WISH Radio: Straight Talk for Women's Health

[New Year, New You] Day 21: If Life is a Game, Here Are the Rules

Life is a game. Unfortunately, it's a game that has become so steeped in confusion and seriousness that few people even realize they're playing a game anymore. It's as if we all started playing a game of Monopoly, but then instead of being the player, we started to believe we were the pawn.  When we get stuck on the "jail" square, or experience other losses and difficulties, we forget that it's just a game--that we can just wait our turn and roll the dice and hope for another chance around the board.

Life calls to us to roll the dice, every day. Every day there is a new sun that rises and a fresh start to begin again. Every hour the hands of the clock make another spin of the dial. In an ideal situation, you continue to improve your ability, responsibility and influence over life. The more you know, the better life gets. 

Each moment, when we choose to allow it, is another opportunity for us to press the reset button and start again with more hope and a sense of adventure, keeping our eyes on our goals.

How much fun would a game of "Snakes and Ladders" be if there were no snakes? Who would bother playing soccer if there was no opponent? In overcoming the obstacles that stand between us and our goals, we can have a spirit of adventure and play much like we would in playing any game.

Life's obstacles have become overwhelming because of the degree of confusion and misinformation that has prevented us from understanding the rules of the game, or identifying a clearly defined playing field on which to play. So in the interests of creating a great new adventure and overcoming life's obstacles with more confidence, I'd like to introduce you to a few elements of the game of life, so we can get busy playing!

You can catch the full blog post here. 

[New Year, New You] Day 20: How to Take Up More Space

Life is either expanding and improving, or declining. There are no flat lines in life until we're dead. As soon as things are flat and unchanged, they are beginning to decline and fall apart. Since the time you came into the world, you've been accumulating wisdom and experience. As your body grew, you gained strength and physical ability. It's perfectly acceptable to assume that with new wisdom and experience life should improve--things should get better and you should become more competent.

A well-known and almost overused quote by Marianne Williamson comes to mind, though I'd like to take it a bit further than most do and offer an explanation for why this quote may be true:

"Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our Light, not our Darkness, that most frightens us."

-Marianne Williamson

When you were young, chances were good you acted without hesitation. You weren't afraid to speak your mind, run without wondering how you looked and declare even your wildest dreams to be certainties about your future.

Then, under some of the unkind pressures of life, you, a droplet capable of great influence, started to question your ability to influence and create a positive effect on life. You may have learned through others around you (those who did not have your best intentions at heart and who likely were under an unbearable burden of their own confusion) that you were too loud, too ugly, too messy, too stupid, or any number of other disqualifying features. Maybe as you aged and acquired more confusions, you started to make mistakes and act in error. You caused problems for yourself and other people.

The more you started to doubt yourself, regret your decisions or create problems by acting in error, the more you held yourself back from causing harm. It's as if our failures and frustrations cause us to question who we are--we act less, think and worry more, and do our best to hold ourselves back from the flow of life to avoid causing more problems. This behaviour is the FUNDAMENTAL REASON people withdraw from life--we doubt ourselves and fear causing more harm and so withdraw and limit our influence rather than extend it.

Out of confusion, we create problems. Then, having created problems that don't align with who we know we are capable of being, lacking the tools to understand why and with no support to help us clear up the confusions and resolve the problems, we begin to withhold ourselves from life. We create illness, failures and other "reasons" to take ourselves down. It is for this reason that we do not shove someone who is struggling further down the chute with punishment or blame. It will only push people further away from life and create a decline for ourselves in the process.

You can read the rest of the blog here.

[New Year, New You] Day 19: The Power of Personal Integrity

The way our modern society is organized, it is very easy to believe that the most valuable skills are those that involve a high capacity for traditional learning and knowledge. The "thinking" professions of medicine, pharmaceuticals, law, accounting, etc., are the most consistently high paying professions. Many professionals in the arts (music, drawing, painting, etc.) have a reputation for being "starving artists."  There are only a small percentage of artists who achieve significant financial success, never mind make a comfortable living at it, compared to the number of lawyers, doctors and accountants who consistently pull in the big bucks for what they do.

"Thinking" is the state of being most highly rewarded socially and financially, and it's pounded into us for at least 12 years of the standard education most children receive. But it is not the most rewarding state of being, nor the most influential for improving your overall health, happiness, confidence and prosperity in life.

In fact, it is the least important and should receive the smallest amount of your time and attention compared with other, far more life-altering, confidence-boosting states of being, like certainty, self-confidence, the ability to trust your own perceptions, observations, and the ability to make decisions and to trust the decisions you make. When it comes to being alive and feeling alive, trusting your gut and having the courage to stand by your convictions is more important than just about any other thing you do in life.

"To be beautiful means to be yourself. You don't need to be accepted by others. You need to accept yourself." ― Thich Nhat Hanh What The Heck is "Personal Integrity" Anyway?

You could lose all your money, lose all your personal possessions, your income and friends and even your relationships, and if that happened, you would still be left with the primary foundation of your life--your relationship with yourself--your confidence, your certainty, your ability to stay true to your values, goals and beliefs. If you have that, nothing can hold you back from making life go right and from feeling alive, no matter where you are, no matter what you're trying to achieve.

I understand "personal integrity" as having the courage to be YOU--to say what you honestly believe and observe to be true, even when you are afraid of punishment or rejection. It's being willing to hold your own ideas, state your goals and personal views and "take up space" as you are for who you are. This website defines "personal integrity" as the quality of being honest with yourself and others, and living a life that is aligned with your moral principles.

Personal integrity is knowing what you know, trusting what you know and having the courage to stay true to those observations in spite of pressure to do otherwise. And any time you compromised your own personal integrity, you broke trust with yourself and began to doubt yourself and your decisions.

Self-confidence has everything to do with trusting yourself and trusting your decisions.

You can read the rest of the blog post here! 

 

[New Year, New You] Day 18: How to Find More Love When You Need It

If it's true that problems have solutions, that the difficulties in our relationships and personal situations can be solved, then we owe it to ourselves, and to life, to maintain a certain degree of interest and commitment directed toward the resolution of our problems, especially with other people.

It appears that the firecracker part of life is trying to improve, to produce and contribute in order to rise above the noise and that where life is stuck or struggling, there is more likely a heavy burden of confusion and overwhelm than there is the possibility that there are any "bad people."

Where life flows easily and smoothly, there's is understanding and a high degree of admiration--a sense of closeness to others, to your environment.  Where there is struggle and sickness and strife, life gets stuck and we are far better investigating what we may not fully understand with the hope of finding some information that helps us get perspective, rather than risk kicking already overwhelmed people further down the chute of life.

Easier said than done, though, so this blog post should help you out a bit!

[New Year, New You] Day 17: How to Overcome Overwhelm

We're nearing the end of our 21-Day New Year, New You Challenge! The last two posts were pretty juicy and action-packed, so I thought this one might be coming at the right time. It's easy to feel burdened by things to do, and overwhelmed with everything on our plates. Our reactions to this sense of things "slipping out of control" or "being too much to handle" can vary, but feel something like standing in the middle of a heavy storm with things moving all around, but you don't know how to grab on or where to start.

Once you know this simple fact, you've got the first and most important piece of information you need to handle any amount of confusion or overwhelm! Whether you're trying to handle yourself, or trying to help another person you care for, this blog article has some powerful basics for lifting people up from the bottom of the bucket so they can get perspective and get life back on track.

A Little Disclaimer

First of all, I would like to make it clear that I am not a trained or licensed therapist, psychologist or medical doctor. This information is not intended to replace qualified health care practitioners. However, should you choose to consult "qualified" health care advice, you should know the following;

• There are no biological markers to determine the presence of most psychiatric conditions.
• No psychiatrist or mental health care practitioner has ever claimed to understand the "cause" of depression or most psychiatric conditions.
• No psychiatrist or mental health care practitioner has ever offered a "cure" for such conditions.

What many mental health care practitioners have done is silence the symptoms and remove the burden that depressed, anxious, bipolar, schizophrenic, etc. people have become to the rational-minded people around them.

This "silencing of the symptoms" has taken the form of the form of straight jackets, electroconvulsive shock and other acts that can only be considered human butchery. Even the head of the task force assigned to create psychiatry's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (their catalogued list of "illnesses") has now revolted against the system and denounced what he considers the "medicalization of normal."

Direct-to-consumer advertising has contributed to a whopping $76 billion annually in antidepressant sales, and they are now being prescribed by general practitioners, and even osteopaths for everything from diabetes, heart disease, non-specific pain symptoms, anxiety, panic, obsessive compulsive conditions and even eating disorders! There's a much better way to address problems of mental overwhelm, confusion and high stress. Let's take a look:

What Overwhelm Feels Like

My husband tells a great story about his flight years in the military. The "Hercules" is an aircraft used by the Royal Air Force, and named after the famous Greek guy. ;-) It carries about 100 passengers or three land rovers and is often used to transport cargo, passengers or both. Craig was doing regular flights from UAE (United Arab Emirates) into Baghdad and Iraq at the time of this event.

Because the aircraft was sometimes fired at from surface to air missiles, and because these missiles worked on tracking the heat of engines, their plan was to put the engines to idle up at 20,000 ft, make up a random pattern each day (that they made up every day at the time so as not to be written, tracked or predictable) then spiral down in different places to land in different spots on the runway, and avoid being easy targets for gunfire. The pilots found this a lot of fun, because they got to throw the big aircraft around with steep banks, curves, dives, etc. and all in the dark with the lights off!!  There was also the added challenge that you couldn't use the engines, you had to glide in.

One time, just after landing, Craig walked back down the aircraft from the cockpit, feeling triumphant and excited to have saved the day and safely landed, and saw that a whole lot of his passengers (soldiers who were being shipped in for duty in Iraq) had thrown up all over themselves or peed their pants. Then he realized it was probably not as exhilarating for them and a whole lot scarier and a much more difficult ride being in the back of the aircraft. This made him stop and realize that even though they were in all in the same aircraft doing the same things, because Craig could see what was going on and knew what to do and had a lot of control over the situation, he LOVED it and found it totally fun. For his passengers, who couldn't see what was going on, didn't know what was happening and didn't have any control of the situation, it was scary, confusing and even sickening.

From the front of the aircraft, where you can see, predict and understand what will be happening, the ride can be fantastic. And yet, if you're in the back of the aircraft--where you can't see, cannot predict or know what to expect, you can easily end up hurling all over yourself.

That's a lot how life looks when we fail to have good control over our lives. This can even happen by failing to be properly informed and supported by our loved ones through transitions and everyday experiences, even from the time we came into the world! We can easily feel stuck in the back of the aircraft--confused, disoriented and out of control. (I believe this, is one of the biggest reasons children act out in protest against our ineffective leadership and control. This is part of the reason for spilled milk, feverish nights and unpredictable temper tantrums. The more you work to consistently and predictably inform your children of what to expect, and the more you keep good control of your life's aircraft and navigate with your attention on where you're going, the better things will go.)

You can read the rest of this blog here!

[New Year, New You] Day 16: How to Spot Your Enemies

Being a good, kind person, you might assume that everyone else is, too. But chances are good that you've already experienced a person or two along the path of your own live who appeared to have been working against you. If you've ever had accidents, injuries, illness, or struggled with self-confidence, that you have met or been very connected to someone whose intentions seemed that they were not in your best interest.

We've discussed that it's very hard to change the things you're not willing to comfortably face, and we've also looked at the fact that sometimes the reasons we cannot face things comfortably are because we don't fully understand them, or because your attention is stuck in past failures, losses and disappointments.

Another reason that some situations are difficult to handle is because you don't see them as they really are--you see what you want to see, NOT what's actually there. It's very important to listen to people's words and understand their intentions. Sometimes wolves do hide in sheep's clothing, and not being able to spot one can have dangerous consequences for you health, happiness and overall well-being in life!

You can read the rest of this blog here. 

[New Year, New You] Day 15: How to Pick Your Friends

You can pretty much count on the fact that sun will come up over the horizon in the morning, and that gravity will pull dropped objects to the earth, etc.. This offers a certain sense of stability and predictability in life, and we like that. Which is why one of the most challenging obstacles we have to overcome in life is the fact that we have been given very few tools to understand or navigate the wildly unpredictable, surprisingly volatile, hotbed of human emotion–our relationships with other people.

While we're all built pretty much the same way mechanically speaking, we don't all have the same amount of spiritual "fuel" in our livingness tank and so we're all going to face obstacles and challenges in life with varying degrees of persistence, courage and certainty.

One of the biggest frustrations in relationships comes from the disappointment of realizing that other people do not respond to circumstances or situations as we might have hoped. Maybe our kids aren't as productive or honest as we expect, our spouses may not be as attentive to our needs as we want, maybe there's a friend who doesn't take as much responsibility for her mistakes as you think she should.

What if you could predict, with the help of a few little tricks, exactly how your friends, children, spouse, coworkers and even employers would behave? And use that information to pick winners every time? This blog post will help!

 

You Are a Like An Antenna

When I tried to explain to my kids why things like personal integrity and values are more important than the material possessions in life, I told them, "You are like an antenna… an antenna that puts out a frequency based upon what you decide you are committed to being, doing and having in life. And the quality of the people you meet, the experiences you have and even your personal belongings, will all be determined to a very large degree by the frequency you put out into the world. I explain it a little better on the podcast here.

The more you are being true to yourself and your goals, the more you'll be doing the things it honestly takes to reach those goals, the more you'll be having the things you most want and feel good about in life. So why can't everyone just get on the work hard and stay happy bandwagon and make their lives amazing?

There is a reason:

Life can dish out some uncomfortable experiences and these can knock a person down, reduce the amount of "fuel" in the spiritual tank they have to face life's challenges and obstacles with. Any situation where you felt your goals, ideas, beliefs or your character (your unique way of being) came under attack could have contributed to lowering the amount of fuel in your tank. If you often found yourself in situations where you didn't know how to be yourself, or you didn't feel you could stay true to your dreams and goals without receiving a great deal of criticism or encountering big difficulties from someone else around you would have been like a big, fat leak in your energetic boat!

You can read the full article on the blog here.

[New Year, New You] Day 14: How to Lose Your Need to Be Liked

We've been talking about how to peel back the layers of misinformation, opinion, and burning hot lies you've been fed and led to believe over the years about the way life works and what you're capable of, so we can help you find your rebel spirit--the feisty firecracker that's been burning inside of you since Day 1! When you follow the mob, or go with the flow, being careful not to ruffle feathers or rock boats, you can find yourself one day stuck in a socially acceptable spiritual straight jacket. It's not even very easy to recognize your goals and dreams anymore, or identify your real passions and interests. And if  you do, then when it comes time to express them in life to other people, or actually do something about it, you feel frozen and petrified. It's like you're standing there with a match in your hand, but too afraid to light the spark of that inner firecracker and let her take up space for fear of offending someone, or being rejected.

Remember earlier in this series, when I talked about sex, chocolate and sunsets? I shared the one thing they all have in common, and explained that this "thing" was sensation--the flutter of energy moving through, on or around you. Sensation is the big spiritual pay check in life, it's why we do things. It is the thrill of adventure! If sensations were like gemstones, then admiration would be diamonds. It's the most valuable sensation and the one people are most willing to "pay" for with their time, attention, and self-sacrifice of various kinds.

And yet, one of the tricky things about being liked, or receiving admiration, is that the more you want it and need it, the less of it you'll get. And any time you changed yourself or sacrificed your goals and values so someone else would "like" you more, you got yourself into a bit of a mess. This article explains how to get out of the trap of needing to be liked, so you can finally start truly liking yourself and loving your life!

You can read the rest of the blog to accompany this podcast here.

[New Year, New You] Day 13: How to Find Your Rebel Spirit

In yesterday's blog post I wrote about how other people's ideas, comments and behaviour can influence how you view the world--sometimes without your even realizing it. I mentioned the idea of the "dusty puppets" in your personal psychodrama as these shadows of the people who have been there and passed along their ideas or behaviours to you and that with so many of these influencing you in any given moment, sometimes it can be hard to figure out which ones are really you. What are the goals you have because you "think you're supposed to" and what are the goals you have because that's what you, as a spiritual firecracker, actually yearn for?

The pressure to fit in and follow the rules can be all-consuming. It's much easier to be socially acceptable than to feel like there's something about you other people don't like or can't readily accept. But finding your rebel spirit--your personal goals, aspirations, beliefs, values and ideas that you are willing to hold in spite of any pressure or rejection--that's one of the most important things you'll ever do.

At the end of your days, if you haven't found that, who have you lived your life for?

"If you don't design your own life plan, chances are you'll fall into someone else's plan. And guess what they have planned for you? Not much." -Jim Rohn

Social Veneer: The Thick, Sticky Layer of B.S. Coating Real Life

Tomorrow's podcast and blog lesson will be doozies, so I encourage you to stay tuned for that one, but leading up to it I want to explore first this idea of "social veneer" - the thick and sticky coating on life that tells you how to act, dress, talk, walk and engage in life so as to be socially acceptable to other people. Social veneer is what prevents people from rocking boats, ruffling feathers or being "confrontational." But social veneer is also what has prevented people for many years from understanding the earth wasn't flat and not all women are witches!

While there are wild, brave and beautiful exceptions to the rule, for many of us, it feels easy to follow the crowd and fit in. It feels easy to eat your Wheaties and pass your tests in class. It's easy to buckle down and shut up and do what you're told because everybody likes you that way and being liked feels good. It certainly makes life easier for everyone else around you when you don't fiddle in class, make noise in public, or talk about the wild and unreasonable things you want to do with your life.

But it's a slow road to spiritual death and the greatest ideas, the most earth-shaking realizations and mind-boggling discoveries never came from a "mob" of socially compliant robots, they came from one brave, person who was willing to see things outside of the box--someone who dared to defy "the way things are" and actually change them!

"If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses." ― Henry Ford

You can access the rest of the blog post to accompany this podcast here.

[New Year, New You] Day 12: Believe What You See, Not What They Say

The entire conventional education system operates on the assumption that you will dutifully swallow the information you are given, accept it as truth, then regurgitate it politely and perfectly at a specified date and time on test day. And after an average of twelve years of daily practice drilling this technique in place, it's no wonder we tend to believe the things we're told without questioning them, or considering whether it's important and valuable to.

 We're cruising along at top speed during our 21-Day New Year, New You Challenge, and if you're still here tuning in and showing up, then you are a rare breed of rebel--someone ready for the article I'm about to share with you.

 

You can read the rest of the article to accompany this podcast here.