is “good” or “bad”, but our reaction to it instead.

It’s something to think about…

My purpose is….

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It can and will be felt by you when you reach the truth.  If you think it has to be a lofty “Mother Theresa” or “Ghandi” type goal – here’s one for you.  Michael Jordan’s said that his purpose was to play basketball.  Not a purpose to change the world – but it was what he feels he was put on the planet to do…

I am on a purpose hunt right now, have been for the past 3 or 4 months.  It may take time to reveal itself – but, I have no doubt it’s there.  Why?

Because I have had moments where time stopped, where I was so engrossed and happy to be doing what I was doing.   I was a talk show radio producer and worked an eight hour shift from six pm to 2 am .  And, there were may nights when the 2 am producer either didn’t show up or called to say they couldn’t work.  So, guess who filled it?  That meant that I worked 16 hours answering the phone, queuing up spots, monitoring the broadcast for content and to bleep out any “bad” words, contacting celebrities for the programs, etc.  16 hours straight and loved it.

So, I know that I don’t want to be a talk show producer again – however, there is some valuable info that I can pull out of the tasks that i was doing to show me my purpose.

What could you do for 16 hours straight and be so in love with it that you didn’t feel it was “work”.   There are clues…

Magic in Possibility

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I lived in Jerusalem for 6 weeks many years ago. A girlfriend was attending college and I had the opportunity to stay rent-free in the apartment she was given. Since my friend was in class all of the morning, I had time on my hands to roam the fascinating city. One of my daily walks was to go to the local post office and get the mail for my friends and I. When you’re a long way from home and friends and family, (hint-this was before email) mail is a big deal. I walked through a small residential neighborhood to get to the post office and right across the street from the post office was a tiny little hill, it was more of an incline, anyway, it was just a hill made up of dirt and rocks no grass. I walked up and down this little pebbly incline every day on my way to get the mail. One day, it rained in the morning, and this was unusual. It hadn’t rained the entire time I was there. I left for the post office right after the brief shower was over. When I got to the little hill I thought I had lost my way – I had to look to make sure the post office was there across the street. For, right there in front of me was a rainbow carpet of all different colors of tiny wild flowers that had sprung out of the dirt after the short rain. I realized that they were there all along – there was just one thing missing – water. I stood and just took in their beauty. The next day – they were gone again.

I believe that each of us has that carpet of wild flowers inside of us – that inner beauty that we possess. Another word for it would be the purpose that we were put on this earth to do. Because when we are operating from our sense of purpose – we are aligned with our true selves, are in complete joy and we are creatures of magic and beauty.

To get a hint at what your purpose is – think of three times in your life when you were in such joy that you had no sense of time – were you painting, singing, writing computer code? Who knows? Write down three of those times (not having sex – it’s good – but it doesn’t count for this exercise) and look for the common thread that connects all three? Were you teaching another? Creating something? Don’t worry – we all have a purpose – we were born with it…. You’ll find it. If you have questions – just ask me in the comment section and I’ll help you though it.

What will be different about today?

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Do you want to move closer to your dream life today? Then what are you going to do differently today?

If the answer is yes then do this – change your attitude. Today make it a point to not react negatively to anything – anything that happens through your day. And, I mean anything and everything.

Example: if you’re stuck in traffic on your wayto work and you usually get stressed – change that today. Just be calm and if you can’t be calm – look at yourself being tense and observe what’s going on. Try to just look at your tension as an impartial observer and ask yourself – “Why am I choosing to have this experience?” In other words – why does being in traffic make you tense. Sit with that – you’ll have time….

Throughout the day when you notice your negative reaction to any situation, if your spouse says something that normally would tick you off – Ask yourself this question – Why am I choosing to have this experience? If you spill coffee on your new tie, stub your toe, your car won’t start, WHATEVER…

Do this for one day and take note of the results..

When strange things happen to good people

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Manifestation – getting what you want – it happens in ways that just can’t be planned. It’s so cool to let the Universe do its thing. Here’s a short little story of a recent book I manifested.

But first, the back story.

A couple of weeks ago I toured Louisa May Alcotts house – which was a very interesting experience. Her desk is in the exact place as it was when she lived there, as you can see by a photograph in her bedroom. It’s a very strange feeling to stand right where she stood in the photograph. Anyway, on the tour a book was mentioned, Pilgrim’s Progress by John Bunyan – it was a book that went “viral” back in the late 1800’s and it had to do with some of spiritual principles that I’ve been studying. I made a note that I wanted to get a copy of the book, but as things happen I forgot about it.

That week, I’m reading the book, The Power of Your Supermind by Vernon Howard and there on page 81 what book is mentioned – Yes, Pilgrims Progress. Now, when something comes into my life a couple of times in a short period of time – I take notice. I decide to get a copy of the book for sure. But, I take no action, it’s not high on the “to do” list. However, the Universe had other ideas…

A week later I’m out for a Sunday visit to Ipswich with my son and hubby. We ate at Woodmans – fried clams and lobster roll were so good I didn’t want the meal to end. If you like lobster and clams – then Woodmans is a “must visit”. Anyway, after stuffing our faces I wanted to poke around antique shops. There are quite a few in Ipswich so I just randomly picked one. There were two levels and upstairs were bookcase after bookcase packed with old books. Something told me to check out the first bookcase and the fifth book that I spied was none other than – Yes, you guessed it. Pilgrims Progress by John Bunyan, a small with a green binding published in 1879. The pages are worn, browned and spotted with age, but overall it’s in good shape.

If you could have seen the hundreds of books that were spilling from the bookcases to the floor in the second floor of the antique shop you would be as astonished as I was when I found this little book so easily.

Lesson learned – be careful what you wish for – because it’s on the way the moment you desire it….

Thoughts do become things – think the good ones!!

5 ways to stop struggle

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If you’ve ever felt like life was hard – you’re not seeing the results you want with your business, your weight, your relationships – your fill-in-the-blank.   It doesn’t have to be so hard – in fact – it can and is supposed to be easy.

So, here are 5 tips to ease the struggle, to get you in the flow and put you on the path to living the life the way it was meant to be lived.

1. Be grateful.  This is cool.  No matter what your issue or situation – you have something to be grateful for. I practice this every day now.  Some days I’m grateful that I have hot and cold running water, that I have all the food I could possibly eat, that I have love.  But, here’s the kicker – I also feel grateful – I don’t just think the words.  The feeling is what’s important.  I have to attach those positive feelings to the grateful thoughts.

2. Clear out the clutter.   And, I don’t mean clean out your garage, although that is a good project.  I mean clear out the negative self-talk in your head.  I am very self-aware now when I have negative thoughts.  And, the second I think one- I flip it to a positive thought.  Try it.

3. Stop blaming others.  I used to not even recognize when I was doing this.  I think this one got cemented when I was a kid.  It became natural to blame my brother and then it just became a bad habit.  But, here’s what I know when you blame others – you take away all your power.  If others are to blame for your current situation – then that renders you powerless.  If you don’t take responsibility for exactly what you have created so far in your life – then you can’ t make it better.  So, don’t blame the economy, your boss or the red M & M’s (you don’t have to eat them!).  Instead of blaming take responsibility – it’s got amazing power.

4. Be happy where you are in your pursuit of happiness.  Don’t fall into the trap of – I’ll be happy when I get there – whether there is married, or when you get the bigger house or the better job.  Celebrate where you are – right now.  Because, psst, lean closer because I’m going to whisper and tell you a secret – there is no “there”.  Wherever you are and whatever you are doing there will always be something bigger and better waiting for you.

5. Forgive.  Forgive?  What’s that doing in this list.  What does forgiveness have to do with struggle?  I can tell you from personal experience that I have had to forgive people who I thought caused me harm because that suppressed anger was holding me back.  That anger and resentment was causing me to think that I wasn’t worthy of success – what a load of crap.  If there are any people or situations that have hurt you – let them go.  Forgive whoever and whatever it was.  Write a letter forgiving and then burn it, rip it up – flush it.  That event doesn’t even exist anymore – it’s in the past and you live in the now.

If you’re struggling

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In every breeze, gliding down every rainbow in the warming rays of the sun and the gentle patter of a light summer rain – life’s beauty glows all around us. There is magic in possibility as the Universe is just waiting for you to be ready to receive its blessings. Your soul – your inner beauty and wisdom shines as a beacon for you – a guiding light to serve you and guide you on your journey through Life.

Trust in the Power of the Universe and surrender your false, limiting beliefs to its knowledge. It knows the way and will keep your path clear and full of opportunities around every corner. Be grateful for its wisdom and the things it has given you so far.

The world needs your soul to keep it whole.

Have Faith.

I’ll give you a list of things you can do to stop struggling with my next post.