CHANGE YOUR THOUGHTS CHANGE YOUR LIFE

           The hardest thing to change is a mindset.  Our mind gets comfortable with what we set up as norms.  Even when we know something is better for us, our brain tells us to stay with the norm, with what we have become accustomed to and comfortable with.  Unless there is an external occurrence to promote change giving someone a powerful epiphany, they will more than likely stay with the same train of thought they have always maintained.   

Sir Isaac Newton named this phenomenon Inertia which is a resistance to change.  His first law of motion states:   An object at rest stays at rest and an object in motion stays in motion with the same speed and in the same direction unless acted upon by an unbalanced force.

You direct your thoughts and they will go in the same direction unless you decide to take another direction.  Sometimes this will take a small amount of effort on your part, and sometimes it will take a large amount of effort.  However, in every situation a decision and effort must be made in order to make a change.

PSYCHOLOGICAL INERTIA: “The psychological meaning of the word "inertia" implies an indisposition to change – a certain "stuckness" due to human programming. It represents the inevitability of behaving in a certain way – the way that has been indelibly inscribed somewhere in the brain. It also represents the impossibility – as long as a person is guided by his habits – of ever behaving in a better way.” ~Dr. James Kowalick

In order to change your life you are going to have to accept and embrace change.  Understand that just because something is comfortable, doesn’t mean it’s what’s best for you. 

The norms you have become accustomed to and established over time is probably what the people around you have always done, others techniques, and programming from various images.  If you want something different you are going to have to do something different. 

Before you can do something different, you have to see something different.  Emerge yourself into a different environment.  An environment that can help shape you into the person you want to become.  Spend time with people who are achieving the things you want to achieve.  Be opened minded and don’t let fear stop you from reaching your greatest heights and learning your greatest depths. 

Open your mind to change and embrace it.  Your journey is so special, so beautiful, so intriguing, and no one can take it but you.

            One step at a time each chapter is going to assist you on your personal

journey of empowerment by introducing you to new concepts, breaking down the ones you may have already learned and providing you with activities that will assist you on your journey of self-empowerment.

            It takes a lot of work, and open mindedness in order for your journey to be a successful one.   Time is going to pass whether you put this work in or not.  Hopefully you will make the choice to not waist time.  Here is your opportunity to develop and grow so you can begin to experience results as time passes and enjoy the fruits of your work, which is living a more fulfilled, healthy, well balanced life.  These experiences will transfer over to your relationships, and enhance your interactions.  Your level of understanding will expand and your inner self will not only surface, but thrive.

Boundaries

A fence is very practical in the sense that it is used as a barrier that creates guards, separation, and protection.  It is used to keep things in and just as useful in preventing things from leaving out.

Different fences are used for different practical purposes.  A privacy fence is used to keep outsiders from seeing in.  An electronic fence can be used to keep your favorite pet from leaving your yard.  Various businesses use fences with barbwire at the top to prevent thieves from coming in and taking out their goods.  A farmer may use a fence to protect its livestock from wandering off of his land and onto dangerous territory where they could be harmed by predators.

 Your boundaries are your own built in invisible fence that adds additional, practical protection in your life.  Much like the fences described above, it can prevent undesirable things from coming into your life and keep you from doing undesirable things that may even be dangerous for you in the long run.

Once you create or re-establish your boundaries, they become your gauge during your interactions with others of what becomes deemed appropriate behavior towards you or what is offensive.  

Because your invisible fence is totally designed by your specifications, your personality, past experiences, beliefs, and desires, your insight of who you are at your core will aid you in determining exactly what your boundaries should be.

 Just as with an actual fence, the specifications of your invisible fence must be realistic, aiding you in the creation of a smart defense.  If an actual fence is made too high, too short, too wide, or too thin, its improper configuration may not fulfill the purpose in which it was created for.

While your objective in creating your invisible fence is protection, and is proven successful by having kept out undesirable things, make sure you are not hindering the desirable things you truly want in your life from coming in.

There are times when we become so afraid of change, so uncomfortable with trying something new, so incredibly rigid or so fearful of getting hurt, because of past experiences that our fences can become contradictory defenses that are subjective as opposed to being rational, lucid and objective.  These fences are counterproductive and can cause us to loose out on the things we desire most at our core, like friendship or love. 

We can make our fences so tall, so thick, so wide, that we block out good things from coming into our lives.  These types of fences actually do us way more harm than good.  In fact, our invisible fence can become a wall causing us to miss out on a lot of the desirable joys, pleasures and opportunities that life brings. 

Because a fence can work both ways, both keeping something out and keeping something in, we can actually find ourselves in a position of not only keeping undesirable things out, we can also hold undesirable things in, such as pain, anger, resentment, un-forgiveness, anxiety, insecurities, etc.  This is a mistake that many of us make in our attempt to control our circumstances.  We cannot always control everything in our lives.  These types of walls must be torn down, as well as those undesirable things must be dealt with and let go of in order for us to truly flourish and thrive.  We cannot fully let go of something until we deal with it in totality.  If it is not dealt with thoroughly, it will continue to resurface because the problem still lies in the root of the matter, which can continue to exist, even when we don’t realize it.  We will not begin to blossom until this healing process has begun. 

However, when we build an appropriate and healthy fence creating smart defenses for ones own protection, its benefits are irrefutable.

JOURNEY #5

1. Evaluate areas in your life you need to set or re-establish boundaries. 
2. If you are single, set boundaries before you even meet someone new.  Those boundaries may be how late you will stay out with someone when you first start dating, how often you will talk on the phone, how much you will talk on the phone before you go on your first date, how long you will date before you are willing to take the next step, etc.
3. If you are single with children, you will also need to set boundaries before you meet someone, but with your children in mind, how long will you date before you invite them in your home, how long will you date before they can meet your children, how long will you date before they can spend regular time with your children, etc.
4. If you are married you and your partner need to communicate your boundary lines to one another and come to a fair compromise within the relationship.  Write out a list of any boundaries that have been stepped over and work together to rectify it.
5. If someone is stepping over your boundaries, you may want to have a conversation with them, if that does not help think about changing the dynamics of your interaction so that you are more comfortable.  You may want to spend less time with that person or give them no time once you evaluate the situation.
6. If you have allowed someone to break your boundaries you need a strategy to fix the broken boundary line.  You will have to firmly re-establish your boundary lines and do not put yourself in a position to have them broken again.  This may include changing routines, ending conversations that are persuasive, being choosier about the company you keep, etc.
7. If you are working towards a goal, you will have to set up boundaries that will help you stay focused.  This may mean that you need to block out certain amounts of time where you cannot be contacted, only make yourself available on certain days of the week, spend less and save more, etc.
8. Stay in the driver’s wheel as much as possible.  This is not always possible because there are times when we will always need someone and that is ok because we are all interconnected.  However, the more you are independent as a person and can take care of your own needs, the more it will stop commentators from taking over.  This is an important boundary to set in place.  Examine areas of your life where you need to get into the driver’s seat.
9. Examine the boundaries that you’ve created over time to guard your heart.  Are these boundaries to rigid?  Do you have the proper guards over your heart?  If they are too rigid, slowly began to let people in.  Do not make the majority pay for the mistakes of the minority.  Learn to trust and use your boundaries wisely.
10.  Examine the boundaries that you’ve created over time to guard your heart.  Are these boundaries not strong enough?  Learn to filter.  Imagine you have a filter over your heart.  A filter does not let everything in, but it does not stop the flow of positive things from coming or going.  Keep the good and throw out the bad. 

Choices

We all have the power to make choices.  It is a part of our capability to reason.  Our ability to reason is what separates us from the animals.  The choices we make on a day to day basis can have a long lasting effect on the scope of our lives.  Just one choice can have a snow ball effect so extraordinary that it can propel us in a totally different direction. 

Sometimes these new choices can be for our betterment while at other times they can turn out for the worst.

The choices we make will not only change the course of our lives, they undoubtedly affect the lives of those around us.  Some of our choices have such a great impact on others that it can change the course of their life forever.

A drunk driver that chooses to get behind the wheel of a car is not thinking about getting into an accident.  They may just be thinking about getting home.  A friend I grew up with attended a birthday party of one of her other friends.  The next day she got a call that the friend was in a comma.  The night of her birthday, she had too much to drink and ran into the wall on the freeway.  She died a week later.  It was a horrendous tragedy.

While in high school, I was catching up with a friend I attended middle school with.  She told me that one of our classmates had been in a car accident.  The guys she was hanging out with were drinking.  She got in the back seat and put on her seat belt.  The driver ran into a brick wall.  The seat belt cut through her stomach and killed her, while both guys lived through the accident.  I can only imagine that the grief they bore because of their choice must have been unbearable.

It is your responsibility to make the proper choices for yourself and be mindful of how they can impinge on those around you.

The best way to understand the pertinence of your choices in life, as well as how others are affected is by using examples from others lives.  We can use others as examples to enlighten us, learn from their lessons, use their positive choices as a footstool and avoid their mistakes.

I have been enlightened by the choices of many people that I have encountered.  Both they’re mistakes and triumphs are essential life lessons that I have learned from, grown from, changed from and become empowered from.  

JOURNEY #4

1. Write down the circumstances you want to change, and then write down the top three things you must do in order to change your situations. 
2. Write out the steps it would take to change the situations and create a work plan.
3. Identify a hard choice you have been avoiding making.  Write down the fears and challenges that you have faced and that has hindered you from making the choice.  Weigh out the positives of making your choice versus the negatives of continuing on your path.
4. Write out the top five things you would like to change about your personality that would help you live your life more positively and write what you need to do to change those things.
5. Write yourself a letter of what you believe you deserve in your life that you don’t currently have today, i.e. more love, security, stability, career, etc.  What choices have you made that have prevented you from receiving those things? What choices must you make in order to make those things a reality? 
6. What choices have others made that have gotten them on a positive path that you can see yourself on?
7. What negative choices have others made that have gotten them on a negative path that you could possibly take?  What choices must you make to stay off that path?
8. When you see others making poor choices do you try and warn them?  Do you expect people to do the same for you?  Set up a partnership of accountability with someone you trust and who has your best interest at heart so the two of you can warn one another when you’re making bad choices.
9. What area are you working on improving?  Choose to not exhibit the negative behavior or habit today.  Take it one day at a time.  Each day you meet your goal reward yourself.  Each day you do not meet your goal, take something away that you really like.
10. For the next seven days, make a positive choice that you will work on and complete each day.  At the end of the seven days, journal about how those positive changes impacted your week.

Inside Out

You are continuously creating your present, as well as future circumstances.  Your very reality is always being formed, shaped and altered, with messages you communicate to the universe through your inner belief system. 

How you feel about yourself and your life, your fears, your desires, your truths, will all be manifested by the universe and it is according to the convictions that you consciously and unconsciously yield through your thoughts, words and actions. 

We receive what we meditate on the most.  It’s as if our thoughts are fire, the more we dose gasoline on the fire, the bigger the flame will become.  Now picture a moth being drawn to that flame.  There is a strong undeniable attraction that beckons the moth to comply.  Just like that fire, your thoughts continuously attract energies that will manifest according to your instruction.  This attraction mechanism works to supply us with whatever we accept as truth.  Not simply bringing us what we want, but what we absolutely believe. 

 JOURNEY #3 

1. Set small, short term goals that are attainable.  Set a goal you can meet within the next week, three you can meet within the next month and a larger one you can meet within six months.  Being able to set, and meet those goals will help you to increase your value.
2. Practice meditating on positive outcomes at least once a day in situations that you feel negative about.  Increase your meditating time each week.
3. Write out what you want your invisible label to say and write long term goals that will help you match your label.
4. If you are a person who is always late, set a goal to be on time to everything for the next month.
5. If you need to improve your grades, set a goal of bringing up your grade on your next 3 papers.
6. If you feel you are mediocre in a particular area that you can be good in, take the time to practice and improve.  Set a 30 day goal giving yourself time to see improvement.
7. Create a vision board.
8. Evaluate yourself.  Write out ten good things about yourself and ten areas you can improve in.  Set goals for the areas that need improvement, make a plan and put it to action.
9. Practice using positive self-talk to combat negative thoughts and negative commentators everyday.
10. Increase positive images daily that are coming in through your ear gates and eye gates via, TV, radio, magazines, movies, etc.  Those images are going inside your subconscious and will reflect on the outside.      

Communication Is Everything

Communication is the building block for connections and ultimately facilitates the nurturing of bonds.  How well we can communicate will strengthen or destroy the bonds we create.  It also helps to establish the outcome of many of the situations we find ourselves in.  Many times, we can control whether we have a positive or negative outcome in our interactions with others, depending on choice words and actions.  The ability to get promoted, sustain relationships, find favor in different circumstances, teach, parent, have successful outcomes, close a deal, etc., all depends on how effectively we communicate. 

Know that you are designed to communicate on numerous levels.  Not only what you say is important in communicating, your tone, delivery and projection also play a part.  Verbal communications is just a small part of your message.  Non-verbal communication cues are just as important in conveying your message.  Your eyes, body language, touch, breathing, walk, posture, attitude, smile or lack of one, are all apart of your message, serving to emote your most inner thoughts, and feelings.  

           Even when you don’t say a word, you are constantly communicating to others.  Your non-verbal cues speak volumes, even when you don’t realize it.  You not only display your feelings and attitudes towards others, as well as the world around you, you amply display your feelings and attitudes about yourself.  
            Essentially, you incorporate your identity in every part of your communication.  An identity that is based on ones self-perception and that perception is projected to the world through various levels of communications.     
        
         JOURNEY #2

1. Practice being a better listener.  Over the next week make a conscience effort to listen while others talk, without interruption or thinking of your next words.  Fully focus on what they are saying without letting your mind drift.  At the end of each day journal your success’s and how your communication with others was improved through this technique.
2. Evaluate your self-talk.  Over the next week journal at the end of each day about the types of self-talk experiences you had during the day.  Is it more positive or negative? 
3. When you notice negative self-talk immediately shift your thinking to positive affirmations.  Tell yourself the positive opposite.
4. Do you have things that have been bottled up inside of you?  Write a letter (even if you decide it’s best to not share it,) express yourself to someone who will listen and cares, or have a heart to heart conversation with the person who your feelings are directed towards.
5. Improve your questions by thinking of the end result in mind first.  Ask the exact questions that are the means to the desired end.
6. Practice having a pleasant, friendly, motivating, nurturing, encouraging tone with everyone you encounter all week.  Especially those you have the hardest time communicating with.  Journal at the end of each day how this affected your encounters.
7. Think before you speak, every time you speak.  It is ok to take a pause to clearly think your thoughts out and precisely convey the message you want.  Do not be in a rush to speak.
8. If you are telling someone something important over the next week, remember to repeat the important parts to them.
9. If someone else is telling you something important to them, repeat what you believe is the important part of their message back to them before you respond to ensure that you have clarity.  Do not assume that you understand their points.
10. At the end of the week log in your journal what communication techniques you tried.  Did they improve your communications with others?  If so, how does the improvement affect your relationships?