Once you recognize there is a gremlin interfering with your self-confidence (Hint: If you lack confidence there is one!) then you can picture the gremlin in cartoon form. Imagine it as this comical looking character following you around whispering crazy things. You might think of Gollum in Lord of the Rings. It’s so much easier to take your authority back from a cartoon!

Another way to think about it is like the Wizard of Oz who had the booming voice that everyone trembled to hear and obeyed carefully until Toto pulled back the curtain revealing a short fat man who was behind a microphone.

Once you have unveiled your gremlin and taken away its authority, you can make sure you leave him outside whenever you have to go do something that calls for courage and confidence.

A few years ago, I heard Mat Boggs and Jason Miller, two (at the time) twenty-something bachelors who took a cross country trip in an RV with Mat’s grandmother, interviewing experts similar to the gentleman who was in my office today. Project Everlasting was the book and video that resulted from talking to dozens of couples who had been married happily for 40 plus years. Their philosophy was that they didn’t know the first thing about lasting love and so they wanted to learn from those that did. It’s an easy read with heartfelt advice that clearly has stood the test of time!

Cultivate good change by telling yourself a positive night time story of change. Every night at bedtime…or in the morning when you wake, remind yourself…”Every day, in every way, I’m getting better and better.” If you hear it often enough you will begin to believe it. If you believe it, you will see it!

One of my favorite parts of “The Help” is where the maid is telling the little girl (as she had told all the children she raised) “You are kind, you are beautiful, you are important.” She would tell the child that every day. It’s a great message for all of us, the inner child and the person we are now. If we know that as truth, we fare better in life. The same is true of change. If we know we are always changing for the better we will keep unfolding boldly and zestfully.

The Sonnets to Orpheus, Part Two, XII

Want the change.  Be inspired by the flame
where everything shines as it disappears.
The artist, when sketching, loves nothing so much
as the curve of the body as it turns away.

What locks itself in sameness has congealed.
Is it safer to be gray and numb?
What turns hard becomes rigid
and is easily shattered.

Pour yourself out like a fountain.
Flow into the knowledge that what you are seeking
finishes often at the start, and, with ending, begins.

Every happiness is the child of a separation
it did not think it could survive.  And Daphne, becoming a laurel,
dares you to become the wind.

 

Stay alert and present in the moment so that when an opportunity (chipmunk) crosses your path you can stop everything and give chase!

You can never get too close to someone that you love.

You can also listen (live if you’re in Central Oregon) to an interview on Integrative Medicine on the radio show Medical Makeover with Liz (or for everyone, online.)

“What is Integrative Health Care?”  You’ll get the answer and much more in this show airing August 2nd at 5-6 pm and Saturday August 13th 8-9 am, at 88.9 FM in Bend, OR. The guests are Dr. Bergstrom from the Mayo Clinic and Dr. Chiasson from the Arizona Center of Integrative Medicine.  Mayo is one of the top clinics in the world.  Arizona Center of Integrative Medicine is the premier educational facility teaching MDs how to use Integrative Medicine. It was founded by Dr. Andrew Weil.

My dear friend Krayna Castlebaum has created a poem of the month service where she blesses subscribers with one juicy poem after another. This month, the poem came with an invitation to join her “Little Mole Club”. Here’s what Krayna has to say, along with the poem by Yehuda Amichai.

There’s an old adage and it goes like this: You can be right or you can be happy.

Indeed!  Amichai’s poem inspired me to create, “The Little Mole Club.”
Credo: Undermining Certainties; Radiating Happiness.
Now Open!  New members being accepted every single day!

The price of admission: All “But, I’m right!” stories.  Who needs ‘em?
Put those down, say a blessing, have a picnic.  Start a local chapter today!.

  Happy August!

The Place Where We Are Right

From the place where we are right
flowers will never grow
in the spring.

The place where we are right
is hard and trampled
like a yard.

But doubts and loves
dig up the world
like a mole, a plow.
And a whisper will be heard in the place
where the ruined
house once stood.

By Israeli poet, Yehuda Amichai   (May 3, 1924 – September 22, 2000)

From The Selected Poetry of Yehuda Amichai, Edited & translated by Chana Bloch & Stephen Mitchell

Copyrighted material; for educational/therapeutic purposes only.

If you’d like to receive Krayna’s poems each month, simply email her at kraynalucky@gmail.com.

Most important is that you give, but I have been taught that the highest form of tithing is to give where you are spiritually inspired and uplifted so that you cultivate more of that in your life. If you add the energy of gratitude as you give, you get even more bang for your buck, so to speak! But mostly, commit to giving. We are hard wired as humans to feel better when we give. There are many physiological benefits that we receive when we give beyond the good feeling we get in our hearts.

There are many ways to give. Give encouragement. Give money. Give appreciation. Give shelter and food. Give a helping hand on a physical job. Give your wisdom. Give love and kindness. Give prayer. Give directions (if you really know how to get somewhere!) Give acceptance. Give a listening ear and heart. Give a smile. Give your time. Give a song. Give you!

T. Harv Eker, author of The Millionaire Mind, has a system for managing money that offers balance. He suggests you get at least six jars–seven if you’re self employed because then you have to put money away for taxes. You put 10 % of your money into a Financial Freedom Account–that goes for retirement and will not be touched before that time. Equally important to that account is 10% in your play account. This one is for lavishing on yourself and you have to spend the whole amount each month.

Do you remember Aesop’s Fable about the Ant and the Grasshopper? In that tale, the ant was praised for its hard work and saving up for the cold winter while the grasshopper played and sang all summer and then starved int he winter. Eker is recommending we combine the best of both insects. By balancing both needs, we will be more likely to maintain the habit. If we only save, we’ll be miserable and eventually quit. If we only play and spend, we’ll eventually starve.

The other jars, he recommends, should be allocated this way: 50% for necessities, 10% for contributions, 10% for education and 10% into long term savings for spending.

One of the most interesting ideas he proposes, in my opinion, is that you start this habit of paying attention to your money right away, using as little as $1 to manage. He stresses that daily attention will reinforce the habit. He relates the story of a woman who did exactly that. She started out with dividing up just $1/month because she really had nothing extra. But she recognized that she’d never become financially free on a single dollar/month, so she also committed to doubling the amount she was managing every month. That meant the second month she managed $2, the third month $4 and so on, until by the 12th month she was managing $2048! Within two years she was doing so well she was able to put a $10,000 bonus entirely into her financial freedom account because she didn’t need it!

So even if you haven’t got much now, perhaps this is a way that will help you change your financial picture. You may think it won’t work for you, but you have to ask yourself if what you’re doing now is working? If it is, you don’t need this system. If your own method isn’t working, what do you have to lose?