• My love of animals
• The fact that we need to be who we are rather than try to mold ourselves into what we “should” be, and that’s for our own happiness and because we’ll be much more successful that way.

It’s not possible to put the video on my site but you’ll see it if you click on this link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BGODurRfVv4 .

You won’t regret taking the time! Actually you should do it especially if you feel overwhelmed right now.

You’ll take a breath, sink into yourself and reduce your overwhelm either by changing what you do or what you think.

Let me know what you think of it!

Now you can’t all be like Will nor should you be. It’s all about being yourself and finding your way within the laws of the universe.

Actually, it was! Let’s be realistic, sometimes life is difficult and we really feel beaten down, or we have people in our life who are going through a bad time and find it hard to believe in positive thinking, law of attraction, create your own reality, or everything-happens-just-as-it-should philosophies.

So we talked about what we can do when that happens. What works, what doesn’t.

Paula’s first suggestion was to start by noticing how you feel and what you are thinking. This is the starting point for a couple of reasons:

• When you feel down and out, it’s often too much of a leap to try to change how you think, but most of us are able to at least observe.
• Besides, when you want to change anything, the first step is always to establish your starting point. This is the big red X that says; “You are here” on the map.

The next step is to deepen your observation, to make it more specific. For example, you could ask yourself:

• What have I tried, exactly?
• What has been the connection between my circumstances and my thoughts?

I’ll give you an example to illustrate this last point. It’s rather trivial, but that keeps it simple. I was trying to open this supplement bottle, and it had a child-proof cap.

The first time I tried to open it, I persisted for less than a minute and then left it for later. When I came back to it, I was frustrated in advance, wondering why they make it so hard, thinking the cap was probably defective.  Actually, it seemed like it had this everyone-except-for-mechanics-or-engineers-proof cap! It would not budge despite me trying the usual moves.

Then I took a breath, told myself it didn’t make sense for them to make it this hard and that it had to be easy. I tried again, and it opened in one smooth move!

I expected it to be hard and it was. I expected it to be easy and it was. It reminded me that life often lives up to my expectations.

So when life is quite difficult, it might serve us well to observe whether we are bracing ourselves in advance for trouble…and get it on cue.

Paula went on to talk about the tool she uses when she, or one of her clients, temporarily lost hope: Byron Katie’s “The Work”.

And she suggested we do 4 things when we are faced with lost hope:

• Be compassionate
• Listen (or observe, if it’s about yourself)
• Don’t deny or lecture
• Love yourself even when you’re down

You might enjoy listening to the interview; you can find it here.

Most of us know that complaining is not the most evolved behavior we could have.

Yet it’s quite tempting to do because it provides some kind of emotional relief; it’s quite addictive actually.

I for one am committed to reforming my ways and refusing to give myself that kind of relief because it sends the wrong message to my subconscious, to the universe, and to people who hear my words.

I see complaining as a misguided creative act.

It’s stating what isn’t working for me, in the vague hope that by doing so, I will create a better situation.

The best I can hope for is to let off some steam and maybe get some sympathy.

The most likely outcome is that I’ll irritate people and dissipate my creative energy without getting any positive outcome.

Sure, I’ll fall off the wagon once in a while and banter about the humidity.

But my intention is to keep my complaint reflex on a short leash.

What are you thoughts about the subject? If you have an opinion or story to share, leave a comment!

“I just came back from a family reunion in Hodgeville Saskatchewan – population 150ish. One day my Uncle Felix and Aunt Hilda began telling stories about grandma and grandpa (that’s my great grandparents) who homesteaded there in the 1920s.

If you’re never been to southern Saskatchewan then picture bald prairie. The only trees were planted by hand and carefully watered with buckets carried from the wells. And the trees were needed to protect the houses (no R2000) from the winter winds.

It was the Depression and they were poor. Aunt Hilda spoke about grandma holding blankets over the windows during hail storms to protect them from the hail. She remembers the kids all crying because they knew what hail meant – no food. As a mother, my heart clenched at the thought of listening to the hail and knowing it meant not enough food for my kids.

And having no backup. No social services. No food banks. No credit cards. Just hungry kids.

Then Uncle Felix started telling a story about one Christmas when there was no money. So little money that they thought they might lose the farm. And would have if grandma’s parents hadn’t loaned them the money to keep going.

In the weeks leading up to Christmas, grandpa wanted to make sure the kids (about seven at this point) all had gifts under the tree. With no money, he scrounged around town for scrap wood. He then stayed up late each night carving and building. The older girls got hope chests, the younger ones got toy kitchens (I still have my grandmother’s) and the boys got horse and wagons (Uncle Felix still has his).

The determination and love grandpa showed: not knowing if they were going to have a home and yet giving up sleep to give the children a good Christmas seems quietly heroic to me. No one is going to make a movie or write a book about grandpa. And I’m sure most prairie families have similar stories in their family history.

But it got me thinking about my life and my business. It’s easy to get scared about taking risks and trying new things. It’s easy to feel a sense of foreboding when I look at what’s happening with the economy.

And then I think about Aunt Hilda crying as grandma holds up a blanket to keep the hail out. I think of grandpa working late into the night with scrounged wood even as he wondered where they’d be living next summer.

Suddenly the things that seemed scary and overwhelming don’t look so bad. Suddenly I’m thinking if my family can go from wondering if they’ll have a home and food to hosting a family reunion with over 75 in attendance in less than a century, what can I do?

The next time I worry about taking a risk or wondering if I can succeed at something new, I’m going to think of grandma and grandpa out on the bald prairie. I come from hardy stock. I can succeed too.”

Andrea J. Stenberg
TheBabyBoomerEntrepreneur.com

Now, doesn’t that put things in perspective?

You probably enjoyed doing something you both like, feeling a sense of relaxed companionship.

I believe that one of the most precious gifts of a deep friendship is the feeling of being seen for who we really are and accepted and loved for it (or despite it, from the point of view of our sometimes bruised self-esteem).

And that’s why we can let our guard down and just have fun.

It also gives us a glimpse into the “us” that we would like to be. After all, if we appreciate our friend and he or she appreciates us, then that gives us reassurance that we really are worthy.

Of course, most of that is subconscious. But there is no doubt that being understood, acknowledged, accepted and appreciated is a universal need.

That’s a good thing to remember whenever we want to make someone’s day. It’s also invaluable (and too frequently forgotten) in business.

After all, the last time I looked our staff, vendors, clients and prospects are all humans who would have the same need.

What can you do to make them feel understood, acknowledged, accepted and appreciated?

I was amazed at the quantity and breadth of material that I’d accumulated. I was also shocked at how much of it I’d forgotten.

Now I do enjoy reading and learning a great deal so it stands to reason I’d have quite a library. But it also has a dark side, and that’s when I keep reading and learning rather than spending time taking action.

Don’t we all recognize the stereotype of the perpetual student that refuses to leave the familiar university environment?

Well….maybe we do some of the same with our workshop-taking, reading, researching and planning.

My book sorting exercise certainly reminded me of that side of me.

Don’t get me wrong, I’ll keep buying books and courses and reading. But I need to make sure that I don’t use that to procrastinate in taking action.

I’ll bet a lot of you can relate to my story.

It must be a reaction to the pre-deadline high intensity and long hours, I thought.

As a corporate trainer, the post-workshop crash was part of my regular work rhythm. The lows inevitably following the highs, I thought.

All reasonable conclusions. However, the same thing happened even for personal “projects”, like finally selling a house or reaching a fitness goal, even if there was no intense phase at the end.

And it’s not just me; I’ve seen it in friends or clients. What gives?

The answer lies in what makes humans happy. Studies have shown that we are happiest when we are striving toward something. But when we finally reach our goal, we have nothing to strive for, albeit temporarily; we feel sad, lost and disoriented until we get our new bearings.

So how can we prevent that reaction?

We can minimize it by being aware of our feelings, understanding they’re natural, and not resisting them. Feelings experienced without resistance diminish and disappear much faster than if we resist. (What we resist persists).

If we have a broad vision for our life and our work; an awareness of our purpose and some kind of plan for our business, we will never be without a new goal on the horizon and without a sense of direction.

That principle applies to anything that gave you a fright physically, or a blow to your pride and sense of security (like losing a client, not getting a promotion, getting fired, bombing a speech, etc.).

You can’t let the negative experience “gel” without counteracting it, or your mind will doubt that you’re capable of succeeding despite having done so before your recent “fall”. I guess it’s the same principle as “only being as good as your latest movie”.

Your subconscious will also want to protect you from further harm by stopping you from getting into similar situations.

There is even a chance that it might generalize your experience to other risk-taking circumstances. For example, you might have bombed a talk at the Chamber of Commerce, but your sub-conscious wants to prevent you from speaking in front of anyone, even in team meetings.

There is also another level at work here deeper than our conscious and subconscious thought: the experience has imprinted you on an energetic level.

The good news about that is that you can defuse the subconscious fear of repeating past failures by working directly at the energy level.

An increasing number of people have discovered the effectiveness of tools such as EFT (the emotional freedom technique) as one way to untangle old fear imprinting, and you can find lots of free information online. ( emofree.com is a great resource).

Those are the words of DJ Boonie, who’s overcome challenges beyond what I’ve had to face.

“If I fall, I fall. It’s just another challenge. I’m gonna fall, that’s just the way it is. You get back up and you learn from your mistakes and you don’t do it again.”

Another quote of DJ’s that will mean more to you when you watch this video.