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Self-Help, Spirituality & Self-Esteem - Page 11 of 14 - Spiritual Enlightenment for Self-Esteem

Eat Pray Love Elizabeth Gilbert

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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

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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.

Dr. Douglas Graham | 80 10 10 Diet | Raw Foods | Raw Vegan

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Dr. Douglas Graham 80 10 10 Diet

Dr. Douglas Graham is a doctor of chiropractor who advocates a diet
(‘diet’ meaning quantity and type of food rather than ‘diet’ as in
weight loss) of mostly raw fruit, with much smaller amounts of protein
and fat, hence 80% carbohydrates from fruit, 10% protein and 10% fat.

I have never seen dramatic and consistent evidence from such a wide
range of people of the long term benefits of eating in this way.
I myself began eating more raw fruits and vegetables in July 2011 and
straight away noticed a change in how I felt.

Dr Douglas Graham below talks about the importance of eating
carbohydrates from fruit.  It is what our bodies and brains need
to operate on.

When we are hungry we seem to lose any ability to make wise
decisions.  It is probably a survival mechanism to ensure we eat
anything that we can find in order to get the calories we need to
continue operating biologically.

Many people are amazed at how they feel when they transition to more
raw food. You do not have to become a raw food eater the next day after
you decide to start.  It is not about starting.  Do not start
to become a raw food eater, just eat more fruit and veges raw in
amongst your current eating habits.  Your body and mind will lead
you to eating more and more fruit over time until one day you know that
you would rather eat this way than any other way.

I was not sick prior to this but as part of my evolvement over the last
few years I have naturally moved away from heavier foods that require
processing, to eating foods that make me feel good.

One word of warning so that you don’t make the mistake I did, is that
you have to eat much, much more fruit than you would ever guess, and
more fruit than you feel like you want to eat.  This is because
the fruit has less calories so in order to reach 2,000 or 3,000
calories you need to eat a large quantity of fruit.

Vegetables do not provide much in the way of calories.  The secret
I have found so far is to NEVER get hungry.  In fact no matter
what your eating habits are you need to break past the paradox which
our brains tell us the longer we go without food the better we are
doing.

A whole raft of emotional, physical and mental health issues would be
significantly lessened if a person ate whole, raw fruit and vegetables
so frequently that they never got hungry.

If you do not put enough into the body at regular
intervals – I find I aim for about 200 calories per hour when awake
which is 2 ripe bananas, or 3 oranges or 2/3 a pineapple approximately
– then your brain will start overriding the part of you that has will
power and discipline and you will find yourself grabing something from
the supermarket.

And I bet you won’t end up in the deli buying some carrot salad or a
piece of chicken, it will be high in carbohydrates like a chocolate
bar, potato chips, biscuits.  You can be in control by never
getting hungry.

People report getting back to this way of eating allows spiritual
development that would otherwise be unobtainable.  Dr Douglas
Graham has a book The 80 10 10 Diet.
It is a great starting point
for discovering how to get back to that amazing state we often only
experience as a child.

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

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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.

Demartini Method, Breakthrough Experience, Self-Esteem Worksheets

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How The Demartini Method Helps You

Dr John Demartini created The Demartini Method. It is one of the most powerful ways to improve self-esteem that I know of.  Scroll down to watch a two-minute video from YouTube on The Breakthrough Experience, which uses the Method.

It is a holistic healing method to resolve all sorts of emotional issues and can help you find your life purpose.

The crux of The Demartini Method and The Breakthrough Experience is shadow-work as coined by Carl Jung the great psychologist.

It is one of the ways to improve self-esteem that leaves all the others
behind in my opinion.

In His Own Words

The Demartini Method is

– A systematic pre-determined series of mental questions directed toward the objective of assisting an individual to feel present, certainty and gratitude.

– A procedure that neutralizes an individual’s emotional charges, balances his or her mental and physical reactions, opens his or her heart and clears his or her mind.

– A continuous thinking process and writing action repeated over a course of time that results in a resolution of dis-equilibrated perceptions.

– A reproducible science enabling individuals to discover the underlying order governing their apparent daily chaos.

I discovered Dr John Demartini only after I had coincidentally done a lot of the work on myself that he teaches.  My path lead me down via other teachers and it wasn’t until I had discovered the power of shadow-work that I was told about Dr John Demartini.

I eagerly read some of his work and attended two of his talks and watched two DVDs and sure enough he was saying the same things that I KNEW were awesome at setting us free from out programming
and unresolved issues – even if we don’t know we have them.

Dr Demartini is considered by many to be one of the great minds and of course he could explain a lot more than me about why this was powerful.  After studying physics, philosophy, theology, metaphysics, psychology, astronomy, mathematics, neurology and physiology he created worksheets that you can work through on your own, or to get the most benefit attend his two-day seminar called The Breakthrough Experience.

The benefit of attending the live event is that you have Dr John Demartini himself and any number of people he has trained to help you work through the worksheets.  People have reported dramatic changes and a resolving of old issues and pain that they have carried for years and years, most often since childhood.  This leaves you to live the life you are destined to live.

The Breakthrough Experience is held many times a year throughout the world as Dr Demartini travels constantly.

Definition of Self-Esteem, What is Self-Esteem? Poor Self-Esteem

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A Definition
Of

Self-Esteem That May Help You

You likely have an idea of a definition of self-esteem. A self-esteem definition could be anything describing feeling bad about yourself, or good.

One of the main causes of feeling not good enough in my experience is a lack of self-acceptance. It is not related to your achievements or what you do or have in the external world.

Self-Acceptance

Definition Of Self Esteem Hands Reaching to Sky

Reading and understanding a definition won’t get you higher self-esteem, however you are searching because at the moment you don’t like your whole self and we have to start somewhere.

By the time you finish this page I will have shared with you my simple definition of self-esteem.

As usual when people are faced with a problem, they turn to their intellect and try and understand it like it was a puzzle or crossword. Words can not easily change your experience, however words can often reach inside and grab us and make the complicated simple. From that point on you know the issue and even though it might come through intellect, that understanding can open doors for you and lead you to a transformation.

Poetry and Poetic

Just like poetry can reflect your truth back to you, so can a well worded quote or definition. I like to keep away from language and words that sound OK when put together but in reality doesn’t point you towards taking control of your experience of life.

Once such definition of self-esteem might be…

  • A feeling of self-worth, self-confidence, and
    self-respect.

    • Sounds OK but doesn’t have anything new for you. Or try…

  • How you feel about yourself, how you feel about who
    you are, the way you act, and how you look.

    • Again, doesn’t say anything to answer the question ‘what is self-esteem?’

    So what is a more useful definition of self-esteem?

    Remember that no one sentence or quote can capture the essence of a human experience, however I would like to hopefully simplify your thoughts and give your mind something to grasp hold of… Self-esteem is a product of the completeness of your acceptance of your human experience.

    Think about a condition that has an obvious scale such as temperature. Temperature can be cold or it can be hot, or it can be anywhere along that scale. This is a more accurate way of thinking about this rather than the normal way that hot is the opposite of cold.

    We call it opposite but it really is a scale of temperature. Something only exists as hot for us in the context of temperature.

    So using the same analogy, if we called the vertical axis of a graph self-esteem and labeled the bottom of the scale ‘denial of your human experience’ and labeled the far right ‘acceptance of your human experience’ we might have a definition of self-esteem that not only tells you what a cause maybe, but also what you can do to improve self-esteem.

    Deepak Chopra Quotes

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    Wise Deepak

    Chopra Quotes

    Below are selected spiritual quotations and other inspirational Deepak Chopra quotes.

    The deepest hunger in life is a secret that is revealed only when a person is willing to unlock a hidden part of the self.

    Finding the hidden dimensions in yourself is the only way to fulfill your deepest hunger.

    You are a creature who acts, thinks and feels. Spirituality fuses these three into a single reality.

    The one reality is spirit, and the surface of life is only a disguise with a thousand masks that keep us from discovering what is real.

    If it weren’t for the enormous effort we put into denial, repression, and doubt, each life would be a constant revelation.

    Ultimately you have to believe that your life is worth investigating with total passion and commitment.

    Dantien, Dan Tien, Power, Breathing, Meditation

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    Your Body’s Dantien

    Do You Want More Peace?

    Have you heard of dantien? How would you like to be more grounded and centred, even as you are walking around and going about your day?  If you have meditated or practiced relaxation you will be familiar with the inner peace and calmness you experience after a session.

    It is a feeling of harmony with the world.  Life feels as if it flows effortlessly and carries you along.  You feel connected to yourself, other people and to the universe.

    Eastern philosophy and martial arts talk of a point within the body that is generally described as two or three finger widths below the belly button.  If you put your attention there you can get a sense of there being something fixed but not solid.  It is a sensation of grounded-ness, of stability, of potential.

    I first heard of this point in 2003 when I did a one-day training in psychocalisthenics. Psychocalisthenics is an exercise routine that you can do at home with nothing but comfortable clothing.  15 minutes of 23 stretching and movement exercises combined with disciplined breathing is designed to awaken all muscle groups and increase energy flow throughout the body.  Practiced regularly it offers clarity of mind, strength of spirit and body.

    Anyway, back to the centre point.  This point has various names, Dantien being one or Dan Tien or Dan Tian.  You don’t have to be practicing a martial art to tap into the power and peace that comes from ‘living’ from this place.

    When you place your awareness here, or you feel as if you are moving, breathing and living from there something different, new and extraordinary happens.  You experience greater effortless-ness in being or doing.  No matter what your task, being conscious of this point and allowing this Dantien point to be the lead will increase your awareness, relaxation, power and integrity.

    Excerpts from Principles of Effortless Power by Peter Ralston page 10…

    There is more to “intelligence” than that which we attribute to intellect…When we put our feeling-attention in the center region, a place located in the lower abdomen, we shift our mode of intelligence.  The more our attention is fully centered, the greater the shift in our mode of consciousness.  Centering is perhaps the best way to calm our thoughts and emotions.  Putting attention and feeling in the center region of the body allows a shift to a state of being that is calm, nonthinking but aware, balanced, in-the-body, grounded, present and alive.

    Creating

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    Creating

    You May As Well Choose 

    Creating is something that it ordinarily seems like we choose to do every now and then.  You can choose what you desire but the act itself, as in the verb, is not something chosen.

    What does this mean?

    You could say you chose to create a dress or a meal or a painting or a song or a story. So, first there was just you and then sometime later the song existed in physical reality. I want you to broaden your awareness and first of all see that the process described above used faculties and tools that you did not choose.

    By that I mean you did not choose or develop the ability to think, visualize or plan. These qualities are there by default available for you. You used these abilities to achieve what you set out to. The ability was not attributable to something you chose, but the resultant creation is. These are quite subtle differences and are ordinarily not noticed as you go about your day doing supposedly important stuff.

    The reason it is ‘important’ is when you realize you are able to design, plan and live the life you choose then it will seem as if the whole world has changed. To know who you are and to experience self love and wonder you need to begin watching mindfully just how things happen for you.

    You need to watch and observe impartially the truth of you. That which is sitting on the chair reading this is more than enough to keep you entertained, in love and interested with life. You are like a Swiss Army Knife, Transformer and Rubik’s cube all rolled into one.

    Inside Out or Outside In?

    Many people, in fact the majority of the world, look outwards and have their attention on the physical reality external to them. They mistakenly think that is where life happens. The life that happens out there is the physically created version of the life in there.

    What you believe and think will be projected out there for you to observe and perceive. Some people, including myself at times, forget this and get caught up in the happenings out there and say ‘it shouldn’t be like that’. We look for some way of manipulating those external events into a different set of circumstances.

    Then, I not only remember, but stop and notice in awe at just what is happening as life. What is it within my desires, choices, ideas or denials is manifesting this moment as I know it? If I experience somebody as having a negative quality I look within to my own actions and ideas of who I am so that I love that same quality.

    When this is done I feel an energy change in my chest and I know that I won’t experience that same negative emotion ever again. For example I experienced somebody recently as not interested in what others want. As I witnessed this I felt myself wanting to speak up and say to this person ‘you shouldn’t be like that’.

    However, once the situation passed and I was alone, I looked within and owned that same quality by recalling two memories of my life when I did exactly the same thing.

    I let it be OK that I too did this. I felt the shift. From that moment on I was creating a different world for me to experience.

    So do you see how much power you really do have over your life experience? The other type of creating is to choose what you wish to bring into physical reality.

    By getting clear in your mind what you want and then adjusting your actions and attitudes you will be carried along to create that which you chose, or at least what is right for your authentic, spiritual self.

    An analogy might be a bus. You know the bus will take you to your destination; you don’t have to worry about the bus you just plan where you wish to go. You simply let the bus take you. The infinite intelligence, divine, God, call it what you will, is the process whereby you create. In this analogy the bus is your co-creator.

    The creation process happens outside of your responsibility. This means you can let go and concentrate on your part in the creation by having intention and surrendering. You don’t even need to think ‘how’, just think ‘what’ and let the how show up.

    Control Dramas

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    How To Move On From
    Childhood Control Dramas

    What Is A Control Drama?

    Control dramas are strategies all human beings use to get their way.  Because we live as if it is us against everything that is not us we need to have tactics that work to get what we want.

    I am not so much talking about goods but more talking about attention
    and behaviour from other people.

    How Do We Do This?

    We do this in lots of ways but primarily you will have learned at a young age what works.  Depending on the family environment or lack of one you will have adapted to the strategy that…

    • got you attention that you liked
    • reduced or removed the attention you did not like

    You may have been conditioned and motivated to play the role of victim so that people will feel sorry for you…hopefully and their attention feels good.

    You may have realized that when your are strong and tough people give you attention and it feels good.

    You may have been a bit shy and separated yourself from others in an attempt to get others to notice you and come to you.

    What Do I Do About This?

    Firstly don’t see this manipulation as a bad thing.  We all do it because we don’t know any better.  Manipulation sounds like a dreadful trait but in reality it just means you do something to exert control on someone else or to try and ensure an outcome for yourself.

    Secondly, like everything else just watch, notice and be gentle.  You have awareness and you will be able to catch your-self adopting one of the above strategies in your interactions with people.

    It will be most obvious to you at the start probably to notice it when you are alone.  You will run conversations in your head imagining the other person there and you will be trying to get one up on them.  You might be playing ‘poor me, isn’t life harsh’ in your script.  Or you might be imagining yourself as the victor in a heated argument where you shoot the other person down in flames with your cleverness.

    Just watch, notice and say to your-self ‘there it is again’.  It may take two weeks or it may take two years but eventually whatever control dramas you have used since childhood will drop away simply by watching and being conscious.