Do you like change?

Most people resist change, even though, change is part of life. Nothing stays still. Everything changes.

Every living thing goes though many changes from the time they are born to the time they die.

Landscapes change, the weather changes, even solid matters go through changes.

Our beliefs, personality and character go through change over time as well.  Are you the same person you were at 20 years old? Chances are that you’re not because your personality went through some changes.

So, my question to you is, how do you see change? Do you embrace it or do you resent it?  The reason why I wanted to write about change today is because I’ve just moved this past week, and a move does automatically inure some type of change.

I just moved less than 2 weeks ago, and as I was moving this time around I couldn’t help thinking many times I’ve moved in my life.

I’ve lived in two different continents, two different countries, six different cities, and thirteen different houses including this last one. You might say that I like change in a way, but like many other people out there, believe it or not, I always push it back as much as I can.

Why do we Tend to Resist Change?

I remember when I was going to buy my plane ticket to move from Paris to New York.  I came as a drama student with a visa, and I could choose between two dates. January 10^th or January 17^th.  Guess which date I chose? I chose January 17^th of course.  I chose the later date, because no matter how much I wanted to go, it was still hard to make the change. I pushed it back to the later date.

We tend to resist change, because as human beings it’s always difficult to come out of our comfort zone.  However, interestingly, our comfort zone is not necessarily comfortable.  As a matter of fact, it’s often very uncomfortable.

This is because what we call our comfort zone is simply what we know, but it doesn’t mean that it’s really comfortable. When we go into the “unknown” we step out of our comfort zone.  Change is a step into the unknown and that’s why it’s so hard to change.

It’s because of fear of the unknown that people stay in jobs they don’t like, relationships they don’t want, surround themselves by people they can’t stand, live in places they don’t like, etc. The unknown is scary.

Yet change is bound to happen.  So what can we do in order to make the “unknown” less unknown and, therefore, change less scary.

Get Educated About your “Unknown”

Of course we can’t prepare for sudden change that is unexpected, but you can prepare for changes that you know is going to happen or you want to make happen.

When I made the decision to move to the US it was first on a 3 months try.  I came with a three month student visa that I could renew for another three months after that.  However, deep down inside, I also knew that I was going to be here for longer than that.

At the time that I left France I was in a desperate need for change.  I had been living in Paris for the past 5 years doing something that I loved, but I was fed up with a lot of things and people.  I knew that it was time for a drastic change.

That’s why I decided to immerse myself into a new country, new culture and a new language.  But in order to do so I had to be as prepared as possible. So, I started learning English up to 6 hours a day at times and I learned about the American culture through a lot of movies and reading.  The spring before I moved to New York I even spent some vacation in the UK with my family with the main purpose of practicing my English.

I was willing to make the change and take on some of the responsibilities that such change was calling for.

The more you learn about what you don’t know, the less scary it will be to make the change.

What about you? Are you in need of change? If you are, what’s stopping you? Could it be that you don’t know enough about what you want or need to do, or what needs to be changed in your situation?

Change is Good

I know you’ve heard that expression before, haven’t you?

Yes, it’s true, change is good.

In my case, the change that I made when I moved to New York was something I needed.  Eventually, getting to know another country and culture helped me to rediscover my own under a new light, which I was just about to hate when I left.

The grass is always greener on the other side, is also such a true expression.  After a few years in the US I really started to like France again, more than ever before.  That’s why I blog every week about it.  Change helps you to reevaluate yourself and get more balanced ideas about things.

Change also helps you to go above that fence and learn what’s on the other side.  It helps you see that the unknown is not that scary after all.

Change helps you grow!

What Moving has to do with the Law of Attraction?

The main reason why I moved this time around is because I was ready for some upgrade.  My place was rather small and I wanted to be in a more upscale neighborhood.

The first step to attract better things is to step into it.  I knew that moving in a larger and nicer place will put my mind at a better level to better attract the next stage of my life.

When you live in a nicer place, your whole spirit changes; you can’t help but feeling better about yourself. This in turns will bring your vibrations at a higher level.  If you’ve been reading this blog, you know that higher vibrations will attract better things into your life.

So, what about you? Are you in a place in your life where you need change, and are  you working towards that change?

Let us know in the comment area what you think about change, and what change you’re planning in your life?

When you study the Law of Attraction in dept, you become more and more aware that you can attract anything in this life.

As a matter of fact, what you’re experiencing right now you’ve attracted.

This is the very reason why you may not be quite where you want today, it’s because  something you’ve attracted when you didn’t know any better, or you may be still in the process of mastering this law of attraction thing, and as long as you don’t master it, you’ll keep attracting stuff you don’t want.

But don’t worry, we’re all working on that!

The law of attraction is not prejudice, though, it works both ways.  It all depends where your mind and thoughts are more inclined to.

Today, I wanted to talk about attracting your perfect day.  When was the last time you had a PERFECT day? I’m not talking about an OK day, here; No, I’m talking about a day where everything was just great, where you felt completely alive, satisfied and happy. A day when you felt totally at peace with yourself.

When was the last time you felt that way? Or did you ever?  Most likely you did, even if you can’t think of it right now.

Let’s try to find it together…

Go Back Into Memory Land

I’m sure you know how easy it is to go back to a bad memory, right? This is something we can do quite well without any training at all. We may have had a very bad experienced 5, 10, 20 or more years ago and it comes back to haunt us still.

No matter how dead and gone that bad day should be, we rekindle it once in the while, so as to keep it alive.  Unfortunately, this is something that our brain does well, and not only for us humans, but animals too, because the brain is usually marked by traumatic events.

An old elementary teacher of mine used to take a nice and smooth sheet of paper and shape it into a ball in his hands. Then he would unfold it again and flatten it. Then he would show it to us and say, you see, once you wrinkled that sheet of paper it can never get back the way it was!

He was using this example to illustrate to us that if we’d hurt someone, they may never fully recover or we may never fully recover.

We are a lot like that sheet of paper aren’t we?

Sometimes someone can do something to us, and we’ll never see that person under the same light again.  We may go through a very negative experience that leaves us with emotional scares that will stick forever.  They are some things that can never become undone.  Yes, that’s true for most people.

However, does this mean that we can’t create our perfect day?

Try Remembering the Best Day of your Life

So, since we already know how good we are at remember bad stuff, my question to you is, are you able to recall the best day of your life?

Hopefully you actually have more than one. But try to remember the very best one or two. The ones that you go back to once in a while and can’t help but smile.

Sometimes, it may not be a whole day, but just a moment. A total bliss moment that you will remember for the rest of your life.

I remember my first perfect day. I was about 10 years old. I was home with my mom on a summer afternoon and I was feeling so well. It was a feeling of being 100% alive and happy. I remember that I told my mother how I felt and she told me that she had felt that way herself before.

This was such a perfect day for me that decades later I still remember it.  There was nothing special, but I think that it was a pure spiritual moment, and I think that’s how we should feel most of time, not just sometime, or ever very rarely as it is unfortunately the case for most people.

I had other moments such as this one in my life, but this one was my first, and I like to go back to it to put me in the same mind state as I was then.

The other day, as I was walking around my favorite park to relax and recharge my batteries, I was revisiting all my perfect days.  I noticed that I couldn’t stop smiling and feel good.

Even though I was very tired physically, it put me in a very good place, and my thoughts combined with my walk totally refreshed me and I noticed how well I was when I got back home. All my tiredness had gone away!

Your Turn…

My advice to you for today is this; go try it! Go in the place where you can be alone with quiet time and revisit some of your perfect days. Forget about everything else and immerse yourself into those thoughts, and see what it will do for you!

It’s a sort of meditation, and it really works for the best.

Do you have 11 minutes today? What this video to help you do this…

A great pass-time of mine is to dig for French videos on YouTube. As a matter of fact, that’s all I’m watching online these days.

To me it’s the easiest trip back home where I can enjoy French clips or even full movies and TV shows of old as well as new ones.

You know, what they say is true – You can get the man out of the country, but you can’t get the country out of the man.

So, this past weekend after I had enough packing stuff for my upcoming move, I decided to sit down and relax a little watching French TV on YouTube.

Now, I’m the type of person who kind of like “real” stories of serious matters. I know I don’t that may sound weird to some people.  But that’s how I am, so I always look for shows or documentaries that talk about “people”, because I love to analyze what makes people tic.

Ok, enough rambling…

There’s a great French TV show/documentary nowadays titled “Un Jour, Un Destin” (One Day One Destiny) which is a gold mine of human behavior analyses.  Perfect for someone like me.  This show is about biographies of famous people who for the most part have died prematurely.

What makes it so interesting to me is that you can get into the mind of those individuals portrayed in the show because of honest testimonies from the people who were very close to them.  As a matter of fact, this show is not about the “famous” man or woman, but the “real” man or woman who happened to have been famous at the time that they died.

The reasons why this show is so interesting to me are several.

• Firstly, those are actors and singers who were very popular when I was anywhere between 5 and 20 Years old. So, that’s memory lane travel to me. And we tend to like to go back to our beginnings don’t we? Well, it’s because it’s linked to when our subconscious was very impressionable.
• Secondly, with this show I discovered the real person behind the show business mask that I didn’t know. I love that!
• Lastly, those stories are excellent case studies for anyone interested in the human brain, the law of attraction and the subconscious mind as much as I am.

As I am watching those life stories that ended either in premature accidental deaths or even suicides I can’t help but notice that there is a common factor that links them all.  Each of those people has had “death in mind” so to speak, for a long time before it actually caught up to them.

But Let See What I Mean…

Psychologist Carl Jung said, until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.

As I’m analyzing those somewhat sad stories, I can truly see how true this is.

Perhaps when each of those individual died a premature death whether by accident or suicide people might have called it fate or bad luck.  However, as I am listening to all the testimonies of people who knew those individuals well, and noticing all the details that preceded their death, I can clearly see that it wasn’t not fate.

Rather, I can see how our good old Law of Attraction is always at work, and just like you can attract the perfect or worst partner, a car, a job, or even a disease, you can also attract premature death into your life.

At the risk of sounding weird to you, death is part of life, and you can attract it according to the Laws of the Universe just like anything else.

But how you might ask?

Let’s analyze the common thread that I’ve found with those people that led to what they’ve attracted.

Lack of Gratitude

Interestingly, sometimes people who should be the most grateful on this planet happened to be the least grateful. It’s as if those who have the most to be thankful for just become to totally blinded.  This lack of gratefulness turns into a type of chronic misery borderline depression.

Lack of conscious gratefulness is serious stuff and it will get you with a vengeance.

The point is that if you are not consciously grateful for what you have, you will start to concentrate on everything negative that surrounds you, even if you have more good things than the average person.

This is the first common thread that I’ve found with those rich and famous people who died prematurely.  They totally lacked a grateful attitude which was the beginning of their down fall.

Beware of What you Wish for

Once those individuals managed to be oblivious to their blessings they started wishing they were dead, which happens to a lot of depressed people.

To the question, how do you see yourself when you’ll be old? This actor said “I will never be old”.  Really? How interesting! Or should I say, how shocking!

This question was asked to him a couple of years before he killed himself. Hum, he had already convinced himself that he will never get old, which in other words means that he will die young.  He got his wish at age 35 shouting himself in the head after a phone call from his wife telling him that she was leaving him.

This French singer said that he was scared to turn 40. Guess what? He died at age 39 while trying to straighten an electrical appliance above his bathtub. The appliance was in a bad shape, he had wet feet, and got electrocuted.  He died just a year, almost to the day, before he turned 40.

This stand up comic fell into a deep depression where he wished he was dead many times during this dark period of his, and talked about suicide. Just a few months after he started getting better and was starting to come back, he died in a motorcycle accident at age 41.

And there’re more…

As I was analyzing those cases I was so convinced that those guys just attracted death. What fate?  The Law of Attraction never stops, and works for everything, and anything.

When you feel your mind with death thoughts, you attract it, whether you really want to die or not.  Remember that what you’ve been thinking strongly about yesterday, you’re attracting into your physical world today!

What do we Learn from that?

I hope I’m not totally depressing you with this post, but this article’s purpose was to make a very strong point.

Our thoughts and state of mind are very powerful.  This post shouldn’t depress you, but rather show you how powerful we are! Yes, we are powerful to the point that we can rush our own death, because we can attract just about anything and everything.

All it takes is a strong belief that you will, until you are subconsciously convinced that it will be so. This is what those famous people who attracted a premature death have done one way or another.

In conclusion, to take Carl Jung words, make your unconscious conscious and direct your life the way you want it to go. Quit calling it fate.  You are the creator of your own destiny.

Over to you now. I know this was a bit of a different post, and I’d love to have  your thoughts on that.

Once in a while, I am going to share with you a real life case study.  I published the first of this series back in February.  If you missed it you can read it here.

Recently I’ve been helping someone who has had a 25+ years of a failure trail behind him.  After asking few key questions about his childhood it became very obvious to me that he had a huge “subconscious” issue that made him “mess up”, so to speak,  over and over, no matter what he did.

I’m not going to give you specific details about his situation, but I can tell you this.  Every time he’s on the right track, every time he has everything one only needs to be able to succeed, he destroys it somehow, and the whole thing falls apart and goes nowhere.

What are the results of this? As a middle age man he is not where he wants to be. He is depressed, sad and overall miserable.  He knows he could do better, but he feels stuck. Even he can see a pattern here, but he doesn’t know how to break it.

Does this sound like you?

I sincerely hope this is not your case, but the fact of the matter is that this sounds like a lot of people; doesn’t it?

By the way, he authorized me to take his example in order to write this post, while of course I won’t mention his name or any specific details pertaining to him.

How does a Coach Diagnose an Issue?

For a doctor to be able to diagnose you with any type of physical disease, he needs to run some tests. He would have to take some X-rays, blood test, may be a CAT scan, so forth and so on.  The reason why a patient goes through such procedure is because the medical doctor needs to go to the source of the problem in order to understand what might be wrong. Then, once an issue is found at the source he will analyze it and come up with a diagnosis.

One thing is sure, a medical doctor will never be able to give you a complete and specific diagnose just by looking at you.

Well, it’s the same thing with a coach.  In order be able to find out what’s wrong “exactly” we need to go to the source.  And while we don’t draw blood or do literal X-rays there are specific questions that we can ask in order to make a diagnosis.

I guess I could call them my X-ray questions. They never fail and give me a good idea of where the problem may lie.  Once I found the source of the problem, I can make a “diagnosis”, and go from there to start helping the person.  I guess you could say that a life coach is an emotional healer.

While a blog post can never replace a one on one coaching session in this post I wanted to give away some basic steps that I went through with this client that might be able to help you.

Going Back in Time

Just like your physical health can be affected either in a positive or negative way by your diet from the time you were a child until now, your subconscious mind has been affected a long time ago until now. As a matter of fact, it all started when you were just a toddler (especially between the ages of 0 and 6).

That’s why when it comes to coaching there is no diagnosis possible for me without asking question about the childhood of the person I’m trying to help.  While this might be difficult for the patient at times, you need to be honest about your parents and the surrounding in which you grew up.  Being honest doesn’t means that you don’t love your parents, but you need to tell the truth to yourself first and then to your coach, in order to move forward.

Remember that even if you had the most loving parents, there were not perfect and they made mistakes, especially back in the days when people were still rather ignorant about a lot of things related to how we affect the psyche of our children.

For example,  I was reading Harleena Singh’s post last week where she had a video talking about the negative effects of hitting a child.  They were saying that hitting a child  can cause damage in the brain. Of course they weren’t talking about physical damage as if someone hit you on the head, but emotional damages.

Yet, how many people have been spanked and slapped or hit with a belt? Yes, that’s right. A whole lot of people.

Bottom line, very innocent and seemingly non-important acts from your parents can carry on all throughout your adult life and make you act a certain way, whether you’re aware of it or not.

For the most part, parents didn’t even need to do anything more than just say something  enough times for it to be embedded in your subconscious mind forever. Yet, again, sometimes just by observing your parents without them even saying anything at all, you were still conditioning and programming your subconscious mind.

Yes, everything your parents ever did or say directly to you or indirectly, has had an effect on you.  This is why a good coach will always go back to the roots. To the beginning of YOU in order to be able to make a good diagnose of the problem.

True Life Example of How our Subconscious Mind is Conditioned

If you had met my mother, for example, you might have been able to observe that she didn’t value her own time, and was ready to give it away for free to anyone asking for it.  This used to drive me crazy even at a young age, and I was as annoyed by mother giving away her free time as I was of people taking advantage of her.

However, back then, I had no understanding of the “WHY” she was doing this, no more than I knew that it came from the way she was raised.

Once I did though, it was a relief to be able to finally explain why her subconscious mind made her give her time for free. In order word, work for free for others. It was a learned pattern from long before my mother became my mom, and I was the only person that she’d ever knew that was able to find the root of that problem for hers.

Today, however, you don’t have to go through a life time without understanding your behavior and patterns, because there is help out there, and more and more people are reaching out!

Seeing the Picture

By asking few pertinent questions to my client I were able to pin-point the source of his problems with failures.  It was something quite evident to me, but believe it or not, he never thought of it that way.

I’ll tell you briefly that his issue was abandonment, and you could see it clearly all throughout the things that he did all his life. He basically replicate that abandonment issue over and over to himself.

He thanked me to have helped me see something that was right under his nose, but that he couldn’t see on his own.

I explained to him that it’s like when looking at a painting when you stand too close to it.

When you stand too close to a painting you are not able to see the whole picture very well.

Only when you step back can you really appreciate the real picture.

It’s basically the same thing when I listen to people telling me their stories.  Since they are pretty much into the picture they can’t see it.

But because I am coming from the outside, away from that picture, I can see things much more clearly.

As a closing advice, for you, the readers of this blog, I would say this, step OUT of your own picture and analyze it from a distance.  What do you see?  What don’t you let me know on the comment area.

This is a guest post from my friend Neamat Keriakos whose writing talents and sweetness I recognized in her almost instantly.

Having been so busy lately with so much stuff going on, her guest post comes at the right time for me and for my blog. So, here I leave it to Neamat…

To Invest In Yourself means to improve yourself.  If you exchange your time and effort for increased skills and knowledge, relationships, and better health, you will definitely see results later on in the future.

You should make use of any spare time for self-investment instead of wasting it on things that truly do not matter.

When I talk about investing here, I don’t mean only the financial kind of investment.  But to Invest in Yourself is just as important as the financial investments and savings are to your future. You are the true greatest asset: YOURSELF.

Do You Know That You Are an Asset?

You are an asset. Think about that for a minute. If you work for someone else, you are an asset to that company. If you’re married, you are an asset to your spouse. And it goes without saying, if you are a father/mother, you are an incredible asset to your children. You’re an asset to the community you live in, and to those you interact with on a daily basis.

To Invest In Yourself and become a valuable asset is important on both the professional and personal level.  If you want to be an asset in your business and become the “go to” person in your Niche, you have to become a student of your Niche and gain the value that will get you ahead of your competitors.

This is very important in your business but it is equally important on a personal level as well.  Both your personal and professional life are interconnected.  Investing in your professional aspect of life will affect the personal aspect of your life and vice versa.  The first and most important investment always needs to be in YOU.

Here are some ways you should continuously consider To Invest In Yourself

Invest In Yourself: 1. Your Health

Before you can make improvements in other areas of your life you must first take care of some of your most basic needs. Forget about money for a moment. Money is important, but without your health, it’s worthless.  Your health, first and foremost, determines how effective you are.  How you treat your body determines your mood, your ability to focus, and how you treat others.

In short, how you feel determines how you behave – and the best way to feel great is to live a healthy lifestyle.  Here are some simple ways to invest in your health:

Eat well: This doesn’t mean you should go on a drastic diet, but just a few little changes such as, maximizing your green vegetable and fruit intake while minimizing processed foods in your diet, can go a long way.

Sleep well: Figure out how much sleep you need to function at your best, and make it your mission to get that much sleep every night. Your body does need sleep. Give it the rest it deserves.  Think about all of the time you waste when you aren’t completely focused or working inefficiently because you’re fighting the urge to sleep.

Instead, use the time and get some extra sleep. You’ll wake up feeling better, your body will be rested, and you can make better use of your waking hours, not to mention improve your overall health.

Exercise Often: Exercising creates energy through a healthier body while releasing brain chemicals to improve your mood and mental alertness. Engaging in exercise makes you feel good and stay mobile.

Getting the fundamentals of living healthily is essential to being effective, focused, and feeling good each and every day.

Getting the fundamentals of living healthily is essential to being effective, focused, and feeling good each and every day.

Invest In Yourself: 2. Expand Yourself

Knowledge and Skills:

Your knowledge and skills are the places where you can actually see your improvement.  Even if you are highly educated, learning will never be over.  You should still be looking for ways to expand what you know through lifelong learning opportunities.  Read all what you can get your hands on when a topic interests you.

Reading books, trading ideas, and learning how to do new things will make you smarter and will also help with your thinking and creativity, you’ll be able to combine knowledge from various sources in order to solve problems.

Pay attention to develop your marketing skill set that will help you grow your business, or give you the experience necessary to help your team.  Knowledge is power, and is one of the best investments you can make in yourself for both the present and the future.

Being more skilled will make you more essential in every area of your life.  To invest in your skills,  push your limits to become better. Period.  By doing so, you’re adding another tool to your skills that will come in handy later in life.

Investing in your knowledge and skills allows you to be a more versatile, competent, and interesting person.

Invest In Yourself: 3. Networking and Relationships

Your networks and relationships are also great things to invest in.  As humans, we’re social beings.  It’s not who you know, but what you know, right? Just as important as having the knowledge and skills to do a particular job, you need to have connections.

These connections will open up opportunities that can be used to leverage your skills and find the best path to reach your goals.  With each and every relationship you make (or try to make), you’re presenting yourself with another opportunity to enrich your life and others’ as well. Great relationships are like nothing else in life, and we should treasure them all.

Keep in mind that this also applies to your family. Taking time out of your day to spend time with your children, for example, can be seen as “investing”, since you’re planting the seeds for a deeply fulfilling relationship.

Invest In Yourself: 4. Build Your Brand

You are your own brand.  The way you represent yourself and how others see you is your own personal brand. Whether you like it or not, your actions and words speak volumes about who you are. This reputation can follow you for the rest of your life, so it’s obviously important to build a positive brand as opposed to a negative one.

Brand yourself as someone you’d like to be seen.  Display what you stand for and leave a good impression with people.  Make an effort to determine what your personal brand says about you and invest some time in creating a personal brand you’re proud of and you can leave as a legacy for your children in the future.

Invest In Yourself: 5. Remove the Limitations on Your Abilities

Probably the best investment you can make in yourself is to remove any limitations you have placed on your abilities.  Many people

Invest In Yourself: 6. Be Open For Good Changes

Be open to change and embrace it for the positivity associated with it.  This investment in yourself can give you a whole new outlook on life.  It is easy to overlook how slight changes to your belief system and in how you care for yourself can go a long way to improving your quality of life.

Investing in yourself truly makes a difference in your life, your well-being, and your ability to thrive and perform to the best of your ability. The extent to which you Invest In Yourself will shape the way you interact with the outside world.  Your future is determined by your willingness and ability to Invest In Yourself now.

If you enjoyed this article and got some value from it, please leave a comment below and share this with your friends and followers.

Guest Post by Neamat Keriakos

I’ve written posts that explains the Law of Attraction in the past, but it was before this blog was actually read by anyone.  So, I thought that a brand new fresh post about the Law of Attraction and why it might not be working for you was now due.

Are your Positive Affirmations Working for you?

Back in the days when I was introduced to the Law of Attraction I was told to have a positive “self talk” (also called affirmations), and to repeat my it over and over again.  Up to hundreds time a day.  So I started writing down positive “affirmations” repeating them out loud all throughout the day anytime I was alone.

I did that for months!

The problem was that like most people who have tried that, it didn’t work for me. Was I doing something wrong? Was I told a lie and that stuff just didn’t work? Does it work only for some people?

Those were some of the many questions I had about the Law of Attraction. I felt like I was missing something, but I did know what.

What I didn’t want to believe, however, was that the Law of Attraction didn’t work. I knew the Law of Attraction is in action 27/7 no matter what.  So, the reason it didn’t work “the way I wanted” meant that I just didn’t have all the data I needed to make it so.

So, let’s see why you might be having a hard time to attract what you want.

Why Affirmations Alone don’t Work?

Affirmations, positive self talks, whatever you may want to call them, are not all there is in the process of attracting what you want in life.  You could repeat day and night “I am a millionaire” for a year straight and still be broke.  As a matter of fact, if all you did is just repeat this like a broken record with nothing else, you most likely will not become a millionaire any time soon.

Why is that so?

Because, affirmations alone, without the belief behind them are worthless.  This is what a lot of personal development teachers wouldn’t tell you a few years ago.  They were missing on the most important piece of information, and sadly, because of this, you would think that it was YOUR fault.

When you just speak out affirmations without the belief and emotions that come with it, You might as well try to water your flower garden holding a hose without water coming through it.  When you repeat affirmations with no real belief about what you are “affirming”, nothing happens and you won’t be able to attract what you want.

The reason why this is so is that your level of vibrations stays the same as what you believe, not as what you’re repeating/affirming.  And the reason you don’t believe has probably something to do with the nature of the affirmation.

Start with Affirmations you Can Believe in

When you’re getting acquainted with the Law of Attraction, using positive affirmations and self talks to speak out what you want to be and have is definitely a great thing to do, but as you start you need to  choose affirmations that can actually believe. This is a huge detail that a lot of law of attraction books and tutorials just leave out.

Remember this; if you don’t believe what you are saying, it’s NOT working. Period.

This is what I mean…

Consciously you’re saying “I am wealthy”, “I am successful”, “I am a millionaire”, “I drive a luxury car”, etc… but really subconsciously you’re saying – no way. As you may or may not know when it comes to the Law of Attraction is what the subconscious mind believes that counts.

You are saying that you are wealthy with your mouth, but you subconscious mind says you’re broke.

The vibrations that you are sending out are low vibrations that are in accordance with what you truly believe subconsciously, which is, no way, I’m broke! This is why you’re saying that the Law of Attraction is not working; when as a matter of fact, it’s working just fine. It’s giving you what you’ve been asking for subconsciously, because the subconscious mind ALWAYS wins. You are “saying” I’m rich, but you are really “vibrating” I’m poor.

How To Make your Positive Affirmations Work for you?

Let’s say that you are making $25,000 a year right now and in you are saying “I am a millionaire” or even “I am making $100,000 a year”! You are saying this consciously, but subconsciously you do not believe a word of what you’re saying.  Not just yet, anyway.

Your subconscious mind holds all the beliefs that you have accumulated since you were a small child. Now, let’s say that you have grown up in a family that never made even close to that kind of money, and you haven’t ever made even close to that that kind of money yourself either as an adult. What do you think would be your subconscious belief about money?

Your subconscious belief about money would be that you are always going to make just about what you have been making all your life even before you were an adult and made your own money.

Let’s say that your parents were making like $35,000 a year and you are making $40,000 a year, that’s what is deeply embedded in your subconscious mind. Thinking that you can shift this with simple affirmations like “I’m making $250,000 a year” would be a long shot, because your subconscious mind is saying “that’s impossible”.

Because your subconscious mind is saying “that’s impossible”, you are not vibrating at the frequency that says $250,000 a year; you are vibrating at $40,000 a year.  Do you understand the difference?

Someone that makes $250,000 a year is NOT vibrating at the same frequency as someone who makes $40,000.  Everything about their vibrations is different!

In order to attract $250,000 you need to bridge that gap emotionally. Your belief and emotions need to go there, so to speak. How does it really feel to make 250,000 a year compare to $40,000 a year?  This is the question you need to be asking to yourself.

This is why many people who have watched the movie or read the book “The Secret” are saying that it’s not working. It’s not that it’s not working, but it certainly is not working for them.

The reason why is because they are coming from a too far away place and have not understood the concept beneath all attraction according the law which is that the BELIEF needs to be there first or be introduced little by little.

Subconsciously, you don’t believe your affirmations, therefore, you are not vibrating at the energy level that you would need to in order to manifest what you what you want in your physical world.

How to Introduce the Belief into your Affirmations?

Did you ever noticed that everything in the universe happens little by little?

We grow up little by little, we start speaking little by little, we start crawling on all four before we can stand up and start taking our first step, and we learn how to read little by little as well.

It’s the same thing with the Law of Attraction and your subconscious mind.  You have to prepare your subconscious mind to bigger and better things little by little as well.

To take our money example again, if you are making only $40,000 a year don’t start with an affirmation that says “I’m a millionaire”, start at a number that your subconscious mind could believe in.  When you start to feel that you truly believe that new concept, you can then move forward and increase your amount.

At the same time, as your belief system changes, you will start noticing some positive changes in your physical world as well.  This will give you even more confidence and more positive beliefs. The whole thing will start to snowball.

Then, and only then, will you notice that your affirmations will work and you will start attracting what you want in life.

This is how you will be able to finally make the Law of Attraction work for you!

So, your turn now.  Do you have a deep understanding of the Law of Attraction or were you missing the point until now? Let us know in the comment area.

It makes a huge difference in our brain if we think that we should be doing something, or if we think that we must be doing something.

Let me explain what I mean by that, and why you might not be able to achieve your dreams and goals.

But most of all what mental switch you need to make in order to make changes in your life.

Are you a I Should Person or a I Must Person?

Have you ever heard someone a bit over weight saying; I should lose some weight! What are the chances of them actually losing the weight?  Well, let’s put it this way; I wouldn’t bet any money on it.

Now, if someone tells me; I am a bit overweight, and I MUST lose the extra weight.  I would be much more willing to bet my money that this person will.  If they’re saying that they must lose the weight, chances are that they will take the appropriate actions to do so.

There are tons of “I should” type of people out there, and that’s why they don’t have what they want, and can’t achieve their goals.

It’s only once you decide that you MUST do something that things start happening. Let’s illustrate that with a dramatic true story.

An Incredible True Story of Someone Who Said I MUST

I don’t know if you’ve seen that true story movie titled 127 hours. It’s about a hiker named Aron Ralston (correct spelling) who fell into a crevasse as he was dragged down by a boulder that got dislodged.

Back in 2003, while Aron was hiking in a Utah Canyon, he fell into a 65 feet crevasse, and got his hand stuck between the boulder he was climbing that dragged him down, and the wall of the crevasse.

His right hand was completely stuck between the boulder and the canyon wall for five days. Each day he was trying new tricks to try to free his hand by attempting to lift the boulder to no avail. The boulder weighted close to a ton.

Towards the end of the fifth day, he decided that he was going to die, so he started recording some good bye messages on his camera for his family. Then he wrote his name, birth date and “approximate date of his death” on the stone wall. He had no more food or water and his right hand was starting to rot as it was smashed stuck in stone.  He was not expecting to wake up on the sixth day.

However, on day six he did wake up to his own amazement.  And he actually woke up with the strong realization that in order to survive he had to get rid of the part of his body that kept him stuck at the bottom of this crevasse.  That body part was his right hand.

Once he decided that he MUST cut off his right hand to get free, it was actually a relief for him, and he did. Yes, guys. This amazing man cut off his right hand at mid-forearm with a pocket knife, and snapped-broke the bones. (Sorry for the sensitive souls, but life is tough at times).

After he got loose from his own hand, he actually felt an immense joy, but he still had to climb 65 feet one handed while dripping blood from his other arm.  Amazingly he did!

Now, once he was on top of the ravine he was then still 8 miles from his car.

Thankfully a family was passing by as he was running down a hill after he had freed himself from the crevasse, and they gave him food and water.  Since his family had already launched a rescue team being missing for days, an helicopter happened to fly above them soon after that.

He finally was lifted by helicopter to a hospital six hours after he had cut his hand off.

He had lost 40 pounds and 25% of his blood volume.  But he was alive and he was being rescued. He survived this horrific ordeal, and he thrived. He keeps hiking and climbing and he even got married.

What made the difference between life and death for Aron Ralston was when he decided that he HAD to get out of there.  When it became a MUST.  And God knows this had to be a strong MUST.

When you set your brain to a MUST default it gives you amazing powers and clear ideas to be able to do what you have to do.

What Can we Learn from this Amazing Story?

We can all feel so lucky that we will never have to make as tough a decision as Aron had, but we can all learn something valuable from this true story.

There are many people who are stuck just like Aron with his boulder.  They are stuck in their life with no way up, unless they’d be willing to take drastic actions that would free them from their figurative crevasse.

Many people do live under a figurative boulder that smash them down.  People are stuck in ditch-like situations, and they are staying there until they die.  We all know people like this. I know I do.

Sometimes the action needs to be drastic.  Sometimes you are going to have to cut a figurative right hand to get free. You may have to leave your partner, you parents, your country, your job, the place you live in, etc.

Sometimes you may have to make small sacrifices, sometimes big ones. In Aron’s case he had no choice. It was his life against his right hand.  he chose life, and evidence tells us that he never regretted it.

It wasn’t his time to die. It was time for him to show what type of guts he had.

There are times when you are going to have to make some sacrifices.  Sometimes this is the price to pay to get “unstuck” in your life.  But no matter what it is that you need to do, a woulda, or shoulda won’t do it. It has to be your MUST.

Get Out of Your Own Ravine

If you are stuck into a figurative Ravine, unhappy, empty, frustrated, or even angry, it means that it’s time to make some serious decisions and go for it.

Whatever action you need to take, you need to make it a MUST action.  If you think that maybe you should do it,  you probably won’t.  However, if you feel that you MUST, then chances are that you will.

Remember, whatever you’ll have to do to make your life better, won’t be as hard as cutting your right hand with a pocket knife, and using the weight of a boulder to snap your bones.  Yet, for someone such as Aron Ralston it became a MUST, and he did it.

Listen to Aron Ralston himself…

I’m sure that if you landed on this article you are someone interested about the Law of Attraction.

However,  there is still a huge gap for a lot people between being interested in the Law of Attraction, trying to apply it into their life, and actually being able to use it the “right” way so to speak.

The purpose of this post is to help you to bridge that gap.

First of all, at the risk of sounding redundant, let me remind you that the Law of Attraction is not something that works only if you believe in it or understand it. The law of attraction is at work for every single person on earth 24/7, whether you’ve mastered the use of it for your own good, or have never even heard of it yet.

The Law of Attraction is at work whether you’re a man, a woman, a child, poor, rich, smart, not so smart, good, bad  and so on.

Every time you’re in doubt about this, think “law of gravity”, and try to see if it doesn’t apply to any of the cases above.

So, now that we all agree that we attract stuff to us, no matter what; let’s see how we can become AWARE of what type of stuff we are attracting, and how we can CHANGE that.

Understanding Our Natural Protective Mechanisms

If you’d stick your finger in hot boiling water, how would you know that?  What tells you, hey it’s hot, get your finger out of here!

Well, you’d know it because you have nerves at the tips of your finger that send signals to your brain.  As a matter of fact, those nerves can send precise signals and let you know if the water is cold, freezing, warm, very warm, hot, or very hot. Your sense of touch will let you know. Are you following me thus far?

The reason why your sense of touch will let you know is that if, for example, the water is extremely hot your finger could get burned if you don’t take your finger out of there at the fist signal.

We are born with such natural signal mechanisms.  We don’t ever have to  learn them at all.

We are also born with another mechanism, and it’s the ability to sense when we “feel good” or when we “feel bad”.  It’s actually the same type of mechanism that tells us to take our finger out of the hot water so we don’t get burn  When we feel bad it’s a signal to us that we need to get out of that type of hot water.  If we don’t, we can actually get burn pretty badly as well in a figurative sense.

When you are basically bathing in any type of negative feelings which don’t feel good, you know that what you’re attracting won’t be great either.  But why?

Understanding Energy

All we are is energy. You, your dog, your car, your dining table, the trees in your garden, the water in your well, your house.  Everything around you is energy.  It’s just energy at different frequency.  Sounds, thoughts and feelings are energy too. And just like two opposite poll magnets, energy attracts like energy. This is the science, so to speak, of the Law of Attraction.

When you feeling down and depressed, if you were able to see the field of energy around you, you’d be able to see that it’s negative energy.

However,  even though we can’t see that energy, many people are able to feel it.   That’s why you may have heard someone say, that guy game me bad vibes. Or, I had a bad feeling about her.

Animals can feel negative and positive energy very well too.  Sometimes,  you may notice your dog act different toward a single person.

I remember when I was little my dog who was hyper friendly to everyone and anyone, once was showing his teeth to a guy who was talking to my mother.  No doubt that guy had some negative energy coming out of him.  My mother and I never doubted that.  We couldn’t feel such energy (the negative vibrations about this man), but our dog sure was.

Unfortunately, it’s not because you can’t pick up some energy with your senses that’s in not there.  The human ear can’t hear ultra sounds, yet, they do exist.

Energy Attracts Like Energy

When you think “energy”, you need to think “magnet”. Energy is like magnets attracted by each other.  That’s why energy attracts energy.  If you could walk away with only one thing from this post, make sure you remember that.

Basically, the energy that we are bathing in, so to speak, is the type of energy that is going to come our way.  That’s why you hear people say “why me”?  Because, usually people saying why me are people who are bathing in bad, negative energy most of the time and are attracting more of it.  They can’t escape it.  This is one of the Laws of the Universe – the Law of Attraction.

When we feel bad about something, it’s actually a warning (like the finger in the hot water) that we need to get out of there ASAP!

The sharp pain that we feel on the tip of our finger in hot water is our senses that scream at us to get that finger out.  The bad and negative feelings that we experience is a natural signal that something is not right, and that we are not in alignment with our higher self.  That’s why we feel bad, and it’s screaming at us to get out of it!

Unfortunately, most people ignore such signals, unlike the hot water test.  To use the term that my friend coach Melody Fletcher uses “people are bathing in hot and warm water for a very long time”.  They became insensitive to bad feelings. They’ve got used to. It’s part of their life.

So, how can you get out of that warm and hot water?

Switching your Energy to Attract what you Want

Now that you understand our natural protective mechanisms and how energy works, you need to learn how to switch your energy when your feelings are telling you that’s something is not right.  This may be the hardest part, yet, it’s totally doable with a little practice.

When I say the hardest, I don’t mean hard in the sense that it’s complicated. No, it’s actually simple, but you will have to use your brain power to apply it.

Have you ever been awaken by an alarm clock that tells you it’s time to get up when all you want to do is stay in bed and sleep?  What makes you get up?

Well, what makes you get up is that you’ve got to do something.  You’ve got to get up to go achieve that something.  You just can’t stay in bed or you’ll be late to wherever you have to go or do.  So, you are using all your “brain power” to pull your body out of that bed.  People do that every single day, don’t they?

It’s the same thing when you feel overwhelmed by bad feelings. You need to use your brain power to snap out of it like you use your brain power to snap out of bed.  However, I’m not going to leave you in the cold with that thought only. I’m going to give you some steps to follow.

Learn to become aware of your feelings

For most people it’s very hard to be aware of their thoughts, but a great way to control your thoughts is to notice when you are feeling “bad”.  Think finger in not water.  You wouldn’t leave your finger in hot water, would you? Then, don’t linger in bad negative feelings either.

How to Snap Out of Negative Feelings

I know it’s easier said than done, but you can snap out of bad and negative feelings in the matter of seconds by using the following tools:

1 – Visualizations

You can use positive visualization. It could be “your perfect day”, visualizing yourself surrounded by a bright white light, recalling a  happy memory or your goals in life. Get used to have a go-to-ready-visualization every time you feel bad and it will become a habit.

2 – Affirmations

You can start saying out loud some or your positive affirmations. The same as for the visualizations, have a couple of affirmation ready to go each time you catch yourself feeling down.

3 – Music

You can start playing your favorite upbeat music.  I have some favorite songs that put me in an instant good mood that I play when I feel my energy going down.  Try it it really works.

Keep doing what works for you until your feeling has changed

You natural mechanism will let you know when you’ve snapped out of a negative feeling and switch to a good, positive feeling.  The moment you’ve switched to a positive feeling, your vibrations will be higher.  Higher vibrations will bring about higher results.

This is how you are going to start seeing positive results and noticing that  your are attracting more positive things in your life.

Remember, the Law of Attraction is at work each and everyday, and each and every day you can work it for your own good.

So, do you have your own recipe to attract good stuff in your life? Do tell us down below!

What attracts you to personal development materials? Is it that you are looking to make more money? Is it that you are looking for the perfect career? Is it that you are looking for the perfect relationship?  Is it that you are looking for your purpose in life? Is it that you are looking for the perfect peace of mind?  Is it that you are looking for more happiness?

My guess is that’s a little bit of everything.

Even though we still find those individuals here and there sometimes making fun of personal development, I can assure you that there is a HUGE difference between those who are practicing self development and those who don’t.

I emphasized the word practicing because in order to see positive changes in our life, personal development needs to be practiced, not just heard.

Personal Development is a Way of Life

Personal development is not something you read about and let die.  Personal development needs to be understood, digested, and practiced on a daily basis.  If not, whatever you’ve just learned will die off like a plant without water.

Our brain needs to be fed with personal development material each every day for our mind to be health, like our stomach needs food each and every day in order for our body to stay healthy.

You can’t tell your body,” well I given you food last week! Can’t you be happy with that”? Well, you could, maybe.  The only thing is that eventually your body will SHOW you how happy it is with that!

Even though our brain won’t show us such fast and drastic results when it’s not getting the right nutrition like our body does, when we are not feeding our brain with personal development material it shows up in the form of an unsatisfying life, and sometimes even worse – much worse.  However, we won’t go there for now.  But just think about divorce, suicide, depression, and drug addiction rates and you’ll have an idea about why personal development is so needed.

I think it’s well worth it to invest some time in it, isn’t it?

What Personal Development will do for You

Personal development will greatly improve your growth and quality of life as an individual.  You will find out that life has more to it than meets the eye, and your perspective about things will change.

When I receive emails from potential clients asking me questions I usually tell them that without a personal development education we are subject to swallow a lot of other people’s point of views and overall BS, and that’s usually not a good thing.

For example, I heard once years ago, by a religious preacher, that if your life is too easy it means that you’re not doing enough for God – in your service to him.  It needs to be hard – you need to suffer a little to be sure that you’re doing the right thing – that you are pleasing to God.

As crazy as this sounds to me today, back then I was “convinced” by that preacher. I thought that it had to be true since that man had more “authority” me.

This is just an example, but many people all over the world are easy prey into believing what they’re told because they don’t know any better.  The reason they don’t is because they have never tapped into personal development to discover who they really are, where they are going and what is the meaning of life.

In other words, they are starving their brain and mind and they’re consuming junk food instead of getting nourished with personal development sources, and spending more time with people who are successful and happy and less time with people who want to make them feel miserable.

The more educated you become about personal development the less prey to others you will be.  You won’t only be happier, but you will also be an inspiration to people around you.

I remember about 10 years ago asking for help with my depression to one of the elders of my church.  Want to know the helpful response I got?  Maybe be you need medicine prescriptions!  Too bad for me I guess. NOT at all the kind of answer I expected.

I didn’t follow his bad advice.  This was actually the beginning of my awakening that something was wrong there, and that I needed to look for answers somewhere else.  Thankfully, I did.

The Challenges of Being Positive and Upbeat

We live in a pretty pessimist world where everything negative and bad is magnified by the media that tries to beat this up into our heads relentlessly.  That’s why CNN has been renamed by few personal development leaders as Constant Negative News.  Unfortunately, constant negative news sell and that’s why we are bombarded with it.

The already bad news is magnified and talked about again, again and again which is good business for them since by law of attraction it actually brings more bad news for the future.

It’s up to us to break loose from all that, and that’s when personal development can help greatly.

What can you Gain from Personal Development?

Instead of giving you a list of things that personal development “could” do for you I think it would be better if I gave you the list of the things that personal development DID for me.

• It eliminated my depression completely
• It eliminated my anxiety to a great extent
• It eliminated my need for people to approve me
• It eliminated all the regrets that I was carrying around
• It helped me to forgive people that I had I resentement for
• It gave me a sense of wholeness
• It gave me a purpose in life
• It gave me self-esteem
• It gave me self-confidence
• It helped me understand how valuable I am
• It made me stronger
• It made me less sensitive to what people think
• It helped me to remove doubts about my abilities
• It made me more successful
• It helped me attract more like-minded people into my life … and more

Personal development will set your mind free and guide you on the road to success.

Enjoy this short video with beautiful landscapes and quotation of my own.  If you like those I do some more in the future.

Today’s post is by Justin Mazza, life coach and blogger.  Few weeks ago Justin accepted to give me an interview on this blog, and now I hope you will enjoy his guest post about emotional health.  So, without further ado, let him tell you about this wonderful subject of emotional health.

Emotions are something every one of you has to deal with on a daily basis. Emotions range from joy to sadness, from rage to ecstasy. Which emotions do you experience on a regular basis?

Emotions are basically an inner guidance system that lets you know when you are allowing yourself to be who you are, and when you are not.

Negative emotions like pessimism and even grief are not really who you are, even though we believe these emotions to be normal reactions to life experiences.

What if I told you that being angry for your spouse leaving you, or that grieving the loss of a loved one are not necessary emotions for you to experience?

I know, we are supposed to cry at weddings and funerals right? Wrong! These responses are nothing more than a pre-programmed reaction that you have in your belief systems.

I know a subject like the death of someone brings up strong feelings in you, and you believe you have a right to feel and express your negative emotions. I completely understand this.

In some cultures around the world they actually celebrate death as they see it as a form of graduation from this dimension of reality to the next. These cultures believe that physical death is not permanent; it is merely a transition from one form to another.

In reality, conscious energy, which is what we really are, never dies.

So the point here is not to talk about death, but to remind you that you have the conscious choice when it comes to your emotional reactions.

Granted, it’s not easy to change course once you become emotional, but what I recommend to my coaching students is that they at least take some time to reflect on their day in the evening, and recall when they reacted to situations negatively.

By doing this they can see what their trigger points are, and they can then make better choices in the future by reprogramming their negative emotional reactions into ones that are at least neutral.

What are Emotions?

Emotions have been described simply as – “Energy in motion,” which would be an accurate description, but rather vague too. I think we are all comfortable and familiar with positive emotions, but many of us can become resentful about negative ones like fear and anger.

Negative emotions occur when we first define the perceived experience – such as losing a job – as negative, and then secondly we resist this perceived experience which, therefore creates a negative emotion.

It’s the resistance to the experience, the resistance to the emotion, and the resistance to the natural self that creates the painful negative emotion. Do you ever see a newborn baby resist crying? No, never, because they do not have any negative beliefs attached to an emotion like crying. But we do, don’t us?

We learned to suppress our negative emotions and we learned to judge/label them as negative too.

Did you see what she just did? Did you see how he just acted?

We’ve been taught to suppress too much of ourselves just for the sake of appearing normal and maintaining the status quo.

This is the number one reason why relationships end because someone is not being allowed to be who they really are. Not only does repressing your emotions affect your relationships, they also affect your health too.

Emotions need to be allowed to flow freely like I said, because if not, you get a blockage in your energy system. Too much blockage will create a backup in your energy system known as Chakras, and when any chakra is backed up for too long, you either gradually shut down or you blow up with a negative emotion.

Either way the energy system has got to flow freely, and if you are in any kind of relationship whether it be a job, a romantic one, or even a friendship, you need to be able to express who you really are at all times without any resistance from you or the other person.

Haven’t you ever noticed that your favorite job or relationships are with those people or places where you can be yourself fully without any worries of negative feedback?

Granted, this doesn’t mean you can become mean, careless or disrespectful to the other person or place. It just means you feel you have a safe place to allow all aspects of yourself to become visible, warts and all.

 I Am an Emotional Person

Yes, yours truly was a very high-strung person for most of his life, and it wasn’t until I decided to take control of my energy that my emotional health completely turned around.

Granted, I am not always “cool” like Fonzie from Happy Days, but I am definitely much more in control of my emotional health than ever before.

How I Took Control of my Emotions

I had to make an honest assessment of my emotional goals and decide what changes I could make to improve my emotional heath.

1- I became a vegetarian last May of 2012. I also decreased artificial foods in my diet and replaced them with whole, natural, and raw foods. Granted, I may chomp on a Boston Cream doughnut from time to time.

2. Yoga and exercise. Every day I do yoga and light stretching in combination with breathing exercises to keep my emotional health intact. I have to do this daily or else I will slide down the emotional scale to a place I don’t want to be.

3. Brainwave entrainment audio program. Last May I was given a free copy of a revolutionary program called the Brain Evolution System. The Brain EV is a program that I use every evening when I am done all my work. I simply sit back in my rocking chair, put on my headphones, and relax, as I listen to the soothing sounds of the music. Brainwave entrainment helps to relax and calm the overactive parts of the brain that contributes to negative emotions.

4. I had to reprogram my mind not to react to unwanted situations in a negative way. Most of life is how we respond to it, and the last thing I want to do is to respond to life in a negative way because I know this will only compound the problem further.

What about you? Do you have systems in place to keep your emotional health intact?