Living with purpose. It’s an interesting concept and something that can have a positive impact on your entire life. When we live with purpose, we get more done. We create meaning in our life. And we’re happier and more fulfilled.
That’s why it’s an important topic to discuss. It’s also what inspired me to put together a 30 day series of blog posts around it.
Over the course of the month, we’ll take a look at living with purpose and how we can start to live more intentionally. We’ll look at how this will affect all aspects of our lives. And of course, I will have plenty of hands-on tips and suggestions for you.
Let’s start today by talking a little bit about what it means to live with purpose. In essence, it means that you know what you’re doing.
You have goals and are passionate about what you do. Instead of simply letting the days pass you by, you work with purpose to make the most of each day.
Living with a purpose has a couple of big advantages over mere existence. When you know exactly what you want to do with your life, you have a clear plan or path. You don’t have to get up each morning and then try to figure out what you’ll do. You get into action and keep working toward the goals you set based on your purpose.
You have a clear set of core values that you follow, based on your purpose. This will come in handy anytime you have a decision to make. Think of these values as a compass that keeps you on track.
What’s most important is that living with purpose gives you a great sense of self-worth. You know what you’re doing and you’re taking action toward the goals you’ve set for yourself.
Not only does this increase your feeling of self-worth and self-confidence. It will give a big boost to your happiness.
In the end, that’s what it’s all about, isn’t it? We all want to live a happy and fulfilled life with meaning. That’s why it’s important to start thinking about living with purpose.
The end of your life. Something you may not like to think about, but something you’ll eventually face. On the next CHI FOR YOURSELF you’ll hear about the words people say in those final days. Words that don’t make sense to us, but somehow have meaning to the dying.
Our guest decodes the symbolism of those last words. Lisa Smartt will tell us how the language of the dying points the way to a transcendent world beyond our own.
Lisa Smartt is the author of Words at the Threshold:What We Say as We’re Nearing Death.
Hear the “words” from Lisa Smartt at 4 pm Eastern Time, 1 pm Pacific Time on Thursday May 18th, at chiforyourself.com.
A quick reminder: Our guest on today’s CHI FOR YOURSELF is Dr. Rachel Harris, author of Listening to Ayahuasca: New Hope for Depression, Addiction, PTSD, and Anxiety.
Rachel Harris PhD
We’ll start the interview at 5 pm Eastern time, 2 pm Pacific atchiforyourself.com. We’ll look for you then!
On our next CHI FOR YOURSELF we visit the world of Ayahuasca. What’s that you ask? Ayahuasca is a psychedelic brew from the Amazon rainforest. It’s considered a medicine and it has great therapeutic potential that’s just beginning to be studied.
Our guest will be Dr. Rachel Harris. Rachel was inspired to research how this medicine was being used in North America. She’ll talk about her findings, including miracle cures of depression and addiction, therapeutic breakthroughs, spiritual revelations, and challenging or bad trips- including her own!
Dr.Rachel Harris is the author of Listening to Ayahuasca: New Hope for Depression, Addiction, PTSD, and Anxiety
Rachel Harris PhD
Be here when we fire up the interview this Thursday May 11th and 5 pm Eastern time, 2 pm Pacific at chiforyourself.com
We want to make positive strides in our lives. But sometimes things seem to hold us back- like low self-esteem. It might be time to take a look at how we feel about ourselves.
This article invites you to look at your everyday life in an unusual way. I think you’ll find it a good way to examine your self-esteem and stay on a sound footing toward genuine living.
Build Self-Esteem: The First Step Toward Self Development
If you are interested in self-development but have low self-esteem, you’ll want to put your attention on that. Until you do, it will be much harder to accurately assess what you need to learn and change in order to achieve your goals. In fact, if you have low self-esteem it can be difficult to even see what your goals are.
Imagine yourself as a dart board. Everything and everyone else around you have the potential to become a damaging dart pin, at one point or another. These dart pins will destroy your self-esteem and pull you down in ways you may not even be conscious of. It’s important not to let them destroy you, or get the best of you. So what are the dart pins to avoid, and how can you keep them from hurting you?
Dart Pin #1: Negative Work Environment
Beware of “dog eat dog” theory where everyone else is fighting just to get ahead. This is where non-appreciative people usually thrive. No one will appreciate your contributions even if you miss lunch and dinner, and stay up late. You may find you are working harder and harder for less and less return.
Stay away from this, it will damage your self-esteem. Find ways to manage your work within the majority of the normal working day. If you have to compete with others, compete on your own terms. Don’t be drawn into power games or negative behavior that will bring on negative feelings about yourself.
Dart Pin #2: Other People’s Behavior
Bulldozers, brown nosers, gossipmongers, whiners, backstabbers, snipers, the walking wounded, controllers, naggers, complainers, exploders, patronizers, sluffers … all these negative behaviors in others will damage your self-esteem, as well as to your self-development program. But remember, it is not the person that is the problem: it is their behavior.
Dart Pin #3: Changing Environment
You can’t be a green bug on a brown field. Changes challenge our paradigms. They test your flexibility, adaptability and alter the way you think. Changes will make life difficult for a while and often cause stress, but when you look back you’ll see that change is often the catalyst or cause of self -development. Try not to resist it.
Dart Pin #4: Past Experience
It’s okay to cry and say “ouch!” when you experience pain. But don’t let pain transform itself into fear by constantly thinking of the bad things that have happened to you or others in the past. It’s easy to wreck a relationship by bringing with you the issues you had in your last relationship and expecting your new partner to be like your previous one. Treat each failure and mistake as a lesson, and move on.
Dart Pin #5: Negative World View
Look at what you’re looking at. Don’t wrap yourself up with all the negativities of the world. In building self-esteem, we must learn how to make the best out of worst situations.
Dart Pin #6: Determination Theory
The way you are and your behavioral traits are said to be a mixed end product of your inherited traits, your upbringing, and your current environment such as your friends, your work situation, the economy and even the climate of the country that you live in.
Don’t make the mistake of thinking that your genetics or upbringing will determine how your life goes. You have your own identity. If your father feels like a failure, it doesn’t mean you have to be a failure too. Learn from other people’s experience, so you’ll never have to encounter the same mistakes.
In life, it can be tough to stay firm, especially when things and people around you seem to keep pulling you down. However, building self-esteem will eventually lead to self-development if you start to become responsible for who you are, what you have and what you do.
When you develop self-esteem, you take control of your mission, values, and discipline. Self-esteem brings about self-improvement, true assessment, and determination. So how do you start putting up the building blocks of self-esteem? Be positive. Be contented and happy. Be appreciative. Never miss an opportunity to compliment. A positive way of living will help you build self-esteem and set you on the path to positive self-development.
GenuLines has been quiet of late. And there’s a reason. Several in fact. I was called away from the keyboard to take care of some important family business.
As I write this I’m still on the East Coast of the U.S. dealing with things like elder care, finances, and even leaking water pipes!
Things are quieting down now but I got to thinking. Stress often comes in bunches, and if you deal with it in unhealthy ways it can turn your life upside down.
So here are some points to remember to keep stressful situations manageable and to get you back to your “happy place” ASAP!
Peace
Article
Tricky thing about stress. It sets off a vicious cycle where each incident causes more stress that makes you more prone to make mistakes. So, more things go wrong. It can make you feel you are losing control of your life and even your mind. But don’t lose hope because there is a way out.
In fact, there are many solutions to the problem of stress in our lives. Here are 7 tips to help you find your way out of the vicious cycle.
1. Recognize that stress has a place in your life
Make stress your friend! Stress has a genuine biological function that can be used to good effect. Based on the body’s natural “fight or flight” response, that burst of energy will enhance your performance if focused at the right moment. I’ve yet to see a top sportsman totally relaxed before a big competition. Use stress wisely to push yourself that little bit harder when it counts most.
2. Avoid catching the stress ‘virus’
Stress can be infectious. A stressed person tends to make life difficult for others in various ways, so those people become stressed too. To protect yourself, either give them space and keep away or practice relaxation techniques to ward off the infection. You may even be able to help them to relax – but the way to do that is to stay relaxed when you are around them, not add to their problems by handing out advice.
3. Learn from the best
If you are not yet able to be the person who keeps calm when everyone else is losing their head, then look for that person and learn from him or her. What are they doing differently? What is their attitude? What language do they use? Are they trained and experienced? Figure it out from afar or sit them down for a chat. Learn from the best stress managers and copy what they do.
4. Use your breathing
You can trick your body into relaxing by using deep and slow breathing. Breathe in slowly for a count of 7 then breathe out for a count of 11. Repeat the 7-11 breathing until your heart rate slows down, your sweaty palms dry off and things start to feel more normal.
5. Give stressy thoughts the red light
It is possible to tangle yourself up in a stress knot all by yourself. “If this happens, then that might happen and then that might happen and then there’s no hope for any of us!” Most of these things never happen, so why waste all that energy worrying needlessly? Give stress thought-trains the red light and stop them in their tracks.
Instead of indulging your imagination by figuring out all the worst-case scenarios, take the attitude that for every problem, there is a solution. Okay so that first thing on your list might go wrong – but how likely is that, and what can you do to prevent it?
6. Know your trigger points and hot spots
Presentations, interviews, meetings, giving difficult feedback, tight deadlines, background noise, travel, criticism from others … there are many causes of stress and they are not the same for everybody.
Make your own list of stress trigger points or hot spots. Be specific. Is it only presentations to a certain audience that get you worked up? Does one type of project cause more stress than another? Did you drink too much coffee?
Knowing what causes you stress is powerful information, as you can take action to make it less stressful. Do you need to learn some new skills? Do you need extra resources? Do you need to switch to decaf?
7. Burn the candle at one end only
Lack of sleep, poor diet, and minimal exercise wreaks havoc on our body and mind. Kind of obvious, but worth mentioning as it’s often ignored as a stress management technique. Listen to your mother and don’t burn the candle at both ends! Make sure you get plenty of rest … and if you find you lie awake worrying, learn to switch your thought patterns with relaxation techniques.
Spring is a time that tends to be associated with relationships. (Love is in the air, etc) And maybe it’s time for you to think about your relationship. Naturally, CHI FOR YOURSELF doesn’t look at relationships in the usual, greeting card kind of way.
Bringing a special person into your life (or keeping someone in your life) involves mindfulness.
There are some simple but important points to keep your attention on when a relationship is on your mind. So CHI FOR YOURSELF has put together a brief report on relationships. It’s free and you can get it by clicking on this FREE STUFF link.
You may have noticed that our latest CHI FOR YOURSELF episode and recent GenuLines blog posts have been stressing relationships. Particular emphasis has been put on nurturing the “self.”
CHI FOR YOURSELF wants you to have a special report on bringing love into your life. You can find the first chapter if you scroll down this page. You’ll get free access to the rest of the report in a coming GenuLines blog post.
As for our latest episode of CHI FOR YOURSELF with Tatiana Jerome, you can hear it by clicking on the player–
Tatiana Jerome
Tatiana Jerome is the author of LOVE LOSE, LOVE FOUND:A Woman’s Guide to Letting Go of the Past and Finding New Love.
Here’s a look at some of the takeaway points from the program:
Tatiana thought her relationship was fine
Knowing when it’s time to go
The relationship with your “self”
Actions are less important that patterns
Looking for love online
Attract rather than pursue
______________________________
Chapter 1:
Basics of Attracting Love
Synopsis
For most people having a relationship that contains both respect for the other’s feelings and the ability to freely express affection would be important concerns.
But with so many external pressures it’s often very hard to focus on creating the ideal relationship based on these two vital aspects.
Making the intention to include this respect as part of your lives will give you the opportunity to maintain your relationship as one of meaning and purpose.
– # –
The Basics
Understand that making a conscious effort to create a healthy partnership is a good starting point. This helps each person involved to do their best to ensure the relationship has the potential for strength and longevity.
This may at times leave you feeling that you’re going “the extra mile” for your partner. Consider it a good opportunity to sharpen your giving skills.
Attracting love may require some initial physical and spiritual contributions on your part. The reassurance of compassion or empathy or a well-timed touch (tasteful, of course!) can go a long way toward tilling the soil of a fertile relationship.
When we think of introverts and extroverts, we might describe introverts as shy or antisocial and extroverts as outgoing. But this is not entirely accurate. Yes, some introverts may be shy, but being an introvert does not necessarily make you shy.
The real difference between introverts and extroverts is the location from which they get their energy. In other words, introverts draw their energy from and recharge by spending time alone in their thoughts. They still enjoy people. But they can find this draining and prefer quieter environments. Introverts prefer being with a few close friends. Extroverts, on the other hand, get their energy from being around others and often with large groups of people.
Extroverts tend to jump into things and talk out loud to problem solve while performing an activity. Introverts, however, think and reflect before taking action.
Although it would seem that extroverts are more confident than introverts, this is not necessarily the case. In fact, many extroverts and introverts feel the same way – apprehensive when in a new situation. Therefore, you cannot assume that just because someone is introverted, that he has less confidence than the extroverted person in the room.
Unfortunately, the outside world gives the impression that it’s better to be extroverted than introverted. We might even encourage this in young children. Most people have a combination of characteristics but are predominately one or the other.
So how can introverts demonstrate their confidence in a world that reveres extroversion?
1. Socialize for short periods
First of all, remember that there is nothing wrong with being introverted. However, there are times when you may find it’s necessary to get together with large groups of people.
An example of a situation where this might be necessary is your spouse’s holiday work party. You prefer quiet, small get-togethers with a few friends or a quiet evening of watching a movie. However, it means a lot to your spouse to have you attend, so the two of you decide to compromise – you will go, but only for a few hours. This means mingling and socializing with more people than usual. If you think it sounds like you have to be phony, that is not the case.
Consider this. If you’re feeling grumpy and you start smiling at everyone (the action), you soon start feeling happy (the feeling). It’s the same with this. Although it will feel weird at first, act like you enjoy mingling and socializing with a large group of people, and you will feel like you do.
Because you’re likely to be drained after several hours of interactions with others, plan to be there only for a short amount of time (ex. no more than three hours). Then you can go home where it’s quiet and you can recharge.
2. Don’t ignore people
Maybe you work as an accountant. It’s the type of position which might minimize interaction with others. However, parts of your workday may still involve human contact, as you have to interact with your receptionist or other employees. It would be a drain on your energy to act like an extrovert all the time when you’re at work. No one expects that, and it’s not realistic. But be a friendly and interactive introvert. Say “hello” to people you work with.
Ask them about their families, and offer information about yours. This allows your confidence to shine through too. People will respect you more and respond better to you if they feel that you’re interested in them. They’ll also see you as more approachable and they’re less likely to consider it weird when you say that you need to work alone or need some quiet time.
Another idea is related to lunchtime at work. You may not enjoy eating lunch in a group because you find that mentally draining. However, you may be able to compromise by spending ten minutes with the group, and the other 20 minutes on your own recharging. That way, people get to know the real you – the friendly, but introverted, person – and you still get quiet time to yourself to recharge before returning to work.
Relationship break-up. You’ve probably faced it somewhere along the line. Maybe you’re going through it now. Our next scheduled CHI FOR YOURSELF guest had a bad experience with a relationship breakup.
But she faced her pain and challenges, even acknowledging what she did to contribute to the relationship’s failure.
Tatiana Jerome began to heal and move beyond a broken heart to a better understanding of what would make her happy, and, most of all, of the type of love she deserved.
Tatiana Jerome is the author ofLOVE LOST, LOVE FOUND: A Woman’s Guide to Letting Go of the Past and Finding New Love.
CHI FOR YOURSELF with guest Tatiana Jerome- Thursday March 30th at 4 pm Eastern, 1 pm Pacific time at chiforyourself.com.
Many people seem to have the mistaken idea that only a select few are able to unleash a steady flow of creative genius. This probably comes from the idea of ‘personality types’ that leads us to think our personality and style of working are set in stone.
That is not true at all. Our so-called personality type is simply a set of behavior patterns that we adopted in order to meet the different challenges of our early lives. Those behavior patterns can be changed.
Let’s start today by talking a little bit about what it means to live with purpose. In essence, it means that you know what you’re doing.
Overheard: 
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