In his book The Power of Intention, Dr. Wayne Dyer defines intention as a force in the universe that allows the act of creation to take place. The book explores intention, not as something you do, but as an energy you’re a part of. In addition, Dr. Dyer provides an intention guide with specific ways to apply the co-creating principles into your daily life.

Some important points about this intention:

• A lack of self-respect creates a sense of unworthiness. A sense of unworthiness blocks any and all manifestations that might otherwise occur in your life.
• If you can remember that you are a part of the Source, of God, then you will always remember that you are worthy. It would be insulting God to diminish yourself.
• How you feel about the world in general (a glass half full or a glass half empty?) is a good indicator of how you feel about yourself. If you expect the worst of everyone and everything, you can bet your last dollar that you feel unworthy of the good things in life.

A few ways Dr. Dyer suggests to practice nourishing your intention to respect yourself at all times.

• Look into a mirror, make eye contact with yourself and say “I love me” as many times as possible throughout your day.
• Self-respect is just that, how YOU feel about yourself. Others opinions of you are their opinions, not your reality>,/li>
• Being in a state of gratitude is exactly the same as being in a state of respect, respect for yourself, which you give away freely. and which will return to you tenfold.

In his book, Everyday Enlightenment, Dan Millman outlines his twelve gateways to personal growth. Here is Gateway #8:

Fear is a wonderful servant, but a terrible master. Like pain, it can alert and advise you, but may also cloud or limit your life. Fear appears in many disguises, such as “I’m not really interested in doing that” or “Why bother?” or “I can’t.” You face fear every day — fear of failoure, of rejection, even the fear of being yourself. Your fears are not walls, but hurdles. Courage is not the absence of fear, but the conquering of it.

In his book, Everyday Enlightenment, Dan Millman outlines his twelve gateways to personal growth. Here is Gateway #6:

Below everyday awareness is a shamanlike, childlike consciousness — weaver of dreams, keeper of instinct. Your subconscious holds keys to a treasure house of intuitive wisdom, clear sign and untapped power. All you have to do is to look, listen and trust, paying attention to dreams, feelings, instinct. If you can’t trust your own inner senses, what can you trust?

In his book, Everyday Enlightenment, Dan Millman outlines his twelve gateways to personal growth. Here is Gateway #1:

No matter how intelligent, attractive, or talented you may be — to the degree you doubt your worthiness you tend to sabotage your effts and undermine your relationships. Life is full of gifts and opportunities; you will open to receive and enjoy them to the degree that you begin to appreciate your innate worth, and to offer to yourself the same compassion and respect that you would give to others. Discovering your worth sets your spirit free.

[From "Love Yourself, Heal Your Life Workbook" by Louise Hay]
[Check out the book on : Amazon ]

In my coaching practice, I continually see clients who are unable to manifest what they want because of a deep-rooted belief that they don’t deserve to have it. It doesn’t matter the reason for the belief, and most often the reason is for some very small action or thought that no one else is even aware of. Additionally, if some one else was in charge of ‘punishing’ us, there would have been a short, minimal punishment. We are not so easy on ourselves. We punish ourselves for years and years, often for something that didn’t deserve any punishment at all.

The following “Deservability Treatment” is from Louise L. Hay’s Love Yourself, Heal Your Life Workbook. I believe it is a powerful statement that can be used to help you transform your feelings of being undeserving into feeling worthy of all the best has to offer.

• I am deserving. I deserve all good. Not some, not a little bit, but all good. I now move past all negative, restricting thoughts. I release and let go of the limitations of my parents. I love them, and I go beyond them. I am not their negative opinions, nor their limiting beliefs. I am not bound by any of the fears or prejudices of the current society I live in. I no longer identify with limitation of any kind.

• In my mind, I have total freedom. I now move into a new space of consciousness, where I am willing to see myself differently. I am willing to create new thoughts about myself and about my life. My new thinking becomes new experiences.

• I now know and affirm that I am at one with the Prospering Power of the Universe. As such, I now prosper in a number of ways. The totality of possibilities lies before me. I deserve life, a good life. I deserve love, an abundance of love. I deserve good health. I deserve to live comfortably and to prosper. I deserve joy and happiness. I deserve freedom to be all that I can be. I deserve more than that. I deserve all good.

• The Universe is more than willing to manifest my new beliefs. And I accept this abundant life with joy, pleasure, and gratitude. For I am deserving. I accept it; I know it to be true.

[From "Learn to Relax: A Practical Guide to Easing Tension and Conquering Stress" by Mike George]
[Check out the book on : Amazon ]

ANGER: A natural response to anger is to clench our fists. In order to make this relaxing, pick up a small, hard object, such as a stone, and place it in the palm of your hand. Squeeze the object as hard as you can and let go. Rock the object gently in your hand as if making peace with it.

SADNESS: With sadness comes lethargy and unresponsiveness. So, when you feel sad, take yourself for a walk. Focus your attention on the things that you pass. It doesn’t matter where you go or how often you have done the same walk. With each step you take, you are working through your feelings of melancholy. Try to respond positively to sights, sounds and smells.

JEALOUSY: When we feel jealous, our responses are similar to those of fear (jealousy often results from fear of loss). Our instinct is to fight, but instead of flying into a rage, gently run the fingers on one hand over the top of the other as if you were stroking a child’s hand in comfort. Each stroke smooths away the emotion, and you should be able to respond more calmly.

Healthy anger happens when it is expressed:

• with the right PERSON
• to the right DEGREE
• at the right TIME
• for the right PURPOSE
• in the right WAY

[Aristotle, Adapted from Nicomachean Ethics

What great awareness! Remember, all emotions, including anger, are legitimate and can be dissolved if expressed as noted above. It’s not how about how often we get angry, but about how often we STAY angry!

Every feeling we have is not isolated, but tends to fall somewhere along a continuum. Generally speaking, the continuum goes from negative to neutral to positive (or vice versa).

Because it’s a continuum, it means that to move from the negative end to the positive end is not like turning on a switch. Since we need to visit each stage along the way, there is an element of time involved in making the shift. However, it’s not necessary to take a LONG time to make this shift, as it’s possible to wave at a feeling as we move quickly on to the next one.

Here are some action steps to help move you from Distracted to Attentive:

1. Take some long, deep slow breaths.
This is usually the first step for any shift we need to make. Breathing deeply and slowly, we calm down and return to our center, our place of wisdom.

2. Identify what is taking your attention away.
Once you recognize where your thoughts are going (as opposed to where you want your attention to be), ask yourself the following question: Is this distraction a real distraction OR is it a game you’re playing to avoid whatever it is you need to do?

3. If a true distraction, take care of it!
If we are trying to focus on something, but there is a sense of urgency around something else we must do, it is very understandable we can’t keep our concentration on the 2nd task. The best –and, in my opinion — the only way to free ourselves from the distraction is to take care of the first task. DO IT and you will be able to refocus.

4. If it’s avoidance, figure out what you’re afraid of.
We are all masters of the art of avoidance. In fact, we’re so good at it, we are able to convince ourselves that it’s not avoiding task 1, but that task 2 is so important it must be taken care of first.

To work through this game we play with ourselves we must

1. Acknowledge that we are afraid of the thing we’re avoiding.
   It is necessary to accept that we can not stop playing the avoidance game if we can not admit that it ‘is’ a game. Honesty is always the best policy, especially with ourselves.
2. Figure out the exact source of the fear and look it straight in the face. Once you recognize the avoidance as fear, try to identify it as closely as possible. It’s not enough to say ‘fear’, you must break it down further: ‘fear of failure’ or ‘fear of success’ are two major sources of fear.
3. Identify the ‘worst that could happen’.
   Interestingly enough, the best way to face a fear is to look at the worst possible outcome. In my experience, doing so and considering what you would do if the worst did happen, opens you up to the possibility of the worst ‘not’ happening. After that happens, we find that our fear has abated and we are actually able to focus on the task at hand.

It’s very hard to discuss becoming our best selves without bringing up negative self talk and the need to avoid it. For the most part, it’s very easy to identify that negative self talk. It’s the loud insistent nagging voice that tells you how wanting you are in any and all areas.

While it’s unhealthy, the good news is that it’s obvious enough that we know when it’s happening. Over time, with practice, we can set up an alarm so that we catch it in the moment and being replacing it with positive, or at least neutral, self talk.

However, there is much more insidious way we negate ourselves and our possibilities. It’s the simple word BUT. Whether it’s a continuation of your own sentence, or a rebuttal to someone else’s suggestion, it is probably the simplest way we have come up with for keeping ourselves from moving forward.

One of the reasons it is so dangerous is because we become oblivious to it. I wonder how many times a day we say it and don’t hear it?

Some of the ways it comes up:

• “I want to go back to school, but I don’t have time.”
• “I would like to get to know her better, but she probably wouldn’t like me anyway.”
• “Wouldn’t it be nice to read that book and learn about that topic?” Unfortunately (variant of but!), there’s too many other things to do.”

How to avoid the negative impact? It’s a three-step process.

1. Set an alarm so that you hear the word ‘but’ each and every time you (or those around you) say it. Let me repeat, each and every time. While this sounds tough, the truth is that with the proper intention and practice, you will soon be hearing ‘buts’ all around you.
2. Stop being amazed at just how frequently you do say the word but. When I did this for the word ‘should’ many years ago, I spent a lot of wasted time paralyzed by how often I was saying it. Remember, if you could have done it differently, you would have. Forgive yourself and move on to step 3.
3. Repeat the entire sentence that you just said. Only this time, replace the word ‘but’ with the word ‘and’. For example in the first example above, the sentence would become “I would like to get to know her better and she probably wouldn’t like me anyway.”

With the word ‘but’ the sentence is a dead end. No point taking it further cause it’s a definite no-go. That same sentence with the word ‘and’, however has a different impact. I find myself asking, “Hmmm.. I wonder why? Lots of other people like me. I’m really a pretty great person. Maybe I’ll give her a chance to reject me herself”.

See the difference? No matter how mutually exclusive the sentence might sound, in fact the addition of ‘and’ opens the door wide open. Now you can take it to the next step and walk through it!

At the beginning of March, I set a goal for myself to post every single day on the blog. I started on the 2nd and in fact did post every day through March 31st. YAY for me!!!!!! I’m so excited I’m giving myself a gold star.

As a rule, we don’t celebrate the accomplishments, major OR minor, enough. Everytime we complete something we wanted to complete, we deserve to give ourselves a pat on the back.

What do you deserve a gold star for? Please share with us.