With the turn of the New Year it seems to be a great time to evaluate our lives and make some goals of what it is we would like to change or accomplish. What I hear most often is that of losing weight and taking better care of our body. That’s when it occurred to me are we looking to take care of ourselves or is what we really need self-care?

So what exactly is self care?

• the practice of taking action to preserve or improve one's own health.

• the practice of taking an active role in protecting one's own well-being and happiness, in particular during periods of stress.

To some it might really be a new concept. I know a lot of very selfless people who tend to put there needs, wants and desires in last place. What happens to us as our bucket gets emptied with all that we give to others we get depleted. We need to be taking care of not only our body, but also the mind and soul.

One of our greatest assets as humans is our ability to communicate.  The ability to speak and be heard.  Say how we feel and ask for what we need.

I often witness two common styles of communication. Those who over communicate and those who under communicate.  

I am sure you can think of someone who over communicates. For instance the person who says a whole lot but there is little meaning or valuable content. They for instance would take 100 words to communicate what could be said in 10 words. The dangerous thing with this type of communication is that the listener has to filter through all the extra that is being said to try to find the meaningful information.

Then there is the type who under communicates. This might be someone who doesn’t use very many words. This person may say very little leaving the listener to fill in the blanks. Often I find this style of communicator dangerous due to the fact that all the information is not being brought forward. They may even expect a person in which they are communicating with to read their mind. Which we all know how hard that is to do with any accuracy.

What does it mean to worry?  To worry is to give way to anxiety or unease; allow one's mind to dwell on difficulty or troubles.  We all know of someone or maybe we ourselves are prone to worry.  So why is it such a common thing we hear of so often?

"I worry about my kids"

"I worry if I will have enough money"

"I worry about my conference next week"

"I worry if I am going to pass my test"

"I worry about my health"

So with Valentines just a few days away, I thought I would write a little bit about love. Love is described as an intense feeling of deep affection.  We often have different types of love unconditional love for your children, romantic love of your spouse and even love for dear friends.  Where do we experience these feelings of love?  It is within our heart that we connect with people in love.

The heart is the key to a healthy connection, when we are in a balanced place of the heart, it is easier to both give and receive love.   When we can be at peace with ourselves and offer love and compassion too ourselves it helps us to be in a better place to love others and receive their love in return.  

What happens when we  maybe didn't get the love we so desperately wanted?  Usually we decide "well that must mean that I am not lovable", so then we encapsulate the pain in which blocks our heart from the flow of love.  How hard is it to love someone who won't allow love to penetrate their heart.  Which often leads to confusion in many relationships. 

We also need to take into consideration love languages.  Sometimes the flavor of love we offer isn't the other persons love language and hence an act of love from our perspective isn't received as one to our child, spouse or friend.  The book The five love languages written by Gary Chapman gives all sort of insight to learning love languages. 

Emotions are something we experience every day.  We have lower vibrating emotions like shame (one of our lowest vibrations), guilt, and apathy.  We also have higher vibrating emotions like love, joy and peace.  Then of course we have some in the middle that range from fear, to anger and courage. This is based on a system developed by David Hawkins as explained in the book Power vs Force. 

So what I would like you to visualize is water when in its frozen state the molecules are very slow moving  and not a lot of action.  The same goes for us when we are vibrating at the lower calibrating emotions (shame, guilt, or apathy).  It seems as if it is very hard to make things happen or even to get moving in any direction.

So then I want you to imagine what water is like in its boiling state.  We can recognize that the molecules are moving at a very rapid state.  There is a lot of movement but in a more erratic state and not really any rhythm.  These would be our middle or cleansing emotions if you will (anger, pride and courage). These are our catalyst required to make change.  So I am sure most of you just said what??? 

How does anger become a catalyst for change?

Creation, the action or process of bringing something into existence. So my last blog was all about goals and getting the things we want written down.  Now that we have an idea of what we are wanting now lets figure out how to bring them into our lives.

I love the idea of creation.  So an artist starts out with an idea of what they would like to see.  Then through their ability to use vision, they then put down what started in there head.  Writing the goals down is a task for our left brain, creating the vision comes from the function of the right brain.

Often times people will create a vision board to help them be more clear about what it is they actually want to see.  This is a great way to help be more detailed about what it is that we are wanting.  

It is a new year and what does that mean?  To many people they choose New Years Resolution.  "I am going to start this or quite that"  I have just been thinking to myself what is it that a new year means to me?  It seems to represent a clean slate for most or a fresh beginning.  I often wonder how is it that people move forward with their goals? 

One of the things I have my clients and students do when setting goals is to complete a list of what it is they are wanting to achieve.  It is a known fact that a goal that is written down is more likely to come to fruition than one that's just in our head.   So start with a clean piece of paper and separate it into 6 columns labeled today, this week, 1 month, 6 months, 1 year and 5 years.  Then just dig in and fill them up with all that you are wanting to accomplish.  It can be as simple as tasks you need to do to as extravagant as a family vacation down the road.   Post this piece of paper where you can see it often.

This is the time of year we are all thinking about gift giving, panicking might be a better  word considering it is only 2 weeks away.  With this holiday much emphasis is put on the giving and receiving of gifts.  I had thought maybe it would be good to write about generosity and the importance of it, not just at the holiday but the whole year.

I love the story of Charles Dickens and how he came to write "A Christmas Carol".  Charles Dickens was struggling financially, he was concerned about providing for his family and was struggling with new ideas to write about.  He had grown up quite poor and his parents had been put in debtor prison.  As a young boy he would work in a factory making only 6 shillings a week, which he would give to his father to help so his father could one day get out of prison.

One of my friends made the request.  "Will you post on here something about how to step aside and let my children have their own lives?  I need to get out of my sons way and stop meddling."   This is  great subject to look at as we all need to be reminded of...

  "what is our role as a parent"?

So from my perspective this is often referred to as "helicopter parenting".  A helicopter parent is a parent who pays extremely close attention to a child's or children's experiences and problems, particularly at educational institutions. 

We have all experienced negativity in one way or another.  The problem is when we get headed down a path that's laden with negative thoughts, we tend to create more negative thinking and it seems as if we get sucked into it deeper and deeper....  I know that I have experienced that in my own life,  It starts with something we perceive as bad or wrong, then we start finding an  attracting more of these negative experiences and yet seem to invite more by asking....

What's else could go wrong?

So it stands to reason with Thanksgiving just around the corner the thoughts of gratitude would come up.  What about when the holidays doesn't bring out the best in us?  What if instead of warmth and love it brings instead cold and bitterness?  

We all know how it feels when we are overwhelmed.  Especially with the holidays coming up, it seems as if we really don't know where to draw the line.  How much can we really physically do and how much do we actually end up committing our selves to.  There is also an emotional component to how much can we handle with out making ourselves feel crazy.  So how do we balance this out with all the things coming at us?

So my teenage son was going out with some friends one evening, and one of his friend's mother didn't want her son to go.  The question that my son asked was "Why is his mother so controlling?" 

An old Cherokee is teaching his grandson about life.  "A fight is going on inside me," he said to the boy.  "It is a terrible fight, and it is between two wolves."

So often the material I have to write about has to do with the things we all experience in everyday life.  So I find it very interesting when I come across people who tend to be fairly miserable which by definition means, wretchedly unhappy or uncomfortable

So against my better judgement I let my family talk me into attending a pretty frightening show.  I am usually particular on what I watch because it can sometimes can affect me in adverse ways.   None the less we went and it was scary!!! 

So it occurs to me the other day as I was going through my morning routine.   I caught myself falling in to an old pattern that I have been trying to get out of, that of being mean to my physical body.  Meaning saying it’s not skinny enough or that it doesn’t look quite right, it’s not this, or it is that, etc.….

I am guessing it was roughly seven years ago......

when I started on my own journey of self-discovery.  I can with certainty tell you at the time, I had no idea I was on a journey of any sort, let alone something as enlightening as self-discovery.