Tag Archives: Bruce Schneider

How to See Yourself as Sexworthy

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A woman I work with was going to have her kids out of the house for the weekend and was planning to surprise romance her husband. But while she was getting dressed, she began criticizing her body.

She imagined her husband being as disgusted by her body as she was, and she felt unsexworthy.

The negative self-judgment was so painful that she wound up spending the evening crying alone in her bedroom.

I know that she is not the only one.

Many women who struggle with their weight avoid or turn down sex with their partners, or hide their bodies in the dark and under the covers.

They suffer from body shame.

Often, what is happening is you are so afraid of being judged and criticized by others that you heap on the self-abuse to the point that you shut down and shut off everything but the pain.

From this place of fear and despair it’s impossible to believe that anyone would find you attractive—or that you are worthy of another’s appreciation and love.

But the painful truth is that no one else was in that room with my client. No one else was heaping on criticism or telling her she was unattractive.

She was doing it to herself.

She never even gave her husband the chance to see her, comfort her, reassure her, and demonstrate to her how sexy he thinks she is and how much he loves her.

She took that opportunity away from him.

And the negative thoughts she attributed to him—without his input or knowledge—are now a belief about him that she is carrying around that will impact their relationship in subtle ways.

You have to feel lovable to be fully present and loving in a relationship.

Often, the fear of judgment is way, way worse than any criticism you may receive.

It’s time to break through this block of fear that is literally weighing you down.

One of the best ways to begin is to keep a judgment journal.

This exercise from Energy Leadership by Bruce Schneider calls for carrying around a small notebook or using the notes feature in your phone and jotting down every judgment you are aware of—about yourself or others.

You will quickly see just how often you are in judgment, and you can then ease up on your criticisms.

This self-awareness is extremely important when you consider the Foundation Principle that “Energy Attracts Like Energy,” also known as the Law of Attraction.

At its simplest, what this means is that when you are judging, you are attracting more opportunities to judge—and be judged. When you are loving, you are attracting more opportunities to love—and be loved.

What you think about yourself—and others—matters.

Begin to ease up on your self-criticism and examine your own judgments. When you see yourself—and others—as beautiful you change your perception of your body, relationships—and life.

You see yourself as sexworthy.

Together we can do it!

That Wasn’t Necessary

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I love discovering situations around which I have some practiced thoughts and beliefs that are not helping me be the person I want to be, or create the life I want to create. Because if you don’t know the negative catabolic thoughts, feelings, and beliefs are there, you can’t change them.

Saturday morning provided me the opportunity to come face-to-face with negative expectations, fear, and prescribed beliefs—and to make different choices.

Buffy (left) and Willow

For those of you who know me or read this blog regularly, you know that my husband and I have two dogs and two cats who truly are our children. Buffy, the oldest of our two Keeshonden, will be turning 10 on July 13.

Buffy is a bit of a trash mouth, meaning if something hits the floor, she eats it. As we stroll through the park, she’s trying to grab bites of weeds along the path. She’s a dirt connoisseur.

So it was a bit surprising, but not terribly unusual, to wake up Saturday morning and find some evidence that she had expelled something nasty in the night. We cleaned it up and didn’t think more of it.

While I was writing my blog, she threw up breakfast. While I was upstairs working out, she threw up again. When my husband found that she had thrown up yet again, I discovered her having dry heaves and shivering. We knew something was seriously wrong and called the emergency vet who said to bring her right in.

What’s the best mindset for heading to the emergency vet—or dealing with any difficult situation? While it’s probably the most common reaction, I would suggest that it’s not fear and jumping to the worst case scenario.

You might be thinking, “Come on. You were at the emergency vet. Of course that’s scary.”

As Bruce Schneider says, “Normal does not mean necessary.”

That was my opportunity. To shift how I responded to the situation from fear to being more focused on my compassion for Buffy, my confidence in the care she was getting, my allowing the situation to unfold, and my responding to what was rather than what might be.

I’ll admit that it was a bit of an internal Ping-Pong match all afternoon. Fear and worry was shifted to consciously choosing to be present and compassionate in order to give the best possible support to Buffy. Anger that it was taking so long was shifted to compassion for the more serious injuries that were being seen ahead of us, and gratitude to the caring and professional staff.

How we show up in every situation is a choice. That doesn’t mean it’s easy, particularly if we have some long-standing beliefs about “bad” situations. But thoughts, feelings, and beliefs are made of energy, not marble. If they are not moving you where you want to go, you do have the power to change them.

I know that it was better for Buffy, David, and me when I was being present, confident in her well-being and in the veterinarians, and appreciative of the care and service we were receiving compared to the moments when I was fearful, doubting, and worried.

We don’t know for sure what Buffy got in to. All the tests they ran turned out to be negative. After a massive shot of antibiotics and ant-nausea medicine, we were able to bring her home, where she’s been enjoying some TLC and a special diet that she seems to think is a treat. In this instance, all that stress and worry truly was unnecessary.

If this happens again, my goal is to stay present and optimistic, and to choose my responses based on what is happening, rather than what I fear might happen. Each time I show up in a challenging situation a little more like who I want to be, the more I will be that person.

What can you do to let go of fear, doubt, and worry in a situation where you might automatically have those responses? How does your making a different choice impact those around you? What’s the benefit of your showing up more consistently as the person you want to be?

Together we can do it!

 

Photo by Hansje Gold-Kreuck

Don’t Hold Back

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Woo hoo! After two days of giving my squished foot some rest, I got in an upper body workout this morning.

After taking a moment to pat myself on the back for getting back on the exercise wagon, I took a look at the quality of my workout.

Hmm. I definitely held back. Out of curiosity, I asked myself “why?”

The answer was fear. Fear of hurting my foot and fear of the pain I might create.

“Perfectly normal,” you might say. After all, I did just give my foot a pretty significant whack with a grooming table.

But as Bruce Schneider likes to say, “Normal does not mean necessary.”

In this case, the most discomfort I had was putting on my shoe. Sure, I had some touchy moments here and there, but once I established a way to do each exercise comfortably, why didn’t I give it my all?

Recognizing that I was acting from the fear of the pain I might experience was one of the “ah-ha” opportunities from this whole situation.

How often have I held back from life not because of the pain I was experiencing, but because of the fear of pain?

The answer is “a lot,” and I don’t think I’m alone here.

One of the first things we often do when reaching for something new is to throw a bunch of “but what if” scenarios in our way. That can easily stop us right there. That worst case scenario is just too big a risk–and creates too much fear.

Most of the time, however, we aren’t really risking that worst case scenario. Sure, theoretically it might be possible that I could lift so heavy a weight that I could damage my foot and extend my recovery time, but how likely is that? Not very. Particularly without the warning signs of some significant pain. There’s a big difference between “Youch!” and “that hurts.”

Letting go of the fear of pain and actually embracing the pain we are facing is one way we master life. Truly living fully includes those painful moments. By limiting or trying to escape or control painful situations we limit the joyful and exhilarating moments in our life, too.

And ultimately, do I want the foundation of my life to be fear or love? I believe the stronger foundation for my actions—and therefore my life—is love.

The quickest way to shift from fear to love is to change the underlying thoughts.

For me, that means changing my thoughts about what I can do and rethinking what I am capable of. It means encouraging myself to test the limits more and not just hold back without knowing them. And it means accepting and embracing any pain I might encounter, rather than seeing pain as failure.

And these are lessons I want to take beyond my next workout.

Together we can do it!

Photo from www.freedigitalphotos.net

Making the Most of Monday

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 What if today was your day? The most amazing day of your life, so far? A day that would change everything for the better? What’s already good would become great. What’s already great would become amazing. And what’s already amazing would become the stuff of legends.

And all you had to do to take advantage of the good and wonderful things about to happen for you, was treat folks with a true and eager kindness, think mostly of those things that please you, and go out in the world, just a bit, where you could meet, and mingle, and fall in love?

Today’s your day, yet if by its end nothing seems to have happened, it may just mean that tomorrow, for sure, will be the most amazing day of your life.

Mike Dooley

“The only limits in our life are those we impose on ourselves.”

Bob Proctor

Do you believe that Mondays are good or bad?

What would happen if you decided to notice and document everything good that happens on Mondays and let go of what you consider to be bad?

Notice if you have a hard time letting go of the idea that Mondays—how should I put this plainly—suck?

In your mind, are you beginning to give me all the reasons you hate Mondays, or are you thinking of all the ways you have let go of this belief and want to share how much you now love and adore Mondays? Or have always liked them?

If you feel this strongly about Mondays, where else are you pouring your thoughts, feelings, and beliefs? Does the energy you are putting forth inspire you? Make you feel exhilarated and excited? Or does it give you a headache, or make you ready for a nap, or eager to get into an argument?

Because your thoughts, feelings, and beliefs about Mondays—and every other thing in your life—are either generating positive anabolic energy that is building you up from the cellular level, or is generating negative catabolic energy that is deteriorating your body and your life.

Mondays are not inherently good or bad. You can tell this is true by looking around. Is it a Universal Truth—meaning it is true regardless of who or where or when—that Mondays are the worst day of the week? In other words, does every single person on the planet agree that Monday’s are their least favorite day?

Nope. I actually really like Mondays and I know a lot of other people who do, too. It’s starting the week off with a clean slate, it’s the potential of all that can be done in a week, it’s getting back to work you love, it’s being in control of life rather than life being in control of you.

How you feel about Mondays is a choice. Yes, it may be absolutely true that your job stinks, or you are most happy playing with your friends, or that things tend to go wrong for you on Mondays, but it doesn’t have to be true. As Bruce Schneider says, what’s normal for you doesn’t mean necessary.

Regardless of whether you love or hate them, what is one small thing you can do today to shift how you think about Mondays? If you did that consistently, over time how would your perspective about Mondays begin to change? What difference do you think that might have on your life?

Together we can do it!

Photo by Ohmega1982 / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

What’s the Point of Pursuing Happiness?

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Someone asked me recently, “What’s the point of pursuing happiness?”

The answer seemed so obvious to me that in the moment I had no response. My thought was something along the lines of, “Why would anyone not want to feel good as much as possible and be happier?”

Our two perspectives really gets to the key point. Being happy is a choice. Each person has the freedom to decide where they are going to fall along the wide spectrum of emotions and reactions to every single situation and subject. That’s our free will.

But it took me a long time to realize that I had a choice about being happy or not; that I had the ability—and responsibility—to direct the quality of my life. For too long I felt I was at the whim of an unfeeling and uncaring Universe that liked to batter me against the rocks. The world was against me and I couldn’t get a break.

That perspective was so painful that I suffered from chronic depression for many, many years. As a result, I’ve had enough pain and suffering, thank you. I no longer find it romantic, or a sign that I’m a caring or good person. If I am at the helm of my life—and I fully believe that I am—than I’m going to do everything I can to redirect this vessel towards freedom, love, joy, clarity, contentment, and fun.

To paraphrase Bruce Schneider, pain may be inevitable, but suffering is optional.

I can let go of feeling like I need to “fix” others or even see them as broken because if we are all the masters of our lives, then each person gets to decide which reaction and experience they will have. If they chose to be miserable, who am I to tell them they shouldn’t be? After all, my years of suffering were absolutely necessary for me to truly want to change, to be so focused and determined to find a different way that the path began to open up before me. Every one of my experiences was perfect for me on the road to where I am now, and will continue to unfold perfectly—for me.

The message that I want to shout to the world is, “It’s a choice! You get to choose! You have the power! And making a different choice feels so much better!” For those that it might help, I want to share how I did it and tools that I’ve learned so if they want to feel better, they have support guiding them towards their path. Their way will look different than mine, and isn’t that diversity what makes life grand?

For many, many reasons people will resonate with my message, experience, and process—or not. If being happy isn’t important to you or something you want, how beautiful is it that you get to make a different choice? And if it is, there are lots of ways to get there. Find the way that works best for you.

If we were all having the exact same experience and there was only one “right” way, the Universe would be pretty limited and from my perspective, the whole point of life is to expand and grow. Even scientists tell us the Universe is expanding. To me that is the very point of every experience that each of us is having—both that which we judge good and bad. Evolution is not one species making a quick jump to become another. It’s the moment-to-moment creation of our unique perspectives and responses to the ever-changing swirl of life.

So what’s the point of pursuing happiness? What’s the point—to you? Why is it important—or not—to you? That’s where the true answer lies.

For me, it’s waking up this morning literally laughing at a joke I created in my dreams. It’s feeling light-hearted and so filled with love in this moment that I want to share it with any person who wants to receive it. It’s appreciating my husband who I can hear right now in the kitchen washing the dishes.

It’s wanting to laugh instead of weep, being engaged and excited in my work, instead of dreading it so much I can hardly get out of bed. It’s knowing that today, I feel better than I did yesterday, and in tomorrow there is the opportunity to feel even better than today. It’s learning to go with the flow of life and seeing it as an adventure instead of purgatory. It’s because life for me finally feels good, and I want more of that, please!

There is no right or wrong answer. This is just where you are in your journey. Come along with mine—or not. And as you share your journey, it will either resonate with me—or not.

What is truly sublime is finding the people you do click with and who you not only get value from, but who you give value back to by sharing your journey, responses, and insights. We are creating an ever-expanding circle of growth, clarity, connection, and inspiration.

And that makes me happy!

Together we can do it!

Photo by Rosen Georgiev / FreeDigitalPhotos.net