Greek God Dionysus, Archetypes And Myths, Unconscious Personality, Self-Esteem, Self-Confidence

admin Self-Help, Shadow Work March 8, 2012April 13, 2012archetype, dionysus, shadow, unconscious 0 Comment

Greek
God Dionysus

The Greek God Dionysus as archetype is an unusual pattern in that it is apparent in spiritually evolved mystics as well as murderers.

The word archetype describes what Carl Jung identified as patterns of behaving that arise from the collective unconscious of humankind. The pattern of being is not unique to an individual; it is available to manifest in each of us because we each reflect a part of the whole.

To recognize Dionysus active within your life look
for…

Sensual; likes to experience the world through all the
senses.

Cries easily or at least is not able to suppress
emotions like other people are taught.

Tendency to fall in love with boys and girls

Internal conflict that makes living in the ordinary
world difficult.

Possible drawbacks to living the Dionysus
archetype…

Feeling invalidated and out of step with others

Doesn’t fit easily into the culture of goal setting,
working hard and long to achieve academic or material success.

Highs and lows, mood swings and extremes of feelings.

Prolonged or catastrophic mid-life crisis.

This information has been summarized from the book Gods in Everyman by Jean Shinoda Bolen. If you recognize your patterns of acting and being in the world from the above list and are curious about what you can do to change, then first and foremost use this information as proof that you are not different, defective or a victim of your past programming.

The above shows the commonality in the human experience when certain innate energies are active. As such begin by accepting that you do indeed own these particular traits and let it be OK that you do.

This will slightly raise your self-esteem and self-acceptance for each trait you own. If you would like some guidance or clarification, please contact me, I would love to help.

Gratitude Prayer, Attitude of Gratitude, Thankfulness and Appreciation

admin Self-Help, Spirituality March 8, 2012April 16, 2012alignment with God, appreciation, gratitude 0 Comment

Improve Your Life With Gratitude
Prayer

A gratitude prayer doesn’t have to be recited lines of verbal sounds
coming out your mouth once a day. A more powerful and authentic way to ‘ask’ is by feeling gratitude now.

You see feelings reproduce themselves and this often misunderstood. The self-help gurus and the not so guru’d all write about visualizing and saying affirmations, but what very few of them tell you – because I don’t think they have the consciousness to express it – is that the feeling you feel is the gratitude prayer, not just the thought.

This is why simply saying thank-you from your headspace is not as effective.

Feel It First Then Say It

You HAVE to feel it. You have to be sincere in your body before saying it. The words are just an expression of a state of being, or an experience that you want to communicate to another. Just like any speaking or thinking it arises from a state of being that you verbalize to get that across to another person or to the divine.

So when you are next in a shop and purchase something, watch yourself when you say ‘thank you’.

Did you feel it and therefore mean it?
Or did you just say it because saying it is associated
with the situation and it has become robotic?

When someone does something for you or gives you something, take half a second to go into your heart and decide to FEEL grateful then express your feeling or state of gratitude by saying ‘thanks’.

In order to feel it you will need to look for something to be grateful for no matter what the situation. When in bed you can feel grateful that you have a warm, dry bed in a dark, dry, quiet room – then say thanks. The alternative to your warm, dry bed in a dark, dry room is sleeping
out in the street under a bush. That is enough for me to be thankful. Feel it then say it.

Waiters and people working in shops get paid to serve you, but that doesn’t mean you can’t take half a second to feel grateful that they brought you the food and drink to your table.

As you go about your day finding little things to be grateful for, the feelings reproduce themselves and multiply. An important part of this is being content with what you have now, but that doesn’t mean you can’t have a vision and plan for the future. The secret is to be grateful now and that is your gratitude prayer.

Gold In The Shadow, Shadow Work, Shadow Self, Shadow Projection, Human Shadow

admin Self-Help, Shadow Work March 8, 2012April 16, 2012gold, self-confidence, shadow self 0 Comment

Discover Gold In The Shadow And

Change Your Life

What Is The Gold In The Shadow?

The gold in the shadow can be understood by seeing that just as we protect our sense of self by denying that we possess ‘bad’ qualities, we also do not fully acknowledge that we have ‘good’ qualities.

Your sense of self, your self-image contains certain traits and anything that does not fit into this picture you have off yourself, or anything you wish was not in the picture is called your shadow.

Shadow Gold Unlocks Your Potential

When you see someone who has desirable qualities, watch and notice if you think this person is somehow more special than you. If you feel infatuated by them or you put them up on a pedestal in your mind then you are projecting positive qualities onto them.

You can notice if someone has positive qualities and not be projecting. It is placing them above you in your mind that is evidence of your shadow, as Carl Jung termed it.

What Do I Do With This?

Just the same as you would do with negative qualities you project onto others, you need to go within and be brutally honest and find instances or areas of your life where YOU have these same qualities.

They will be there it is just you will have minimized them in your mind. You might project amazing traits onto a musician but deny the same level of genius in your cooking ability. Cooking comes so easy to you you think it is no big deal.

Well the musician finds it easy to play music and it is no big deal to her either. We each are given talents and skills in different areas and it is for you to embrace these.

Your inner peace and self-esteem will change immediately for each trait you re-own, embrace and love. These positive traits are said to be the shadow gold.

Geneen Roth, Women Food and God

admin Self-Help March 8, 2012April 16, 2012geneen roth 0 Comment

Geneen Roth Helps With Emotional Eating

“…our
relationship to food is an exact microcosm of

our
relationship to life itself”.

Geneen Roth states on her website it states that her earliest books were the first to make the link between deep personal issues and our habits around food, dieting, emotional eating and compulsive eating. I assume she is referring to issue such as wanting to feel worthy, loved and accepted.

“…that our relationship to food, money, love is an exact reflection of our deepest held beliefs about ourselves and the amount of joy, abundance, pain, scarcity, we believe we have (or are allowed) to have in our lives”.

I was nodding in agreement when I read the next part…

“…our actions and beliefs make exquisite sense, and that the way to transform our relationship with food is to be open, curious and kind with ourselves-instead of punishing, impatient and harsh.”

Yes, Yes, Yes! I couldn’t agree more. And not just about food but about all our impulses and behaviors. Be gentle and kind and forgiving. Treat your inner self like you would a little child. Give her patience and direction and forgiveness. She is learning and just trying to feel better.

The last thing our poor little bashed about self/inner child needs is more ridicule, abuse and rejection. The inner child will make choices that are not aligned with your conscious desires. Accept this but delve deeply into the reasons so that you can watch the patterns and release them rather than add more rubbish on top.

Also, I would add my own personal advice is do not overlook the physical effects of an inconsistent diet. I have read of people who are dedicated to having great bodies, and they do, but the also say the same thing that I notice. That is, if you get too hungry or thirsty, especially early in the day, then it is almost impossible to get your blood sugar levels back on an even keel. You MUST have enough minerals and vitamins early in the day and throughout the day so your body can stay evenly balanced.

If you get too far down it is impossible in my experience to get back to even that day…and guess what happens by the late afternoon and evening? That is when overeating happens and common sense goes out the window. It happens to everyone regardless of emotional issues and as I say body builders and athletes know this happens also.

Here are the books and CDs from Geneen Roth, the latest one being Women, Food and God. Definitely someone with much experience and can guide you into deeper issues and discovery of your true, authentic self and experience greater love and self-esteem.

Gemini Moon Sign, Gemini Traits, Astrological Moon Signs

admin Astrology, Self-Help, Shadow Work March 8, 2012April 14, 2012astrology, gemini, moon sign, traits 0 Comment

If You Are A Gemini
Moon Sign

A gemini moon sign will have primarily the following traits. Your self-esteem and personal and spiritual growth comes primarily from you acceptance and letting go of any emotional reaction to being labeled something.

Have a look at the list and notice anything which you resist, i.e. it doesn’t fit in with your self-image or you wish it wasn’t part of you.

– Charming

– Witty

– Irritable

– Moody

– Inquisitive

– Nosy

– Curious

– Bored quickly

– Talkative

– Flexible

– Constantly on the go

– Worry more than average

– Sociable

– Organized

– Versatile

– Adaptable

– Like change

– Enjoy adventures

– Enjoy freedom

Then go through all the other astrological moon signs and work your way through those also. We all posses the ability to display every trait so your sense of self-acceptance and self-esteem is dependent on you embracing all the gemini traits from this moon sign list, and all the other 11 as well.

Fear Public Speaking, Tips On Public Speaking, Public Speaking Anxiety

admin Self-Esteem, Self-Help March 8, 2012April 16, 2012centered, fear public speaking, grounded 0 Comment

Do You Fear Public Speaking?

If you fear public speaking, sure things may get better after you have done a number of speeches but if you want to actually transform yourself and your life so that the excessive nerves don’t come there are some tips on public speaking below.

It is the same in any area of life, there is nothing extra special about the feelings that come from thinking about standing in front of people speaking and that public speaking anxiety.

Yes it is true that if you know what you are speaking about and have practiced and prepared things will no doubt be easier but if you fear public speaking, take the issue you have and use it to transcend and transform who you are currently.

One way you could approach this is through self-hypnosis or affirmations. This is a reprogramming of your ideas and beliefs about yourself and others; changing the instructions to yourself about how to feel when you speak in front of others.

This may work but it doesn’t change ‘you’. To me it is like papering over cracks in the wall. To fill in the cracks and smooth them over, so to speak, there needs to be a change in the way you think about yourself, others and life.

Firstly

Firstly on a physical level place your feeling attention just below your belly button and allow breathing to come from there. Don’t breathe from there but just let breath happen while you feel fully conscious of that area of your body. This is where the power is, this is where we are centred and grounded. Martial artists know this and spend hours meditating and learning to ‘be’ from this spot.

Whenever you feel out of your depth and anxious, at any stage of life, immediately go back to ‘being’ there. Don’t try and push the feelings away or ignore them, they will get bigger. Instead just let them be there and acknowledge them. Talk to them, I don’t care just be there with them without resistance.

The opposite to this is to be in your head and then the mind will run amok and you will feel all out of control. When you are in your body and conscious of your centre and of breath the mind disengages.

Secondly

Secondly, speak from this place. Let the breath push the words up your centre and out your mouth. Enjoy feeling the words on your tongue and lips. Speak slowly enough that you can feel them and notice how good the words feel on your tongue and lips. Again you will be conscious of your body and the mind disengages. When you do this you will sound controlled, authoritative, calm and powerful.

Thirdly

Thirdly, stand with both feet firmly on the floor. Don’t stand with all your weight on one foot or lean against anything.

Be in your body and let your body be deeply connected to the floor.

When you do these things, at at any time of your life, you are in your own reality. Your reality is yours so embrace it and cherish it. Other people can’t get inside your reality, you let them in.

I don’t know if that makes sense but if you fear public speaking it can be overcome when you become more conscious of what is going on.

EFT Technique, Personal Peace Procedure

admin Self-Esteem, Self-Help March 8, 2012April 17, 2012eft, emotional freedom technique, inner peace, personal power 0 Comment

Increase Your Inner Peace With

The EFT
Technique

What Is It?

The EFT technique is a simple routine anyone can do at home and is having results where nothing else has helped. It stands for Emotional Freedom Technique. It is also casually known as Tapping, due to the action of tapping on several acupressure points on your body.

Like all good things, it was discovered by accident that tapping on these acupressure points while mentally focusing on an issue, brought a resolution to that issue.

Why Does It Work?

As elsewhere I mention that the key to personal and spiritual growth is awareness and acceptance of everything that you are and everything that has happened. It is no surprise then that the EFT technique involves speaking the statement ‘Even though I …. I deeply love and accept myself while you tap on these points primarily on your head’.

My personal use of EFT as been most effective completing what Gary Craig (the man who has taken EFT to the world) called the Personal Peace Procedure. Here is a video explaining it all. I highly recommend watching it and doing this procedure.

I agree with Gary Craig that if everyone would list out the major events in their life, especially those that still have some emotional charge and rawness to them and performed the procedure then inner peace, contentment, inspiration and self-esteem would be more prevalent.

I even have heard from a woman who was diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder who tapped every night on a memory or two and has never experienced BPD symptoms again. What happens is all the similar memories that have trapped emotions with them are neutralized and as a result the internal turmoil and angst goes also.

If you find this difficult to do on your own then please search for an EFT practitioner in your area. A beauty of EFT is that it doesn’t require you to relive traumatic events or go talk over them endlessly like you would in conventional therapy.

Eat Pray Love Elizabeth Gilbert

admin Self-Help, Spirituality March 8, 2012April 17, 2012eat pray love, elizabeth gilbert 0 Comment

Wise Reading Eat Pray Love

Something that Elizabeth Gilbert said in an interview after Eat Pray Love became such a hit sticks in my mind. She said …

“I was useless to anyone until I got myself together. It’s a community service to get yourself together.
It’s the least selfish thing you can do.”

I mention quite a few times on this website about how people in general but more specifically women think that it is right and proper to neglect yourself and focus on others.

I know there is strong social conditioning which invisibly directs women to feel guilty if they spend energy and time on themselves, especially when they have a young family.

Eat Pray Love is a true story about Gilbert’s realization soon after turning 30 that she didn’t want the supposedly idealistic life she had conspired to create with her husband. It follows her realization, subsequent divorce and decision to finally follow her heart.

Destiny and Fate

People talk about destiny and fate. I believe certain aspects of our lives are destined but we have to have the courage to follow what our heart and intuition is telling us, no matter what the social pressures might be.

People will not understand why you leave a safe job to go traveling. People will question why you want to go and travel to Peru or Tibet or live in a Ashram. They will expect you to have logical, thought out answers but the reasons are not logical, they are coming from a different part of your being than rational mind.

It is enough for you to say, ‘it is just something I know I need to do’. Feel the social pressure, which comes from people who are not in the same place as you and not on the same mission in life as you, but do it anyway.

I recommend reading this book if you have at least an inkling that there is something you want to do, something you are called to do, somewhere you feel guided to go by a gentle, loving, safe hand on the small of your back.

Either you know what it is but you haven’t faced up to it yet, or it is not quite your time and you need to be patient because you know it is coming, whatever it is.

Also, the movie has been released starring Julia Roberts, I haven’t seen it yet but I will do once I can see it in English.

Dr John Demartini, Demartini Method, Improving Your Self-Esteem

admin Self-Esteem, Self-Help, Shadow Work, Spirituality March 8, 2012April 17, 2012breakthorugh experience, demartini method, john demartini 0 Comment

Wisdom Learned From Dr
John Demartini

Dr John Demartini created and teaches the Demartini Method. A powerful way to resolve anxiety, trauma, sadness, grief, shame, guilt and any possible emotion that is holding you back from living an inspired, beautiful life.

In 2008 I first heard about Dr Demartini. It was a year after my second reading of The
Dark Side of the Light Chasers by Debbie Ford, a book which made a huge change to my understanding of why people feel bad about themselves and have low self-esteem.

A friend gave me a DVD of Dr John Demartini talking about his tough early life. He was from a loving family however he had learning and physical difficulties and drifted aimlessly once leaving school until he met an old man in a yoga class. This old man, Paul Bragg, guided him and the rest of the class through a meditation and from that night Dr Demartini’s passion for learning and understanding began.

When I looked into his work further I was quite astounded to read and hear that he too had realized the importance of doing shadow-work and had done a similar exercise to me, but a lot more intense.

I know I felt a persistent unease within all my life until I started this internal work on myself. I wanted to discover who I really was, what I am gifted at and what I can let go of worrying about. Would you like to live like that also?

Listen to a great explanation below from Dr John DeMartini of why this kind of work is powerful at improving your your self-esteem.

Whereas I had gone through books, learning materials and reference material to catalogue around 1,000 personality traits, and test myself for any reaction or resistance to owning them, he had apparently gone through the entire dictionary!!! I never thought of doing that!

He says there are about 4,600 traits he got from the dictionary and I assume he worked on each one.

His work was not only from the point of view of feeling better about himself but he also got copies of biographies of successful people and highlighted the traits that they displayed in achieving their greatness.

Dr John Demartini is passionate about all areas of human behaviour and achievement. Part of his study was into quantum physics and the realization that there really is nothing missing from our lives. It is our conscious mind that is unable to see everything and how it all relates and so knowing this he devised The DeMartini Method.

I lent a friend my copy of his book The Heart of Love and she said it made such a change to her life reading it and doing the exercises. I hope it does for you too.

Elsewhere I have talked about personality traits that we do not accept and love about ourselves show up for us as an illusion in other people. We really think they are that way, but in reality that person’s behaviour or personality provide us with a hook that shows us what we need to work on to love and accept about ourselves.

The more personality traits that you accept and love about yourself the more you will leave low self-esteem behind and you can get on with living a meaningful, inspired life. This is one aspect of the many great teachings Dr John Demartini provides.

Developing Self-Awareness, Self-Awareness Exercises, Self-Development, Self-Esteem, Self-Confidence

admin Self-Esteem, Self-Help, Spirituality March 8, 2012April 17, 2012awareness, consciousness, personal responsibility 0 Comment

The Secret To All Growth Is Developing Self-Awareness

Developing self-awareness is the key to changing your life experience and overcoming poor self-esteem.

Developing-Self-Awareness Rocks Stacked Beach

Any spiritual or personal growth book worth reading will probably only make only two points important…

developing self-awareness
radical acceptance

The secret to having a life of inner peace and contentment and building your self-esteem is to accept and simply experience what is there for you right now. Once you have developed greater awareness you have more choices about how you will think about what you experience.

Why It Takes Some Courage

It takes some courage to surrender to what is really going on. Once you stop denying your experience and finally realize that your experience has richness, self-love and meaning, then you do not need anything outside of you to be OK such as material possessions, a partner or recognition.

Until you can see what is happening you cannot choose to change it. To be able to see it you need to be constantly developing self-awareness.

If your foot was numb you would need to be aware your foot was numb and be aware of why before you could consciously do something to change that experience. You would see that you are sitting on it and so now you can change that condition. So too it is with emotions, although more complex.

Similarly you need to see and acknowledge the way you are thinking about yourself and the world before you can see that the end result of your thinking might be an experience of anxiety.

You need to be able to see you are attached to something not happening before you can see that your attachment makes you fearful.

Increasing Understanding

Awareness is not a skill and it is not something you develop as such, it just is as it is but it gets covered up a lot of the time.

This is the difference between having your attention on what might happen (imagination) or what has happened (memory) and instead having your attention on ‘you’. Which part of ‘you’ is real and which
part is always changing or up for changing, and therefore not real?

There is always a part of you still and silent and observing. In times you are daydreaming or rehearsing a conversation in your head or replaying an incident the awareness of you disappears doesn’t it? Try it, play with different uses of your mind and see when ‘you’ disappear. Of course it doesn’t go anywhere but it just sort of gets forgotten.

Engage your peripheral vision for a few seconds while you stay aware that you are conscious. Now concentrate on an object or read a few words. Is one mode of vision easier for you than the other to remain conscious of you?

I was watching my nephew recently at eight months old waving his arms around when he had the sudden
realization that he was doing the waving through intention. He stopped and looked at his hand and moved the fingers and he was more intrigued than with any toy.

This is what I am talking about. Developing self-awareness that you are aware and conscious that you do things.

Meditation, Contemplation and Mindfulness

Developing Self Awareness Woman Yoga Meditation Ocean
And this leads us to meditation, contemplation and mindfulness.

As you go about your day in mindfulness; watching without judgment, anything you do which is destructive, painful or unnecessary for your well-being will have a greater chance of simply dropping away. Meditation helps bring this impartial awareness and watcher to the foreground and this is transformative all by itself. It really is all that there is to do fundamentally. Become self
aware, then accept what you find.

Developing self-awareness and accepting everything you are aware of now is powerful and is a permanent way to increase poor self-esteem.

Greek God Dionysus

To recognize Dionysus active within your life look for…

Possible drawbacks to living the Dionysus archetype…

Improve Your Life With Gratitude Prayer