Vampire Tasks Everyone has at least one of them. Something you hate to do. Something you dread. You procrastinate about it or do your best to avoid it. When you have to do it you get crabby about it. What is it for you? Your staff meeting? Traveling for business? Working with a particular client or co-worker? Dealing with computer problems? Doing your expense report? Performance reviews? Whatever it is, it’s a “vampire task” — something that drains your energy. But You Have to Do It Most of the time my focus with clients is on the fun stuff –what lights them up, what they love, what they want, what energizes and enlivens them and how to do more of that. When we do identify a task that’s draining them, we look long and creatively about how they could stop doing it, delegate it, or hire it out. Sometimes though there are tasks they choose to keep doing,at least for now. It could be temporary. Like a woman starting her own business who dislikes accounting. As soon as she has enough income she’ll hire a part-time accountant. In the meantime, she is the accountant, whether or not she enjoys it. It could be something longer lasting. For instance, in most companies if you’re a manager you’ll need to do performance reviews, whether or not you enjoy them. Taxes Wiped Me out Yep, for me taxes were a big energy drain. I hated doing them. Just the anticipation of doing them made me unhappy. Even though Dave, our accountant, did all the work of preparing our taxes, I still dreaded pulling together the information for him. Each year it took me two or three days and a lot of misery. I do recognize we always have choices. And I did have choices about the taxes. I could have just stopped doing them. But I wasn’t too keen about the IRS knocking on my door looking for those unpaid taxes. I could have asked my husband to do our taxes. But I thought he might be even unhappier than I was about doing this task. Yes, I did have other choices. And doing it myself seemed my best choice. Now you might think I was doomed. Forever chained to miserable days in my office gathering information for my accountant. But you might also realize if that were the case there wouldn’t be much of a point to this story. And the point is I found a way to ease my tax misery. Solution: The Taxes Strategy A few months after I learned about making choices based on my lights — what energizes and enlivens me — tax season rolled around once again. This time I was determined to find a way to do the taxes without draining my energy. So I looked at what I knew about what lit me up and I added some of that to my tax task. I put on music I loved. I lit a candle that had a delicious fragrance. Depending on the time of day, I sipped a glass of wine. I asked my husband to bring something to do and just sit in my office while I worked on the taxes. I also spent just a couple of hours at a time on them, rather than powering my way through as I’d done in the past. And it worked! Now I must admit taxes still aren’t the most fun thing I do. And they don’t drain my energy in the way they used to. You can apply my “taxes strategy” to your own draining tasks: incorporate things that light you up. Do this before, during, and/or after the task. My clients tell me this simple strategy makes a significant difference in their energy. Some Ways to Brighten Up a Dull Task Here are a few ways my clients have created more energy around the tasks that drain them: *** Bookending the task: doing something fun before and after. *** Changing the location: going to some place they love to do the task *** Changing the conditions: music, candles, food, drink, lighting *** Involving other people: to be with them, to do the task with them One story I can’t resist sharing: a client, unhappy doing the bills, asked her husband to join her and then paid the bills topless! I’m not saying I recommend this and she says it worked for them! In Your Life If you’d like to brighten up your dreaded task, here’s what I recommend. 1) Pick something that drains and de-energizes you. 2) Ask yourself if it’s something you can stop doing, delegate, or hire someone to do. If so, great! Do whichever one of those strategies will work. If not, go to step #3. 3) Experiment with doing two or three things that light you up (before, during and/or after that draining task) until you find what will make your experience less draining and more enjoyable. The examples above of what my clients have done may give you some ideas. The key is choosing things that light YOU up, that YOU love, that are energizing and enlivening for YOU. Enjoy!

You may have heard that one of the most important states of being that allows abundance and prosperity to flow into your life is the state of “detachment”. This sounds to be a bit of a paradox doesn’t it…if you want to create, get, or achieve something detach from it? Yes, indeed. Let’s first look at “attachment”? By definitions terms, attachment simply means a tie or a bond. However, at it applies to life and being, attachment to something often times has it’s emotional roots in scarcity, and those roots can run deep. This is a fear based attachment. Fear based attachment can feel like you are “holding onto” (for dear life sometimes!), and this in essence is the vibration of scarcity and lack. You might find yourself feeling “if I don’t hold on tight it (what I want) will get away from me, leave me, or not come into my life” So you may be holding on tightly to your dreams, your relationships, your money. Can you feel the sense of resistance here? Resistance, no matter which way you look at it, will not help you to increase abundance and well being in your life. In fact just the opposite is true. Let us be reminded about what the Law of Attraction says – what you radiate outward in your thoughts, feelings, and words you attract into your life. So, if you are attached to something because you are afraid you will loose it, you want to control it, or can’t stand to live without it, then you have much less of a chance of creating that in your life. You will however create more scarcity, and less of what you want. Like attracts like. So let’s talk a bit about “detaching”. It is the conscious choice to let go of fear based attachments in your life. It is the conscious choice to come from love, acceptance, and appreciation… letting go of control and fear based expectations. For some, the word detachment in itself holds a vibration of disconnection, aloofness, and disinterest. So this may not be the “word” you are seeking…but the tone I am speaking of – the state of beingness, is the same. You may want to call it – The Law of Positive Expectation and Belief, or The Law of Faith. What is important to remember is that you come from love, you are love, you choose to radiate love. This is who you are, and a conscious choice at the same time. Let’s talk more about how to choose this space of detachment…of unconditional love, positive expectation, and faith. 1. Remember that being in resistance creates resistance, and stepping into ease creates ease. If you want to create a life a life of ease, then ease up a bit! Stop clutching, forcing, and trying so hard – relax, your good will come. 2. Have a little faith! Trust in divine timing, trust in divine order. Affirm that “all is well” and “things come to me easily”, and “I trust everything will happen in perfect order”. 3. Practice holding dear vs. holding tight – this applies to your relationships, your career, your money…anything that you desire. This is a very powerful shift, it’s love based vs. fear based. And it is your focused love that molds your life….all of life. 4. “Let go” – but don’t let go of your focus. Visualize, imagine, create, intend from a space of love and positive expectation and belief – the law of attraction won’t let you down, you can count on it like you can count on gravity. 5. Focus on feeling good, and turn your attention to something you have ease about. Perhaps it’s butterflies, or chocolate, or your grandchildren. Let go of focusing on life’s limitations – and turn instead to joy and excitement, or peace and serenity, and the knowing that life will unfold for you, especially when you let it. Can you imagine a flower unfolding into it’s perfect beauty if you had your fist around it? Same principle applies to your life. So, here is my challenge to you…do a quick inventory of your life. What do you have fear based attachments to? Make a choice to shift your perspective and your feelings toward a loving sense of detachment – and life will unfold perfectly!

Jealousy is a natural human feeling brought on by simply wanting something someone else has. Though it may be perfectly natural to feel this emotion, what many people choose to do fueled by jealousy is where its harm lies. Crimes of passion are almost always jealousy driven, as well as those of theft and vandalism. There is a reason jealousy is one of the seven deadly sins that leads to the more criminal offenses than any other. If you have issues with jealousy, part of your duty as a responsible human being is to constructively deal with the jealous tendencies without doing harm to yourself or other people. Hypnosis has been sought my many people as a way of easing feelings of jealousy. As a treatment method, hypnosis will open your mind to suggestion and allow you to explore the root causes of your jealousy. On the outside, it may be simple to see what causes the jealousy: seeing your girlfriend talking to an ex-boyfriend, or knowing that your husband is attracted to another woman. However, what hypnosis is able to uncover about your jealousy is that it is truly tied to feelings of insecurity and your own fear of loss. Only after you are able to pinpoint these factors can hypnosis truly begin to easy the jealous feelings that plague you. Depending on the hypnotherapist that you choose, the sessions will be conducted in different ways to deal with your specific issues. For example, you will probably be instructed to picture those particular people and things that trigger your jealousy. It can be difficult at first to force yourself to confront these scenarios, but confrontation is a key ingredient to using hypnosis to resolve jealousy. The hypnosis exercises will help you associate these people and scenarios with happy emotions and trick your mind into feeling anything but jealous. The hypnotherapist may also give you exercises to do on your own that will teach you to think of happy or funny memories when you see the person or thing that turns your blood green. Most people that seek hypnosis treatment for their jealousy can feel results even after their first session with a professional. Though it is usually recommended that a series of sessions will be the most beneficial, it does help one feel more confident that hypnosis for resolving jealousy is valid. It is also usually suggested that you meet or chat over the phone with the hypnotist for a consultation before the actual treatment begins. This will allow you to decide if the chemistry is right between the two of you. It may seem silly to think, but if you happen to meet a hypnotherapist that somehow reminds you of someone that brings out the jealousy feelings, it will be difficult to find the treatments effective. Hypnosis is a mind science and cannot be entered into involuntarily. You must be cooperative and open to the possibility for hypnosis to help resolve your jealous emotions. As with any time you attempt to change something about your mind and character, you have to want to and make a conscious decision to beat the jealousy and allow yourself to become a more confident, centered person. You will find that treating jealousy through hypnosis will improve personal and professional relationships and lead to a future of happiness. For mor info you can visit – www.mind-works.co.uk/Hypnotherapy-for-Jealousy.html

It’s becoming one of the biggest trends of the 21st century to seek out Enlightenment and inner peace. People are buying up books everywhere and running from teacher to teacher to try and find the inner peace they so desperately crave.

Who really has inner peace and how did they find it? We all can get to feeling a bit lost when it comes to uncovering the Truth. One surefire method for determining if you are on the right path is to simply ask yourself “Am I more at peace than I was a year ago or six months ago?” If you feel that you are finding more peacefulness as you progress on your path, then you know it must be working. If you aren’t sure or you think that maybe it isn’t working then maybe you need to sit still a little more each day.

Sitting still each day and closing your eyes as you sit can be a great way to calm your mind and emotions so that peacefulness eventually becomes more normal for you. Inner peace only comes from one place and that’s the inner part of you! If you find that you aren’t feeling peaceful, it’s time to look deeper within yourself.

Most of the time, when people decide to start a daily meditation, they discover that their thoughts and emotions are running wild inside of them and they feel almost instantly discouraged. Common statements from beginners are “Am I doing it right?”, “How should I sit?” and “Should I concentrate on my breathing?” These are all justifiable questions to have and yet beginners will still be surprised to hear that those questions don’t really matter. There is no “right” way to sit still or “correct” thing to concentrate on when you meditate. You’re goal is to simply sit still with your eyes closed and relax. Don’t fall asleep but don’t worry so much about whether it is “right” or “wrong”. If you are sitting there with your eyes closed then it is Right! That’s all there is to it.

The hard part comes in when we start judging everything and analyzing it and get ourselves all frustrated with what we are trying to do. What are we trying to do? Nothing! So how did we get so frustrated about nothing? The problem that beginners have is they think there is a special “formula” for meditation and a way of doing it that will make them an “expert”. There is no correct way of doing it and there is no formula. Everything you do will be correct. Just sit there and, by doing it each day for a certain amount of time, this will eventually result in more calmness of your mental processes and an equilibrium of your emotions. The beginning, however, can sometimes be the toughest time. Did you ever try to teach a dog to sit still? You can usually teach him to sit but getting him to “stay” is a bit tougher. This is the same problem for people. People know how to sit but they never learn how to stay.

If you can teach yourself to both sit and stay you will be among the very few people in the world who have learned a very valuable trick. For dogs, it takes some extra “Scooby snacks” to get them to do it. For human beings it sometimes requires a calendar and the fun game of checking off the days of the week as they complete their task of “staying” for 30 minutes or more. Some humans get to be experts at this trick and can sit still for over an hour and for several different times a day. These humans are sort of like the dogs you have seen on television who can perform in front of a panel of judges and can sit and stay for long periods of time. Their masters always love them a lot and they always win the contests they enter. As funny as this comparison may seem, it actually applies quite well. If you learn to sit for longer periods of time without having to move around in your chair and without your mind doing cartwheels every moment, you will eventually start to win more things in life.

The “Master” behind your thoughts and emotions will eventually come forward and reward you with a lot of great “Scooby snacks. Finding inner peace can be as easy as training a dog but you have to be a good dog who really wants to please his master. Now get out there and “sit” and, next time you do it, make sure and “stay” too!

Dear Jane, I know a lot of people as acquaintances but I don’t seem to have close friends anymore. Everyone seems too busy. Sometimes I’m too busy to sit and listen. But then I feel lonely and isolated. Does everyone feel this way? As a life coach for over 20 years, I have noticed that my clients are looking for more than insights or pearls of wisdom; they want a guarantee that they can trust that they will not have to vie for someone’s attention, that they will be heard and cared about, and that they will be listened well to, without interruption and without feeling rushed. Most of us don’t consider ourselves isolated or friendless. Yet, almost 25% of Americans say they don’t have even one close friend they confide in. What this tells me is that we may no longer expect friends to take the time to listen or to have the skills to help us reflect on our circumstances. In other words, intimacy, while valued highly as suggested by the price people are willing to pay for it professionally, is no longer a criterion we gauge our friendships by. This puts more pressure on mates, who are as ill prepared and time crunched as everyone else. Many of my clients fight with their significant others more about communication or lack of it than about sex, money, or children. They have a hard time resolving day-to-day issues because they can’t find the time to talk to each other or don’t feel listened to, resulting in escalating arguments rather than solutions. Couples sometimes schedule with me as a way of carving out uninterrupted time to talk or to have a mediator who will keep them from hurting each other’s feelings. My work is about supporting a receptive environment where they can each listen better and can practice communicating sensitively. This takes practice—lots of practice—which we are increasingly deprived of in our culture. It isn’t just technology that is at cause; it is the dwindling social skills as a result of technology that hinder intimacy and friendships. It takes more than just time to be a good listener; it takes skill. One has to learn to focus one’s attention on someone else to discern and help with underlying feelings that might be too painful or embarrassing to reveal immediately. This can’t be done via text messaging or email. It is tricky enough to do on the phone when we can’t see someone’s face. Without practice or the expectation from one another that we provide this, we lose both the ability and the commitment to provide the glue that binds us as something more than acquaintances. How does technology affect our friendships and even our ability to know how to be a good friend? In the 1970’s my husband was on the baseball team at Stanford and when the team traveled to another university for a game, the guys spent their time on the bus talking together. About what? He doesn’t remember. But there was nothing else to do. Without ipods and laptops, these guys were forced to use each other to pass the time and build the camaraderie that cemented friendships he has to this day. He went back for a Stanford reunion last year and saw something that alarmed him: When the football team got off the bus, they weren’t talking or laughing; they were all plugged into ipods. None of them seemed connected with each other. He imagined they spent the entire duration of the trip alone in their own world of music rather than goofing around, strategizing, learning more about each other, in other words, creating bonds that would last beyond their time as college athletes. He felt saddened for them. How would kids from the suburbs and those from blighted urban areas bridge the gap among themselves if they didn’t find more common ground than what was underneath their feet during a game? If what used to be a natural alignment such as teammates can be broken by a pocket-sized white rectangle that isolates us in a bubble, how are we to reach out or be reached out to? Even taking the bus to work used to involve seeing the same people every day, affording us an opportunity to reach out to our neighbors and develop connections. Today, on a typical bus ride during commute hours, more than likely we will be on our cell phone or plunking at our laptop keyboard, using the bus as our mobile office. We’re working longer and harder and the price we pay is increased isolation. With online chat rooms and dating services, text messaging, and email, we can “exclude the wrong people” and avoid “wasting time.” But how many of us who are happy in a relationship would have picked our mates out of a line up? Did we really end up using the criteria we had in our minds or on paper? Does our partner really look or always behave like our wish list? Who are we overlooking by not taking the time to have a cup of coffee but instead choosing to not “wink” back at? What can we do about this trend? And do we want to do it? Is it simply more efficient to pay for therapy or coaching? The problem with relying solely on “professional friendship” is who is going to pick up your child from school because your boss wants you to stay late or the car breaks down? And unfortunately, you might be afraid to bother even those you consider friends if you haven’t taken the time to nurture these relationships. Needing something in an emergency becomes an embarrassment instead of part of the pact of friendship. But even beyond emergencies, we owe it to ourselves to have at least one or two people who are available to us without having to whip out our appointment calendars. It takes conscious effort these days. We live in suburbs where we may not be in walking distance to that special friend. We have jobs and chores and families that demand so much of our time and focus. But we need friendship perhaps today more than ever. Friendship, community, and intimacy require changing our routine, unplugging from the TV and computer, picking up the phone instead of emailing, having meals together regularly, even doing errands together. Most of all, we need to slow down long enough to listen. We will make these efforts when we remember that a true friend is both an investment and a treasure.