Initially when we cross our adolescence, we form an opinion that we can attain own satisfaction by possessing expensive things. We think that if we had a brand new car, the latest cell phone and other costly gadgets, they will make us happy. However, this is not the case. Personal satisfaction actually comes from our actions – not things. It comes as a consequence of our daily inputs.

The definition of our personal satisfaction constantly keeps changing. Little children are always happy since their wants are limited and they are not concerned about designer clothes, latest car models and cell phones. The only thing that they want is attention which is showered upon them in ample amount by their parents. For them, peace in life is always there, not something that they must strive to attain.

When we become teenagers, we come to understand that there are several sources of happiness. If you do well in the classroom, you get recognition and approval from your parents, teachers and friends. It brings you instant own satisfaction. We also feel happy when we are included in a group and are accepted by our siblings. We also feel happy when we get a smile from a person of the other sex.

When we get a little older, when we start working, we feel happiness when our boss is pleased with our work. This is also when we experience tension and stress in our daily lives, finance and personal relationships. We learn the art of managing daily pressures and find peace in life through this balancing act.

Then comes settling down and maintaining a long-term relationship. Our spouse and children bring us peace in life, happiness and personal satisfaction. We are accepted, listened to and supported. Our lives, aspirations and feelings are shared. Every relationship brings with it hosts of challenges and grappling with them also brings satisfaction and happiness.

When we get old, we peer back into our lives and remember all this with great personal satisfaction and happiness. When we reflect on our achievements, we become content with what life has thrown our way. Our hearts are filled with satisfaction and pride at the knowledge that our names will continue – that life will go one with us for a while – and without us forever.

For more information about how to feel good and personal satisfaction, visit mformankind.com

By Brandon Marx

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Everyone is a Work in Progress

Just as you are constantly changing and developing, so is the person who harmed you. A co-worker who made a seemingly cutting remark or the neighbor who seemed disrespectful may simply have been unaware of how their words or actions affected you. When the offense is small, try to give the other party the benefit of the doubt. Chalk the incident up to their need for some more personal growth and move on.

Realize Their Behavior Isn’t About You

It’s simple to let bad behavior slide when the issue is minor or your relationship with the offender is distant, but when someone close hurts you—say a cheating boyfriend—forgiveness may not be so easy. After all, as Psychology Today points out, the most hurtful part of infidelity is often living with the knowledge that something has made your partner willfully betray your trust. It’s easy to believe that that “something” is you. Refuse to take that burden on yourself. Whatever made your significant other stray—weakness, fear or perhaps insecurity—it’s something they have to own, not you.

There is a Lesson to Be Learned

Even life’s most difficult situations have something to teach you. Perhaps you’ve just discovered your best friend is spreading vicious lies about you that are affecting your other relationships. You could choose to withhold forgiveness and wallow in bitterness, but wouldn’t it be better to let the situation teach you a lesson about the benefits or responding with grace?

Consider the World’s Wisdom

Many of the world’s religions place great importance on forgiveness. For example, the concept is central to the teachings of Jesus and, according to Pastor Ed Young, the founder of the Ed Young Fellowship Church, it is the very “cornerstone of the Christian life.” Across the centuries and across humanity’s many faiths, wise men and women have long believed this virtue was imperative to a good life. If you are having trouble with the idea of forgiveness, choose to embrace their witness and wisdom.

Realize You May Be Subjecting Yourself to Pain

Unfortunately, we live in a world where some of us will be hurt in the very worst ways possible, becoming victims of violent crime or sexual assault. Though these acts are terrible in and of themselves, some of their worst consequences are the long-lasting psychic harm victims must endure. In these situations, it is possible to let pain and hate consume you, but those negative emotions don’t hurt the perpetrator. Instead, they simply change you. They keep you from living the beautiful, fulfilling life you deserve. In these cases, the choice to forgive is about self-preservation.

By Jasmine Perez Jasmine lives in Mesa, Ariz., with her two cats and pug named Spike

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While this sleep disturbance can be troublesome and annoying, severe insomnia can become quite dangerous. Persons who have been without sleep for an entire day experience identical difficulties with motor skills and motor control as those who are legally drunk. Indeed, not sleeping for 24 hours is as risky as driving while legally drunk!

Sleeplessness is the result of numerous elements, like medicines, anxiety, and bad sleep habits. Medicines like prednisone or theophylline often result in sleeplessness. Consult the physician who prescribed the medication concerning whether a different drug can be ordered instead.

The majority of sleep disturbances are the result of worry and stress. Persons worry about employment, careers, and friendships. Days usually are hectic and filled with things to do and people to see. Before the day’s work is done, the majority of individuals have little opportunity to process the day’s events. Unfortunately, for most people, the first chance they have to start processing this information is at when they are ready to go to bed.

You’ve probably heard the old adage that 98 percent of what we worry about never happens. This is the truth! In addition, being anxious over how to get the car fixed won’t enable you to make it to work in the morning to make enough money to help fix that car. Anxiety never resolves a thing. Unfortunately, as reality-based as this is, focusing on this fact won’t stop you from worrying or enable you to sleep better.

The best way to learn to sleep better is to learn techniques to calm your mind and create a positive expectation of sleep. More people with sleep disturbances are turning away from medicine and focusing on a more innovative alternative, which works well at treating most cases of stress-based sleeplessness. Hypnotherapy and Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) practitioners can start giving necessary relief within just a few brief sessions. Therapists can teach sufferers to uncover, treat, and relieve sleeplessness almost instantaneously.

People are different, so some techniques work better for certain people than others. Conventional hypnotherapy is usually the best solution for individuals who are open to suggestions from others. People who resist the suggestions of others will not benefit very much from insomnia treatment that focuses on conventional hypnosis.

The majority of individuals who have difficulty with severe sleeplessness are critical thinkers. They are usually less suggestible, and have trouble believing that something is true just because an individual states that it is so. Usually, these people report that both NLP and Ericksonian Hypnotherapy are much more beneficial in relieving their sleep disturbances.

Ericksonian hypnotherapy is works well by bypassing the normal conflict with post-hypnotic suggestion by concealing the suggestions inside conversation, stories, and similes. It is challenging to struggle with suggestions of which you are not consciously aware.

NLP does not require a person to be open to suggestion. It is an approach that allows one to focus the mind and use the same thought patterns and thought methods being employed to cause a difficulty, to conquer it. There are some powerful NLP techniques that one can employ to assist the brain to use the worrisome thought patterns and problems as unconscious reflexes that result in comforting and tranquil thoughts. These techniques not only help a person to feel more peaceful overall, these thoughts will help you to reach a deeper, natural sleep.

Summary: Individuals suffering from sleep disorders often experience related health problems. They are at risk for accidents and emotional issues. The majority of individuals do not realize how severe the consequences of sleeplessness sometimes are. Hypnotherapy and NLP are treatments that may help people start to overcome sleeping problems after even a few short treatments. If the price of treatments with a good hypnotherapist is too costly, you can get excellent hypnotherapy and NLP CD’s are as helpful as an office visit with a therapist, sometimes better. Sleep tight tonight!

By Alan B. Densky

Alan B. Densky, CH. is certified by the National Guild Of Hypnotists, and he is also an NLP Practitioner. He offers hypnosis for insomnia CDs. He hosts a FREE hypnosis article library on his Neuro-VISION Video Hypnosis & NLP website.

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Intuition is defined as the power or ability of attaining direct knowledge or cognition without evident rational thought and inference. Intuitive knowledge is considered to be knowledge which cannot be gained either by inference or observation, by reasoning or past experience. As such intuitive knowledge is thought of as independent, original knowledge.

Many years ago I was in a coffee shop where I overheard a man having a spirited and very loud conversation with someone about the nature of intuition. He argued that intuitive knowledge is based on observational skills. While the information obtained through observational skills is excluded from the above definition about intuition, many times people do acquire tremendous amount of information purely through observation and then they appear to be “psychic”. Many “fake psychics” simply rely on their observational skills. These skills are also known as “cold reading” and are employed by stage magicians.

Our subconscious minds register all information from our surroundings and most of that information is gathered outside our conscious awareness. When some of that information emerges in our conscious awareness, it may seem that it came from higher realms because we had no awareness of ever acquiring it consciously.

People who are working on developing their intuition often practice different ways of improving their observational skills. Honing one’s observational skills is one of the essential skills in the practice of Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP), where you learn to pay attention to minute changes in skin color, pupil dilation, slight changes in lip size, referred to in NLP as “minimal cues”. These skills come in very handy when people play poker, for example. Since poker players have vested financial interest in the outcome of the game, they pay attention to “minimal cues” of other players, in order to notice when other players may be bluffing or when they might have a winning hand.

NLP Practitioners sometimes engage in the following exercise, which I believe started with Dr. Milton Erickson. One person would hide an object, and the other would play the role of a “psychic” by holding the wrist of the person who hid the object. The “psychic” would rely on slight changes in the pulse of the person who hid the object, to guide him toward the recovery of the hidden object.

Some people are more “intuitive” by nature. Some are intuitive in a way that they find it easier to absorb the information from their environment through what seems like osmosis. They may have difficulty focusing on one thing and may be labeled with attention deficit disorder, yet their way of processing information may be perfectly suited to certain occupations. For example, I have a friend who is an extraordinary private investigator. He excels at what he does perhaps mainly due to his ability of being aware of the information that other private investigators miss. He naturally absorbs information from the environment as if thorough osmosis. From the perspective of brainwaves, people with this talent have predominant theta brainwave activity.

Some people are more naturally intuitive in a way that they can access the information related to different times, places or dimensions of experience, which are clearly not in any way associated with where they may be physically. On the level of the mind, there is no time and no space and we are all free to access the information about anything we greatly desire to know, from any dimension of existence, from past, present or future. The only obstacle in this process are the “filters” we have placed in our subconscious minds.

The secret in acquiring this kind of information is in allowing it to emerge into your conscious awareness, in having your mind blank, open and receptive like a crystal clear glass, so that the information gained is not colored by your preconceived ideas or emotions. Genuine spiritual masters, who have no more any self-interests, who have nothing more to emotionally protect and have fully opened themselves to the infinite, can access the information that to the rest of us borders on miraculous. On the other hand, there are so many people who may be “channeling” the information from different realms, however the information that comes through is polluted by their own preconceived ideas and is no better than any guess they might have made based on their rational understanding. True spiritual knowledge is always rooted in love and in the principle of oneness – there are no exceptions.

We are all intuitive to a greater or lesser extent and whatever your level of intuitive ability, you can develop it further. Developing intuition is based on learning to pay attention to the information within you. For example, if you were trying to decide between two job offers, as you imagine yourself working in one position and then in the other, the right choice would look brighter, it would feel more joyous, it would make you feel lighter and it would bring with it a great experience of inner peace and contentment. If you were picking lottery numbers or stocks in which you desire to invest, or winning horses at the racetrack – again through experience you would learn to distinguish between the information that comes from your intuitive knowledge and the one that comes from your rational mind. As a general guideline, when this information comes from your rational mind there is a sensation of tension, a sensation of your energy shrinking and condensing as you are subconsciously trying to protect your financial self-interest. When you are in a state of mind where you are trying to protect your ego-based self-interests, you are closing the door of your intuition. What opens you to your intuition is getting into a state of love, into a state of giving, into a state of relaxation and expansion, where you feel at-one-with-everything and particularly at-one with the subject of your intuition., where you become it inwardly.

One simple way of practicing intuition on daily basis is choosing for practice subjects in which you don’t have any vested interest and the outcome is not important for you. This makes it easier for you to maintain an open state of mind necessary for practicing intuition. You may try to intuit what someone you are going to meet is wearing, or if the phone rings who may be calling you, or if you are going to some new place, try to intuit how does that place look like before you go there; or you can pick a magazine with pictures and try to intuit what picture or information will you find several pages ahead. In this way you will condition your subconscious mind to provide you with the information that is not ordinarily accessible to you through your physical senses.

Dr. Laura De Giorgio is the author of over 2,000 hypnosis, subliminal,supraliminal and supraliminal plus recordings in English, Spanish, French, German and Italian. On her website http://www.deeptrancenow.com you can access many free articles designed to help you use the power of your mind more effectively, many free hypnosis downloads and movie presentations.

By Laura De Giorgio

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Do you sometimes make the mistake my friend Tammy makes? (I know I have.)

Tammy is a good writer. But whenever I tell her that she’s a good writer, that writing is one of her strengths, she responds with something like, “Thank you. But there are so many people who write better than I do. I have so much to learn about writing.” And that’s how Tammy convinces herself that she’s not a good enough writer. In fact, whenever Tammy tries to identify any of her own strengths, she struggles to come up with something to put on the list. Tammy confuses being good at a thing with being the best at that thing.

This a tempting trap for many people, myself included. It is a noble goal to excel, to become an expert. But you don’t have to be an expert at something for that something to be a strength that has value. You can be good at something without being the best in the whole world, the best in your country, or even the best in your own home. Calling something a strength does not mean you are done learning how to use that strength.

For those of you grew up being a perfectionist, like me, how do you know what’s good enough? And how do you identify real strengths you can embrace without your inner perfectionist arguing with you?

1. First, you need to re-frame your perspective on the subject. One way to do this is to make a list of the people you love. Then, for each one of them, make a list of their top strengths or skills. Now go back and review your lists, for each strength or skill you identified, ask yourself, is that person the best at that strength? Are they an expert in that skill? While you may have an occasional “yes,” most of your answers will be “no.” Now, ask yourself, do these strengths and skills still have value? Of course they do. Consider how this also applies to your strengths and skills.

1. Next, you can begin to identify your own list. My favorite strategy is to contact 3-5 people you trust to tell you the truth, and ask them to list your top three strengths and top three skills. This helps you see yourself from a different perspective. These lists describe how other people see you, people you like and trust. (Note: No matter what your inner perfectionist does to tempt you, do not ask for weaknesses. Let’s be honest, you have that list already.)

1. Spend time meditating on this quote, “Use what talent you possess: the woods would be very silent if no birds sang except those that sang best.” – Henry Van Dyke. I have a version of this written in special calligraphy and framed in my home, as a reminder.

Your talent, your strengths and skills, have value. No one has the same combination of strengths, skills and passions as you do. This is what you uniquely offer. This is what I encourage you to embrace, celebrate, and leverage into a thriving career.

And now you can download your free report “5 Signs It’s Time to Change Careers” HERE at http://www.unearthyourworth.com by Lori Howard, Career Transformation Coach, Certified Story Coach, and Certified Professional Resume Writer. Lori is on a mission to help people be happy at work! Lori’s expertise is helping professionals avoid career burnout, create a career they love, and get their next job.

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Why do we yearn to be like others? Why do we criticize ourselves and put ourselves down? Why do we choose to listen to the mean voices from our past and believe them?

It has everything to do with our thoughts!

Thoughts are only words strung together, and they have no meaning unless we give meaning to them!

Think about it… If I repeatedly told you, “You have ugly purple skin, you have ugly purple skin!” would you believe me? No, you would think I were crazy and rightfully tell me to get lost. Well, some of our old beliefs about ourselves (as well as new and ongoing beliefs) are just as crazy as that! Part of self-acceptance and honoring your “Uniquely You” is releasing other people’s opinions about you.

Sometimes our opinions of what is wrong with us, is just our uniqueness, our individuality! People judge us and tell us we are wrong, just because we are different from them. WOW… is that silly or what!?!? People’s opinions become our thoughts… so dangerous!

Nature never repeats itself! There are no two snowflakes alike, no two flowers alike, and no two people alike. Our fingerprints are unique, our DNA is our own, and we are each distinctive! We were made to be different. We are to celebrateour differences!

Can you just imagine if we all thought the same, looked the same, believed the same, talked the same, ate the same… what an incredibly boring life we would lead. We get to learn from the various people we encounter, if we allow it! We get to stretch our minds and get new perspectives on topics, if we allow it! We get to try new foods, learn fresh skills, and expand our minds… if we allow it! How fun is that!?

We need to recognize when we are thinking and believing negative thoughts about ourselves. That is so toxic and destructive! When we think bad things about ourselves, two awful things happen:

1) We start thinking ugly things about other people.

2) We believe these awful things, and it bleeds into all areas of our lives… and into our future!

Here is a wise approach, one that I try to remember and practice. See if you can follow this chain of events and realize the outcome:

“Keep your thoughts positive because your thoughts become your words;

Keep your words positive, because your words become your actions;

Keep your actions positive, because your actions become your habits;

Keep your habits positive, because your habits become your values;

Keep your values positive, because your values become your destiny.”

-Dr. Peter Johnson

This week, let’s all try to clean up our thoughts. When those ugly thoughts about ourselves come to mind… let’s stamp them out with positive, healthy thoughts.

An ugly example: “I am so fat!” Let’s replace that with, “My body is perfect. I am working each day to become a healthier me!”

I guarantee that if your thoughts become more loving and less critical about yourself, they will become more loving and less critical of others.

This week, let’s celebrate our differences and practice Enjoying being Uniquely You!

Visit my Blog to become a “Better You”!

http://www.MeToThePowerOfWe.com

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Makes 48 squares

Ingredients

1 (18.25-ounce) box spice cake mix
1/2 cup butter, melted
1 egg
1 (8-ounce) package reduced-fat cream cheese
1 (15-ounce) can sweet potatoes, drained and mashed or 1 cup cooked mashed Louisiana yams
1 (16-ounce) box confectioners’ sugar
2 egg whites
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
2/3 cup semisweet chocolate chips

Instructions

1. Preheat oven to 350° F. Coat 13x9x2-inch baking pan with nonstick cooking spray.
2. In mixing bowl, beat together cake mix, butter, and egg until well mixed. Spread batter into prepared pan.
3. In mixing bowl, beat together cream cheese, sweet potatoes, confectioners’ sugar, egg whites, and vanilla until creamy. Stir in chocolate chips. Pour mixture over batter in pan.
4. Bake 40-50 minutes or until top is golden brown. Cool to room temperature and cut into squares.

Food Facts

Calories 134
Calories from Fat 31%
Fat 5g
Saturated Fat 3g
Cholesterol 12mg
Sodium 116mg
Carbohydrates 22g
Dietary Fiber 0g
Total Sugars 16g
Protein 2g
Dietary Exchanges: 1 1/2
other carbohydrate, 1 fat

TERRIFIC TIP: Most bar cookies freeze well, so feel free to make you have a craving.

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Coaching Mini-Lesson:Getting Happy!

We all watched Will Smith in The Pursuit of Happiness, and author Terry McMillan desperately tried Getting to Happy. The “pursuit of happiness” is even guaranteed in the Declaration of Independence, but the real question is how do you get happy? Did you know that you actually control a large percentage of how happy you are? Research shows that about 50% of your happiness is genetic. About 10% is based on your circumstances, and a whopping 40% is based on your “happiness habits.” In order to get happy, you need to create and practice habits based on the following building blocks for happiness:

1. Think Positively

2. Manage Your Stress

3. Set Meaningful Goals

4. Make Positive Social Connections

5. Savor Victories

(adapted from:The How of Happiness, Sonja Lyubomirsky, Ph.D.)

Homework

Ask Yourself…

1. What do I have to be grateful for at this moment? What is a better way to look at this situation? Am I blowing this situation out of control? How did I make someone’s life better today? What lesson can I learn from this?

2. Are there any unreasonable demands being made on me or my time? Are my emotions in proportion with the situation? Do I need to change the way that I am thinking about something? To whom do I need to say no?

3. What short-term goal can I set for myself this month that will put me one step closer to my long-term goal? What daily habits are sabotaging my goals? What goal do I need to discard because it is no longer meaningful to me?

4. Who do I have in my support circle? With whom do I need to connect or reconnect? Who can I depend on to support me in my goals? Who do I need to cut loose because they are unsupportive?

5. Am I wasting time and/or energy on things that are inconsequential? What am I worried about that may not even happen? How did I celebrate my last victory? Did I laugh today?

At which of these habits do you excel? Which of these habits do you need to practice more? In order to get happy, you have to practice them daily, just as you would practice any sport or activity at which you want to improve. Purposefully considering and answering these questions can help you start the process to living a happily maximized life.

For more information, please visit us at http://www.masterclasscoachingenterprises.com.

Visit http://www.masterclasscoachingenterprises.com or call 855 MC COACH for a chance to win a free coaching session with Master Coach Monica Morall!

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When you have a brief encounter with a narcissist, you might not realize that the person has a personality disorder which is typified by being very self-absorbed and lacking in empathy for others. However, when you are a target of narcissistic abuse, and are in a relationship with this person, your every day life becomes confusing and painful.

Before getting into ways you can rebuild your self-esteem, let’s take a moment to describe the behavior of a narcissist for those who might not be clear about what the term means. An individual with narcissistic personality disorder goes through life with an overwhelming need to be validated all the time, and told they are wonderful, smarter than anyone else and are entitled to only the finest treatment by everyone. They take offense easily, and get angry quickly if they interpret a remark as being an insult. In their craving for attention and approval, they are usually adept at being charming when they want something from someone else, and then if they are refused will have an almost instant transformation into being very angry. They are quick to judge other people as inferior, and enjoy using phrases that are racist, demeaning and derogatory of other groups of people.

For example, a narcissist, feeling he is superior to everyone else, will commonly say things like, “The masses are asses!”

While some people like to say that a narcissist is someone with excess self-love or vanity, that really doesn’t do more than give a surface definition. To know more, you have to understand a bit about how this disorder began, and it is typically stated in definitions of the disorder that it began with trauma early in childhood, during the phase when the child should have been developing a healthy sense of self. Instead, the child formed the opinion, usually as a result of abusive treatment including neglect, that he was not good enough the way he was and needed to create a “perfect” persona to show to the world to gain that all-important approval the child craved.

As an adult, the narcissist often has a public persona of being Mr. Nice Guy or Ms. Wonderful, because they enjoy (and need) the adoration they can elicit from others by being so fun and pleasant to be around. Typically, a narcissist does favors for others, but then expects even bigger favors in returns.

If you’ve been involved intimately with a narcissist you soon found that no matter how much attention and love you showered on this person, it was never enough. He or she always demanded more and more, while complaining that you are selfish, cold and unresponsive. It’s a no-win situation for you when you are in this type of relationship. Your self-esteem is pommeled every day as if you are his verbal punching bag!

In order to heal from narcissistic abuse, first you must end or limit the contact you have with this person. If you are married or in an intimate relationship with the narcissist, the best recourse for your own mental and emotional health is to leave. If the narcissist is a relative or someone you work with, learn to limit the time you spend in their company, and also learn how to set boundaries so that you can speak up for yourself assertively.

Now, on to 5 tips to help you start rebuilding your self-esteem and make it even stronger than it was before you got involved with the narcissist.

1. Understand that the narcissist is a sick person. That is not an excuse for their behavior, but it is an explanation that will help you release their comments and treatment of you instead of holding on to the pain. Realize that even though their attacks felt very personal, those comments in a narcissistic rage were the acting out of a sick individual who has no skills for true love. The comments they made are not a true assessment or evaluation of who you really are as a person.

2. Spend some time over the next few days or weeks writing in a journal or computer document about hurtful episodes or specific statements he made that keep coming to mind. Write those down. And then look at them as if it was something a stranger said. Usually, narcissists make wild accusations and irrational comments that are meant to cut you off at the knees, make you feel bad about yourself as if you are worthless. But now what I want you to do, is look at a few of those examples you’ve written, and ask how you would have reacted if a stranger said that to you. Most of the time, what you’ll discover is that the comment was completely ludicrous! The power they held over you was in the body language and in the tone of voice they used, and in the way they mocked things that you held dear to your heart. This exercise will help you release all those old hurts and simply let them drift off on the breeze. Don’t continue to repeat his words in your head again and again, puzzling out what he could possibly have meant, because that keeps the pain fresh as if he is still abusing you. What he meant was to hurt you. The words were simply the weapon he used to control and dominate you. By dominating you, he felt more powerful for at least a few moments while you cowered or reacted, and in that power he had a short experience of feeling that he was “all right” instead of the horribly inferior person he believes he is but will never admit to.

3. Get busy, get active with exercise, sports, reading helpful books, going out with friends, learning a new hobby or how to cook a new dish you always wanted to try. Avoid sitting around feeling sorry for yourself and wondering what is wrong with you. Most likely, the narcissist chose you as his or her target because you have so many wonderful qualities they are missing and actually envy you for having. You are probably a very kind-hearted and compassionate person, and the abuser played off that generous spirit of yours, knowing they could count on you to stay and forgive their behavior again and again.

4. Are you still breathing? A relationship with a narcissistic abuser can feel devastating, but notice that you are still alive, and that means there is more for you to do and enjoy in this life, free from abuse. Part of your birthright is that you deserve to enjoy a life that you truly love wherein you make your dreams come true and feel happier than you ever believed possible. You can achieve this switch from victim to victorious by refusing to let the abuser win. Dismiss all those negative things he or she assaulted you with.

5. Every day, repeat this affirmation to yourself several times, out loud if possible so that you hear a voice telling you this: “I do enough, I am good enough, I am enough.” Use the power of positive affirmations to build high self-esteem so that you will gradually replace those old negative statements that you accepted as true just because an abuser said them so often with great authority.

It is not an overnight process to rebuild your self-esteem when you have been repeatedly abused by a partner or parent with narcissistic personality disorder, but don’t give up. Keep your focus on building a life for yourself where you only attract loving people and loving events to you, and you will soon find yourself smiling and enjoying peace of mind and glowing, healthy self-esteem.

And now, since you’re interested in enjoying happier and healthier relationships, get Free Instant Access to watch an 18-minute video at [http://dumpthatangryjerk.com]

I’m the Amazon bestselling author of the stress management book “Forget Your Troubles: Enjoy Your Life Today” and other books. I’m a certified Dream Builder Coach, a certified Law of Attraction coach and a motivational speaker, empowering others to create lives that are happier, healthier and wealthier.

Visit my blog on stress reduction, happiness and healthy relationships at http://evelynbrooks.com

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Evelyn_Roberts_Brooks
http://EzineArticles.com/?Victims-of-Narcissistic-Abuse—Ways-to-Rebuild-Your-Self-Esteem&id=7024853

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According to a Marketdata Enterprises market report, the U.S. self-improvement market is worth $9.6 Billion. It’s a huge business and it attracts a lot of attention. Yet, for all its importance, most people fail to understand what it’s all about.

A lot of people who are attracted to the art and science of self-improvement are motivated by the lure of money. They want to know better and more expedient ways of climbing the ladder of financial success. It’s no accident that the bible of the self-improvement world is called, Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill.

That is really unfortunate because financial success is really only a relatively small part of what self-improvement should be about. First and foremost, self-improvement should be about finding ways of having a more successful life and money is only a part of that equation.

Until that is understood, all the personal work done in self-improvement is next to useless. Money may be essential to a happy life but it’s only an aspect of the whole picture. This has been clearly demonstrated in the stories of people who have achieved great levels of financial success and were left so disillusioned that they ended up committing suicide.

Self-improvement is mostly about acquiring the tools and the knowledge necessary to take control of our life in all of its aspects. It’s about learning how to control the internal Master System that directs all human behavior.

Man is without a doubt the most sophisticated and complex creation or invention on Planet Earth – yet it did not come with an Owner’s Manual. That is what the science of self-improvement is all about. It’s the next best thing to that Owner’s Manual.

The emphasis in self-development should be on Personal Control and not exclusively on financial success. This point cannot be stressed enough because it’s the number one reason that people get into any of the self-help disciplines and fail.

The science of making money is not all that complex. It could be summed up in a few sentences: 1) Be obsessed with money. 2) Keep on trying to find new ways of making money. 3) Work very hard and save. Anything added to that is superfluous. Nothing else is needed.

On the other hand, real self-improvement is a life-long process. It’s not about learning new tricks on how to influence people. It’s about understanding why we do what we do, about fundamental personality change and about character building.

The title says it all, self-improvement. It’s about improving who we are as humans. It’s about learning that our past does not equate our future. It’s about coming to grip with the fact that it is possible to change and finding out how those changes can be affected.

The time invested in self-improvement can yield amazing returns. It can open the door to great achievements, transform lives and turn a meaningless existence into a world of greatness. No one has ever achieved anything worthwhile without using the principles found in the science of self-improvement.

Like any other discipline, self-improvement requires going through the theory and practice parts of that science. Learning without doing is moot. It does require work, discipline and diligence. It is a lifelong process, nothing that can be done overnight. The results are proportional to the time and efforts invested.

In one word, self-improvement is about understanding what motivates us to do the thing that we do and about character building. Once that this is understood, we are ready to plunge into the wonderful world of self-improvement knowing that our expectations will be met.

Dr. Raymond Comeau aka Shamou is the Author of ShamouBlog and Owner Administrator of Personal Development for Personal Success Forums

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Dr._Raymond_Comeau
http://EzineArticles.com/?The-ABCs-of-Self-improvement—What-it-Is,-What-to-Look-For&id=2826302

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