Self Accepting Promise

Accepting yourself is a big step, but it is the most important one of your life.  Affirmations are part of accepting yourself.  Go through your day and say “I accept myself” over and over again.  Keep saying it no matter how uncomfortable it makes you feel.  Eventually, it will start to break through and you will understand that you need to accept yourself.

Your assignment is to write a self-accepting promise.  Write down all the things you need to start to believe about yourself.  If you cannot think of anything, take all of the negative things you say about yourself and reverse them.  For example, “I will never find a good partner” to “I deserve a loving relationship.”  Here is my self accepting promise to myself:

Self Accepting Promise

I love myself and that helps me love those in my life and those who come into my life.

I will accept myself for all that I am and all that I am not.

I am beautiful, loving and kind.

I will not place judgment on myself or others.

My life is a contribution to the world.

Without me the world would not be the same.

I will never force love from another.

I am worthy of all relationships that honor me.

For, I am a woman of grace, dignity, courage and joy.

I am a reflection of life itself.

I respect myself and I respect others.

I love myself and so others love me.

I honor myself and so others honor me.

There is no other me ever.

I am compassion for myself and so others are compassionate with me.

I promise myself that I will always speak my truth with love.

I will be forgiving when I have forgotten who I am.

I will be compassion.

I am power, success creative and abundance.

I am fully provided for.

I have fear but fear does not have me.

What is your self accepting promise? We invite you to comment below.

The Truth Will Set You Free

The truth they say will set you free. How often have you avoided saying what is true for you because you’re afraid of the consequences because they looked and felt uncomfortable? You don’t want to be uncomfortable so you refuse to tell your truth or the truth. When you deny yourself the truth, you lose the ability to keep it real. Keeping it real gives you the opportunity to accept things the way they really are. Keeping it real, frees up your energy mentally, emotionally and physically. You don’t have to go around feeling like Atlas (the primordial Titan who supported the heavens) with the world on your back. You’re free. The adage is “it’s like a world lifted off my back.” When you don’t tell the truth, you have the world on your back you feel stuck, unhappy, and angry and weighted down.

It is vital to tell your truths. Secrets kept over a period of time rob you of your power, freedom, full self-expression which in turn steals your peace of mind. Lying can cause all kinds of physical, emotional ailments, internal conflicts and depression? When you release yourself from the warren of lies you get to experience freedom in area of life that is important to you.

What untruths are you hiding? What resentments have you built up because of your deceit? What do you need for yourself or from another person? Would you be willing to make a commitment now to that when you have resentment and untruths brewing, instead of letting it brew you would you be willing take on the task of asking for what you want? What is the worst that could happen? Think about it. You could actually get a (yes) what you want or you could get a (No) refused. However, you will see that you did not die, and no one you cared about got hurt.

Sometimes the truth is not as clear to see as the behavior is. The behavior might be one that is carried out for a number of years. Resentments.

I had a resentment toward men. The resentment was so old it did not have a voice, it was all reaction based. It was created 3 decades earlier but lived out its practice in every relationship with everyman I experienced. The resentment I had been brewing toward my father. Please note that my father has been dead for over 2 decades. However, because I had never allowed myself to express the feeling at the time it happened, I carried it around with me unbeknownst to in the form of an action which limited my beliefs and impacted my life. The resentment lived as my truth. I had been destroying many relationships that were important to me. This behavior kept me wondering if I’d ever have a meaningful relationship with a man that would come into my life. Up to now, it had not been impossible. This left me being irritated, confused, inauthentic, angry, frustrated, shut down, lacked trust and unhappy in my relationships. I had a loss of power freedom and full self-expression that left me with no peace of mind.

I had a conversation with my sister about the love that I had for her and what she considered her dysfunctional family. There was a rift and I became committed to bridging the divide that had grown in my family. With the help of my sibling, I was going to transform the family. As I cried and shared with my sister, I started to remember lots of things. Some of which did not have language, just emotions. I started to remember some things that I had forgotten when I was sixteen living in Great Britain I has saved 350 pounds to start traveling. My parents where always people that complained and worried about money. The worry about money was constant, how they were going to pay the mortgage etc., the gas, electric etc., The truth of the matter was my parents always paid the bills because they worked and were pretty responsible. We never went without the lights or heat and we always had food. I always did my dancing classes etc., it was just a habit that they had for so long that that they did not know it was a habit. Anyway, I took my 350 pounds and give it to my father. Thinking that my father would appreciate my contribution, and think that I was amazing daughter who cared and was not selfish which is all I ever really wanted. I gave the money to my father in the green hallway of my house with its green carpet, and complimentary green wallpaper in front of our Victorian stained glass window and wood door.

Her father took the money. However, the story is I don’t remember my father ever saying thank you or even giving me a hug or saying anything. My father was old school. He did not hug children or play with them. I released the money with a deep sadness that I never expressed or voiced every again. I just swallowed my emotions around it. I was upset. My father did not even say thank you.

In that moment, I made up the story that I never really uttered aloud, that story became “all men do is take, take, take.” I had proof. This is what my father had done to me. This is what other men will always do. I knew in that moment that I could never depend on a man like I could never depend on my father. I would never find a man that just wanted to be with me. I would find me who would invalid me, take from and never contribute to me. I have lived my life believing this story that I had made up, attracting men to keep my story alive. Trying to date men who were opposite from her father. Not realizing that I could and never did ask the men I dated or even married for what I liked because I truly believed that they did not have and all they would do anyway was take take take. That became my reality, my truth.

After much work and development, I was able start dismantling this story I had been telling me self. It was not the truth. It was not the way it was. I gave my father the money, he did say thanks, but it was not in a way that I really wanted. I realized that I had created this story about myself and I had lived my life like a victim trapped inside a tinder box of my own making.

Not knowing and allowing myself to see my truth, I allowed my stories to sabotage my relationships.
On discovering this truth, I went to work on getting the relationship that I desired, I allowed myself to dream. I learned that I had to put the past in the past and create a new way of being that was going to propel me forward in my life. I created a trusting, open and vulnerable space to live from being free from control. Understanding and experiencing that vulnerability was not a curse, and that I did not have to eat glass in order to avoid vulnerability. Vulnerability was a part of living and living honestly called for one that experienced fear, which has one make changes in one life.

My client transformed her life and her relationships with men. She saw that she was surrounded with men, she loved men and what men brought to her life. She was unable to experience this feeling before because she was living her life through a filter that said that all men did was take take take. This was no longer true. She started dating one of the men that were already in her life who was right under her nose figuratively speaking. Being open, trusting and vulnerable, she became able to be the woman who she intuitively knew herself to be.

The relationship is open, honest and truthful. She is happy. She is happy in a way that she has never experienced before. The hardest lesson for most of people is telling themselves their personal truth. Being open about what is true for them. The truth will set you free and you can have whatever you want for your life when you accept it.

Do You Hate Part or All of Your Body?

I read an articles a while ago about a few women that had accepted their long struggles with self- acceptance. In the article the women all had one aspect of themselves that they had difficulty with. They were from all races. Their issues ranged from their hair to the lack of hair due to cancer, to one having developed a sentimental relationship with her nose. Then there was a woman who had fell in love with her freckles. Then one described as beautiful Latina who questioned whether it was possible to fall in love with her pot belly. Then there was the African American woman who had issues with her natural hair. She grew up in a culture, were at 13-14 her hair was straightened. Regardless, of whether it is a nose, hair, pot belly and or freckles, there is always something to be overly concerned about.

Having read this article, what I know is that everyone has something that they do not like about themselves.

However, the person that intrigued and excited me the most; who for no fault of her own, was the woman who had no hair due to cancer. To me she was strikingly beautiful. Even though her cancer had passed and she had chosen to remain hairless (bald) because I can only imagine that she recognized her own beauty.

As a Personal Life Coach that focuses on confidence and self-esteem, I have had the experience of clients telling me that they hate some or all of their bodies, or they tell me that they harbor feelings of self-loathing. I have had a client tell me that she hated her hips. When I asked her what hating them was going in her life, with humor, I told her that I have a large pair of scissors (she was on the other end of the phone). She giggled. As our relationship developed over time, she discovered that her self-loathing had nothing to do with her hips. The hips were just where she had the placement of herself loathing, something to blame. It was more about not talking and expressing herself in her life that was fulfilling. What she discovered with coaching is that people who are not actively participating in their lives usually end up feeding their self- loathing.

What she soon realized was the moment she sunk her teeth into something that was of interest and a commitment was forged, watch out world. There is no time for self-loathing. Once they start taking action, the hips, or whatever body part was the victim, starts to become less and less important and it starts to fall away. Hating your body part and making it a victim of your attacks and self loathing interferes with your growth process.

Face What’s Not Working In Your Life and Leave Denial in the Past

Take an action step to complete it. By completing I mean letting go of all the drama that you have surrounding the thing you are choosing to face. Do not make it wrong or make yourself wrong about it, release it and let it be. No more complaining.

Who do you choose to face, you might have to take action even risk not being right or even not being liked.

From time to time we all experience situations that we do not like or that seem remarkable, uncomfortable, embarrassing and or painful. These situations might often cause vulnerability. These feelings or situations can be lived with. You might not relish them, but you have survived the year experiencing them. The situation might be one area of life that is not working so that unconscious voice inside orders you indirectly to hide the experience behind clichés, myths and points of view. All the while, you are not realizing or accepting that self-denial is what is in the driving seat. Hello Baby!

Some of these clichés might live in the following statements
It’s none of my business.
Don’t air your dirty laundry with me.
One drink before bed is fine, granny did it for years.
One more cigarette I’ll quit tomorrow, what can one do.
I hate the job but it pays the bills.
He does not mean to ___ me.
It’s just this one time what can it hurt.
I’m sure he’s going to pay me back he said he would.
Credit cards debt is normal everybody has some.
Someone else will do it. It’s not my job anyway.
People like us __________.
Those kinds of people ____________.

A good percentage of the time, it is human to make up reasons why things are the way they are. If you don’t accept the denial of making up reasons, you create more reasons on top the first set of reasons. That is what we do. One denial brings a mountain of reasons that we automatically believe to be real. By not facing why the problem turned up in the first place, we fail to acknowledge the situation quickly. When we face our problems, we experience less pain to begin with and the problem becomes easier to resolve.

Sometimes reasons why something is not working the way they ought to is a bunch of Bubble wrap. The car would not have broken down on the highway if I had taken it to the shop sooner. Now there’s a tow truck and repairs to pay for. One top of that, the triple AAA membership expired just a day or so ago. This is a perfect example of what could have been avoided had the situation been taken care of when it first came up. It would have been cheaper, saved time and if some integrity had been put in the situation might never have happened.

This year 2012 ask yourself if you are willing to take steps to get past your states of denial? Are you willing to face your states and situations sooner than later instead of hiding out with it in denial? Real power exists when you face life head on even when you do not feel like it.

Jump in get help clear the denial so you can breathe. You know who you are.
Take responsibility for your life, for all the things that you do and do not do. No more pretending not notice that something is missing, not working or was not done.

How Do You Think I Got So Fat

Well really how do you think I got so fat? Consistency. Consistency is everything, I ate consistently and I sat on my duff and watched television every night while eating not exercising. The fat did not arrive all at once, it was a little bit at a time. Here’s the back story. I was always thin, that also took consistency. The kind of consistency that I did not think about I ate what my mother made, yuck! at the time. Lots of vegetables, salad and balanced meat and starches I rode my bike every day and walked a lot. Then I moved to America and got married I went from 145lbs to 160lbs, large New York style dinners that at first I scoffed at and then started to indulge in. This was consistency number one. Spending nights indoors, with my new husband and eating ice-cream. My exercise became zero, as I was a little afraid to ride my bike in NY.

No exercising and eating food for 4 people, my weight slowly crept up through consistently. Now, I say this to say that I didn’t have a chemical imbalance. I didn’t have a slow metabolism or anything medically wrong with me. What I had was the consistency of not being consistent with my order of life. Eating large portions, eating late at night and no exercise.

When we desire change in your lives, it takes work to go out and get it. I am obsessed with success and I have learned that success takes a huge commitment. A commitment to transform your life, success with anything takes the form of consistency. If you desire to release fat from your body, it takes a consistent full blown effort. I love listening to people talk as I go about my daily business. As I was walking down Clinton Ave in Brooklyn the other day, I had the liberty of listening to a woman talking on the phone about her weight, the story went a little like this. “I don’t know what happens to my weight. It seems as though I lose a lot of weight then I have some macaroni and cheese and my weight just seems to pile back on.” Girl, I don’t know. I’m not exercising, and I’ve been eating yams and stuff and I cannot seem to lose the weight. Giggle!” Well, we have all been this woman, maybe not eating what is healthy, desiring to lose weight. At the same time believing that they can do it through osmosis. I have been her. It was not until I developed consistency which is a habit which became automatic that I was able to get the results that were possible.

Now, it was not easy. It was painful building muscle and working out doing pushups and running because I heard all my internal conversations running around my head telling me “this is hard”. “You could do 3 laps and stop.” “That’s enough, oh my legs hurt, I can’t breathe.” What the bubble wrap is going on. “It’s too dark outside. I cannot climb another step. Please Dr. Evil no more pushup. I can’t do it.” Wanting to cheat myself, I heard all my internal conversations. Say I did 3 when I know I have only done 2. My favorite excuse was my butt is to heavy I cannot run, I don’t like that feeling. Hello!

However, consistency had me listen to my internal conversations and see all my distractions and keep moving. Successful people keep moving. They keep asking, get knocked down and ask again by creating and then taking responsibility time and time again inside of the world of consistency. Anything that is new and different is within your personal grasp it is usually difficult and calls for constituency. The Beyonces, Oprah, Jay-Z, Ben Carsons, Michael Critchtons, Elma Blints are all the people that are successful. They include anyone with a dream they believe in and who are committed to their personal success. It takes great effort of consistency to be successful in your life. Anything you would like in you life share it, tell it to people who will support you in being your best self and achieving your goal. Release people that put you down or try to make you feel consistently bad about yourself. Always pay attention to the fact that no one can make you feel bad about yourself. They say what they say and you can take it into you space or you can choose to ignore it and move on knowing that statement doesn’t work for you. Keep creating more and more goals for yourself, break them down into bite size pieces and accomplish them one bite at a time each time remembering to celebrate your achievement.

Consistency is the key you success.
Consistency is not “I will do it tomorrow.” Consistency is creating a platform for yourself and sharing with others and setting yourself up to win.

Haters

You know you’re a Hater, just admit you hate on everything about yourself. You hate on others who reflect the things you hate about yourself, whether they are successful or not.  You haters are everywhere.  You hate on yourself and you destroy your dreams, by saying things like: ‘Its too hard.’  ‘I don’t have enough time.’  ‘I don’t have the money.’  You’re a hater and some of you are lazy haters.  You use your hate to sabotage yourself and make yourself wrong.  Get real, you know you do.  As a personal life coach working in Brooklyn, I work with people all over the nation.  I also have clients in France and England.  Hating is not a national practice, it is a universal practice.  As a hater, you are always looking for things to hate on yourself about.  You’ve worked really hard to build your confidence and self-esteem only to smash it across the rocks.  How long you’ll sit on the rocks is entirely up to you.

 

Being a hater impacts your world from the inside out, eroding your confidence and self-esteem.  This has you point the perpetual finger at another person or thing, instead of being responsible for your actions.  Haters, hate themselves, that is what they do.
In order to avoid haters, it is important for you to look inside yourself and realize that you are the one true hater.  You are the saboteur; you are the killer of your dreams and ideas.  You’re the one that does not keep your word to yourself or others.  You are the one that is constantly in fear, hiding your greatness.  Many of you believe that the hater is external, when in fact the hater is with you 100% of the time. The big truth is it’s internal.

 

Start a revolution, stop hating your body

 

Babe, you’re the one that hurts you, fills you up with feelings of rejection, no one can reject you ever.  Rejection is rejection when you see it as so.  Someone says something and you get mentally interrupted, pull yourself off course and hurt yourself.  Rejection is not what you think it is.  A person that is committed to their dream goes out looking for the ‘no’s because they know it brings them closer to their dream.  Some see it as failure.  There is no such thing as failure. Thomas J. Watson is attributed with saying “If you want to succeed, double your failure rate”.  There is no such thing as rejection, and no one ever fails.  No man, woman or child on this planet can reject you.  You reject you and you deem yourself as failure.  People can say what they say, but you are the only person that can take that feeling in and hurt your own feelings.  You have the power and the strength to recognize your own pain or the pain that you inflict on yourself.

 

If there is an image or idea that you are not happy with in yourself recreate it.  Stop deceiving yourself.  Create another truth or reality, then make your own truth of who you are by not seeing yourself as the victim.  You are an incredible human being.  Every time you refuse to accept and acknowledge your power, beauty, truth or wisdom, you’re making yourself a victim.  When you are riding the waves of your own self-pity or are feeling depressed; start by working on recognizing that you’re lying to yourself and not coming from your personal truth.  When you lie to yourself, you carry that feeling around with you and it is replayed back to you in the world by the energy that you are transmitting. Know that energy begets energy.  Believe this, your world begins with your thoughts and words.  You are not a target of some universal lotto that selected your name to be a victim in some universal drama.  It your own personal drama that you created.

Stop Hating Sign

An example is when you traverse, (I like the word traverse) the world thinking you are ‘ugly’, ‘fat’, ‘stupid’, ‘not enough’, then you will begin to set up the resonance in your energy field that you are all those things, the result of this is you will now attract people and events that mirror your thoughts.  You will begin to hear, see and experience those thoughts all around you.  Wah!  As you begin to clean up that energy and shift it to being ‘attractive’, ‘smart’ (you can learn) and ‘enough’, the universe will begin to reflect back at you.  You have recreated and now this becomes your truth.  Whatever you believe be it negative or positive, that is your word and that is what you have now created in your world.

 

Practice holding in your mind and heart a higher vision of yourself, releasing all those things that are negative and shut you down.  Replace them with positive thoughts that open up your heart.  The experience might be scary at first and feel uncomfortable, but the more you practice, like any skill, the better you will become.  Your world will become light, bright and you will be happier.  When you begin to generate higher thoughts about yourself that you are beautiful, powerful and you have enough of what you need, you will see those thoughts reflected back at you. You will see and experience abundance in your world.

 

Consequently, there is no such thing as a hater.  Remember the hater is really you turned in on yourself.

Write a description of your life as you see it and as it is today.

Find two or more qualities that you do not like about yourself and recreate them into something that you do like.

Then create an action that you would like to take to and generate a positive experience.

Finally, dissolve by sharing it with people you love.