The Power of Love All of us – young or old, poor or rich, salt of the earth or intellectual, battling grave illness or enjoying phenomenal health – all of us want the same things in our lives. We must take care of our survival needs by providing shelter from the elements, food and sustenance for our bodies, and protection from dangers. Because we are social in nature, we need to connect with others in various ways. We need to belong, to be part of something larger than ourselves. Most of all we need love, and the more there is in our lives to enjoy, the better off we are in all ways. In a very real sense, love is what powers the universe. Love is behind the benevolence of the creator(s) in our stories about where we came from. Love is the one uplifting force that empowers us and allows our consciousness to grow. Our culture recognizes and honors the power of love in thousands of ways, each with endless permutations: Nothing stands in the way of a mother’s love for her children Spiritual love is the highest power of all Because of love, I am made whole Love me, love my (parrot, car, crooked smile, kids, etc.) Love makes the world go round. Can’t buy me love I’m a fool in love The Music of Love Where would Etta James, the Beatles or nearly every country western singer be without love to sing about? The lack of same, the loss, the regaining, the denial, the requited and the unrequited. Indeed, where would music itself be without love? It is love, after all, that stirs the heart to passion and the voice to sing. The Do-Re-Mi of love is equally qualified to express our sweetest feelings to our children as it is to let our mates know in no uncertain terms just how deeply felt our biological imperatives are on Saturday night after the kids have gone to bed. Love is such a complex and ubiquitous subject that our civilization, just as all the thousands before us and the millions more yet to come, our thoughts and feelings are filled with the artifacts of our discussions, songs and images about its various manifestations. Love is. And yet, love is not, also. In fact, love, so freely and unself-consciously given and received through all our connections, is the one thing we often lack for ourselves at our core level of being. We often do not love ourselves. How amazing! The Dance of Love A lack of self-love is first felt in very similar ways to that ballroom dance class you were forced into as a teenager in which you pretended to actually enjoy a kind of rhythmic spasm that could loosely pass for dancing. The shaky feet, the sweaty palms, the cracking voice. When it comes to self-love, there you are, quivering with your partner on the dance floor, ready to accept death as a suitable alternative to the foxtrot or the waltz. Despite your best intentions, your two left feet probably goofed you up socially for years, if not forever. You’ve compensated by finding other ways to appease and delight your dance partners. You’ve proven to each of them that they are indeed the objects of your affections and worthy of your most undying love. Just so, you’ve never really come to grips with what it takes to feel your own love of self. The most glaring way a lack of self-love shows up in someone’s life is in the failure of one’s intentions to manifest in desired ways. Nothing seems to work. Despite all the books and CDs on self-improvement, all the workshops, all the inner work, all the best intentions – your life is still not where you want it to be. Maybe your job really bites. Perhaps your relations have become stagnant and uninspiring. Maybe you’re just tired of the day-to-day routine that you’ve grown accustomed to over the past twenty years or so. Where Are You? Your best intentions seem to have proven to in fact be your most mediocre ones. What happened? The answer is incredibly simple after all. It’s been staring you in the face like the one that looks back at you every morning in the mirror. The answer is you! You need to fall in love with yourself! You need to quit shaking and sweating, forget about your quivering voice and your two left feet and begin to glide and swoop like your life depended upon it. Because it does. Your life – at least the one you’ve dreamed about – depends upon your spirit soaring to every greater and greater heights, something it cannot do if you cannot love yourself. The Feathers of Intention Intentions are the feathers that allow you to catch life’s thermals. Love buoys them up and makes them defy the earth as they waft ever higher and higher on the currents of your life. Trying to set an intention loose upon even the most gentle breezes, let alone the mighty gales of your at times tumultuous life, without the mastery and awareness that self-love brings, is simply an exercise in futility. Without self-love, your intentions won’t fly. They remain undirected and unmoving, stuck to earth like so much fluff plastered to a rock in a rainstorm. Fluff yourself up. Dry yourself out. Become as light and airy as the most ethereal down you can imagine. Prepare for takeoff. You are ready to launch your beautiful intentions into the glorious great beyond. You’re cleared for take-off. Have a good flight. Still here? Ah, yes. There’s that issue of self-love. Let’s take a moment to recap. What do we know for sure? We know that love empowers the entire world We know that self-love empowers us personally We know that intentions need empowerment to manifest Self-love Empowers Your Intentions We must quickly come to the conclusion that given that the above statements are true, the most surefire way (actually, the only way) for us to manifest our intentions is to tune into our love. If, however, our love is only a one-way affair, if we can only effectively give love to others but not to ourselves, no matter how hard we try, we’ll never be able to empower our intentions enough to create the vision we have for our life. I’ll say it again, because it bears repeating at this point: The most glaring way a lack of self-love shows up in someone’s life is in the failure of one’s intentions to manifest in desired ways. We all know how to visualize. We’ve been to all those workshops and read all those books, right? Some of us have accumulated many, many hours meditating and visualizing and praying and intending and sincerely trying to be worthy of having a good life. It’s all about self-love. It’s simple, really. Love yourself. Treat yourself at least as well as you would any other lover. Coddle it and cuddle it. Give yourself a big hug! Show your self that you care! Empower yourself and your intentions will start to float about as they were meant to. A beautiful, fluffy life is the life you’re really after, and you can’t get that kind of life being harsh with yourself. Lighten up! Let the feathers of your intentions land where they may.

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Various clinical trials prove that dosage of Levitra is safe to improve erectile dysfunction, even in men who have other health factors such as high cholesterol, high blood pressure, or diabetes. Therefore, people who have these medical conditions can think about vardenafil as erectile dysfunction medication. Side effects of Levitra The most common side effects of Levitra include headache, flushing, and stuffy nose. These side effects of Levitra are easily treatable if you take proper medical care. However, you need to take extra care when you buy Levitra online or through a local pharmacy. You should never buy Levitra online or through any other medium if you are already taking any other medication that contains nitrate drugs. This combination of dosage of Levitra and nitrate drugs can cause serious side effects of Levitra. If your doctor determines that sexual activity poses a serious health risk for you, then you should not buy Levitra online or through other medium. You may experience side effects of Levitra if you are allergic to the ingredients of Levitra. Therefore, never take dosage of Levitra without informing your doctor. Dosage of Levitra You can take Levitra as and when the need arises. There is no need to worry about dosage of Levitra. However, follow your doctor’s guidelines for effective results. It comes in 2.5mg, 5mg, 10mg, and 20mg pack tablets. You can take one dosage of Levitra with a glass of water, as this is an oral prescription drug. However, you should take only one dosage of Levitra in a day.

If you’re in the world of sales, it is quite likely you have gone through traditional sales training and learned that there is ‘a way’ or maybe ‘one way’ to sell. Maybe it was the Carnegie method. Maybe you learned ‘features and benefits’. Maybe you learned some other easily definable, package-able way to sell to affluent clients or prospects which sort of hammers away at their defenses and attempts to corner them into buying your product or services. These techniques are responsible for boxing in many excellent sales professionals. I admit to having been hindered once by these techniques as a young man, but I had an awakening, so to speak, and my numbers soared and I never looked back to those old-fashioned techniques again. Something that defines me and an awful lot of what I do in the world is ‘living outside the box’. In persuasion, there’s no easy way out and no quick fix. This shouldn’t deter you. Anything worth learning is worth spending some time on. Persuasion is ever expanding and limitless, as limitless as human nature and all the myriad ways we interact. This is not a subject that can be mastered, but a constantly growing body of knowledge that is constantly transforming as human nature expands. Fear not, persuaders. Even if something is vast, even if it’s not entirely ‘knowable’, learning in and of itself is a fantastic process. Think of a specific area of knowledge–say, a new language or a new musical instrument. You do not need to know everything there is to know about the piano or the French language to enjoy the benefits of being able to play or speak with a native speaker passably the first time. I become thrilled by how much my life will be enhanced once this new practice or learning is languaged into my life. Moving ourselves out of the ‘sales box’ and enlarging our view of the world creates a new paradigm for us enabling us to interact with our affluent prospects and clients and powerfully persuading them. This is an invitation to be innovative and creative and free from limitations. If you think of the ‘box’ as a frame, then what the box contains, can be expanded and enlarged at will. If we limit our frames, keep ourselves in the box, then we’re generally diminishing our options with persuasion and life in general. One comment in support of boxes: When beginning anything, it’s hard to get the basics if you don’t know the boundaries. Once the basics are learned, however, that’s when it’s time to expand and outgrow the imposed limitations. The greatest musicians had to learn theory (unless they had preternatural or divine talents which simply allowed them to compose or create without consciously knowing theory). After the foundation is laid out, then the real magic happens and unhindered improvisation or composition can occur. The basics of persuasion is an open box which eventually will not contain you and you’ll find yourself expanding beyond the limits.

Honesty is the first and most basic step to being happiy and healthy. It is not a surprise that it is teh first step in the 12-steps as well. The 12-steps are not just for addicts or people who believe in God. As a clinician I have developed an appreciation for how simply enacting the spiritual principles of the 12-Steps can drastically improve anxiety, depression, anger and addiction. Spirituality is more than just religion, it is a way of life. These principles are present in every religion, and are helpful even for those who are not religious. Let’s take a look… Honesty. The first step in being happy is to be honest, not only with others, but also yourself. This means developing a strong awareness of self, what you like and need, what you truly can control, and your feelings and what they mean. Many people who are depressed, anxious or addicted fail to realize the real reasons for their misery. They see the immediate answer—what triggered the negativity this time. What they fail to realize is that their fears and/or anger is usually all related to one or more deeper causes. Humans have six basic fears: isolation, failure, rejection, loss of control, death and the unknown. When you get angry or anxious, ask yourself which of these fears you are experiencing, why you fear it and how rational that is. For example, you may be nervous going in for a job interview—fear of rejection, failure, the unknown. Okay, they may not hire you (rejection from the employer), but are you also fearing rejection by someone else? Does failure to get this job mean you are letting someone else down such as a parent or spouse? Aside from the fact that you did not get the job, do you really care if the prospective employer liked you? In reality, does this change the way your loved ones feel about you? Yes, you would prefer to get the job, but if you do not is it really that much of a catastrophe? Another part of honesty is being aware of how you contribute to your own misery. Do you fail to take responsibility for your actions and blame others, look for the easy answers or might you be intentionally making yourself miserable. Intentionally? Yes! Maybe not consciously, but there are many people who inadvertently sabotage their recovery, because being miserable is so rewarding. When you are depressed, wrought with anxiety or in your addiction, people pay attention to you, overlook/make excuses for errors and it gives you a built in excuse for failure. Many people are afraid of failure because they see failing at any task means failing as a person and/or they equate failure with rejection. Both of these are basic and powerful (though not always rational) fears. To start to develop self-awareness, keep a journal in the morning and evening. It only takes a few minutes. Ask yourself, how do I feel emotionally (happy, sad, grumpy, lonely, resentful etc…), mentally (confused, sharp, creative, foggy…) and physically (sick, weak, lethargic, strong, energetic etc). Then identify why you feel that way, what you can do to change the negative things, and what you have no control over. This is your journal, you do not even need to write in full sentences, just pay attention. In the evening, repeat the exercise to see if you are feeling better, if your interventions are working or if you need to do something differently. Some things you can do to help yourself out include asking yourself: “Will this matter 6 months from now?” “Does worrying/being angry or regretful about this help me in any way?” How could I better use my energy to do something about the problem? “Is this worth the negative impact it is having on me and my family?” “What parts of this do I have control over?” “What does this mean about me as a person?” “Realistically, what are the consequences of this?” If you are tired, confused or “foggy” figure out why. Sometimes it is the easy answer—you did not get enough quality sleep. To fix this, set a wind-down routine. This will cue your body into when to go to sleep. Secondly, eliminate caffeine within 12 hours of bedtime. This includes soda, coffee and lots of chocolate. Set up your bedroom to be comfortable for you to sleep—clean, smells good, dark, quiet etc. Often times, people are actually getting too much sleep or their sleep is fitful because of all the stress their muscles are holding. If you are getting 6 to 8 hours of sleep, try adding some physical activity—walking the dog, gardening, walking around the block during your lunch break, yoga, tai chi. . .whatever you are willing to regularly do for at least 20 minutes every day for two weeks. A third thing to evaluate is your diet. Too much sugar, caffeine or not enough water can cause confusion, tiredness, depression, irritability, difficulty regulating your body temperature and poor sleep. Make sure you are not dehydrated. If you do not like water, try lemonade, flavored water. Just try to forego the carbonation and drinks with caffeine or alcohol—both of which will make you dehydrated. All of these things: awareness of how you feel emotionally, mentally, physically; awareness of what you have control over and what your body’s signals are trying to tell you will help you feel happier and more content. It takes practice to learn to pick your battles and accept you are not in control of everything, but once you do, you will see how much it not only improves how you feel, but also how much it improves your health and relationships. This article is part of a 12 part series on integrating the 12-steps into a healthy life.

Before the movie “The Secret” a long line of writers and thinkers has promoted the self-help powers of positive thought as long back as man pondered his own existence. Reams of research have shown positive thinking to be good for your health. A positive attitude and optimistic thinking are healthy. The power of positive thinking is shows that those who remain positive are healthier, live longer, and report greater satisfaction with life than those who might be labeled pessimistic. But, what about negative thinking? Here’s a story about how negative thinking can affect your health. (I’ll have to paraphrase it; I heard it off a seminar by Bob Procter.) One night a night watch man was patrolling a railway yard to check that no one was breaking into the containers and stealing the contents of them. He came across a container that had its door open. He walked over cautiously to see what was going on and could find no sign of life around so he took a quick look inside. The container was empty, but as he walked in the door of the container closed behind him and he found himself locked in. he pushed on the door for a while to see if it would open but it was completely stuck. He then started to yell for help but there was no answer. As he resigned himself to being looked in the container he started to look around and noticed that the container he was in wasn’t a normal but that he was locked in one a refrigerated one. After a while he noticed that he was getting colder and colder. Because he didn’t think he was going to get help any time soon he decided to write on the wall of the container to tell of his experience. He wrote that he was getting colder and colder and starting to lose feeling in his body. After a couple of hours it got harder for him to write but his last comments he wrote that he was going to die soon because it was so cold. The container was opened later that morning by some work men who found the night watch man dead body in the corner. If I finished this article you would say it was a tragic accident and it would be, but the tragic part is that the container the night watch man locked himself in was having maintenance done it that day. The part that was broken on the container was the refrigeration mechanism. The temperature inside the container that night was no different to the temperature outside. So what caused the man to die? Was it his thinking? Had the negative thoughts he was having about his situation caused him to give up his will to live? You may have your theories, but I think you can see that not matter the situation you find yourself your thoughts either positive or negative can affect how you deal with your problems whether real or imaginary.