History is Made. Healing is Necessary. Have Hope!
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I struggle By Marni
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What am I going to write about? The time I struggled and showed my ass by behaving like I’d lost my mind? There are moments I feel like I’m part of the circus or better yet starring in a sit-com. My life is far from always being full of laughter though we laugh a lot in our family.
I get tired of taking everything so seriously. So I put on a pair of “TV glasses” and see what each situation I’m worried about, frustrated with, pissed about, and enjoying would like through the camera of a sit-com.
I discovered this solution when Eli was an infant. I was alone and changing his diaper. He stuck one foot in poop, then another, then his hand. Somehow it got on my hands too. I was by myself at home. And as a new mom, I began to panic. How do I figure this out? How do I get my son and myself clean without getting poop everywhere. Every idea I thought of resulted in me seeing my son ending up falling to the floor. All the tools I needed were in other rooms, The thought of carrying poop from room to room with a dog and three cats standing by to enter the fray filled me with more anxiety. My body tensed and tightened. And then Eli began to cry. Big surprise, right? And then as he wriggled in more poop, for a split second I imagined my reaction if I was watching this on TV. What was the big deal? And I began to laugh. And as I laughed and my body loosened, Eli calmed and smiled. I have no idea how, but somehow I cleaned us both pretty quickly and easily. And from then on, I pulled out my “TV Glasses” during life situations. Any caregivers out there ever experience similar situations?
Which brings me to a few days ago when again I was struggling, frustrated and a little scared. Instead of picturing the sitcom, I cried. I disagreed with my producer for my upcoming radio show and participated in unnecessary arguing drama. I was not fit for human consumption and I felt it in my body. I reflected on all my “life plates” I keep spinning, my to dos. Are these life or death “plates”? Nope. What will happen if I don’t get EVERYTHING done? Nothing. What am I afraid of?
Truth? Falling on my face which is FAILING. Yet even as I say that most of me is not afraid. I know in the deepest part of me, even if I fall on my face there is a reason. I know the experience will provide me with an opportunity. Now truth be told. It isn’t comfortable to fail. So I don’t know of anyone who runs out and says Yes, I’ll choose Failure. What I know is if I don’t choose change, which comes with risks, and pushing out of what is comfortable, I stay stuck.
Complacency becomes another word for stuck. Don’t make waves. Status quo. Don’t ask a tough question because of what might happen. Did you know stuck means you don’t get to experience the fantabulous either?
Self-esteem plays a huge role in your willingness to embrace change. Change can have ALOT of unknown and unfamiliar feelings and factors. So of course complacency will feel better in some aspects because you know it. And you know your outcomes even if they are painful.
So here I go taking another leap: 1) I premiered my radio show heard globally 2) I stopped part of my business marketing which I believed until recently was the largest draw for meeting new clients. I do not know what I’m doing next to grow my community. I trust it will be revealed soon (there was a bit of GULP the first time I said that) 3) I am continuing to lovingly detach as a parent (more on this in future articles). Providing my son opportunities to grow and fail (as safely as I can) 4) I am visibly emerging with live videos on social media, radio, joint ventures with other healers 5) I am learning how to do my radio show from my computer and all the mechanics and marketing (there are at least 10 things here I don’t know) 6) I am allowing in my relationship with Marc instead of listening to the voice telling me to “drive the train”. With more leaping each week and sometimes daily.
And while some days it feels harder and some days I fail. I am still happy everyday. And more and more consistently, I feel an ease and a joy. I feel a freedom like I did as a kid riding my bike super fast with the wind blowing my hair kicking my feet out as I went down a huge hill and yelling WHEEEEEEE!!!
With Love and Gratitude,
Marni
Is It Too Good To Be True? By Marni
Editor on Iâve been having conversations recently with a friend. He truly wants to find and enjoy a long term committed relationship. His relationship experience is dotted with disappointment and hurt. He recently met someone new and they clicked.
In one breath, he tells me about their amazing connection. They enjoy spending time together, talking, intimacy, just hanging out. They’re very attracted to each other, yet it’s much more than physical. He spends a lot of time telling me about their connection in some detail. They have similar values, think similarly, yet they also have some differences.
Then he says âshe is a unicornâ. By definition a unicorn is a fantasy, âa mythical animal typically represented as a horse with a single straight horn projecting from its forehead.â He follows this up saying âshe seems perfect for me. There must be something Iâm not seeing. I keep looking for what’s wrong with her. She is too good to be true.â
Have you ever met someone amazing and thought that very same thing? âToo Good to Be True?â It could be with a relationship, a friendship, a job, the way your life is flowing. Anything.
I had a time when I felt this way too. It wasnât when I met and dated my husband. It was later AFTER we married. Weird, I know.
When you say âitâs too good to be true,â You’re questioning what is coming into your life because of your own lack of or limited belief in self-love, self-worth. You feel self-doubt which causes you to resist change, looking for “the other shoe to drop” effect, instead of embracing change.
Your limiting belief is two-fold (or more):
1) You’re missing some of the enjoyment of your relationship by focusing on some unforeseen problem (fear, anxiety) that may not ever happen. That is creating fear in you and causes you to âping pongâ. Yes, I am in. No, I am afraid. Yes, I am in. No, I am afraid. The ping ponging changes the magnetic energy around you as well as your behavior and it can feel confusing to someone else without them understanding why.
For my friend, it comes out in his relationship when they discuss their relationship histories. He wants to know, he doesnât want to know. Then he hears something that concerns him and thinks he may have found âthe other shoeâ, but he doesnât really want to find the other shoe. And then these feelings drape themselves over his girlfriend and she becomes sensitive and upset. Meanwhile he doesnât understand why she is upset. This can lead to drama, unnecessary drama, instead of enjoying each moment and the now.
2) What are you truly afraid of? Why do you feel you do not deserve this happiness and love? He has been hurt in the past. Does that sound familiar? He says maybe he isnât meant to be with someone. Which is as close to saying âmaybe I donât deserve to be with someoneâ, âmaybe Iâm not loveableâ. My friend has a harder time going to this place. That is so common. Who wants to sit in feelings of âIâm not worthyâ and âIâm not loveableâ. And yet, even not addressing them, they take hold in your life. And they can decimate your relationships if you engage or speak from lack.
When you have full love and belief in yourself, you stop resisting, surrender and embrace change. Then you move past the âis this really happening?; Is this real?; Is this something I deserve? And you just say…YES.
If you feel âit is too good to be true?â or you wait for the âother shoe to dropâ? What do you do about it? Do you do anything about it or silently suffer?
You can put an end to these silent and shared conversations. You can quiet your fear. It is so possible. I didnât always believe it. Through my own healing and the support and guidance I share with and teach to my clients, Iâve seen and experienced it.
And if you are ready to look at your life from a possibility of: anything is possible and life has many possibilities. I invite you to a complimentary call with me Touching Your Inner Guidance. Just click the link below and weâll talk about what you are done with and ready to leave behind; what you want for yourself and can so have; and how what I do can support and guide you to those extraordinary possibilities.
Loss and grief
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The host of Good Grief, Cheryl Jones, recently wrote an article for Open to Hope, a renowned outlet for writings related to loss and grief. With all the losses we are all experiencing across the globe, she had to express what has happened for her as she has attempted to absorb the weight of the violence. Taking a hopeful view of the human condition, Cheryl’s focus is to emphasize the importance of acknowledging and experiencing our grief, making room for the new while carrying with us all the loves and losses we’ve experienced.
How Do We Cope With Hate Crimes? Three Considerations by Dr. Suzanne B. Phillips
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Optimism
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Every week, Express Yourself!⢠will bring you a stimulating program based on a chapter from our award winning book Be the Star You Are!® for Teens. (http://www.starstyleradio.com/#!store/c1747) âA pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity.  An optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty.â â Winston Churchill Optimism doesn’t mean life will be perfect, just that we can imagine positive outcomes. Given a choice, we all have the power to write our own personal happy ending. 
Dr. Bud Bilanich, the Common Sense Guy, leadership consultant, career success coach, motivational speaker, bestselling author, and influential blogger, joins hosts Asya Gonzalez and Jennifer Lee in an uplifting romp through the power of hopefulness.
The program ends with Jennifer singing âPut Your Records Onâ. Be an optimist and take advantage of the opportunities to accomplish that which you thought you could not. Bio: Bud Bilanich-Optimism Bud Bilanich, The Common Sense Guy, is an executive coach, motivational speaker, author and blogger. Dr. Bilanich is Harvard educated but has a no nonsense approach to his work to goes back to his roots in the steel country of Western Pennsylvania. Bud is a cancer survivor, on the faculty at the University of Denver Business School and lives in Denver with his wife Cathy. He is a retired rugby player and an avid cyclist. He likes movies, live theatre and crime fiction. www.BudBilanich.com Listen at Voice America Kids:http://www.voiceamerica.com/episode/90949/the-gift-of-optimism Listen, View Photos, Descriptions, & More at Express Yourself!⢠Teen Radio: http://www.expressyourselfteenradio.com  Make a DONATION through PAYPAL GIVING FUND and PAYPAL with 100% going to BTSYA with NO FEES: ! https://www.paypal.com/us/webapps/mpp/search-cause?charityId=1504&s=3 Read our February Newsletter: http://hosted.verticalresponse.com/672296/5ba937b37f/288055965/ac7221bc2f/ Have you ever bought a TV cathode screen or computer screen? If yes, please take 3 minutes to help BTSYA. Easy help. http://ow.ly/SFIHz Listen to all broadcasts at ITUNES: https://itunes.apple.com/podcast/express-yourself!/id481894121?mt=2 Express Yourself! Teen Radio is produced by Cynthia Brian of Starstyle Productions, llc as an outreach program of Be the Star You Are! charity. To make a tax-deductible donation to keep this positive youth programming broadcasting weekly to international audiences, visit http://www.bethestaryouare.org/donate.htm. Dare to care! For all the latest news on what teens are talking about on Express Yourself! Teen Radio embed this code into your blogs and web sites <Iframe src=”http://www.voiceamerica.com/jwplayer/HostPlayer.html?showid=2014″ frameborder=”0″ scrolling=”auto” width=”420″ height=”380″></Iframe> Thanks for supporting teens! Be the Star You Are! charity. It’s the Season of Giving Make a donation today. http://www.bethestaryouare.org/donate.htm. Buy books and shirts at http://starstyleradio.net/Store.html . If you are buying gifts on line, check out http://smile.amazon.com/gp/charity/homepage.html?orig=%2Fgp%2Fholidaytoylist%3Fie%3DUTF8%26pldnSite%3D1&ein=94-3333882&ref_=pe_732550_158412520 Amazon donates a % back to BTSYA with every purchase.Thanks for helping us help others. Starstyle, Be the Star You Are, and Miracle Moments are registered trademarks of Cynthia Brian
                          
Holiday Hope
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The Gift of Hope
Every week, Express Yourself!⢠will bring you a stimulating program based on a chapter from our award winning book Be the Star You Are!® for Teens.
What do you hope for? What is hope? How can we instill more hope in ourselves and others? Asya Gonzalez, Katelyn Darrow, Maria Wong, Zahra Hasanain, and Brigitte Jia offer variations on the theme of hope. Â Youâll hear about how volunteering with a charity offers hope to those less fortunate, books with themes of hanging on to hope, how to heal from the inside out with hope, and the association of hope and art. Personal perspectives, youthful insights, and phenomenal passion is our gift of hope to you. Offer hope to others and youâll find it in yourself.
Congratulations to everyone at Express Yourself!⢠Teen Radio for four years of excellent broadcasting.
Listen at Voice America Kids
Listen, View Photos, Descriptions, & More at Express Yourself!⢠Teen Radio
Make a DONATION for the holidays through PAYPAL GIVING FUND & 100% goes to BTSYA!
Make a DONATION for the holidays through PAYPAL GIVING FUND and PAYPAL will add 1% to every donation with 101% going to BTSYA!
Read our December newsletter
Have you ever bought a TV cathode screen or computer screen? If yes, please take 3 minutes to help BTSYA. Easy help.
Listen to all broadcasts at ITUNES
Express Yourself! Teen Radio is produced by Cynthia Brian of Starstyle Productions, llc as an outreach program of Be the Star You Are! charity. To make a tax-deductible donation to keep this positive youth programming broadcasting weekly to international audiences. Dare to care!
Be the Star You Are! charity. It’s the Season of Giving Make a donation today. Buy books and shirts at StarStyle Radio. If you are buying gifts online,  Amazon donates a % back to BTSYA with every purchase. Thanks for helping us help others.
Inside the Miracle with Mark Nepo
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What do we do with the enormous suffering created by such things as deadly illness and trauma? Â They say, what doesnât kill you makes you stronger. But when the miracles come, what is it that happens within us, around us, about us? Â What is it that transforms us? Mark Nepo is coming back to the Authentic Living show to discuss his latest book, Inside the Miracle, in which he reveals his own miraculous recovery from cancer and all of the profound insights that came with it during, right after and in the years since. Mark is the bestselling author of The Book of Awakening, a poet, philosopher and spiritual teacher who has published 16 books, and 11 audio projects. This interview is going to be moving, profoundly insightful and it will offer powerful guidance to those suffering right now. Â Donât miss it.
Suffering From Burnout? Love Is The Cure! with Deborah Jane Wells (Part 1 of 3)
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If despite a lifetime of diligence and hard work, you feel you are still searching for something that remains just beyond your grasp, then you, my friend, may be stuck in the hamster wheel approach to life. Hamster wheel people donât give up; they will die trying to deliver the goods.
You may think you want a better job, more satisfying relationship or healthier body. In reality, your restlessness isnât about your income, your relationships or your looks. Itâs about feeling incomplete.
Even the most committed and productive individuals can shift from frustration to a sense of futility when their values, passion, work and lives become disconnected. One of the problems with not taking care of our health is that the effects of ignoring it are often slow to show up. We continue to juggle family responsibilities, work and finances until we lose ourselves, waking up one day 50 pounds heavier in body and soulâno good to ourselves or anyone else.
If that pattern sounds painfully familiar, I have good news for you. There is hope for escaping the self-imposed prison of the hamster wheel, ending your pattern of burnout and learning to live a life you love. It all starts with embracing the amazing and liberating possibility that the love of your life just might be you.
My first big realization on the road to recovery was that my utter and complete burnout was clear evidence that I had not been loving myself. I was not nurturing, encouraging or motivating myself in healthy ways physically, mentally, emotionally, or spiritually. I was disrespecting my body, mind, feelings, and values. Working myself nearly to death with no regard for illness or despair. If I had treated another being that way, human or feline, I would have been jailed long ago.
When I became serious about uncovering the roots of my imbalance and trying to set it right, I concluded that there are two fundamental types of core energy: love and fear. When I examined the primary energy underneath any thought, feeling, word, or deed, I found love, fear, or some combination of the two.
Love is constructive and moves you forward. Fear is destructive and holds you back. Love is the author of truth and reality. Fear is the author of lies and illusion.
At first, I didnât always recognize them as love or fear because they didnât always show up in my life with those specific labels. I found the terms to be nebulous, tricky, and easy to misunderstand. With awareness, persistence, and unflinching honesty, over time I was able to recognize love and fear masquerading under lots of other masks.
In trying to get a more concrete grasp on what healthy self-love might look like, I realized I understood its opposite, fear, much better because I had fueled myself with it for so long. With mindfulness and curiosity, I recognized that the many faces of fear could be synthesized into a four-part pattern that captured the most common guises in which fear showed up in my relationship with myselfâcontempt, judging, shame, and lack. I then employed one of my favorite writing technologies, the Microsoft Word thesaurus function, to find their oppositesârespect, curiosity, compassion and gratitude. With the help of the insight and clarity provided by those particular attributes of love, the light dawned, and I began to make real progress.
Once I understood the impact of fueling myself with love rather than fear, I finally realized there is a vast difference between perfectionism and excellence. Perfectionism is not a lofty goal or enviable trait. Perfectionism is a fear-based illusion riddled with lies and characterized by force. Excellence is a love-based reality characterized by flow and grounded in the truth of who I am and Whose I am: a unique, cocreative expression of the divine. The highest goodâfaith, hope, prosperity, peace and joyâis not served by using force. The highest good is revealed and advanced through love, respect, curiosity, compassion and gratitude.
© Copyright 2013 DJW Life Coach LLC. All rights reserved.
About the Author
What’s love got to do with minimizing stress and getting unstuck? Everything, according to empowerment coach and inspirational speaker Deborah Jane Wells, author of Choose Your Energy: Change Your Life! During her 30 years as an organization transformation consultant, Deborah served as a senior partner in four of the world’s largest, most prestigious global professional services firms. In 2005, she took a five-year sabbatical to find healing and peace because non-stop work had taken its toll. Her recovery from burnout, including a sustained 80-pound weight loss and freedom from 10 years of debilitating depression, led to finding her purpose guiding others on their journeys. Through healing and self-exploration, she discovered that loving yourself unconditionally is the key to transforming your personal life, your work, and the world. Deborahâs books, blog, radio show, and signature coaching programs help individuals and organizations harness that same transformative power of love to turn unexplored possibilities into fulfilling realities and step into their greatness. Learn more at Deborah Wells Website.
Hope for the New Year: Challenges, Progress, and Hope
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What mental health challenges lay ahead for American Warriors in 2014? What progress has been made this year to help American Warriors? How can we create more hope among Warriors and families?
Dr. Mary Bartlett is a licensed professional counselor, and serves as an independent behavioral health consultant on resilience, risk reduction, and suicide prevention. Â With a doctorate in Counselor Education from Auburn University, her professional credentials include certification as a national counselor, a certified Alabama counseling supervisor, a certified family life educator, and a military family life consultant. Â She is an authorized trainer for the Suicide Prevention Resource Center and the American Association of Suicidology, is a qualified master resilience trainer, and speaks internationally on suicide prevention, resilience, leadership, and various mental health related topics.
Guest Bio:
Dr. Bartlett is currently involved in research on the correlation between eating disorders, self-harm, and suicide with Dr. Thomas Joiner, a leader in the field of suicide research, and his research team at Florida State University concurrently with Dr. Tracy Witte at Auburn University. She serves Department of Defense leadership on suicide and resilience-related matters and works closely with the Air National Guard Bureau in Washington, DC; formerly, she served on the Army National Guard Resilience, Risk Reduction, and Suicide Prevention Council and the Air Force Resilience Programming and Development Working Group.
Dr. Bartlett is a board member of the Alabama chapter of the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention and serves as a member of the Alabama Suicide Prevention and Resource Coalition and on the ethics committee for the International Association of Eating Disorders Professionals.
Dr. Bartlett is passionate in her commitment to prevent suicide and advocate for those who have been touched by suicide.  She travels to lecture and provide support services to a wide range of organizations, hails from Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and is married to a retired military member who served for twenty-five years on active duty.
Tune in to American Heroes Network on the Voiceamerica Variety Channel. Listen for their New Episode “Hope for the New Year: Challenges, Progress, and Hope” on Tuesday December 31st 8 am Pacific Time.
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