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Bryan told me once about this woman that rode his bus every morning at 6 am on her way to work.  And he said she was always put together, walked with her head held high, her back straight, she’d look people in the eye and you just knew that she KNEW what she stood for.   She radiated confidence, success, and empowerment.

For weeks I couldn’t get her off my mind even though I had never met or seen her.  She intrigued me.   What story did she tell herself every day?  What thoughts ran through her mind?  How did she view the world?  I meditated on it and the answer became obvious very quickly and it led me to a huge shift in my own thinking. 

This woman must not only care about her outward appearance for the sake of looking good; but she must must also deeply love herself from the inside out.  There are many people who can get dressed up but not all of them own it – and you can tell.  I began examining how I really felt about myself and discovered that on a scale of 1-10, my self love was embarassingly below 5.  Ok, it was like a 2 or 3. 

This is tough to admit, but I suddently understood why I hadn’t felt motivated to exercise, to eat right, to even get out of PJs when I didn’t have to go anywhere during the day.  I knew all these things were good for me but deep down I didn’t feel like I really deserved to feel good.  After all, I didn’t really, 100% love myself.  Worst of all, I realized I wasn’t walking my talk with my kids, my clients, anyone!  Bad…very bad, indeed.

So I pulled out my arsenal of tools and took myself through a Breakthrough Session.  I released all negative emotions and limiting beliefs surrounding my self love and felt like I had been reborn!  All of a sudden I wanted to exercise because it was good for me and I didn’t have to fight with my will power anymore.  All my junk food cravings are gone – it’s bizarre how food is so connected to how we feel.  I dressed myself in a way that made me feel good – and if I wanted to hang out in my PJs, I did!  I did it for me and not anyone else.  Once I could really say that I loved myself deep down to the core, I automatically made better choices. 

I finally knew what that woman knew every morning when she woke up.  I knew what story she was telling herself.   I want all women, men, and children to love themselves.  So even though this wasn’t the easiest blog to write and it took me a long time to drum up the courage to share this, I hope it inspires you to take a good look at yourself and be honest about how you feel about yourself.   Once you know where you are on that self love scale it’s so simple to get yourself to a place of unconditional love for yourself!

As this year is drawing to a close I challenge you to take an inventory of your own feelings for yourself.  There is no greater feeling in the world than love.  You feel it for your kids and your spouse, I’m sure.  It’s time to feel it for YOU and experience all your possibilities become reality!

I recently had the opportunity to share some bits of wisdom on communication on Breakfast Television.  Here is the link to the video. 

http://video.citytv.com/video/detail/711822041001.000000/holiday-family-communication/

- Avoid the My Stress Is Bigger Than Your Stress game

- Make the time to connect

- Watch your language

Do you sometimes have days when you feel like you got nothing done? It seems like you time spend zipping from one errand to the next, take the kids from here to there, do this, do that…and at the end of it all your to do list remains undone. Been there done that! It’s the fastest way to frustration!

What if you were to stop and actually take inventory of what you did accomplish during such a day? That list would be long, I’m sure. Just because you didn’t do everything on your proverbial to do list, doesn’t mean you got nothing done.

Writing down all the big and small tasks that you do accomplish each day goes a long way to make you feel really good about yourself. It’s like having a backwards to do list. Instead of writing the list and crossing off things as you do them, you just write the things you’ve done! To me the best part of a list is the crossing off part – I’ve even writted in tasks I’ve accomplished that weren’t on there just so I can cross them off!

Feeling good about yourself and being grateful for what you do accomplish is important to keep your energy and motivation high. This is why taking an inventory of what you’ve accomplished this past year is a great idea to set the momentum for the new year.

It’s easy to slip into that same mentality of “I got nothing done last year that I wanted to do!” Chances are that’s not true at all. Take a moment and write out a list of all your accomplishments since the beginning of the year and revel in it!

And if there were some things that you wanted to do but didn’t – well, you can choose to focus on doing them now. Ask yourself:

What changes will you make that will help you accomplish those goals next year?

What resources do you already have in place to accomplish them?

What resources do you need?

Then just take action. And remember to pat yourself on the back for everything you do get done. Focusing your energy on what you don’t do or have or on what’s wrong in your life brings you more of the same.

What are you willing to do differently next year to make sure you’re in the place you want to be in December 2011?

What You Don’t Want

You’ve probably heard it said that what you think about expands. What does this mean exactly? It means that wherever you put your focus and attention, you get more of that. Think about it this way: in the area of your life where you have everything you want and it’s working like a finely oiled machine, your focus is very likely not on all the things that make it not work. It’s on those wonderful things that make it such a great part of your life! If you’re a healthy and fit individual that is in great physical state then you don’t go around worrying that you’re going to lose that. Just like if you have a meaningful, close and loving relationship with your spouse you don’t spend your days thinking about how to avoid the next fight or argument. You don’t have to worry about such things because they are not part of your life. Because you don’t think about them or focus on them, they don’t come into your awareness. You focus on being healthy and on loving and respecting your spouse. And that’s what you get more of!

Now, in the area where you don’t have everything you want you probably spend a lot of your day worrying and thinking about how bad things are. If you don’t like your current job you focus on all the ways in which you don’t like it. Or if you’re battling your weight you focus on all the ways in which your body doesn’t behave or look like what you want it to. And you get more of the same! Even when you try to change something you are stopped by all sorts of fears that come up for you.

We can look at this from the scientific perspective too. Your unconscious mind doesn’t process negatives. Your unconscious mind is also the goal getter, it’s where your values, motivation, behaviours, beliefs, and attitudes are encoded. (This is why this System focuses so much on working with your unconscious mind – because that’s where the change must occur for it to last.)

When you think about what you want in your amazing relationship your unconscious mind helps you get more of that because you’re thinking about it in positive ways. For example, I want respect and love and closeness.

When you think about not wanting to be heavy or not wanting that job you hate, you think about it in the negative. For example, “I don’t want to be heavy and unhealthy” or “I wish I wasn’t so tired all the time” or “I don’t like this job.” Your unconscious mind can’t process “do not want” or “do not like” and what it hears you saying and thinking is “I do want” or “I do like.” And that’s what it helps you get.

“You can’t not think about something without first thinking about it; think about that.” ~Dr Matthew James.

The good news is that you already know what you don’t want. Once you clear all that out you can begin to focus on what you do want so that you get more of it in your life. Worksheet #2 will get you started listing all the things you don’t want.  Sometimes you need to empty yourself of all the negatives in order to be able to focus on the positives.