Often, one of our biggest questions is “What’s going to happen?” We may ask this about our relationships, our career, our finances, our recovery, our life. It is so easy to tangle ourselves up in worrisome thoughts about the future. Worry is sometimes the result of trying to control a situation. Many of us have been trained to worry, to fixate on a problem, in our families of origin. It is an unconscious response to events or situations that are truly beyond our control.  Worry does not empower us- it only distracts us from taking care of ourselves today.

Worrying about what’s going to happen blocks us from functioning effectively today. It keeps us from doing our best now- in the present moment. It blocks us from learning and mastering today’s lessons. Staying in the now, doing our best, and participating fully today are all we need to do to assure ourselves that whatever is going to happen tomorrow will be for the best. It is not always easy to live in the present moment; in fact, it can be quite uncomfortable at times.  We must trust, though, that all is on schedule as it should be in our lives. Even waiting is not wasted time. Something is being worked out- in us, in someone else, in the Universe.

Worrying about what will or will not happen tomorrow is a negative contribution to our future. Living in the here and now is ultimately the best thing we can do, not only for today, but for tomorrow. It helps our relationships, our career, our recovery, and our life.

Things will always work out if we allow them to.  The present moment is all we have. Yes, we have plans and goals, a vision for tomorrow. But now is the only time we possess. And this is enough.

We can clear our mind of the residue of yesterday. We can clear our mind of the fears of tomorrow. We can be present now. We can make ourselves available to this moment and to this day. We can look at all that is good and right in our lives today. Be still. Be at peace. Let go of your need to control  and devote your energy to living life today.

We have all been hearing it…More layoffs to come which is a nightmare for company morale and productivity creating a stressful environment.  We have all left a company at some point in our lives that for days, months and years we are still holding on to negative emotions towards that company.  Let’s face it…this is bad for business. Have you ever heard the statistic that if someone has a good experience with your company they tell 3 people and if they have a bad experience they tell 25 or more people?

As a consultant and inspirational speaker my corporate clients are always looking for ways to make this transition as smooth as possible. This has inspired me to establish the Re-create U dream job workshop. I believe every time a door closes one or more opens and that most of us are unable to see these opportunities during stressful times. What if instead of fearing lawsuits, violence or rumors you were able to partner with a team to have a positive experience? The repeated pondering of this question has lead to the birth of the 7 step Re-create U dream job workshop.

STEP 1- One on One Coaching or Group Event with someone who is living their dream job that can be a sounding board, a strategist or a motivator.

STEP 2- Journaling by documenting the process which empowers people so they can get clear on what they want and where they are.

STEP 3- Prescription for Success is the balance for inspiration (letting it happen) and motivation (making it happen).

STEP 4- Forgiveness is found through letting go of the old which helps you attract the new.

STEP 5- Releasing Blocks through being aware of and letting go of your limiting thoughts, beliefs and strategies while replacing them with more empowering ones.

STEP 6- Goal Setting happens through asking yourself important questions such as: Who are you? What do you want to do, be and have?

STEP 7- Interviewing Boot camp is an interactive forum to leverage your new skills to supersize your resume, create a network of empowered peers and attract your dream job.

Stephen T. Jones is a consultant, professional networker, UNfacilitator and an inspirational speaker. He is a master at helping people find their “Genius Spot’ (their true essence). Steve continuously acts as a bridge that links others to the special gifts of the world. He and his unique network are aspiring to expand and partner with individuals and organizations in the 15 aforementioned areas of influence by contributing their unique gifts to joint endeavors that promote good in the world. Join us and use your gifts to inspire others in the areas Health and Wellness, Renewable Energy, Business (Profit and Non-Profit), Family, Technology, Humanity, Masterminding (Life Deals), Wild Life Conservation and Nature, Arts and Culture, Fun and Entertainment, Empowering Men, Women and Children, Wealth, Education, Marketing and Mentoring. Inspired? To hire Steve or his team please call us or e-mail us at 619-674-6399 RecreateU@ASimpleGuideMD.com .

What’s better than a mission? A cause!

Employees at Providence St. Vincent Medical Center decided to raise awareness for Breast Cancer by donning pink gloves and doing a dance.  They had a ton of fun doing it (that’s obvious) and it brought the whole organization together in a whole new way. Over 200 people danced on the video wearing pink gloves. The video was distributed on You Tube and they raised money to provide mammograms.

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OEdVfyt-mLw

Now that’s an engaged group of people ! Baby are YOU down?

I’m often asked, “What is the difference between the learning difficulties seen in a child with an attention disorder and those seen in a child with a specific learning disorder like dyslexia?” 

 This is a tough question because the learning challenges brought on by an attention disorder can often seem to be the same as those caused by a specific learning disorder.  Over the years, I have discovered some very specific differences as have others in my field.

 Dyslexia is a specific learning disorder that is diagnosed based on a specific group of skill deficits and not test scores.  Over ten years of strong research shows that children with dyslexia struggle to understand and use each sound in spoken words resulting in these difficulties:

• struggles to sound-out words accurately
• Reading errors include many mispronunciations and substitutions
• Read text slowly, hesitantly, often word-by-word
• Spelling in written work is extremely poor 

 Spelling is often the most telling: Even after studying hours and hours and making a good grade on the weekly spelling test, the child with dyslexia struggles to spell words correctly and consistently within his written work: his spelling is often way off base and cannot be easily read. For example, within the same passage, the word vacation might be spelled multiple ways including “vustin”, “thasn”, or any other odd combination of letters.  In contrast, the child who is not dyslexic may consistently spell vacation phonetically (how it sounds) as in “vakashun.” 

 In contrast, the child with an attention challenge may struggle with reading and spelling but her errors are quite different and may include any or all of these:

•  Omits and adds words when reading
• Loses place when reading
• Substitutes words with similar meanings based on context
• Repeats phrases and self-corrects
• “Uneven” reading fluency
• Inconsistent reading comprehension
  • Cause/effect
  • Predicting outcomes
  • Drawing conclusions
  • Inferring
• Spelling errors are mostly phonetic (spell words the way they sound).
• “Over-applies” spelling rules recently learned.

 (c)  2009, monte w.davenport, ph.d.

I have been studying my second masters degree at the Royal Institute of Technology in Entrepreneurship and Innovation Management. At the end of the program, when I was to write a dissertation, I thought of discussing how companies are neglecting their employees’ potential. They are the people at the very center of the business and usually they are the best people to contribute in an intrapreneurial or innovative activity.

It does not end there! These people are your employees, the more you get them involved, the more loyalty comes back. The most natural reward (for both sides).

Competition is the true driver of markets. It is the product of our environment. Unless a company is competitive it will not survive in the market it is serving. There is hardly any monopoly in a market, except when it is backed by the state. Sometimes oligopolies behave like monopolies but even the constituents have to fight for market share. To capture market share, companies constantly need to innovate their product or service as core competencies can remain unique for only a small period and eventually the competition catches up with an imitation or a new idea.

People pursue good health and will do anything new that will help them to live a better life. Corporates too do the same by pursuing strategies of improvements and breakthroughs that create new products and new markets. This is a continuous exercise and any let up, in health or corporate endeavours will invite a decline. Innovations are the engine that persuaded the corporate to innovate.

Despite the fact that the urge to innovate exists equally in the entrepreneur and an employee, the larger companies usually ignore the employee contribution. Some companies are seen to make a half hearted effort by offering reward for new or innovative ideas to their employees but there is no regulated or organised effort in this direction. There can be some results through rewards but these are few and far in between and just an improvement of the existing product or service and do not fall into the class of an innovation. It has been understood for very long that employees work for self satisfaction and self actualisation (Maslow, 1954) and this factor can certainly be harnessed by companies to meet the challenges posed by competition. The potential of an employee needs to be exploited for the benefit of the company. But what most companies aim at is setting targets for the employee and rewarding him on meeting the same. They never try to find out whether they can go beyond the target. The need is to find the potential and then to direct it towards innovative practices.

The PDF version of the whole thesis work: Using The Mental Force of The Employee

So I recently read an article from Marcus Buckingham in the Huffington Post (online news etc) that informed me that 40 years after our mothers burnt their bras for equality now more than ever is when we should be celebrating our success. As you read this there are women presidents and prime ministers and Queens running countries in every continent of the world. There are senior female cabinet ministers of state, speakers of houses, governors, mayors, presidents of Fortune 500 companies, university chancellors, department heads, managers, leaders, women are everywhere in the corporate and public world. 

The MTM Hat Toss from the opening credits

In the 1970’s classic comedy series the  Mary Tyler Moore show, Mary Richards made me want to work in television and have an amazing independent life.  The shows theme song proudly proclaimed  ”Love is all around, no need to waste it, You can have a town, why don’t you take it You’re gonna make it after all”

And yet since 1972, women of all status, whether single or  married with or without children, have become less happy as each year goes by relative to men, and relative to how happy they were 40 years ago. The key findings from the US survey supports data from many other studies from all over the world that in essence conclude:

1:   Over the last few decades women, in comparison to men, have become less happy with their lives.

2:  As women get older, they get sadder

As I,  like everyone else I know, am getting older it’s clear I can either give in to the seemingly inevitable depressing passage of time and face a decade of despair or  we can take control. I’ve decided – It’s time to kick the D out of my life - D being dependent, down, dejected, demoralized, disillusioned,  disabled, dumpy, dirty, debt-ridden.  All D words are so depressing – apart from delightful of course!).

It’s ime to move into the E Zone:

The E Zone is all about

Engaging, Envigorating, Exceeding, Enthusiasm, Exceptional, Extrovert, Enlivened, Enabled, Executing  

It’s all about Exuding Excellence & Energy.

Totally EMPOWERED!

Looks Like I’m going make it after all  - Thanks Mary!

Have an extraordinary week!

Sandra

Find out now about our E Zone Coaching or Team Training Series and find out how to kick the D out of your life and your company.

My son is 7, and neither very neat nor very organized. This is not a big deal, as we work around it most of the time.

Today, however, he was “cleaning his room” by taking things that were on the floor and putting them on surfaces throughout his room–his bottom bunk, his dresser, his desk… In essence, his version of “clean” was “off the floor.”

But his less than thorough approach to cleaning his room presented me with a great leadership opportunity. When I called him back to his room to do the rest of the cleaning, I made sure that the first thing I said to him was, “Thank you for being willing to clean your room and not complaining about it.” Next, I told him that I appreciated what he had done, and that I trusted him to do a thorough job–I told him that I wasn’t going to check his room again, that I was sure he’d do exactly what he knew was a complete cleaning now that he knew what was expected.

When he finished a few minutes later, he called me to come and look. “I trust you,” I told him. “Are you proud of your effort?”

“Yes,” he responded.

“Then you are finished,” I said without looking into his room.

I was trusting both his effort and his standards after I’d thanked him and encouraged him. Was the room as clean as it would have been had I done it? Probably not. Was it more clean than it would have been had I not trusted him to make the decision himself based on knowing that I thought he could do it and wasn’t going to check up on him? Definitely.

And next time, I might not have to say anything at all.

by JaneEllen Sexton

I’ve been thinking lately about how easy it is for me to cook my own food and what a tremendous gift that is in my life. I can appreciate that not everyone finds home-cooking to be a comfortable experience.  For about six years I did cooking classes at Wild Oats and then Whole Foods stores near where I live in Colorado.  The series was called “Food as Art” and I was constantly amazed at how intrigued the people in my classes were with ideas and food combinations that were second nature to me.  I’ve been calling myself a “food-channel” for years because I grew up cooking a lot for 13 people (including me) and I am also certified as a Medium and this play on words has been a good fit for me. I find when I have to follow recipes I practically freeze up because I’ve gotten so used to just looking at the ingredients in a recipe and then I do what I want to anyway. I don’t want the stress of someone else’s way (yep, and there’s a whole other story in that one)!

The big holiday push to make many different foods for one meal can be so intimidating for people and you’d think that sharing the meal & the experience of making that meal could be so much fun. The pressure that families go through around holidays seem so strange, you wonder, what’s the point!  Why wouldn’t you stay home and do whatever you want for the holiday.  I used to do a pre-Thanksgiving dinner for friends to create another experience before the family get-together.  It seems so bizarre to go through the obligatory and sometimes dysfunctional scenarios of family holiday drama.  I’m sure a lot of the drama comes from stressing out about all the work for a holiday meal like Thanksgiving.  Many times the biggest part of the holiday process is the food and when you don’t have a whole lot of cooking experience it’s just hard to choreograph such a big meal.

So, here’s my suggestion….start to PLAY more often in your kitchen.  Make some of the foods you’d want to have for any holiday and make them at other times in the year than the holiday season so that you can get the hang of cooking those foods you want to master. I’m still really uncomfortable about pie dough because I haven’t had a whole lot of practice making pies. I have a tendency to avoid “pie-land” so my husband does it for me because he’s the detail guy.  I just want to “channel” the food, I don’t want to have to measure and pay attention in that way. But, it would do me well to spend the time to just PLAY with a recipe and make it over and over again to get the feel for the dough to trust that it doesn’t have to be perfect the first time, which is how to get comfortable with different procedures.

There is such a sense of satisfaction and achievement that comes from perfecting the dish you really do want to master.  There is a great amount of creativity possible when experimenting with food and you can’t know that until you jump in. You could begin by making a pact with yourself  that you’ll schedule a day or part of a day, in your kitchen, maybe once a month will get the ball rolling.  Just go for it!  There are all those recipes that you’ve cut out of magazines and put post-its on for years that are waiting for you.  It’s time to quit putting off the inevitable…you know you want to try out different techniques.

Maybe, this is the Christmas that you purchase that cake pan or mold that calls to you…you know the one that’s behind the cool pots in the house-wares section of Macy’s or wherever.  There’s bound to be some recipe that has been bugging you for years!  Do it! You know that the more you just PLAY the more comfortable you’ll feel in the kitchen and I’m telling you your family will love you for it. Teach them as you teach you because that’s how almost every one of us professionals started……in our family’s kitchen.  Make it fun…there’s no reason not too! Start simply and work your way into more complicated dishes.

When you get the kids involved you can have food fights and you won’t freak out because you can make an agreement with yourself to play.  Get your hands in the flour….knead the dough. Let the little people in your family experience this too, they love helping when you turn the time into a “play date”!  Ask them what foods they’re intrigued about….what would they want to learn to cook?  Play with shapes and textures so they can learn about many different types of food.  You could make a game out of  “fruit week” and then next week can be “noodle week” or whatever you both decide to play with.  If you don’t have children then do this solo….the most important part is to just have fun.  We “big-kids” can forget the fun part if we’re not paying attention and none of us needs to be so self-involved that fun is a concept instead of a way of living.

Make this holiday season a gift for you to share YOUR undivided attention with you in the kitchen. Don’t go brain-dead on this one….play away and then play some more!  Merry…Merry! 

Food thoughts:  well, I just finished with the turkey from Thanksgiving.  For the past 3 days I’ve been slowly reducing turkey stock with the carcass of the bird, the rest of the bones and all the sliced turkey that I wanted to turn into soup. Today I cooked some spelt & some quinoa and a boatload of vegetables which I’ve added to the stock. I like to cook all the vegetables separately so that some veggies are blanched and some are sautéed, I don’t like to lose the crunch of the vegetables.  So, into the stock went blanched string beans, yams, potatoes, Brussels sprouts and turnips. I had plenty of uncooked vegetables left from Thanksgiving and then I sauteed cremini mushrooms, celery, onion and some nappa cabbage.  The last part I do is add the chunks of turkey I’ve pull out of the stock  back in to the soup. I’ve got 6 quarts of soup, some for tonight’s dinner, some for another dinner this week and the rest goes in the freezer in quart batches.  Clean out that fridge kids, soup “that eats like a meal”, right?  And, please don’t forget….it’s time for happy cooking!

JaneEllen Sexton is an Intuitive Life Coach and freelance chef specializing in Spiritual empowerment with a focus on personal accountability.

My daughter Nicole, who is a big Miley Cyrus fan, heard about a project Miley was supporting called Get UR Good On.  As soon as she heard about it, she wanted to get involved.  The idea was to do something good in your community, video it, and then upload it onto the Get UR Good On website to encourage others to do the same.

*read full post and see video at catherine-morgan.com

I consider myself politically erect and I believe that years from NOW as we continue to evolve. We will be talking about how although it served its purpose in the 80s and 90s political correctness became another set of rules to separate us. We all have true friends new and old that we can be REAL around not worrying about what we say and do allowing ourselves the FREEDOM to be ourselves. If  we can play together we can work together…In this video we bring light to our sensitivites that hold us back to inspire us to mesh

Acts 20:24 But none of these things move me, neither count I my life dear unto myself, so that I might finish my course with joy, and the ministry, which I have received of the Lord Jesus, to testify the gospel of the grace of God. 

Single-mindedness is a quality needed by anyone who wishes to do God’s work.  Today I began reflecting on how much passion, enthusiasm and energy I had when I first began my Christian race in 1986.  It took me some time to realize that God has a unique plan and purpose for all our lives.  And that each of us must step up to life with purpose, and vision to fulfill these God given tasks.

Our purpose and life is directly linked to our relationship with the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.  You cannot and will not find your purpose outside of a life committed to Christ.  When we make a commitment we become single minded in our focus to that commitment.  Whether it’s in marriage, our families, employment or a quest for a healthier lifestyle, we have a single focus. 

The Apostle Paul was a man totally devoted to Christ through all situations, seasons, and circumstances.  His life reveals his commitment to serving the Lord.  He served with humility, with tears and with many trials.  I can identify with the apostle Paul; there have been times, when I have had to serve in humility.  I wanted to say some things that may have been considered unkind or not “Christian”, but I held my peace.  There were other times when I served with tears and great opposition.

Early in my walk with Christ, I went through a period where people tried to make me doubt my identity.  I was told many reasons why women could not and should not be a pastor.  Being a babe in Christ, I took those issues to the Lord in prayer.  And one day the Holy Spirit revealed a passage of scripture to me Gal 3:28 “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus.”  That forever settled in my heart any concerns I may have had. 

Life has not been easy and will at times throw you a curve, storms will come and strong winds may blow, but each of us must decide how we will finish our course.  We can live a life full of anger, bitterness, unforgiveness and regret or we can finish our course with Joy.  Real joy comes when we are not so consumed with ourselves, but when we can make a difference in the lives of others. 

Paul did not count his life dear unto himself.  His life was not for him to use and do as he pleased, not for earthly comfort or pleasure.  His life was for Christ.  His life was a precious and valuable possession of the Lord.  Ps 17:8 “Keep me as the apple of the eye, hide me under the shadow of thy wings” Each of us is as the apple of God’s eye and like Paul we have to make the decision to consecrate and dedicate our lives back to the One who gave us life in the first place.    

Paul finished his course and ministry not because he had to, but because he chose to. And he did so with joy.  Ralph Sockman says “Love is the outreach of self towards completion”.  Finish your course with joy.  God Loves you and so do I….Pastor Tammy

Fantasha's Family Fitness Empowers Women!

Being a Personal Trainer can be very competitive between other trainers. One would think that people in the same industry could support each other because there are a lot of people to help teach healthy lifestyle changes to but that would  be if only we lived in a fair world. When it comes to competition, all is fair in love and war.

Just the other day, as I was training my new female client, I was confronted by a male Personal Trainer who came up to me to tell me that only him and his male co-workers were allowed to train in the condo building gym. I thought what the f**k! Because I actively work on empowering myself and other women, I was not even dazed. I told him, politely, where the hell he can go. I informed him that the crap he was saying was illegal and that I am not falling for that BS; the look on his face when he realized I was not a push-over was priceless!

Our world may be a male-dominated world but that doesn’t mean us women need to let them push us around. Times are a changing and women are gaining a stronger voice. If one person can change the way the world is run, time for a woman to do just that. I will lead by example and stand up for my rights as a woman and Personal Trainer to show my female clients that they are entitled to be treated fairly and seriously. Empowering women is the most fulfilling part of Personal Training and I love it!

Because of the amount of stress some of children are under just to survive in the classroom, their tempers often get the best of them quickly.  Any little thing may seem to upset them.  Their tempers may be like a time bomb, primed to go off; just a single look or word could trigger an explosion.  Because of this they often live with hurt feelings and the expectation that they will become angry.  Sometimes when a youngster with language or learning problems gets angry, he struggles to express what he is feeling verbally and so he does so with his fists.

 Children with social disabilities need to be reminded other children don’t enjoy being around them when they get angry and tempers flare up suddenly.  You should talk about ways your child can control his temper.  A good way to start this activity is to ask the question: “Why should you learn to control your anger?”  Lead your child to the conclusion that in order to keep friends, temper control is a must.

Children with social disabilities need to know that anger is an important feeling that lets us know change is needed.  The child should talk about whatever makes him angry at school, home, and on the playground.  He may need to know it is OK to get angry but not OK to take it out on others.  He should talk about the positive and negative aspects of anger and tempers. Positive aspects might include high energy for an activity, motivation for change, and help in developing assertiveness.  Negative aspects include disrupting communication, ruining relationships, and stopping other natural emotions.

 Ask your child to finish these sentences about anger:

 ¨      When I get angry I…

¨      I get angry whenever somebody…

¨      You can tell I’m angry when…

¨      Whenever I’m angry and don’t want anyone to know, I…

¨      The last time I was angry was…

¨      The best thing for me to do when I get angry is…

¨      When I tell someone I’m angry at them, I feel…

¨      When I get angry, my face…

¨      When I keep my anger inside, I…

¨      Some people… when they get angry…

¨      Some ways to get out anger without hurting anybody are…

¨      A safe place to get angry is…

¨      Another way to get rid of my angry feelings is…

¨      When I let my angry feelings out I…

¨      When my sister or brother make me angry, I…

¨      When I get angry at my friend, I feel like…

 The next step is to explore more positive ways of handling anger.  Discuss how people fill up with anger all day as things go wrong and how by the end of the day, they explode inappropriately.  Have the child give you examples of things that can push a person to become angry.  Talk about positive and negative ways to handle anger.  Positive ways might include running around the block, pounding a pillow, squeezing a koosh ball, or riding a bike.  Negative ways include hitting, throwing things, yelling at another.

 Next, teach your child how to recognize and cope with anger:

          1.       Recognize your anger and its intensity.

          2.       Stop and think.

          3.       Use the energy of anger in a positive way.

          4.       Share it (tell someone how you feel).

          5.       Find another way to meet your needs.

Conclude this activity by having your child list 3 things people get mad at her about.  Have her write about a time she lost her temper.  Then have her list 3 positive ways she can handle her anger. Summarize by reminding your child of the following:

¨      It’s OK to be angry.

¨      It’s not OK to hurt someone else.

¨      It is not someone else’s fault when you are angry.

¨      Be responsible for your own feelings and your behavior.

  © 1995-2009 monte w. davenport, ph.d.

How often have you let the perceptions of others hold you back? Not just “others”, but one person? Just one.

You’re flying high with the excitement of an accomplishment, and someone offers a contrary opinion. Crash! All you can see is limitation, from that one person’s opinion. Now, if it was 10 people telling you the same thing… ok… even 3 people… maybe there is something to look at here. But are you going to let one person’s perception limit you? No! Say no!

Ask yourself: Does buying into another person’s perceptions of limitations serve any higher purpose or good? I have learned over the years that buying into other people’s limiting perceptions, can be the absolute worst thing I can do.

Why?

Because I am buying into their“limits” not mine! Limit – is full of fear. Full of “no”. Full of “can’t”.

I am grateful to have finally learned the lesson that what people see is more about them than me. I can’t see something in another unless it is part of who I am.

When I come from a place of love, I see love in others. When I come from fear and limits, I see limits and fear in others.

Over the years, I have picked up fear and limits from a lot of people! I am sure I am not unique in my experience.

The key for me now is to look at the feedback honestly and see where that one person providing it, is coming from. Take the grain of truth that might be there. And let the rest go.

Where have you picked up limits that aren’t really even yours? How can you let go and shine brightly in your own knowledge, that you are on the right path?

Challenge other people’s perceptions. Ask more questions. Celebrate! Believe the voice inside you. The one that whispers “Yes! I did it!!”

Ministerial Declaration on eGovernment [PDF]: How to maximise the impact of the open declaration? http://j.mp/4RxB9o

Alexander Santiago was a difficult child. An energetic kid, he found it tough to stay still. He wanted to do a lot but could not because there was hardly anything creative for him to do.

So he yelled.

At his friends, at his school and at his mom.

His relationship with everyone including his family members worsened with every tantrum of his. Only 11, he was already showing signs of strong rebellion.

And then he got a camera.

His life changed.

He took his camera and went out in the streets. He took pictures – scores of them - and marvelled at his shots. He loved the colors of the photos and the way everyday life got captured for posterity. He did not want to be disruptive anymore. He had a tool for creation and he was loving it.

His camera took him to places he always had hoped to go – Managua ( the capital city , 50 km from Granada), the mall, San Juna del Sur ( a beach town) and the Isletas ( little volcanic islands in the lake Nicaragua).  

His camera brought cheer in his harassed mom’s heart. He had stopped yelling. He listened more and tried to help her at home. He stopped fighting with his classmates and attended school regularly.

For Empowerment International, he is one of the most dramatic success stories.

Alexander became a part of EI’s photography program in 2007 and has never looked back since.While in the program, he joined the photography teacher and the other students to several photography trips where he learned the importance of patience and focus. He has become empathetic, understanding and calm now.

He has learned how to take a good photo,  what are the different positions for a photo, how to use the different camera functions like zoom, long sort and how to take a close up short. He even knows how to critique a photo.

In his words, ‘Now I am better  behaved with my brothers and my mother. I help my mom by going to the market for her!’

His family, friends and EI staff are proud of him. But even more importantly, he is proud of himself. 

- Neha Singh ( Contributions by Deepa Victor)

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In Nicaragua 50% of the kids that start 1st grade never finish 5th grade. It is our goal to make this percentage drop significantly.

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What is will? It’s the cute, dark-haired guy I briefly dated in high school.  People thought we were brother and sister because we looked so much a like. He had shared with me that on Freshman Friday they hang the freshman jocks up by their straps on the hooks attached to the walls behind the classroom doors.  OUCH! Yup it’s the strap you’re thinking of. And yes, Will said some upper classmen had hung him up on the wall and said it was very painful!

Now on a serious note, what the will to live is to me? It was passing out from blood sugar levels of 40 and I recall seeing 1.5 next to the A1C level on my medical records. Neither are good. I was passing out and having seizures for years and didn’t know it. I would feel sleepy, as my blood sugar crashed and would lay down,  thinking I was falling asleep, but was actually passing out.  I would wake in the middle of the night usually with my nightshirt soaked through; drool down the side of my face from my mouth. I’d get a chill from my wet night-shirt when it got cold and it would wake me. When I would go to eat something, it would sting my tongue along the edges. Later I found out, it was from biting my tongue during the seizures. Once, I realized what was happening and questioned the kids if, they’d ever tried to wake me. I knew something was very wrong when one of the comments was “Oh Mommy, you never wake up when we try to wake you”. They had tried to wake me for 45 minutes that particular morning. OMG, I thought! I used to be a light sleeper. I had seizures since my oldest was an infant, so they thought it was normal.

I have always had a passion for real estate and had sold a home to a client in Massachusetts, when one morning I was lying in bed and the phone was ringing.  I could hear the phone ringing, but I could not move my body or open my eyes.  I kept thinking to myself, I have to wake up, I have to wake up, I have to wake up.  Finally I woke very groggy, sat up slowly after a while, swung my feet over the side of the bed. I stood up slowly to try to avoid the usual head-rushes and dizziness I’d get. I dreaded going downstairs to get something to eat because climbing the stairs was exhausting and the bathroom was on the second floor, ugh!

I walked to the top of the stairs in my bathrobe, reached for the railing, held on to it and descended not looking down to try and keep the head spinning feeling at bay.  Trembling and shaky, I reached the kitchen putting the tea kettle on to boil. Then I walked into the living room to sit and rest while I waited to hear the whistle.

There was a loud, quick knock on the door and I called out for the person to come in. Yes, I grew up not locking doors and only started locking them after I had a huge life altering experience. Anyways, the door flew open and there was a client I had sold a home to.  Her face strained with worry.  I didn’t tell her about my illness. We basically talked about her needs for a home, her family, etc.  She said, “I called you and the phone rang and rang and I knew you were home, so I came right over thinking something was wrong because you didn’t answer it.  I said, yes I could hear the phone ring, but I couldn’t wake up to answer it.

I didn’t tell her I willed myself to wake up, like I had done many of times, not realizing what was wrong with me. I knew something was wrong back in November 1999 because I was having tremors, but the doctor I went to couldn’t find anything.  Five years and five doctors misdiagnosis later here I was finally getting a glimpse as what was yet to come.

In the years preceding this memorable occasion, I woke many of times in the morning asking myself, when am I going to find out what’s wrong with me and when am I going to get better. I could no longer do multiple directions and wondered if I had brain damage. I thought, “Well, I exist”. I have to wait until I know what’s wrong with me and then I’ll get better. Late October of 2006, I hemorrhaged badly and slept for about seven days. It was all I could do to get to the rest room and get a little food in me, only to lay down again. I was absolutely devastated, but knew I had to wait. Yes, I waited for years. I finally found out this year 2009 what was the culprit of everything that was wrong with me.   It was nine years from the time I first went to a doctor.

Two words, “Food Allergies”! They can cause a lot of health problems.

So, if you’re ill or life is not good, just think about my nine years and there is a journey of unpredictable devastation that I had to endure that goes with it. I still have things that are quiet difficult to deal with. These are things that eventually I will write about in some way.  

Seems like some of us are better than the cat with nine lives because I have  had about twenty. Wouldn’t it be nice, if others also had that opportunity?

I’d like to know your comments.

This is Reilly and like they say in Boston, “I’m in you-aa  kaw-na!

Feeding the Positive

When negativity knocks at your door, do you recognize it and send it away? Or do you invite it in for dinner, or worse, to stay with you as long as it likes–possibly for your lifetime?

First, be clear that being the manager of negativity in your life isn’t about the fact that you have negative thoughts or feelings–you will. It isn’t about eliminating negative thoughts and feelings so you never experience them again–that’s not realistic. It is about training your conscious mind to notice such thoughts and feelings when they appear, and to recognize the different “costumes” negativity wears. You can’t manage negativity until you recognize and own how you engage it.

Whatever costume negativity puts on, what’s really embodied is fear. You might call it anger or another emotion, but underlying any negative emotion is fear–the fear you’ll lose something. This has everything to do with living in your personal power.

Dr. Elisabeth Kubler-Ross said, “Natural anger lasts for only about seventeen seconds.” This means the actual emotion you feel (any negative emotion) has its full-charge expression for that period of time. Past that, your conscious (and subconscious) mind takes over, usually engaging in reactions related to whatever fear was triggered.

When fear is triggered, you may project a negative future vision. You may pull up old memories to support why you feel the way you do. You’d call this justification for the reaction. What it really is, is feeding negativity–because you aren’t focused on what you can do that’s productive; you’re focused on self-preservation at any cost. Depending on your habitual reaction mode, you may close up like a telescope or let your sharp claws and teeth out.

Here are several common forms of negativity you may feed (or feed on):

• Prejudice of ANY kind (race, religion, financial status, etc.)
• Demonstrating lack of self-respect or respect for others (if you do one, you do the other)
• Unproductive criticism (everyone needs to vent; but there’s a productive way to do this)
• Replaying past events as though they’re still happening (which only triggers more negative emotions in the present)
• Allowing more “news” into your life than you really need to know (this includes any form of “entertainment” or “information” that creates extraneous negative feelings for you about anything that doesn’t have a direct impact on your life or how you choose to engage it)
• Intentionally negative “humor” or comments (sadly, the ability to slam someone with hurtful words, directly or indirectly, is considered a prized trait)
• Paying more attention to what others are doing than what you’re doing
• Telling jokes or using comments to bash others (gender-bashing is top of this list)
• Stating speculations then acting as though they’re facts (ignoring that maybe you don’t have enough information)
• Using the words “always” and “never” (or labels), especially when you assign them to others’ behaviors (which closes your mind to allowing they “could” one day be different)

You can add more to this list as they occur to you. A good question to ask yourself whenever you do one of these is, “What fear is underneath this for me, and how can I address it appropriately?”

Feeding negativity is a learned habit. You can:

1. Acknowledge you engage in it.
2. Remind yourself to get your own attention about this. Author Guy Finley said, “No intention can be any stronger than our ability to remember it in the moment that it is needed.”
3. Start now to begin to do things differently. Choose to ask if your attitude, words, and actions are aligned with opening the path for a desired productive experience and outcome. There’s a difference in telling someone you feel angry and why and asking them to participate in a mutually beneficial resolution, and verbally attacking them. There’s a difference in telling yourself what you feel, why you feel it, and considering what you can do rather than entering the negative vortex.
4. Consider how you really see your authentic self. It isn’t that you have to suppress your personality or nature. It isn’t that you have to deny and keep quiet about what you really feel. It’s about what you do from there and how you do it. What do you really want to feed–as your experience and what you believe about yourself? If you don’t believe in your personal power, and right to live from it, how can you expect to act from there?

Train yourself to respond more often than you react; and acknowledge that will take conscious energy management. Reactions happen when you feel events or others have more power than you do. They don’t; that’s an illusion. They can only have as much power over you as you give them.

Any person or event that tests your personal power is an opportunity for you to pause and consider how you really see yourself: are you a volunteer victim or someone who looks out for your best interests–with integrity? If you feed (or feed on) negativity on a consistent basis, it can seem nearly impossible to feel you embody personal power.

Personal power is not a way of acting–it’s a way of BEing, even if you have to BEcome it one more-consciously-aware moment at a time.

Compare how much time you give to negative thoughts, feelings, words, and actions to the time you apply these to what makes you feel authentic, joyful, intentional, fulfilled–living on purpose.

No matter what’s going on around you, you always choose how to experience and process it. When you embrace this as a fact, you stand in your personal power. The more you do this, the more your innate power expands.

Feed negativity or feed intentional living. The choice is yours.

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About the Author:

Joyce Shafer (jls1422@yahoo.com) is a Life Empowerment Coach and Author of “Reinvent Yourself: Refuse to Settle for Less in Life and Business.”

Becoming a socialized individual is a complex process. It is especially difficult for those with learning and attention difficulties.  Only the “medicine” of caring and responsible parents and teachers can transform lonely or unsocialized youngsters into involved, self-assured adults.  Teachers and parents are encouraged to go beyond the three R’s to help children overcome their “living disabilities”.

(c) 1995-2009, monte w.davenport, ph.d.