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Monthly Archives: January 2009

10 Ways to Celebrate Yourself and Your Achievements

When was the last time you patted yourself on the back?

I know, we are always told that it’s not polite to laud yourself, that you should be humble. But there’s a problem with that philosophy. It conveniently lets you overlook your own contributions to the world, and reinforces that your value is insignificant. Nothing could be farther from the truth. EVERYTHING you do is significant—to yourself, to others around you and to the world at large. And when you perform acts or tasks that are particularly outstanding, important, inspired, creative, kind, or expanding beyond your previous expertise or experience, you deserve to be recognized. Whether that recognition is from outside of yourself or simply inside, it is imperative to acknowledge your success and growth.

If you are like me, you often rush through your day looking ahead at the tasks on your “to do” list or the things you must accomplish by the end of the week. You are focused on the future and you have skipped over what you might just have done. I have been very fortunate to have been in a coaching program with the elegant visionary personal growth leader Barbara DeAngelis, who reminded me that I seldom stop and applaud myself for all of the things I accomplish. I’m always thinking about what’s next…and in so doing, I minimize what I HAVE achieved. This is focusing on LACK. I look at my book sales and think, “What am I not doing, where have I not marketed my book?”  instead of  “Look how far we’ve come in sales and how many people we are influencing to change their lives!”  Or I think “I’m not reaching enough people to deliver my message of Conscious Creation,” instead of saying, “Wow, now I have a fantastic video of myself speaking to an audience on the website, I have a speech I love, a powerpoint presentation, a speaker’s packet, a flyer promoting my speaking engagements and I’m poised to take off as a professional speaker!”

Do you do this, too? Minimize your achievements while you narrow your focus to what you haven’t YET done?

If we want to raise our personal frequency, there’s no better way than recognizing our own personal achievements, relaxing into our success, and feeling good about what we’ve accomplished before setting off on the next quest!

So we have to STOP, breathe and pat ourselves on the back. This is abundance in action. This is compassion for ourselves and gratitude for our own gifts.

You must shift how you look at your own life and mine it for the myriad successes you forget to celebrate.

Therefore to make you consciously OWN your own wonderful achievements, start a list of 10 Achievements You Should Celebrate and then 10 Ways to Celebrate Them!  

To create your list of achievements, look at everything you do in your life—don’t minimize simple tasks that you take for granted. But pick the ones that are the greatest stretch for you, the ones that required effort, intellect, creativity, perseverance, love or inspiration. 

Then periodically make sure that you stop and practice self –appreciation with one of the following 10 celebrations –or others that you might create. 

  1. Give your self a minimum of 15 minutes of reverent silence and gleeful pride! (It’s OK to be proud as long as you are not gloating over others!)
  2. Share with your dearest friends, your lover or your family your joy over your victories and achievements. They will assuredly mirror back to you wonderful happiness for you and encouragement. Of course, thank them for their support of you.
  3. Write a letter to yourself extolling your achievements, your talents and your special abilities that enabled you to be successful. Be grateful to yourself, as well as the Universe! 
  4. Light a candle and bask in its flame. Light incense and drink in the scent of your success. Enjoy the sunset with a nice glass of wine.
  5. Take a long luxurious bubble bath and think about what you’ve achieved. (Alternate, jump in the Jacuzzi or spa and indulge yourself with a long soak.)
  6. Spend part of the day outdoors in nature renewing your appreciation for yourself, reinforced and blessed by the flowers, the animals and the positive energy of the sun.
  7. Take a day off and once an hour remember why you’ve earned that day.
  8. Make or go out for a nice dinner and invite someone you want to celebrate with.
  9. Get a massage or go to the day spa, so you can treat your body and your mind with pampering love!
  10. Keep a journal of your achievements and look it over weekly, monthly and again on New Year’s Eve Day.  Toast to your achievements at year’s end, along with some special friends. Toast to theirs, too!

So now I toast to you…and please email me any other ways that you celebrate your success. I want to hear what you are personally doing to pause and recognize how wonderful and unique you are—and what a gift you are to this world!

Noteable Quote

“If you realized how powerful your thoughts are, you would never think a negative thought.”–

Dorothy Thompson

Book Reviews

Tiny Little Books that Can Make a Big Impact

 

Life Was Never Meant To Be a Struggle by Stuart Wilde

Inner Talk For a Love That Works by Susan Jeffers, PhD.

 

We’re all used to weighty tomes with big ideas that help us with our enlightenment, but here are two little tiny books that have wonderful gems of wisdom. I have no doubt that you will see yourself reflected in this terrific, quick reading reminders of who we can be better selves. Life Was Never Meant to Be a Struggle has the following fun and humorous chapters: The Strugglers Hall of Fame (our archetypal personalities), Identifying Struggle (as if we can’t do that one pretty easily!), The Struggler’s Hit Parade (identifying traits and excuses) and a Dumping Struggle (“why didn’t I think of that?” summary of how to stop doing destructive behavior). It’s witty and pithy.

 

Inner Talk for a Love That Works are short affirmations, some very haiku-style, that are designed to replace our negative self talk. This is definitely a woman’s book, and it hits close to home for most of us. These are designed to perk you up and create profound transformation with simple thoughts. A nice way 15-20-minute read, that should be repeated in the morning or before bed at least once a week!

 

You can find these books at www.Manifestbooks.com

Conscious Creation Tip

Attracting the Friends You Want

As you begin traveling a more conscious and high frequency path, you may discover that many of the friends you had previously no longer seem right in your life—or they may not feel comfortable with the changes you are making. Particularly negative people can consistently pull you back into old habits, they can just lower your mood or irritate you. If you decide to spend less time with them, you may create a void in your life, which may in turn lead to a sense of loneliness. So here’s an important idea…Consciously create the kind of new friends that you DO want! It’s something that I did. I asked the Universe to present me with new like-minded, high frequency friends. And now my cup runneth over with amazing, loving, supportive, giving, caring, grateful, kind people who are all focused on making their immediate world and the bigger world at large better for their presence. And it happened within just a couple of months from the point of my asking for it! I feel truly blessed that my request—my conscious intention– was made manifest in such incredible richness. Do try it yourself!

Conscious Creation in the Workplace

 

How often do you find yourself wishing your work environment was better, that your boss was more respectful, that your colleagues weren’t so cliquish or irresponsible, that the people you supervise were more committed and responsive to your direction? Do you sometimes think about quitting and moving on?

 

Before you do that, let’s explore how you can apply Conscious Creation to the situation and see if you can transform your work environment. First review the three actions that constitute Conscious Creation:

 

·         Raising Your Personal Frequency—eliminating all negative vibrations of fear, anger, anxiety, jealousy, etc and instead disseminating wavelengths of patience, acceptance, love, gratitude and joy. This will enable you to manifest faster and with greater potency.

·         Creating the Vision of what you desire to occur, and then feel it in your imagination with the powerful emotions you would be experiencing when this vision manifests.

·         Being an “Actionary–taking action to demonstrate to the Universe that you are willing to back up your request, thereby putting in motion those extra “brownie points” that the Universe affords those who show their commitment through deed.

 

When transforming the workplace, the first thing you must do is look at what you are emitting. If you are allowing your anger, frustration and anxiety to dominate your presence than you are contributing to the environment you are experiencing. Once you neutralize the negativity factor, by choosing instead to vibrate in the high range, you will start to see a change. Never go into work dreading the day, anticipating problems or feeling overwhelmed at the workload on your desk. This energy will set the tone for what you receive that day. Make sure you start your day with a positive, optimistic, joyful attitude of exuberance…think to yourself: “What great adventure or wonderful thing will I experience today?” 

 

Now that you’ve started shifting your behavior, let’s look at what you can do to reshape your environment. 

 

Let’s consider these five scenarios:

 

Your boss, clients and others higher on the food chain: If you are feeling disrespected, unappreciated or unacknowledged, than there are several things you can do. The first is to act toward your supervisors in the kind of way you wish to be treated…show them great respect, wonderful appreciation and acknowledgment for what they do for you. Let the positive energy flow from you first. You brighten their day, since the s…t rolls downhill and they are feeling the pressure, too. Secondly, begin to visualize–with the emotional component–the type of interactions you want to have, the specific acts of regard and respect that you would like to see offered to you. Feel lifted, respected, recognized, happy since you’ve been spoken to with encouragement, instead of commanded to do something.   

 

Now if you anticipate that there is a matter ahead that could be unpleasant or you’re interacting with someone who often mistreats you, start by putting yourself in a cocoon of love. Allow that love to permeate every cell in your body. This is your transformative armor. Now, before you meet, in your imagination extend your “love net” out from your body over that person. See him or her transformed with love, compassion, regard and kindness. Then project movies in your mind of all the great things that will occur in your meeting and the type of positive interactions you seek. Allow your high frequency energy to set the tone. You can use this technique with any of the people you encounter professionally.   

 

Group dynamics: The first and foremost thing that you can do is walk into a meeting with a genuine smile and your welcoming warmth. This should immediately have some effect on the low vibration people in the room! Make sure that all of your comments come out of a high vibration space—you can bring up potential downsides, but do it in a constructive way. Monitor your words to ensure that whatever you are contributing, raises the frequency in the room. If you are the leader, than you may want to see if you can start out the meeting by asking everyone what they would like to achieve and then formulate a short image or “guided meditation” of what you’d like to accomplish given everyone’s input. That Consciously Creates a positive intention for the resolution and achievement of outcome.

 

Co-workers: Every company has its gossips, people who blame others, individuals who fail to pull their weight, etc. The first thing to remember is that you are responsible for how you respond or react – and you actually don’t need to do either. You can simply stay in your high frequency state, and don’t allow others to make you angry, annoyed or disgusted. Focus on your own path, responsibility and personal satisfaction. However, if their work impacts yours, then you should use your power of positive vibration and visualization to start changing the dynamic. Once you’ve done that, use a strategy of high vibration, positive word-choice communication to propose new solutions to your interactions. Go into meditation and ask for guidance on what and how you should suggest those new solutions. You’ll receive great answers as long as you are vibrating with positive intentions! 

 

People You Supervise: Lead by example. Use your high vibration attitude and communications as a bellweather for your staff. Make your staff conscious of their own vibrations. Set up contests to eliminate negative communications. Reward those who make the most progress and show the most regard for others. Or simply compliment those who demonstrate high vibration leadership. Encourage your staff to set their own intentions for their achievements and their behaviors, using Conscious Creation and visualization. When you have staff whose work or actions need guidance, direction or correction, first toss your love net, set an intention for a positive result, visualize what you want to see happen (with emotion—i.e.see yourself enthusiastically congratulating that person for making the change)  and then begin the dialogue with high frequency communication techniques.   

 

Physical Environment: Some of the things that cause dissonance the most are space limitations, lack of window or uplifting light, or dingy or unkempt upkeep.

 

With space limitations, create a radiance around you that you feel extends well beyond your cubicle or desk. Let your positive vibration energy extend outward. Open your space to a feeling of expansion, knowing that your support and freedom comes from the entire reaches of the Universe, not just your little office space and immediately adjacent co-workers. Make your space your own. Bring joyful things or put fun screen savers on your computer. Let your personality shine! Own your space with loving energy!

 

With the issue of limited natural light, make sure you leave the building at least once everyday to get that wonderful “hit” of natural energy from the outdoors and sun…then bring your sunshine back into your space. If you can have a say in the lighting, install or ask your employers to install full spectrum lighting because this elevates vibration and mood.  Give yourself a short meditation when you feel you need it, so that you can replenish your “light from inside.”

 

Now when it comes to the upkeep of the office, you can choose not to leave it to your bosses if they have neglected the situation. You can be the force for upliftment for everyone in the office! Volunteer to head up a crew on a Friday to clean files, repaint the office, create order…whatever will create pride and positive energy in the office. Ask the boss to pay for lunch for everyone who participates, and encourage your boss to join the crew. Turn it into a fun project to which everyone plans and contributes. Let it be a team-building venture. With your cleanup effort, set a group intention to open up a stream of positive energy that allows goodwill to flow and greater success and prosperity for the whole company.

 

Employ your wonderful abilities in Conscious Creation in your workplace and you will see a transformation in yourself and everyone around you!

Noteable Quote

“The influence of each human being on others in this life is a kind of immortality.”—John Quincy Adams

CD Review

LifeVisioning by Michael Bernard Beckwith

From the moment I heard him speak on The Secret and saw him on Oprah, I was entranced by the words of Michael Bernard Beckwith. I have also had the pleasure of seeing him speak at Agape International, the

Spiritual

Center

that he founded. Beckwith has as amazing gift for choosing the right words and putting them together in a way that is extraordinarily meaningful and beautiful…appealing directly to the soul. He is always uplifting, inspiring you to reach for ascendance and living your highest potential. This six-CD set gives people the wisdom and guidance to go beyond becoming a manifestor, but to reach for becoming a being that allows the Universe to work through you. He sites the four stages of spiritual growth: Stage One, “Victim Consciousness,” finds ones in constant reaction to things happening “to me” at the hands of a power outside of our control. Stage Two, as “Manifestor,” you take responsibility for your life and put the laws of the Universe to work for you. In Stage Three, as a “Channel” we surrender our will to a higher intelligence that functions “through us.: In Stage Four, “Being Consciousness” manifests as enlightened living, allowing the Universe to function “through you.”    

 

This is powerful content, compellingly delivered. Beckwith uses guided meditations, creative visualizations, affirmations and more to help individuals navigate the four stages, allowing you to fully be the person you were brought here to be. It was incredibly elevating for me and I know you would find as much value in it as I did.

 

You can find this CD Set at www.Manifestbooks.com

Conscious Creation Tip

Candles

Burning candles are a wonderful way to support your spiritual unfolding. There are many reasons you might want to burn candles, not just for atmosphere. Candles represent light–your inner illumination and the Universe’ power of illumination—knowledge, wisdom, connection, expansion. Candles are energy. They help to create a powerful vibration that resonates in concert with the Universe’s frequency. When you light a candle with intention, it is like sending a message to the cosmic post office. You are delivering it priority mail. You’re taking advantage of the candle’s energy transmission to hitch a ride with your intention. Concentrating on the candle allows you to focus your intention, to give it greater opportunity to manifest. You can light candles for others, as people have done throughout history, or you can light candles to support your desire to manifest. To make it even more powerful, we actually have candles in stock at ManifestBooks.com that are designated to support specific intentions including: Abundance, Compassion,  Confidence, Courage, Creativity, Good Health, Harmony,  Healing,  Joy,  Love,  Money,  Motivation,  Peace,  Positive Energy,  Problem Solving, Wisdom and even Manifest-A-Miracle.  The ingredients and scents are a vibrational match to your intention! Whether you use these or any other, hold each candle in your hands and invest it with your intention and desire before burning it.

Finding Freedom from Guilt: The Forgotten Frequency

 

Oftentimes when we think of negative frequencies that keep us mired in unhappy, unsatisfying lives, we point to fear, anger, hatred, revenge and jealousy—strong powerful emotions. But there is one negative frequency that is just as poisoning which most people forget about because its one we inflict on ourselves….and that is guilt.

 

Guilt is defined in the dictionary as a feeling of responsibility, remorse or regret for some offense, crime, wrong, etc.—“whether real or imagined.”

 

Guilt seems benign. Nobody need know about it, but you. You can hide it well. You can bury it. You can even be unaware that you have it. Guilt is insidious. It makes you feel worthless and unworthy. It may prevent you from playing the role you are destined to play in the world because you’re afraid of “being found out.”  Guilt allows others to manipulate and enslave you. It certainly stymies your ability to be a Conscious Creator, keeping you mired in low frequency vibrations, rather than the positive high frequencies that allow you to manifest effectively and to lead a happier, struggle-free life of your own direction.

 

Guilt could be for what you “aren’t.” It could be for what you did or didn’t do. It could be over your complicity in someone else’s downfall. It might be for not speaking up on behalf of someone else—or for yourself. It could be for your failure to please another—your boss, your spouse, your children, your parents. It could be over lies told, promises broken or integrity shattered. Maybe you feel guilty for errors made in judgment, relationships that you torpedoed, people you let go out of your life that you now regret. Or perhaps you just feel guilty for not being a better person, one who judges not and loves unconditionally.

 

Whatever reasons that you have to justify feeling guilty, they are illusory, unnecessary and unproductive. You don’t need to spend your life punishing yourself for acts you felt were wrong–  real or perceived. By holding onto guilt you cannot live fully –it’s like being truncated, held down or tethered. You cannot fly if you are still anchored to the earth. When you release guilt and open yourself for forgiveness and renewal, and allow the Universe to salve your wounds, you can begin to sprout wings. You can move forward in freedom and create positive new experiences that are unburdened by guilt and remorse.

 

 

  Here are nine steps you can take to release guilt and elevate your spirit:

 

  1. Look at the issue with objective eyes. Is this really your problem? Is it real or imagined? Is this truly your responsibility? Put it in perspective…is this really worth worrying about? If you were to look back in a year…would anybody really care?  

 

  1. Examine what fear this guilt masks. What do you fear you will lose? If you look at the  worst case scenario, it’s probably not half as bad as your imagination manufactures. What really can be taken from you if you value and believe in yourself?

 

  1. If the guilt is caused by something that might be healed or changed, step up and try to correct the situation or apologize. Look for a middle ground or solution. Your overtures may be accepted and they may not, but you have taken the right step to try to resolve it.

 

  1. Then you must forgive yourself. This is the most essential step in the process. It’s OK to acknowledge errors or mistakes made in the past, but if you set a new course through your intentions and actions, you deserve forgiveness from yourself. And of course the Universe will demonstrate forgiveness once you have shown love and respect for yourself.

 

  1. Let go of the past. Don’t hold onto the negative vibrations or negative memories. Experience the emotion, wrap it up in a shiny balloon and imagine it being lifted out of sight into the galaxy where it is transmuted. And then deliberately and intentionally release the burden of guilt…imagine taking off the yoke and walking away unbowed.

 

  1. Build new bridges and create a new pattern of behavior. When you consciously change your behavior to live with integrity in your actions and relationships, you generate new karmic energy. Present the authentic “new you” as you go forward in life and create new relationships…don’t mourn the old ones, just see them as a learning experience. 

 

  1. Make wise choices so you won’t have a reason to feel guilty. Use your best judgment going forward. Look at the long term consequences of your actions, weigh all the considerations before committing yourself. This doesn’t mean that everything will be perfect, but it does mean that your “right action” has set an intention for a course that is healthy for you, others and the world. You have created a situation where you know you’ve done your very best.      

 

  1. Vigilantly watch for signs of guilt and take steps to eradicate it. Zap guilt like you would an annoying knat. If you feel it coming on, look back and go through the steps above.

 

  1. Release and live free of guilt. Give yourself a break! You deserve to live guilt-free. Make an intention to never return to the yoke of guilt. Focus on the life ahead and living it with joy and freedom. 

Noteable Quote

"Joy is what happens to us when we allow ourselves to recognize how good things really are."– Marianne Williamson