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“Only the ego operates in the past and the future, the soul and God work only in the present.” ~Craig Beck

My wife and I are in the thick of the holiday season, getting ready for another fun couple of weeks with our wonderful daughters, ages seven and three.  We got our holiday shopping done early, but the presents are still in bags, waiting to be wrapped.  Now, we stand only one week away from the big day, and we still have so much to do!

For me, personally, I am preparing to have a lot on my plate to start the new year.  I will be teaching my usual load of college courses, and then I will be adding another teaching assignment.  I was honored to be asked by my former college anatomy professor to fill in for her this spring semester, and teach her anatomy course.  Maintaining this rigorous schedule would be enough, but then throw on top of it maintaining my website, finding time to write a book, and carving out some more speaking engagements.  I’m beginning to wonder where I will find the time to manage it all! 

When we get busy, it’s easy for us to look at this huge list of “tasks” or goals that stand before us.  The list can be daunting if we look at it all at once.  We think about the things that have to be done, and it can cause great anxiety within us.  If you let it, it can literally keep you up at night!  Each time I start to look ahead at a large number of responsibilities to attend to, I think back to the most influential words I have ever read, coming  from Craig Beck’s book, The Secret Law of Subconscious Attraction.  Those words are: “Only the ego operates in the past and the future, the soul and God work only in the present.”

I love that!  It’s so true!  The ego loves to remind us of our failures — the things we didn’t get done today.  It adds frustration to our lives, and if we let it, it becomes a part of us.  We believe we are failures, and we start living our lives as failures!  The ego loves to place that self doubt within us about our capabilities to accomplish what lies ahead of us.  It loves to tell us that we’re not quite good enough.  We start to contemplate giving up before we start, because we’re not capable.

Both are false — we are not failures, and we are indeed capable!  We just have to believe it!

The past can also make us complacent…We can look back at our successes and think the work is over.  We’ve accomplished what we needed to and we can rest on our laurels and enjoy the ride.  That’s nonsense as well!  We are born to be better than that!  Every new day is a gift to accomplish something!  Every new day is an opportunity to grow and develop!

So, when we look at this daunting list of things to accomplish, or missed opportunities from days gone by, what can we do to overcome the worry, doubt, and anxiety?  We can live in the “now.”  The ego doesn’t exist in the present.  Only our pure self exists there!

Do you have a long list of things to accomplish?  Write them down on the list.  Start with item number one, and work until number one is accomplished.  Cross it off.  Move on to number two.  Work until that’s done.  Cross it off.  Keep going.  One at a time.

By doing this, you will be working in the present moment at all times.  You are focused on what is right in front of your eyes in the here and now.  Your list will always be there, so you’ll know what’s next as you move through the list, but you will harness the supreme power of “now” time.  You’ll be more efficient; you’ll get more done; you’ll feel extreme accomplishment as you look back on what you did in that “now” time.

When things get tough and the list grows long, remember — there’s no time like “now” time!

This is my last post for 2012.  It’s been a great year!  Thank you all who helped me become #23 on the list of the “Top 50 Personal Development Blogs!”  I am so appreciative!  Thank you all for your support this past year.  2012 was a great year.  I can’t wait to see what 2013 brings!  I wish you all a very happy and prosperous 2013!  Best wishes to you always!

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“Stress is basically a disconnection from the earth, a forgetting of the breath. Stress is an ignorant state. It believes that everything is an emergency. Nothing is that important. Just lie down.” ~Natalie Goldberg

I was recently researching the impact of stress on people in the workplace, and I stumbled upon this very interesting statistic: According to the CCH 2007 Unscheduled Absence Survey, “Two-thirds of U.S. workers who call in sick at the last minute do so for reasons other than physical illness,” and thirteen percent of those who call in sick at the last minute call in because of stress!

No doubt, this thirteen percent is costing companies a lot of money, and people are still sitting at home and still stressed.  Nothing improves.  What is it about us that causes us to be so incapacitated by stress that we feel we can’t go on, and that we need those “mental health days” off from work to try to cope?  Our stress response itself is the body’s way of coping with stress.  But, what is stress?

“Stress” is a shortened version of the word “distress.”  Stress is essentially “distress.”  What is causing the distress?  In my humble opinion, I believe the distress is caused by a person’s fear…A person is experiencing fear day after day, hour after hour, and this prolonged fearful state causes distress.  So, in other words, our fear is causing our distress!

In his book, The Emotional Brain, Joseph LeDoux talks about two different types of fear.  One type of fear is the “real” fear — the fear that causes you to soil yourself because a bear is chasing you and your life is indeed in peril.  This type of fear is that true fear that is necessary for self preservation.  However, there is another type of fear, which LeDoux refers to as a “red herring,” because although it is fear, it is not a fear caused by a possible loss of life.  It’s caused by fear of a loss of a job, money, power, control, or some other non-life-threatening factor.  Even though one’s life isn’t in peril, the body still acts as if it were.  The result of this non-life-threatening factor is the same short-term stress response.

So what does this fear do?  It serves the ego.  The ego thrives on attachments to “things.”  It loves to have possessions, because then it can convince the body to fight to preserve the attachment to whatever it is it fears losing.  To live out of this automatic, hard-wired, reflexive operational state of being is to live life through the ego, continually responding to fear, and continually throwing the body into an emotional reaction to the fear the person experiences.  To live through the ego is to cause suffering due to what Eckart Tolle calls a “pain body.”  This “pain body” is a shadow of the ego — it is the suffering which is caused due to living through the ego.

So how do we come full circle?  Let’s give it a shot — Get rid of the ego, and you’ll get rid of the attachment to “things;” get rid of the attachment, and you’ll eliminate the fear of losing those “things.”  Once you eliminate your fear and the ego, the “pain body” will go away, and so will the stress response.

This seems to make sense, but then again, what can someone do to eliminate the fear and the ego?  Here are some of my recommendations.  First off, look at the source of the fear.  Is the fear caused by something that is life threatening?  Just building a conscious awareness of your feelings is huge.  I know that when I start feeling my body’s reaction to my stress hormones, which usually is sensing that my heart is racing and I feel that twinge of resentment, envy, or anger, I step back and think about what is causing this reaction.  I ask myself, “Am I going to die as a result of these circumstances?”

If the answer is “no,” then I start talking myself down, reminding myself that I am physically responding to my emotions, and I tell myself there is nothing to fear; everything is okay.  I also ask myself if I am attached to something, which is causing this reaction.  Am I attached to some sort of sense of power or control?  Am I fearful of losing control over a situation?  Again, just building that conscious awareness of my thoughts and feelings makes a big difference.

If you’re one of that thirteen percent that is letting stress get the better of you, maybe you could take some time to analyze what is causing your stress.  Is it a perpetual fear of something?  More accurately, is it a perpetual fear of losing something, or fear of losing an attachment to something?  Is your ego getting the best of you?  By getting in touch with the source of your emotions, you may discover the source of your stress, and then perhaps you’ll be in a better position to handle and then eliminate it.  Just a thought… 🙂

If you want more tips and strategies for quieting the ego, I highly recommend checking out my free publication, “Mediocre No More,” which provides insight on the fear mechanism and its relation to the ego, as well as my “Antidote to the Mediocre Mind,” which is aimed at subsiding the fear caused by attachments and the ego.  Just fill in the information at the top of the screen, and it will be yours! 🙂
Photo source: freedigitalphotos.net

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Join me for this week’s interview (the last of the year) on Monday, December 10 at 12 PM Central!

To listen to this week’s interview, click HERE!

“As we venture beyond the end of the Mayan Calendar at the end of 2012, a small percentage of humanity is evolving from an ego-identified, reactive, reality-ignoring, emotionally violent, self-destructive state of suffering into a heart-centered, egoless, Self-empowered, emotionally independent, creative state of being.” ~Jason Lincoln Jeffers

I will be welcoming to my radio show Jason Lincoln Jeffers, Author of the book The Next Human to my radio show this week!

When I got the chance to read Jason’s book, The Next Human, it was a fascinating and refreshing read.  I was filled with inspiration and hope, and I learned quite a bit too along the way!  From discussion of the ego and fear, to the “phantom self,” to looking at a person’s diet, to relationships, to using the heart to alter one’s DNA, to evolution to the “zero point self,” there’s something in this book for everyone!  I guarantee that in addition to being entertained, you will no doubt learn something from this book!  I am looking forward to having a chance to talk to Jason about his book, and I hope you have the opportunity to learn more about it during my final radio show of the year!

A little about the book: 

“Everything in nature evolves. This process is usually slow, taking millions of years. But every couple hundred millennia or so, an entire species takes a giant leap forward. Currently, 17,500 nuclear warheads on Planet Earth are considered operational and at least 4,000 of them are on hair-trigger alert. The nations of North Korea and Iran are scrambling to add their own warheads to the list. The human race now has but one option for world peace: evolution.

Don’t miss the interview!  It’s the last one for an amazing 2012!

 

Facebook user? Click the “Like” button below and get my newest publication, “Unlock Your Inner Awesome Today” for free!  That’s it!

I will be welcoming guest Tami Urbanek, medium and clairvoyant of EmpowermentThroughHealing.org

As I was setting up the date for Tami’s interview, I noticed that this was the first scheduled interview where we actually discussed the topic of empowerment for a show called “Positively Empowered Radio!”  How funny is that?

I am so excited for this week’s interview.  I haven’t interviewed a medium/clairvoyant yet on this show, and when I discovered Tami online, I knew I had to reach out to her.  The combination of her unique gifts and her mission to help empower people was a combination I couldn’t pass up!  I knew I just had to have her on, and I was so grateful when she accepted my offer!  I just love reading her stories, which she shares on her website, www.empowermentthroughhealing.org.  I invite you to check out her website and read about her incredible experiences!

Here’s Tami’s story, through her own words:

“Moving out of my safe and nurturing parent’s home at 18 years old to move in with a man of 22 years old proved to be a poor choice on my part. I so desired independence, but what I created was a painful relationship with a verbally and emotionally abusive alcoholic. I guess I thought I could help him….We married within a few months of living together and within a few more months, I became pregnant with my beautiful daughter. At the age of 19, I divorced him as I was fearful of him hurting our daughter during one of his intoxicated rages. Unfortunately, I had no money and I was working at McDonald’s. I qualified for child care assistance, utility assistance, and some food assistance. After a few more disastrous relationships, I decided I needed to change how I felt about myself and that I needed to change my priorities.

With child support not coming my way, and now, working at a high school in a classroom for kids with special needs and delivering newspapers at 3:30am, seven days a week, and beginning college, I was ready to make more changes. Over the course of the next few years, I met and married my current husband of now 14 years and pursued and completed my bachelor’s degree in Psychology. I continued my education and earned a Master’s Degree in Special Education, a Master’s Degree in Public Administration, a teaching certificate for teaching special education, and a teaching certificate for teaching English in regular education. I also earned two teaching awards. During the later years of my education and teaching, my ability as a medium began to open and I began communicating with the deceased. There were times that I needed to approach people about a deceased people. These were people I had never met…

In 2008, I left that safe world of employment and began expressing my abilities as a medium/clairvoyant. I grew up with a father who is a medium, so the transition seemed very natural. Now, I work with people internationally and nationally, people who desire to communicate with their spirit guides for life assistance. I also offer Tai Yi (pronounced Tie Yee) energy work to assist people in their physical, mental, and emotional healing process. Just recently, I have added a coaching service to my work as I can walk people through the process of healing many issues as I did myself.

I am on journey of healing and of assisting others who desire to heal their life and find their passion, their joy, their self-love.”

I can’t wait to speak with Tami, and I invite you to listen to the our conversation!

Don’t miss the interview!