Part 1 - Loving Your Self

"A wise man should consider that health is the greatest of human blessings,
and learn how by his own thought to derive benefit from his illnesses."

-- Hippocrates (460 BC - 377 BC)

Clearly the most worthwhile journey you can ever pack your bags for is the journey of self-love and self-acceptance. Imagine what it would be like to embark on such a journey.

Once you begin to invest in self-love and self-acceptance, once you realize that you can love and accept yourself, your life will begin to change before your very own eyes. You will start to walk on clouds! Sounds good?

I can just hear what’s going on in your mind. All the excuses why you can’t love and accept yourself NOW. Check me! Is this what you are thinking?

· "I will love myself when I am thinner.

· I will love myself when I get that promotion.

· I will love myself when I stop feeling so insecure.

· I will accept myself when I find that new boyfriend/girlfriend, or

· I will accept myself when I am more positive and confident."
Right? 

So you added a few more ‘obstacles’ on your journey… what else is racing through your mind?

· Love is something that has to be earned?

You know the song "Greatest Love of All"? Goes like this "The greatest love of all - Is easy to achieve - Learning to love yourself - It is the greatest love of all."


Does ‘learning to love yourself’ seem ‘easy to achieve’ for you? For some people, genuine self-love seems so difficult, so much harder to achieve than for others. And you know what? You can do it!

Stop and picture how not loving yourself is affecting your life. Take a few moments and really picture your life without love for your precious self.

What did you see? What would you say the major negative effects are? Let me help you out with a few suggestions:

· It makes it difficult to truly love others. You tend to judge others by the same conditions with which you judge yourself.

· It makes it difficult for you to accept love from another, because if you don't fit your conditions for self-love, you tend to feel that you are not lovable.

· A shortage of self-love tends to pose a major obstacle to creating the life you dream of.

· If you do not accept yourself, you will naturally assume that you don't deserve life's abundant gifts and the loving support of the Universe. This deep belief that you don’t deserve, unconsciously sends a negative message to the Universe – a command to the cosmic computer - which is essentially saying: ‘I'm not worthy’, so no matter how much I might ask, or pray, or whine, my hopes and dreams remain hopes and dreams.’ In this way, you punish yourself by sabotaging your own efforts.

· If you keep giving to others without giving to yourself, it is like pouring water from a vessel. If you pour and pour without ever refilling it, eventually, it will run dry. So, if you are like that vessel, you will also run dry. How will you refill, recharge, re-energize, and replenish yourself so that you have the energy and love to give to others? Naturally, by loving and giving to yourself, first.

· You create illness in your body through your negative self-talk such as arthritis, cancer, depression, fatigue, and all sorts of bodily aches and pains.

Somewhat depressing? On the other hand, what are the positive effects of loving yourself?

Stop and ask yourself where your life could be if you have a healthy sense of self-love.

The possibilities are endless:

· You find it much easier to love others, and much easier to accept the love of others.

· You feel deserving of the good things in life and the powerful support of the Universe.

· This naturally opens the door for your hopes and dreams to be fulfilled more easily and for your life to proceed with untold abundance.

· You are happy and successful

· You are beautiful and you will love your body.

· You are healthy and in balance

· You feel worthy of love

· You are powerful and self-confident

· You are aware of your self-talk (those things that you say to yourself inside your head).

· You speak to yourself in ways that are kind, and less mean or abusive.

· Your harsh inner critic changes to a gentle caring and supportive voice.

· When you make a mistake, this critical voice inside your head that used to beat
you up, saying things like, "That was such a stupid thing to do! ... I can never do anything
right! ... What a loser I am!" are now replaced with positive ones. For example, "I made a
mistake. That's okay: That is how I learn. I'll know better the next time. I can make a new
choice."

Imagine…. the more you love yourself the more you will "catch yourself" when your self-talk is negative, and the more you will change the message to something more positive, loving and nurturing. You will also "Catch yourself being right." In other words, you won’t just catch the voice of your inner critic, and stop it from beating you up, you will also catch yourself when you do something well, or when you find yourself saying the right things to yourself or to others, you will reward yourself by verbally acknowledging yourself, giving yourself a pat on the back, or treat yourself to something special.

STOP and listen to your own thoughts now. You want to do whatever it takes to change. You want to hear more and you want to know what options are open to you to create a life of abundance through loving yourself

In closing off today my message to you is ‘Leave no stone unturned’ pack your bags and get on the special journey of self-love. With this newly acquired knowledge, picture yourself cultivating self-love.

The universe is holding its breath waiting for you to show up. Look out for Part 2 in two weeks.

Annette www.paradigmshifttraining.com

Announcing an Exciting 4 part series on Loving Your Self

To love oneself is the beginning of a life-long romance.

Oscar Wilde

As you read every word of this short newsletter series on SELF LOVE, you will certainly begin to discover breakthroughs in all aspects of your life. Imagine yourself experiencing great improvement in your communication with your children, your partner and your boss. Imagine attracting more loving relationships. Imagine greater job satisfaction and huge improvement in your health. Yes! You are feeling a deep sense of well-being and abundance in your life.

If I could give you the tools to understand the reasons for, and disadvantages of lack of SELF LOVE and then HOW TO embark on a wonderful healing journey to experience the power of loving yourself, would you be interested? Of course!

Apparently, one of our most challenging journeys is the journey of LOVING OURSELVES. Clearly, this appears to be one of the most difficult journeys of our lives and may certainly be the greatest and most important love some of us will ever experience in this lifetime.

Why is this so and what actually is self-love?

By the time you finish reading these newsletters, you will have learned the secret and the power of SELF LOVE.

It surprises me when I ask people if they love themselves, most of them would say yes. However, when I encourage them to explore this question at a deeper level and ‘go within’ to examine their real feelings about themselves, they are quite shocked when they discover what’s really going on. They often have this to say to me: ‘I am my own worst enemy’. ‘I don’t trust myself; I constantly judge and criticize myself and sometimes even punish myself. I have no compassion for myself, and I don’t take loving care of myself – my looks, the way I dress, my health’……….

Let me ask you. What is coming up for you right now? Do you experience a huge amount of SELF LOVE? Or do some of or similar thoughts come up for you such as below.

Allow yourself to be open… Do you hear yourself saying ‘I could lose some weight, have a smaller nose, drive a better car, and have a more exciting life’? Are you often angry with yourself and do you judge and criticize everything you do? Are you a perfectionist? Do you abuse yourself and does your life ever work?

Do you struggle with the concept of loving yourself?

Wouldn’t it be amazing if you could just simply fall in love with yourself? You know what I mean, don’t you? Just imagine what it would be like if you did…Clearly! You would experience some magic starting to happen in your life. Yes? Wouldn’t that be just plain awesome?

Ask yourself this question: ‘What do I believe about myself’? You might be surprised when you discover how many times you hear yourself say all or some of the beliefs below.

· I am not good enough,

· I don’t deserve,

· I don’t matter,

· Nobody likes me,

· I’m unwanted – my mother never wanted me,

· I’m a mistake,

· I’m useless,

· Nobody cares about me,

· I should have been a boy/girl

· I’m too fat

· I’m too thin

· I’m unlovable

Any connection? (These thoughts are all lies created by the mind to maintain our artificial sense of limitation. All feeling states are generated from within. More about this later.) And you begin to notice that there are very few people who do not verbalise these thoughts/beliefs at least once a day.

There’s never been a better time for me to share with you what self-love is all about.

It’s so simple…. Self-love is simply and largely a matter of unconditional self-acceptance and self-approval with self-appreciation and compassion for oneself thrown in.

Stop and ask yourself this key question: Why do we have this difficulty with loving ourselves? Listen to your own thoughts. You want answers and you want it now. Ask yourself where you will be 6 weeks from now if you start to love yourself. Amazing hey?

It’s important to understand that when you were growing up you were constantly bombarded by the well-meaning comments and points of view of the people around you, especially your parents. You had to listen to their attitudes and belief systems and obey what they were saying to you. Here are a few examples. Let’s examine if you resonate with any of them. Do they remind you of other statements you heard?

Just let yourself drift back in time and re experience your feelings when you heard them say:

· Children should be seen and not heard,

· You will never amount to anything

· Shame on you

· I am just not going to put up with you anymore

· I have told you a thousand times

· After all I have done for you

· I have worked two jobs just to support you

· You embarrassed us today

· Big boys don’t cry

· A woman’s work is never done.

· Hard work never hurt anyone

· Money does not grow on trees

· Why can’t you be like your brother?

· There isn’t money for that

· As long as you are under my roof, you will obey the rules!

· I brought you into this life, and I can take you out! And on and on and on!

The most important thing you need to realize is that you made some powerful decisions about yourself and about life as a result of the above messages, and these decisions became your beliefs and these beliefs are controlling your life today! The good news is that once we become aware of why we behave in the way we do and why we treat ourselves in the way we do, we can change it.

Imagine what it would be like if you could discover what it would feel like if you could transform all these old habitual negative thoughts that’s keeping you stuck and unable to walk on clouds.


Till next time...

Annette www.paradigmshifttraining.com

What I learned from Eckhart Tolle today......

There is a difference between ‘my life situation’ and ‘my life’.

And the difference is so simple yet so profound. When I talk about my stuff - I usually refer to ‘my life’ e.g. I have a wonderful life or my life is full of problems or my life is very unhappy, etc. This is all mind-stuff – what I’m actually talking about is ‘my life situation’.

So when I can take away ‘my life situation’, what I’m left with is ‘my life’ – the only reality that exists – the moment of NOW. It is not possible to be unhappy and fully present in the moment of NOW at the same time.

Now see if you can narrow down your life to this very moment of NOW – and in this moment – do you have any problems? This NOW moment...

In Gratitude
Annette

www.paradigmshifttraining.com

Take the dive to ENLIGHTENMENT.

Many delegates on the Heal and Love Your Love Workshop have the same longing – longing for ENLIGHTENMENT. The search includes practicing meditation, attending workshops, reading many books, practicing yoga and much more.

What I realized is that we are all on this roller coaster of seeking for ENLIGHTENMENT (which is nothing more than searching for INNER PEACE), outside of ourselves.

ENLIGHTENMENT - INNER PEACE can be achieved by surrendering to ‘what is’ – to stop resisting – accept the state you are in – accept your ‘life situation’ and forgive yourself for not being at peace. You will be neutralizing and transmuting your non-peace by offering an equal and opposite peaceful action. This is forgiveness and accepting ‘what is’.

Enlightenment = acceptance of ‘what is’ in the moment of NOW by practicing Non-resistance and going within.

When I go scuba diving, we often launch in very rough waves and huge breakers on the surface. Once we ascent and get down to deeper levels, a calmness and stillness exist that allows me to peacefully float along with the tides allowing me to enjoy the incredible beauty that surrounds me without any resistance.

Imagine being the ocean – the rough (and sometimes calm) surface as well as the calm, still and peaceful depth of the ocean of your inner being.

Imagine being free from depending on the outer world for your enlightenment – your happiness. Sure you can enjoy and appreciate the beauty of it all, however, you’ll find when you dive down into the depths of your inner ocean, all the beauty, love, ease, grace, peace and lightness which you are searching for is there – you can now relax – no more workshops and books - you have come home to yourself, to your life – you have found true ENLIGHTENMENT.

Take the dive!

Annette www.paradigmshifttraining.com

Talk to your Body

I never cease to be amazed at how easy it is to ‘Talk to our Bodies’ or a specific Body Part. One of the processes on the Heal and Love Your Life Workshop is ‘The Body-Mind Connection’. Often people attending the workshop do Visualization and Meditation for the first time when I take them on an inner journey to find a place in their body that is in pain or is experiencing discomfort and needs healing. During the meditation/visualization I suggest they ask this troubled body part to talk to them and tell them what the emotion being held there is and what the discomfort is all about and what they can do to change the condition.

At the end of the meditation the responses are amazing! The surprised looks on their faces are priceless. I just love hearing their feedback on what their bodies told them. It confirms my words to them that our bodies knows it all, knows the truth about them and that our bodies never lie!

Anything you want to know your body will tell you – you just need to ask and listen! Your body is constantly giving you little- and sometimes big signs or wake-up calls. How aware are you of these signals? Or are you in constant denial of your emotions? Are you making yourself believe that you are not mad, angry or sad? When you do that you are simply pushing your emotions down into your body where it will find a place to lodge – either in your joints, liver, heart, head, etc – it will find a place and create havoc and disruption within the cells of that part of your body – and then you run off to the doctor to get medication which only treats the symptoms (and not the cause) - rather to tune into the great wisdom of your body to tell you what you need to do to heal.

Just become aware of your body right now.....any aches or a pain somewhere in your neck or your back or a discomfort/knot in your stomach, a sore throat, a tight chest....Just know that your body has important information for you to heal either an emotional issue or a physical issue.

You may want to close your eyes, take a couple of deep breaths and then allow your attention to go to that part of your body and start a dialogue with that part as if you are talking to a good friend. If you have lost touch with your body/gone into denial of any feeling and can’t find a place of discomfort or pain, simply ask your body to guide you to that place in your body that needs your attention. Trust your body and trust the process. Something will ‘pop into your mind’ which, in this moment might not make any sense – the uneasiness might be in your left foot! Just trust your inner wisdom – just go with it. Notice this part of your body and get an image or a feeling-sense of what it looks like – just be easy about it – there is no right or wrong about how you need to experience this – go with whatever comes up for you. You might even see it as a large, black rock sitting on your chest or a jelly mass or red liquid.....just feel that part of your body.....it wants to tell you something.

Ask that part of your body the following questions or any other questions you might find more appropriate:

• What is the emotion being held there?
• What is the discomfort or the pain all about?
• Anything else it wants to tell you?
• What does it need?
• What can you do to change/heal the condition?

Allow yourself to listen to whatever pops into your head. It may be completely off the wall or come as a huge surprise to you. Remember: Your body knows it all and it knows what is important for you to deal with right now. It might tell you that it is tired, feels unappreciated, need healing energy, need forgiveness, etc. Place your hand on this part of your body and then imagine tapping into the infinite source of love in your own heart and send that love from your heart into your arm and into your hand and into that part of your body that needs healing. Keep sending the healing until you feel an easing of the discomfort or a shift or healing.

There is also the possibility that you might not get any clear answers. That’s okay. The answers may come in another way or form. You might see a picture or remember something from your past you had forgotten about or a dream you had. This may bring up old emotions that need healing. And if nothing comes up for you simply keep asking. Ask your body what is it wanting to tell you. You need answers. Keep on asking and listen! Really listen – the answers are being given. Trust your body’s wisdom.

Thank your body for its infinite wisdom and giving you the answers and for allowing and accepting your healing energy.

Well done!

Bring yourself out of the meditation and follow the ‘advice’ your body gave you of what you need to do to change/heal the condition.

Go within.... or..... go without!!

In Gratitude
Annette

www.paradigmshifttraining.com

Does your fear of change override your good intentions to achieving your goals?

Fear and Resistance to change is normal and even beneficial. It must be expected and acknowledged.

Taking that leap of faith is risky, and you will only take active steps toward the unknown if you genuinely believe – and perhaps more importantly, feel – that the risks of standing still are greater than those of moving forward in a new direction.

"And the day came when the risk it took to remain tight inside the bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom". - Anais Nin

Change is all about taking a risk. We become and like to remain connected to what we know and are familiar with – even at times to our own detriment. For most people, seeing is believing. I’d like you to change your mind set to’ Believing is Seeing’. As Henry Ford said, “Whether you believe you can or believe you can't, you are right.”

Changing your mindset/beliefs from the ‘I can’t do it!’ – to ’How can I do it?’ - can go a long way toward overcoming your fears and resistance to change. You might feel that you won’t be able to make the transition because you don’t think you can. You may also feel overloaded, overwhelmed and fatigued by the stresses of daily life.

Fatigue can really block your change effort, for example, you believe you should quit drinking alcohol, but you’ve got a challenging career going, you are a single mom with two teenagers to keep up with and therefore can easily put off your personal health improvement (until your first heart attack or cancer scare, when suddenly the risks of standing still seem greater than the risks of change!).

Are you one of the people with a healthy scepticism who want to be sure that new ideas are sound?

Fears and doubts can also block your change effort because they are part & parcel of the negative beliefs you hold about yourself -- that you don't deserve love or success and a wonderful future, that you are not good enough, that you are powerless -- or beliefs about life -- that life really is about effort and struggle.

Fears, doubts and resistance to change is a scary place to be – What lengths will you go to to cover them up, banish or escape them? Over indulgence in alcohol, cigarette smoking, food, drugs, overwork?

What is the message you are giving your children?

Consider healing your life as the biggest gift you can give anyone, most of all yourself.

In Gratitude
Annette

www.paradigmshifttraining.com