Blessings

I am sending out my gratitude for all the wonderful things in my life. For my wonderful family and friends as you are the meaning of life. Let us all take from Thanksgiving a commitment to be more aware for the next year of the good in our life. To consciously send our energy to the things we wish to experience with deep emotion and faith.
Blessing and light to all!
Happy Thanksgiving!

Optimism or Pessimism: Which one do you choose?

This blogs ideas will be taken from a book called Learned Optimism: How to Change Your Mind and Change Your Life. By Martin E. P. Seligman , Ph.D.
I highly recommend this book if you like deep clinical type books. It is taking me longer to read than most because it is so clinical. He does do a great job of bringing you in on it though.

Anyway on to the ideas.
It has been a great learning experience for me. I have always thought of myself as pretty optimistic however I have become aware of the pessimism I still hold onto in parts of my life.
In the book Dr Seligman talks about ways to identify whether you hold pessimistic view or optimistic. He has identified 3 different ways that we explain how things happen to us. By looking at these 3 different ways of explaining what happens to us we can identify whether we hold an optimistic or pessimistic view on life.
The 3 things he uses are:

1. Personalization
2. Pervasiveness
3. Permanence

The idea is that if when you explain why an event happened how you explain the why of the event you take the event personal ( I caused it), see it as global ( this ALWAYS happens) and/or it seems permanent to you then you are looking through the glasses of pessimism.
If you see it as caused by outside forces, as specific to that situation or as temporary then you are looking from an optimistic view.
Studies that Dr Seligman sited showed that pessimistic thinking eventually led to depression in people. His belief is that depression can be lessened by becoming conscious of our "explanatory style" and change it to be more optimistic.

EFT lends well to his theory so far. EFT can be used to release and let go of some of the beliefs he talks about in the book. If you find that you are frequently evaluating, either with others or with your self talk things as permanent, personal or global then it is time to change those thoughts to more positive thinking. I have found that the negative thoughts come from negative beliefs about your self that were started long before the present issue.
I will take a basic idea and show you how you could tap on the personal aspect:
This assumes you know the basic tapping of EFT.
If you want to learn more about EFT you can visit the link at the bottom of the post.

Starting on the Karate Chop Point:

Even though I feel like everything is my fault and blame myself, I deeply and completely love and accept myself.
Even though I was taught to blame myself for things that just happen, I deeply and completely love and accept myself.
Even though I have this habit of thinking I am bad when something bad happens, I deeply completely love and accept myself.

Eyebrow:
It must be my fault cause it happened to me
Side of eye:
I feel like most things are my fault
Under eye:
I must of done something wrong or something bad would not of happened
Under nose:
I was taught to blame myself
Under Mouth:
I feel guilty all the time
Collar bone:
I can't believe it is not my fault
Under arm:
It has to someones fault
Top head:
so it must be my fault

2nd round

Karate Chop:
I choose to begin to accept that not everything I feel guilty about is my fault
It may be possible that I have been taking more responsibility then I need to
I know someone taught me to blame myself but maybe that might not be the truth

Eye brow:
Yes it is important to take responsibility for what I do
Side of the eye:
But I don't need to blame myself for little things that just happen
Under Eye:
I can just learn from the experience without placing blame '
Under nose:
or taking on guilt
Under mouth:
I cannot possibly be completely responsible for every thing that happens to me.
Under Arm:
Other people may sometimes have responsibility for their actions that affect me
Top of head:
So I choose to 2nd guess whether I really was to blame or if I need to take responsibility for what happened.
Karate Chop:
I am letting go of the my blame and guilt pattern now!
Repeat this last phrase 3 times on Karate Chop.

Take 3 deep breaths preferably with your eyes closed and check in with how true it sounds that you are responsible for most everything that happens to you.
Repeat this tapping sequence as needed to relieve blame and guilt patterns.

You could do a similar sequence with the feeling of things being permanent.

Happy Tapping,
Liesl Anderson

To learn more about EFT Visit http://www.emofree.com

The Importance of Emotion

" Emotion is a very powerful creative force in this dimension. When you feel something emotionally, you will create a situation or condition to warrant it. The abundance of this universe is directed by emotion rather than by your ego. Emotion is thought forms that are felt. Energy follows that energy; and it does so in abundance. Perhaps this is why your affirmations might be in effective at times - you focus insufficient emotional energy on them or you negate them with "nots" or some other negating verbiage.
How do you feel about what you want in your life? How do you feel about what you do not want in your life? As you focus your energy on what you do want, with emotion , it will tend to manifest. "
Taken from Skills for Life Teachers Manual

By focusing on what you do not want in life you increase the chances of experiencing the negative thing you are trying to avoid.

You can use EFT to tap on the negative side of affirmations and reframe in positive wording and energy.

Here is an example of how to use EFT.

Tapping on Karate chop point repeat 3 times:
Even though I really don't want _____________________ to happen I deeply and completely love and accept myself.

Then tap on the body points repeating the main idea of what you don't want:

EB: I really really don't want _______________ to happen
SE: I am scared __________________ is going to happen
UE: I don't know what I would do if ___________________ happened
UN: I am doing everything I can to avoid ___________________ happening
Chin: I really am afraid _____________________ is going to happen
CB: I need to keep on guard and aware so that _________________________________ doesn't happen
UA: I need to avoid ___________________ at all cost
TH: I am focusing all my energy on ______________________ so it does not happen


Positive Reframe:
Karate chop point:
I choose now to see that by thinking about and creating feelings of fear about ______________________ happening I may be inviting it in through my energy
If I want ________________________ to not happen maybe I can think of the positive opposite of that and choose to focus on that.
If I wanted to avoid darkness in my life I would focus on creating light to relieve the darkness.

Tap on the body points as you repeat these reframes:
I choose to attract _____________________ ( positive opposite) into my life
I will do what I can to create ____________________ in my life
I am letting go of my need to focus on the negative side of what I want and don't want
I am understanding that by focusing with great emotion on light it will chase away the darkness in my life.

Tap on the body points while repeating these reframes as many times as you like.
Remember to put a lot of emotion into the tapping on both sides.. the releasing and reframing.
Sometimes it helps to picture in your mind the positive thing you wish to happen with a lot of details. To add sounds, sights, smells and touch help to make it more real to your mind and energy system.


You can learn more about EFT at: http://www.emofree.com

Would You Wear a Size 5 Shoe?

If someone you dearly loved gave you a size 5 shoe for a gift would you wear it even though you wore a size 8?
What a silly question right? Of course you would not squeeze your size 8 foot into a size 5 and wear that shoe around causing you great pain and discomfort. That would make no sense at all. You would likely just thank the person for their gift and inform them that you wore size 8 not 5. However what if they had the belief that every one wore size 5 and it was the right size to wear? How would you respond to that belief?
This is a funny thought. I was working with a client this morning in which this analogy came to me in relation to taking on family beliefs. Sometimes we take on and continue old family beliefs that are harming and hurting us just cause they were "given" to us from those we love and trust. Just like squeezing a size 8 foot into a size 5 shoe would cause us great pain and if done over and over again eventually would disform our foot, so do our old beliefs cause us pain and distort our beliefs and behaviours in life. It is healthy to review the beliefs our family has passed down and see if they are helping us in our lives and if they have any basis in reality or if they have become only self fulfilling prophecies in our family. One belief that comes up in families often is not to surpass you parents success. You need to keep your level of success close to your parents as to not show them up. This is one of those size 5 shoes that will keep your foot from growing as it is meant to be. It is self serving on the parents part to protect their ego and beliefs about themselves. They need to keep others down in order to make themselves feel better. They likely don't do it on purpose but will criticize or sabotage family members who look like they are about to surpass them in success. Their belief benefits them and no one else. If you find this pattern and belief in your family you can just acknowledge that it is on old size 5 shoe that does not fit your size 8 foot and discard it. If the family reacts to you challenging the belief you will know that it is just them not understanding that you have a size 8 foot. There is nothing wrong with what you are doing and eventually they will accept the change and allow the belief to be different. In fact possibly they will learn to be proud of your success and you will have shifted the belief for all family members to create success in the future.

There is an old saying:
" The best thing you can do for the poor is not be one of them"
I cannot remember the author I am sorry. But it is, I believe a true statement. Show them the way through your shedding of the old way of thinking and behaving and creating a successful present and future!

EFT and Rapid Eye are great techniques to help you shed and discard old family beliefs and traditions that are no longer helping but hurting you.

You can check out EFT at: http://www.emofree.com

Happy Fall Everyone!

Letting Go When it is Time

Today my blog will be more personal. My mind has been on the subject of letting go of those we love when it is there time to transition to whatever is next in life for them. Sometimes that transition is death. We have a 15yr old kitty that we just had to put down yesterday as she had a tumor in her body that was causing her to starve to death. Very sad. However a great lesson in life for my kids to learn to let go of something or someone when it is time. To learn to grieve and say goodbye knowing that life will go on and we can move through the grief process and grow and learn from the experience. My son said last night that he felt bad the times he did not want the kitty in his room when she was meowing at the door. He started to take the regret road but recovered quickly as that is a road of judgment and usually does not lead to learning, only blaming. The whole family is sad but practicing how to let go and grieve. Blessings to our wonderful kitty, Princess Jasmine! We love you and miss you!

The Language of Emotional Intelligence

I went on a book run at Barnes and Noble last week and picked up a few books to read and expand my understanding of myself and my clients.
The first one I started was on the topic of Emotional Intelligence. I have never read a book about EI but have heard a lot about it. I was done with it in less then 2 days. It just what I needed right now. Funny how that works. :) When we are better able to understand ourselves and others there is so much less judgement and pain. This book is great at helping us understand our own challenges and the challenges of others in the area of communication and EI.

Here are some of the concepts from the book:
If we did not learn to experience emotional intelligence as a child then we still can!
Our first experience learning how to get our needs met as an infant without words is how we are "suppose" to learn EI.
Learning to managing stress helps us to be more emotionally intelligent.
You can learn to sooth yourself in a healthy way and therefore making yourself more able to communicate in an EI way with others.
Our body language says so much more about what we feel than our words.
We need to be comfortable with your own emotions, good and bad, without getting overwhelmed by them, that is where the soothing skills comes in.
Without EI a relationship will experience many more pitfalls and pain then if the couple is able to create EI within themselves and bring it to the relationship.

That is just a short idea of what is in the book. The book provides exercises for improving your emotional intelligence.
The books title is: The Language of Emotional Intelligence
The Five Essential Tools for Building Powerful and Effective Relationships.
by Jeanne Segal, Ph.D

She also Authored Raising Your Emotional Intelligence
Which I have not read yet.

Happy Reading!

Harmony and Rhythm

"You are part of the universe, no less than the stars and trees, and you have a right to be here. And whether it is clear to you or not, no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should...." Desiderata

We are part of the universe and our lives are governed by the same laws that govern the rest of the cosmos. We need to keep a balance as does the rest of nature. We take time to grow and time to heal. Our lives will always move in cycles because that is the universal law: We need time to rest and recuperate, as do all other living things.

Taken from RET Life Skills Manual

http://www.rapideyetechnology.com