You get to meet many people

I travel in the continental US by car, usually with Frick and Frack. At the moment they are sleeping beside me on the bed at my resting spot at Motel 6 in Deming NM. And here I am writing my blog post for the Ultimate Blog Challenge. My main route is back and forth along Interstate 10. I live in Sedona and my family is in Texas. People ask me how far it is. I say about 14 hours because that’s the length of the audio books which take me from door to door. There are so many wonderful people in this country. Sure, there are the jerks, but I can’t say I’ve met many on my travels. One day this tough looking biker guy stopped me as I was getting in my car. “Ma’am, are these yours?” He held in his hand a collection of cards which had fallen unnoticed out of my aluminum card case. There were two debit cards, my driver’s license and a number of extraneous cards. Today, as I was walking the little guys after we got to Motel 6, this couple stopped me. “Did you come from Texas?” “Yes, I did.” “We were next to you getting gas earlier today. We saw your dogs in the front seat of your car in their crate.” They were walking their tiny Shih Tzu and I was walking Frick and Frack. One trip to Jackson Hole to be at my niece’s wedding, I spent a couple of nights at rest stops. The first time I was rather nervous having never done that before. There was a camper there and another guy who didn’t want to pay hotel prices. He was on his way to see family across country. Outside of Denver there was a rest stop that had a sign that said, “No overnight stays.” There were a slew of cars there. I asked one woman about staying there overnight and she told me they didn’t mind as long as you didn’t cause any trouble. A van catering to the homeless came by providing water and some clothes. She was waiting for low income housing. There was her Mom, three kids and a boy friend. They had a voucher for housing but none was available. It was only good for 6-months and then she has to start all over again and go to the bottom of the wait list. One day I dropped into a Waffle House in Tennessee. It was busy and I asked a woman about a decade older than me if she’d like to share a booth. Turns out she is a regular there almost every day for breakfast. She moved from Florida because her son was worried about her being down there by herself after her husband, his dad, died. She loved Florida and hates Tennessee but wants to make things easier on her son. The most important thing I’ve learned is don’t judge the people of our country by the news. Yes, terrible things happen. Yes, there are some terrible people, but they are a small minority. There are wonderful people here. You just have to get out and meet them.

How Those Around You Influence Your Success

Let’s talk about those who influence your success… or don’t.

Imagine you grew up in a household of lazy underachievers. Now imagine you grew up in the household of high achievers. Do you think you’d be different depending upon the home you grew up in?

If your family cheered you on, encouraging you to be your best, you probably left home feeling confident about yourself.

If your family was negative, chances are you struggled inwardly about your prospects and your success no matter how talented you are.

You Can Change the Influence of Your Past

You can’t change your past, but you can change the influence it had on you. You do this by surrounding yourself with supportive high-achievers as well as people who believe in you.

Think about the people you know. Are they supportive or non-supportive? Some people pretend to be supportive but then whisper doubts into your ears. That’s not support no matter what they may claim.

Find people who support you. 

If you want to succeed in business, find people in your area of interest who can give you support. Yes, they tell you the truth AND they encourage you to reach for your dreams.

If you want to succeed in establishing good relationships, be with people who have good relationshisps

1. Gain access to new people. Those around you can introduce you to new people. One of them may ultimately become your mentor or be the business contact you’ve been searching for.

• Every person you know already knows lots of people that you do not. These people that are unknown to you may become a valuable resource.

1. The people around you can teach you new things. Everyone you know has something to teach you. Are you hanging out with the right people to learn the things you need to know?
2. The people around you influence your attitude and expectations. You can’t help but be influenced by those around you. It has been argued that you can’t rise above the results of the five people you spend the most time with. You can learn a lot about success from your social network.

• Imagine you’re a real estate agent and you’re spending time with the most successful real estate agent in your city. You earned $100,000 last year, and she earned $1,000,000.
• You call five expired listings each day and send 50 postcards each week to potential new clients. You come to learn that your new friend calls every expired listing each day and sends out thousands of postcards each week. She even has two full-time assistants to handle her incredible workload.
• She’s also doing forms of marketing you’ve never even considered.
• Consider how this can change your life. You suddenly realize that you’re not working nearly as hard or as creatively as you could be. You start to wonder what else you could be doing better. It’s an eye-opening experience.

The people around you matter. With whom are you spending your time? Are you choosing to spend time with those that inspire and support you? Are you spending time with people that struggle with life and sabotage your best efforts to excel?

You have to power to choose the people you spend the most time with. Choose intelligently and you’ll experience greater levels of success.

What You See May Not Be Reality

You may know people who seem to be brimming with self-confidence. Recognize that you can observe what they’re doing, not what they’re feeling. It’s possible their insides don’t match their outsides. You can learn to trust in yourself even when you aren’t filled with self-confidence.

Back when I was in the convent, I was in charge of a particular function. The next day someone complimented me on how much confidence I exhibited. She wished she was like me.

I could have laughed out loud. Today, I would have. Back then, I wasn’t going to let anyone know how terrified I had been.

Having confidence in yourself is about trusting yourself, trusting that you’ll be able to handle the job, whatever job that is.

You may have a difficult time trusting yourself and wonder if you’ll ever be able to. Don’t think you’re alone in your self-doubts. Not trusting yourself seems to be ingrained in the human condition. It’s something many experience and find difficult to overcome.

Learn to Trust

The first thing to recognize is that comparing how you’re feeling with how someone looks like they’re feeling is a false comparison. Someone may look confident when they are, in reality, shivering inside.

Did you know that Barbra Streisand, Adele, and Rihanna all suffer from stage fright? Adele was so scared she once projectile vomited onto a member of the audience.

Even if you have fear, have faith in your accomplishments. Own them. If you’re a great singer, trust in your ability. Practice and prepare. Then trust your skills.

Trust your instincts, your gut. No, you won’t always be right, but, if you keep track, you’ll find that you’re right more often than not. Every time you trust yourself and you’re right, you’ll become more self-confident. As you gain in confidence, you’ll have more of those intuitive hits making life easier.

The Role of Others in Self-Trust

You have three types of people: those who don’t care one way or the other about you, those who’ll cheer you on, and then those who’ll be negative.

Don’t try to please those who don’t care. Accept them.

Find people who will be your cheering squad. I’m not talking about people who will cheer you blindly along your way when you need a little direction. Find those who cheer and will also let you know when you’re heading the wrong way. These folks will build your trust in yourself.

There will also be the nay-sayers. Unfortunately, your tendency may be to pay more attention to them than is necessary. Work at filtering out negative information. Focus on the positive in your life. Listen to those you trust. Avoid negative people. They take delight in bringing down people just because they can.

Have Faith in Yourself

Trusting yourself may require a leap of faith. Take some thoughtful chances. Keep track of your accomplishments. Learn from mistakes and focus on where you’re going.

You are your greatest asset, and a wonderful asset you are.

Let’s Look at Facts about Self-Esteem

I’ve been posting about causes of low self-esteem. These posts have been expansions on the post Low Self-esteem: 10 Causes. With this post I’m shifting somewhat. I want to give you some basic facts about low self-esteem.

What is Low Self-Esteem?

 Low self esteem is a pervasive sense you are flawed, not good enough, unworthy or unlovable. It doesn’t matter how much you accomplish, you just feel less than. There is an empty feeling inside you. You feel incomplete, unworthy and just plain miserable.

You may keep yourself busy so you don’t have to feel your emptiness.

You Attempt to Get Value from Others or from Things

People with low self esteem often struggle with people-pleasing in an effort to fit in or be accepted. Sometimes they compromise their values so they will be part of the in-group.

People with low self-esteem often collect things which they believe give them value. This could be money, nice cars or homes. They often look for power over people to feel internal power.

You’re not Nice to You

Negative self talk is often a constant for people with low self esteem. Even when things are going well, the critical inner-voice can sabotage success and efforts. Instead of enjoying the accomplishment, the person with low self-esteem looks for weaknesses.

Repeating negative comments made by parents and authorities while you were a child can occupy your mind. Be nice to yourself. Congratulate yourself. Look for the strengths in your accomplishments.

Are You Employed According to Your Skill Level

People with low self esteem are often underemployed, as they fear attempting to achieve and then failing. Sadder than not trying, is not believing that you can make a positive difference doing more than your doing now.

Take risks. Yes, it can be difficult if you don’t believe in yourself. Get the support of someone you trust to encourage you in moving out of the limitations you’ve given yourself

Do You Attract Unhealthy Relationship?

Those who have low self esteem often find themselves in unhealthy relationships. This can happens because they feel undeserving to be treated well. When you’re making negative comments to yourself about you to yourself,  you certainly don’t need anyone else to reinforce the negative in you.

Take a look at your relationship. Are they a reflection of what you think about yourself? What steps can you take to begin to have health relationships. That first step will be about your relationship with yourself.

Do You Isolate Yourself?

In some cases, people with low self esteem isolate themselves from others in an attempt to avoid rejection or feeling judged. This is different from being an introvert. An introvert needs alone time to recharge. Isolation because you are afraid of being with others is a whole different thing.

If you are an introvert, be sure you’re not using introversion as an excuse of isolating yourself. Extroverts, if you don’t go out and interact with others, you can be pretty sure you’re isolating. Find out why.

By the way, the other side of isolating is that you always have to be with others because you can’t stand being alone with yourself.

Can You and Do You Accept Compliments from Others.

The inability to accept compliments can be a hallmark of low self esteem. Some people were raised that accepting compliments is a sign of pride and that is wrong. If you don’t accept compliments because you believe there is nothing to compliment, that is a self-esteem issue.

When someone compliments you there is almost always one ideal answer. ” Thank you.”

Ways to Raise Your Self-Esteem

Come to Know Yourself

Focus on the positives about yourself and increase your awareness of them. With the negatives, take positive action to counteract them and, again, focus on the positive.

Shift your perspective in evaluating yourself. Write down compliments and successes. When you make mistakes, learn from them, and implement what you learn.

Speak Wonderful Words to Yourself

Affirmations and positive self talk can help reverse low self esteem. When your habit is to speak negatively to and about yourself, the first step is to STOP. Catch yourself when being negative and just stop. You don’t have to be upset. Just stop.

Then, substitute the positive. Have some positive affirmations ready to go when you catch yourself being negative. Need some ideas? Google, “Affirmations for self-esteem” and select a few applicable to yourself.

 

Quit Looking in a Distorted Mirror

Have you ever looked in those mirrors which change the way you look? You have your own “self-esteem mirror.” Learning to recognize distorted beliefs that reinforce low self esteem is crucial. If people tell you wonderful things about you and you don’t believe them, you have a distorted belief which has you seeing yourself in way that is not reality.

You can change beliefs about yourself. There are healing modalities such as BodyTalk, PSYCH-K and Encodements which will assist you in shifting your view of yourself.

Find Safety

Finding safe relationships and activities can decrease isolation and improve social skills. Where do you feel safe? Find those places and be there more often. Go places where there are healthy people or people working to get healthy. This may mean a support group.

You are worthy of all the wonderful things in life, including feeling good about yourself. When you have a life-long pattern of negativity, it takes time to change it. You can change it. You can learn new ways of thinking and relating.

If you need some help, make an appointment and let’s work with each other. Click here to send me an email.

Poor Academic Performance Can Beat You Down

What happens to us as children stays with us the rest of our lives. When you can’t succeed in the area that children spend most of their lives, in school, you carry with you the shadow of not succeeding. Many people think they aren’t smart. Maybe so. There are two other causes of poor academic performance which have nothing to do with motivation or how long you study.

 

1. School limits your modes of learning. When you’re in school you either listen to the teacher (at least you’re told to) or you read something or look at pictures. This method incorporates two modes of learning, auditory and visual. If you teacher only talks to you, then you need to listen. If they required you to read, it’s only visual.My sister discovered the difference with her son whose grades in English went between failing and excellent. After some discussion she discovered his best grades on books were when the teacher read things in class. The worst grades were when he read them. Books on tape to the rescue. (Yep, tapes were what we had then.)I remember when I was in school the teacher was upset when students read aloud when all of us were supposed to be reading. As I look back, it was the average to below average students who got in trouble for it. Would they have done better if allowed to read aloud? Probably. My guess is they were auditory learners.Consider how little ones learn. When a new baby begins crawling, parents “child-proof” the house. They cover the plugs, get breakables out of the way and keep small objects out of a child’s mouth.Why? Because little ones explore their world by using all their senses. They touch it, taste it, smell it, shake it to hear any changes, and look at it from all angles. They use all their senses.If you only use one or two senses, you learn much less.

   Consider the flower on the right. It’s a fascinating looking flower. Not one we’re used to seeing. You may notice it’s large compared to the plants around it. What you don’t know by looking at the photo is that, when it’s blooming, its aroma is horrible, like something dead, and you can smell it a block away.

2. Your brain works differently. Several years ago I was attracted to The Woman Who Changed Her Brain in the library. I fell in love with it and purchased my own copy. (You can get it from Amazon by clicking the image.)

She had severe learning disabilities AND a photographic memory. She was able to get into graduate school even though she didn’t understand much of what she was learning. Barbara Arrowsmith Young put some information together and discovered she could overcome her learning disabilities by developing exercises, with a little help from her friends and family, to exercise part of the brain needing to be strengthened.

When you flip to the back of the book, you can read a list of what she considers issues with the brain which her program can improve. The list is amazing. All of these challenges she can address with specific exercises.

If your brain works differently, or doesn’t work well in certain areas, you probably felt stupid and frustrated. This, of course, affects your self image.

You have undiscovered gifts. They just weren’t the ones the teachers were measuring.

You may be a whiz at video games but the skills needed to be great at that are not the ones that you need to excel in math, reading and history. Know that you have abilities not measured at school. Find those abilities. There are specific aptitude tests which can assist you in finding your gifts and talents.

Know that not doing well in school does not determine who you are. Yes, school can have an impact upon what you learn and, to some extent, upon what you do. School does not, however determine who you are. You have full control over who you are. You determine your values, how you treat yourself and how you treat others.

 

Trauma Can Affect Self-Image

“Coping Strategies after Traumatic Events” is the 7th in a series of post which elaborate on the post, “Self-Esteem: 10 Causes.”

From time to time, we all experience unfortunate events, situations, and traumas. Although traumas might involve physical injuries and damage, they can also be emotional. If unaddressed, the results of these emotional experiences can last for years.

Today, we’re focusing on the emotional aspects of trauma and what you can do to speed your recovery. Take a few moments to reflect upon your life and notice old hurts, especially emotional ones, which influence your life.

These could be your parents’ divorce when you were young, being bullied, or other upsets. Depending upon your emotional reaction, you will experience different levels of trauma. Let’s look at some ways you can help yourself cope with emotional trauma.

Trauma coping strategies:

Some of these are simple and you may not think they would be effective. Small strategies can have a tremendous influence simply because you are taking control of the event rather than allowing the event to control you.

1. Congratulate yourself on surviving. You made it through what happened. It doesn’t matter whether the event was physical, which always involves emotions, or “just emotional. You’re here. You did it. You’ve coped. You may not think that’s a big deal. After all, what else were you to do. You could have crashed and burned but you didn’t. Pat yourself on your back and give yourself a big hug. Really.Reminds me of a song!

2. 2. Give yourself some time. If the trauma was recent, you need some recuperation time. When the trauma is physical, you can see your wounds. When emotional, the wounds are hidden but they hurt sooooo much. Healing from emotional trauma takes time and rest. In the evenings after work, allow yourself some time to relax.

3. 3. Time plus be nice to yourself. You have to keep going in your daily life. Give yourself a break if you get distracted and take longer at your tasks. That’s your mind slowing down to process everything. Talk gently to yourself and remind yourself you need to be gentle with yourself.

4. 4. Keep the positive thoughts going. You can develop your own affirmation such as, “Each day I get better and better.” You can also sing the “I Will Survive” song above. Make it your ring tone.

5. 5. Do something you enjoy each day. This is a wonderful stress buster and one everyone should incorporate in their lives. Even if it’s just for 30 minutes a day, sit outdoors and watch the birds, work on a fun project, or talk to a friend. Staying in touch with the things that give you joy will speed your recovery.

6. 6. Let yourself cry, beat pillows, scream. Sometimes you just need to releae those feelings. After you let them go, take a few minutes and breathe deeply. Imagine you’re breathing in healing love. See, sense, feel that love course through your body. You are an amazing person and stronger than anyone ever knows even when you need to do some emotional release.

7. 7. Put on some relaxing or joyful music. Research shows that music soothes your spirit. Listen to music which brings you peace each day for at least 15 minutes. You can go to YouTube and search for relaxing music. There is plenty out there. Just to give you a head start, I found the piece below for you. You can use it for background music or listen and watch the beautiful images.
   8. Pamper yourself. If ever there’s a time to indulge indulge yourself, it’s when you’re healing from trauma. Relax on the couch, play with the kids, do that one thing you’ve been wanting to do.

8. 9. Watch funny movies or television. Laughing is shown to boost the immune system. Find something funny to watch. Everyone’s humor is different so be sure you find something for your sense of humor. Belly laughs are great and they release tension as well as improving your health.

9. 10. Move your body. Provided the doctor says it’s okay, engage in some physical activity each day. Dance. Walk. Play ball. Do some yoga. Lift weights, or get on the treadmill. Physical exercise releases endorphins, the “feel good” hormones.

10. 11. Be with those you love. Spend time with people who give your life meaning. Laughing, signing and dancing with them combines several wonderful things in your life.

12. Recognize when you need help. Sometimes you need an expert. That’s not a sign of weakness. It’s a sign of strength to know when you need help. You deserve the best of life. Spending time with a expert can give you a new perspective.

Healing takes time. You deserve that time. If you don’t take care of yourself, no one else will be able to help you.