Activities To Build Self Esteem

I have designed some activities to build self esteem that I would like to share from an excerpt of a series of lessons I am designing on “mental self defense strategies”.

Dream Busters ~ Recognizing Resistance~

We have all suffered some forms of conflict or abuse in our lives. But here’s what I discovered: it is how we react to that abuse that will strengthen or weaken us. Everyone has dreams, right? How many of us have had a dream kicked to the curb? Can you remember what you wanted to be? Or do you have a dream right now tucked away in the back of your mind?

Have you ever been convinced to walk away from your dream by people who managed to throw enough self doubt at you to win that war of attrition; the constant day in and day out negative input that pushes you to give up your dreams and conform to something you’re not! “What are you nuts? You can’t do that!” “Oh there’s another hair brained scheme!” “Get Real! Go get a real job!” “Who do you think you are? You aren’t something special, stick to the things you can handle.” “ What are you stupid or something? Why do you think you can do that?” Lambasting you with negativity and giving you the message “ Who are you to become an author, or an inventor, or any number of other things your dreams may lead you to?” The litany goes on and on.

Often the words that sting the most come from the people closest to us, I once heard that negative words were sixteen times more powerful than positive words and especially if they come from people you love. Many of us have heard similar comments from our own families. And remember that “family” is not just relatives but our closest circle of influence, the people that influence you the most in your life on a day-to-day basis.

We must learn how to reinforce our mental immune systems. As you are just opening up to re-affirming and re-discovering your dreams it is important not to leave yourself open to Dream usting attacks. Often when you are in the early creative process you want to share that with the people closest to you, but too many times you get shot down by those around you and can be stopped before you even begin. We already have to deal with our own internal dream busters, voices from our past that can wreak havoc in our present.

It is amazing how many of us constantly go through life creating speaking and thinking negative affirmations all day long to ourselves, instead of doing activities to build self esteem, we practice activly breaking it down: “I always do that, I’m so stupid, etc.” causing our ill emotional and mental states, yet we often have such an aversion to the idea that positive affirmations will have the same impact (but in the desired direction.) Pessimism and negativity are a much more accepted form of self-talk. Recognizing it can be difficult. Sometimes it takes the form of a mental pause where suddenly you start to doubt yourself, and your dream seems to waver. Perhaps you start to wonder about your own ability.

Become aware of this and catch it at that moment, realize that it is a trigger. Learn to recognize when you are being “infected” by those around you by noticing those moments of self-doubt when they arise. It is here that the use of positive affirmations can be very useful. Often we find that our three biggest enemies are “Me, Myself and I.” Basically the limitations that get dumped on us from an early age get internalized so we then have to deal with internal as well as external “Dream Busters.” So who and what are they?

Activities To Build Self Esteem:

Activities To Build Self Esteem: Exercise 1:

Write down the 3 top Dream Busting phrases that really get to you, that make you contemplate kicking your dream to the curb, it is different for everyone, but usually there is at least one that just sticks in your craws so to speak.

Activities To Build Self Esteem: Exercise 2:

Write down the 3 top Dream Busters in your life (people who just don’t get it, they could be trying to “help” but only harming, or, as unfortunately can often be the case, they may be malicious and just trying to knock you down). These are usually the source of the phrases you came up with in the first exercise. Who says those things to you, where do they come from? Or if it is internal, where did it come from originally? The point of the exercise is to begin to recognize Dream Busters in all forms so you can build up defenses to counteract their influence in your life.

Activities To Build Self Esteem: Exercise 3:

Now finally, take a good hard look at these sources that you have written down and ask yourself, are these people where you want to be? Have they accomplished what you dream about doing? I will tell you now that the answer to that question is most often a resounding no! You can’t learn how to swim from a drowning man. Think about this: are these people who really have something to offer, or just people with so much to say and nothing to offer themselves?

You are a power unto yourself, and nobody can truly take that away. It is only when we allow other people power over our dreams that we hand over the keys to our future.

“”"Lyca Shan, also known as the Black Belt Dreamer,
is a published author, speaker successful career woman and the founder of Firewalker Enterprises. She has been featured on Talk America
Radio, and her autobiography “”Firewalker”" is available
on Amazon.com. You can learn about her latest course
“”Becoming a Black Belt Dreamer ~ Unleash The Dream Warrior Within!”"”" at: http://www.selfempowermentsystems.com”"”

Article Source: Activities To Build Self Esteem

Top 6 Reasons Why Meditation Is A Pathway To Success In Anyone’s Life

Meditation is not just for those seeking a path to enlightenment. Meditation can greatly improve anyone’s life whether your an athlete or businessman seeking peak performance or you are a house wife wanting a stronger family and more peace of mind. Here are some reasons why meditation is a pathway to success in anyone’s life.

1. Boosts Immunity and Healing

Several clinical studies in the U.K. and United States on various forms of meditation have shown that antibodies to certain virus’s and illnesses were higher in those that meditated than those that did not. Meditation was also shown in general to boosts ones immune system and aid in the healing process.

2. Improves Relationships

In meditation, one learns to let go of “judgements” in order to reach deeper and deeper meditative states. This is just like in relationships, where one’s ability to do so is a key factor of success. Whether at work, home or with friends; responding toothers with “less” judgement will naturally improve one’s relationships with them.

3. Improves Clarity and Focus

Having the ability to attract what we focus on in our lives, is one of the most exceptionally creative or deceivingly destructive traits that all human beings have been blessed with. Through meditation our minds gain clarity and focus and our lives improve by attract more of the experience we desire.

4. Promotes Freedom and Flexibility

In today’s stressful world, life sometimes seems to take over and it can often feel like we are prisoners to our own world. Meditation promotes flexibility and freedom in life by helping us to step back and observe our experiences rather than being wrapped up in them. This opens our minds to other ways of seeing our world and empowers us with the freedom to make other choices we previously were not aware we had.

5. Increased Insight and Intuition

One must empty their cup so to speak, if they wish to fill it with some new and insightful revelation. Meditation is said to do just that. Having the ability to let go of one’s “ego” sense of”self” and open up or connect with some greater power has been the source of many of the world’s greatest insights and wisdoms.

6. Reduces Stress and Improves Wellbeing

As a life strategy for dealing with stress, meditation can be a life saver. Even taking only a few minutes per day to meditate can counter act any of the negative cumulative effects of stress and dramatically affect one’s sense of personal well being. Life is literally experienced as “all good” through meditation.

Meditation and its practice thus provides so many benefits and affects so many areas of one’s life in a positive way, that it is one of the only truly “holistic” life strategies we can employ to be all that we can truly be. If you want more health, wealth or wisdom in your life, when you meditate, you’ll get all three

Copyright 2009 Joseph Takuski. Please feel free to pass this article on to your friends, or use it in your ezine or newsletter. It’s a shareware article.

Joseph Takuski – Certified NLP™ Master
Joseph was introduced to meditation as a child. Through meditation; Joseph has achieved extraordinary results in sports, personal development and business and he has been blessed with an abundant awareness of peace, love and happiness. Joseph now guides others to access the “source” of their own health, wealth and wisdom through his Meditation Made Easy Training at http://www.meditationmadeeasytraining.com

Article Source: Top 6 Reasons Why Meditation Is A Pathway To Success In Anyone’s Life

Being Your Heart

Your heart is the central core of your being-ness. It is simply the isness of everything “ising” in this very moment. This, your true nature, is already complete and changeless, regardless of how things appear.

Your heart is your bridge to life, your connection in God, and your relationship with the totality of existence.

Awakening to your true nature; your heart, is the only thing that is ever going to free you from unconsciously being distracted by the arisings of life.

Your heart is already completely free.

If you wish to live from the depths of the freedom of your heart, a new way of seeing must become part of your daily existence.

The essence of you is flowing behind and through your eyes, right now. This aliveness is always right here, before anything else, before any thoughts, emotions, or anything arising outside of the body. Your true nature is prior to the arising of the mind, no matter what your mind is getting up to.

To see this aliveness, close your eyes and bring all your attention to your eyes, looking straight ahead and focusing gently on the inside of your eyelids.

Let your attention sink below any thoughts, feelings, sensations, or emotions. These may still continue but keep your focus of attention resting beneath all activity of mind, body, and world. It is here that you are free. It is here that you can rest as your heart.

Who you are is flowing through your eyes right now and in every moment. It is before all that arises. Your initiation, into living the immediacy of who you are, begins as you find out that you are already whole and complete in this moment right now.

By bringing your conscious focus of attention back to what is already here in this moment, you will begin to acclimatise to what this aliveness of you is.

It is flowing through your eyes right now. This simple truth is what you need to see again and again, moment by moment, until this is where you begin to consciously move from in life, day in and day out.

Simply see this aliveness that is flowing behind and through the eyes, before all else; stop here in this moment; and be this one.
No arising, no matter how distracting or complicated, can prevent you from choosing to be stopped as the true nature of you.

However, without your willingness to be your heart, you have no option but to be caught in the illusion of living less than the trueness of what already is.

You are fully capable of this willingness, because the reality of you is already freely standing from every arising of manifestation.

Moving from this place of deep at-rest-ment becomes more and more possible as you re-align your attention to your heart in more moments in your life.

Seeing the aliveness flowing through your eyes, being willing to stop here as this one, and coming to being deeply at rest here; are the first steps to living your true nature.

As you spend more and more moments, in consciously resting here as this aliveness, you will not even notice how your mind and body are changing. All of these changes will free up more energy and attention, to re-invest in the recognition of your true nature and living as this one.

All that is false, all that you have held onto, believing your chattering mind, will naturally fall away as you live as your heart.

As you deepen into the clarity of what is already true of you, consciously living as your true nature, you will free up from previously unconscious tendencies, and joy will be felt in your body.

In any moment that you see you have been unconscious, you can align your attention to the aliveness flowing through your eyes and stop as this one. Then you are free to move from your true nature. In moving as your heart in life, you begin to realise that you are free.

Your heart outshines all creations of your chattering mind. When you are aligned as your heart, you are no longer trapped in the web of your mind and the suffering your belief in it causes you. As you awaken to your true nature, your body and mind will free up from unconsciously moving from the belief in the thinking mind.

Living as your true nature will purify your mind and body of all that is less than love. This will occur naturally as you give your full attention to being your heart.

By consciously aligning yourself to the aliveness flowing through your eyes and moving as this one, your life will begin to reflect the freedom that you truly are. Your movement in life will become one of clarity, ease, and love, and will reflect the truth of you.

Only aligning your attention to the aliveness that is always flowing through your eyes, and moving as this one in life, enables you to live as the freedom and happiness that you naturally are.

The more you feel the freedom and the happiness as you live as this one that you are, the more you will see the limitations that the mind has blinded you with. You will also see that freedom is truly free of everything, of all arising.

When you are no long feeding your attention to your chattering mind, your focus opens the door to the endless beauty of the blessings of the heart.

The beauty of being here as your heart, in life, is very alive. It is the giver and foundation of all life. Your heart is uncomplicated, full of simplicity, full of feeling. It is the open doorway of love, without conditions.

That, which is flowing through your eyes right now, is the same one that is flowing through and enlivening all of existence, and you can be this one in every moment.

Elysha’s FREE e-book “Seven Steps To Living Your Freedom” gives a taste of the powerful practice and teachings he has to offer. Download it now! www.TrueNatureCentre.com

Article Source: Being Your Heart

Why Buying Erectile Dysfunction Cures Online is a Bad Idea.

Online Pharmacies are not legal in most civilised countries. There are some very good reasons why this is so and it is not just a case of “control” or of big brother keeping an eye on you. Here are just a few reasons why online pharmacies in general can be bad for your health. I will return specifically to Viagra later.

Most prescription medications need the input of a health-care profession if they are not to be abused. Often, simple lifestyle changes can render the use of medications obsolete. However, lifestyle change requires human effort. It is so much easier to buy online than it is for example to loose weight, take more exercise or stop smoking.

Prescription medications need to be taken in the proper dose and in a prescribed manner. Otherwise, they are open to abuse and can be damaging or addictive. Sleeping tablets are a good example of harmful medication when not controlled. Online Pharmacies offer no such control.

Online pharmacies are uncontrolled and uncontrollable. Therefore no assurances can be given that product is in fact what it says it is on the package. Generic or worse still, totally fake tablets or capsules can be dispensed. You simply have no way of knowing what is or is not what you hope it is.

But even more worrying than this is the possibility of lethal contamination. There are on record cases of where active ingredient or excipients have, wittingly or unwittingly, found their way into spurious pharmaceutical products with fatal consequences.

These serious reservations apply to all medications purchased from Online Pharmacies. However, in the case of Viagra and other erectile dysfunction treatments, there are additional pitfall and dangers that are particularly worrying. I can only touch on a few of these here but this should give you an idea:

(1)Viagra is now the biggest selling online pharmaceutical in the world.

(2)Not all, or even most, erectile dysfunction requires Viagra to fix it.

(3)Viagra is now widely used as a ‘recreational drug’ in the mistaken belief that it improves erections where no dysfunction exists. If it were not for Internet selling this situation would not have evolved.

(4)Taken in this way Viagra can actually CAUSE erectile dysfunction by allowing for a ‘performance anxiety’ situation to develop. Performance anxiety is the commonest cause of erectile dysfunction that there is.

(5)Much erectile dysfunction is not in fact cured by using Viagra or Cialis. However, the self-medicating may not realise this and be inappropriately driven to depths of despair when these drugs fail to work. I see this all the time in my practise.

Normally I am all in favour of patient’s autonomy and of people taking charge of their own illnesses. I am not in principle opposed to sensible self-medicating and self-care. People cannot go running to their doctor or drugstore with every little sniffle and sneeze. Indeed, I once argued for the free availability of the “morning after” pill as a means of reducing abortion demand. But Online Pharmacies? I think not and I hope that after reading this you might agree with me.

http:www.andrewrynne.com
http://www.testosterone.ie

Article Source: Why Buying Erectile Dysfunction Cures Online is a Bad Idea.

Meditation is a tool for peace

Hectic schedule and modern life work, makes most of the people feel stressed and overworked. There is not just enough time in a day to wrap up everything. We feel tired, impatient and unhappy because of work load. It can also affect our body and mind. We are often so busy that there is not enough time to stop and meditate.

Meditation is mental as well as physical discipline that attempts a deeper state of relaxation. It also involves turning the attention from single point reference. It has been practiced since antiquity and is also component of many religions and sometimes also practiced outside the religion. But meditation actually gives more time to keep mind calmer and more focused. Different meditative techniques involves wide ranges of spiritual and psychological practices that focuses on different goals like higher state of consciousness, creativity or self-awareness, or simply a more relaxed and peaceful frame of mind. Secrets of meditation help to stay active and sharp.

The purpose or aim behind meditation breathing is to calm the mind and develop an inner peace. First step of meditation is to stop distraction and make mind calmer and more lucid. This can be achieved by regular practising of a simple breath meditation. Always choose quiet and clean place to meditate and sit in comfortable position or sit in cross legged posture or any other position that’s comfortable for you. Then close your eyes partially and turn attention to breathing while meditation. Breathe naturally through nostrils without attempting to control your breath and become aware of the sensation of breath as it enters and leaves the nostrils. You should try to concentrate on it; focus on a single point on the sensation of the breathing and try to avoid different thoughts that arise in the mind. If you notice that mind is distracted and is following thoughts, immediately return to breath. Repeat this as many times until the mind calms and settles.

Meditation audio guides through a series of steps or imagery exercises. Meditation audio includes various forms of music, tones to relax or stimulate brain waves. Most of the people find audio for meditation is helpful because it provides diversity in practice as well as discipline. Another plus point of using free guided audio meditation is the opportunity to try many different styles and presenters. Music helps to relax, calm and helps to gain concentration.

You can use the Meditation chair as proper posture is essential. Sit up comfortably stable and straight. Keep feet grounded on the floor and hands should be on the knees. Chest should lift up and shoulders should be down during meditation.

By practicing the basic secrets of meditation, gradually our thoughts will settle and will experience relaxation and joy of inner peace. Mind becomes spacious and will fell refreshed. Stress and tension comes from mind. Many of the problems including ill health are caused by this stress. Concentration on breathing helps to calm distracting thoughts and mind will become lucid and clear. Breathing meditation and audio meditation keep inner peace and contentment just by controlling the mind.

Michael Bunata is author of this article on Secrets of Meditation.
Find more information about The Basic Secrets of Meditation here.

Article Source: Meditation is a tool for peace

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