My experience from 37 years of counseling individuals and couples
is that most of the problems from which people suffer stem from how they handle
the events of life, rather than the events themselves.
Certainly
traumatic and tragic events such as loss of loved ones, financial loss, and
health issues are extremely challenging. However, some people manage to move
through these events with equanimity, while others remain stuck in fear,
anxiety, and depression. The difference is in how people handle deeply painful
feelings.
I have discovered that there are two core feelings that
most people will do almost anything to avoid feeling: loneliness and
helplessness.
Loneliness is an intense empty, sad, sinking or
burning feeling within. This feeling can be triggered by four different
situations:
1) Loss of a loved one.
2) Not having a
partner, family or friends with whom to share time and love.
3)
Being around others but being closed off to them.
4) Being around
others when they are closed off to you.
Other than a traumatic
loss, the latter is often the most challenging in everyday life, and this can
occur throughout the day. For example, you walk into work happy and open. You
greet your friend, and he or she barely responds to you. If you are truly open
to your own feelings, you will feel a stab of loneliness. Yet most people are so
closed off to this feeling that they immediately attempt to avoid the feeling
with some kind of addictive behavior. They might grab a donut while shaming or
blaming - telling themselves that they must have done something wrong or that
their friend is a jerk. These addictive behaviors are geared to protect against
feeling the pain of the loneliness. And they work for the moment to appease the
feeling, but the feeling doesn't actually go away. It just goes deeper within
and may eventually cause physical symptoms, such as back pain or some form of
illness.
Helplessness is a similar feeling to loneliness - intense
inner turmoil. In the example above, not only do you have the stab of
loneliness, but you also feel the pain of helplessness over your friend's
behavior. You cannot make him or her connect with you. However, because this is
such a difficult feeling, you don't want to know that you cannot have control
over another or over the outcome of things. To avoid knowing about your lack of
control, you may shame yourself: "It's my fault. If I'm different, I can get
others to be different." Or you might blame your friend, attempting to get him
or her to change. Both shame and blame are attempts to avoid accepting
helplessness over others.
Once you turn to addictive behaviors such
as food, alcohol, drugs, activities, shame and blame, you have abandoned
yourself. In attempting to avoid feeling the loneliness and helplessness, you
have created inner aloneness - self-abandonment. Self-abandonment occurs when
your intent is to avoid pain rather than lovingly attend to your authentic
feelings. The combination of avoiding loneliness, helplessness and the aloneness
that comes from inner abandonment can lead to anxiety, depression and despair.
People then often turn to prescription drugs to further avoid their
feelings.
Managing the feelings of loneliness and helplessness is
not as hard as you may think it is. If you practice the following process, you
will find that you do not need to use your various addictions to avoid
pain.
1) Stay tuned into your body/feelings so that you know when
you are feeling lonely or helpless. It's very important to be able to name the
feeling, and it may take some time to recognize these feelings since you may
have been avoiding them for so long.
2) Welcome and embrace the
feelings, opening with deep compassion for these feelings. If you are connected
with a spiritual Source of love and compassion, open to this Source and ask for
help in being in compassion for the feelings.
3) Hold the feelings
as you would a child who is hurting, with deep love and understanding. Just be
with the feelings with deep acceptance of them for a few
minutes.
4) Consciously be willing to release the feelings. Imagine
the feelings of loneliness and helplessness moving through you and being
released into the Universe - into Divine Love.
You will find that
these painful feelings will quickly release if you practice these steps rather
than abandon yourself in the face of painful events and
experiences.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Margaret
Paul, Ph.D. is the best-selling author and co-author of eight books, including
"Do I Have To Give Up Me To Be Loved By You?" and "Healing Your Aloneness." She
is the co-creator of the powerful Inner Bonding healing process. Learn Inner
Bonding now! Visit her web site for a FREE Inner Bonding course:
http://www.innerbonding.com or email
her at
mailto:marg...@innerbonding.com.
Phone Sessions
Available.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
*********************************************************************
[3]
"ARTICLE -- BUSINESS
DEVELOPMENT"
*********************************************************************
3
Ways To Increase Your Sales
by Charlie Cook
Marketing
for Success
http://www.marketingforsuccess.com/ Last
week I got a call from Jose, who was looking for help improving his ads. He'd
been running the same ad in four local papers for two months and only gotten one
response. He was understandably frustrated. With more than a dozen very
satisfied clients, he knows that the residential property management services he
and his brother provide should interest more people, but he wasn't having any
success getting attention or generating leads.
Jose knew that to
grow his business he'd need to do some marketing. He had a web site and was
doing all the networking he could in addition to running his ads. Isn't this
what he should be doing to attract more clients? Aren't advertising, web sites,
mailings and networking what marketing is all about?
Webster's
dictionary thinks so; it defines marketing as an aggregate of functions involved
in moving goods from producer to consumer. In other words, marketing is a
collection of activities. Is this how you think of it? Has approaching marketing
with this mindset helped you increase your sales and pr0fits?
Think
about it. You started your business to provide products or services that help
people. You work long and hard for your clients to ensure they get what they
want. You know that the more helpful you are to your clients, the more likely
they'll be to hire you again and the more often they'll recommend
you.
Your products and services are focused around your prospects'
wants and needs. Focus your marketing on these wants and needs and that will
guide your marketing activities.
Marketing is Helping Your
Prospects Get What They Want.
Marketing is not about you. It is not
building your brand name, (unless you're a Fortune 500 company and have the
advertising budget to match). It is not convincing people to buy your products
and services. It is not a group of activities that move goods and services. It
is about your customers and what they want.
Working with Jose, I
had shown him how to refocus his marketing on what his prospects were looking
for. A few days ago Jose called me back to tell me about his experience with
trying out this helping model of marketing. During a recent visit to Home Depot,
he struck up a conversation with a prospect, Bob, who asked what Jose did.
Instead of going through the litany of services his company provides, Jose said,
'We help landlords manage their properties more efficiently and make more
money.'
That got Bob's attention; he wanted to know how Jose helped
landlords. Jose briefly explained his company's services from the landlord's
point of view. Bob asked for Jose's business card, so they could have a
conversation about Jose managing Bob's 56 rental
properties.
Whether you are crafting your advertising copy,
elevator speech, or the copy for your web or print brochure, it should focus on
what your prospects want. When your prospects see you as helping them instead of
just trying to sell them, they'll be more likely to respond.
Want
to help your prospects get what they want so you can increase your sales and
profits? Focus your marketing on helping by doing the following three
things.
* Regularly ask your prospects what they want, what their
goals are and how you can help them.
* Use this information to
shape your marketing copy.
* Describe in brief and in detail your
clients concerns and how you help them on everything from your business card to
your sales letters to your ads and to your web site.
When you focus
your marketing on helping your prospects get what they want, you'll get what you
want; more leads, more prospects and more clients.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
2005
© In Mind Communications, LLC. All rights reserved.
The author,
Charlie Cook, helps service professionals, small business owners and marketing
professionals attract more clients and be more successful. Sign up to receive
the Free Marketing Strategy eBook, '7 Steps to get more clients and grow your
business' at
http://www.marketingforsuccess.com-------------------------------------------------------------------------
***********************************************
[4]
"ATTITUDE
VITAMINS"
***********************************************
To
err is human; to forgive, divine. -- Alexander Pope
Forgiveness is
not an emotion, it's a decision. -- Randall Worley
The weak can
never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong. -- Mahatma
Gandhi
Imagination is more important than knowledge. -- Albert
Einstein
Imagination is the beginning of creation. You imagine what
you desire, you will what you imagine and at last you create what you will. --
George Bernard Shaw
Everything you can imagine is real. -- Pablo
Picasso
Faith means to believe that there are answers and to
continue pressing on until answers arrive or are discovered. -- Cisco
Wheeler
Don't join an easy crowd; you won't grow. Go where the
expectations and the demands to perform are high. -- Jim Rohn
Remember that only liars swear they're telling the truth. --
Albert J Bernstean and Sydney Craft Rozen
The opinions that are
held with passion are always those for which no good ground exists; indeed the
passion is the measure of the holder's lack of rational conviction. -- Bertrand
Russell
The trouble with many plans is that they are based on the
way things are now. To be successful, your personal plan must focus on what you
want, not what you have. -- Nido Qubein
Challenging the meaning of
life is the truest expression of the state of being human. -- Viktor
Frankl
The most complicated achievements of thought are possible
without the assistance of consciousness. -- Sigmund Freud
I don't
subscribe to the thesis, 'Let the buyer beware,' I prefer the disregarded one
that goes, 'Let the seller be honest.'" -- Isaac Asimov
It matters
not how small the beginning may seem to be; what is once well done
is done
forever. -- Henry David Thoreau
*******************************************
[5] "STRESS
BUSTER"
******************************************* A
tough old cowboy once counseled his grandson that if he wanted to live a long
life, the secret was to sprinkle a little gunpowder on his oatmeal every
morning.
The grandson did this religiously and he lived to the age
of 93.
When he died, he left 14 children, 28 grandchildren, 35
great grandchildren and a fifteen-foot hole in the wall of the
crematorium.
----------------------------------------------
A
knight and his men return to their castle after a long hard day of
fighting.
"How are we faring?" asks the king.
"Sire,"
replies the knight, "My men and I have been robbing and pillaging on your behalf
all day, burning the towns of your enemies in the west."
"What?!"
shrieks the king. "I don't have any enemies to the west!"
"Oh,
no..." says the knight. "Well, you do
now."
----------------------------------------------
Fire
the proof reader and the printer!
~ IMPORTANT NOTICE: If you are
one of hundreds of parachuting enthusiasts who bought our Easy Sky Diving book,
please make the following correction: on page 8, line 7, the words "state zip
code" should have read "pull rip cord."
~ It was incorrectly
reported last Friday that today is T-shirt Appreciation Day. In fact, it is
actually Teacher Appreciation Day.
~ There was a mistake in an item
sent in two weeks ago which stated that Ed Burnham entertained a party at crap
shooting. It should have been trap shooting.
~ There are two
important corrections to the information in the update on our Deep Relaxation
professional development program. First, the program will include meditation,
not medication. Second, it is experiential, not experimental.
~ In
the City Beat section of Friday's paper, firefighter Dwight Brady was
misidentified. His nickname in the department is "Dewey." Another firefighter is
nicknamed "Weirdo." We apologize for our mistake.
~ Our newspaper
carried the notice last week that Mr. Oscar Hoffnagle is a defective on the
police force. This was a typographical error. Mr. Hoffnagle is, of course, a
detective on the police farce.
~ In a recent edition, we referred
to the chairman of Chrysler Corporation as Lee Iacoocoo. His real name is Lee
Iacacca. The Gazette regrets the error.
~ Apology: I originally
wrote, "Woodrow Wilson's wife grazed sheep on front lawn of the White House."
I'm sorry that typesetting inadvertently left out the word
"sheep."
~ In one edition of today's Food Section, an inaccurate
number of jalapeno peppers was given for Jeanette Crowley's Southwestern chicken
salad recipe. The recipe should call for two, not 21, jalapeno
peppers.
*************************************************
[6]
"FEEL GOOD
CLASSIC"
*************************************************
The
Old Grandfather's Table
A frail old man went to live with his son, daughter-in-law, and
four-year-old grandson. The old man's hands trembled, his eyesight was blurred,
and his step faltered.
The family ate together at the table. But, the
elderly grandfather's shaky hands and failing sight made eating difficult. Peas
rolled off his spoon onto the floor. When he grasped the glass, milk spilled on
the tablecloth. The son and daughter-in-law became irritated with the mess.
"We must do something about Grandfather," said the son. "I've had enough
of the spilled milk, noisy eating, and food on the floor." So, the husband and
wife set a small table in the corner. There Grandfather ate alone, while the
rest of the family enjoyed dinner. Since, Grandfather had broken a dish or two,
his food was served in a wooden bowl.
When the family glanced in
Grandfather's direction, sometimes he had a tear in his eye, as he sat alone.
Still, the only words the couple had for him were sharp admonitions when he
dropped a fork or spilled food. The four-year-old watched it all in silence.
One evening, before supper, the father noticed his son playing with wood
scraps on the floor. He asked the child sweetly, "What are you making?"
Just as sweetly, the boy responded, "Oh, I am making a little bowl for
Papa and Mama to eat their food in when I grow up." The four-year-old smiled and
went back to work.
The words so struck the parents that they were
speechless. Then tears started to stream down their cheeks. Though, no word was
spoken, both knew what must be done.
That evening, the husband took
Grandfather's hand and gently led him back to the family table.
For the
remainder of his days, he ate every meal with the family. And, for some reason,
neither husband nor wife seemed to care any longer when a fork was dropped, milk
spilled, or the tablecloth soiled.
-- Source
Unknown
**********************************************
[7] "CHOP
SUEY
ROJAK"
**********************************************
Note:
If long URL’s break, please cut and
paste.
------------------------------------------------------------------
Two
wolves fight …..
An old Cherokee is teaching his grandson about
life. "A fight is going on inside me," he said to the boy. "It is a terrible
fight between two wolves.
"One is evil - he is anger, envy, sorrow,
greed, regret, lies, self-pity, arrogance, guilt, resentment, inferiority, false
pride, superiority and ego.
"The other is good - he is joy, peace,
love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity,
truth, compassion and faith.
"This same fight is going on inside
you -- and inside every other person, too."
The grandson thought
for a minute and then asked his grandfather, "Which wolf will
win?"
The old Cherokee replied, "The one you
feed."
------------------------------------------------------------------
Audio
interviews with Inc 500 Hall of Fame CEO's. To make the Hall of Fame a
company must make the Inc. 500 list at least five times.
http://www.inc.com/resources/inc500/halloffame-2004.html ------------------------------------------------------------------
Descriptions
of many business models
http://www.valuebasedmanagement.net/ ------------------------------------------------------------------
All
about the Johari Window Model
http://www.businessballs.com/johariwindowmodeldiagram.pdf http://www.knowmegame.com/johari_window.html http://www.augsburg.edu/education/edc210/johari.html http://www.teleometrics.com/info/resources_johari.html ------------------------------------------------------------------
Top
Women Business Builders -- a slide show.
http://tinyurl.com/cplme