Human development and understanding ourselves contributes to new realities. The vastness of our human being is full of untold potential. Our capacities to feel, sense and know involve innate sense beyond the standard five recognized by science. Such documented events as Near Death Experiences, Astral travel, remote viewing and telekinesis all involve our greater human potentialities and are our human birthright.
Here is a list of 15 things which, if you give up on them, will make your life a lot easier and much, much happier. We hold on to so many things that cause us a great deal of pain, stress and suffering – and instead of letting them all go, instead of allowing ourselves to be stress free and happy – we cling on to them. Not anymore. Starting today we will give up on all those things that no longer serve us, and we will embrace change. Ready? Here we go:
1. Give up your need to always be right. There are so many of us who can’t stand the idea of being wrong – wanting to always be right – even at the risk of ending great relationships or causing a great deal of stress and pain, for us and for others. It’s just not worth it. Whenever you feel the ‘urgent’ need to jump into a fight over who is right and who is wrong, ask yourself this question: “Would I rather be right, or would I rather be kind?”Wayne Dyer. What difference will that make? Is your ego really that big?
2. Give up your need for control. Be willing to give up your need to always control everything that happens to you and around you – situations, events, people, etc. Whether they are loved ones, coworkers, or just strangers you meet on the street – just allow them to be. Allow everything and everyone to be just as they are and you will see how much better will that make you feel.
“By letting it go it all gets done. The world is won by those who let it go. But when you try and try. The world is beyond winning.” Lao Tzu
3. Give up on blame. Give up on your need to blame others for what you have or don’t have, for what you feel or don’t feel. Stop giving your powers away and start taking responsibility for your life.
4. Give up your self-defeating self-talk. Oh my. How many people are hurting themselves because of their negative, polluted and repetitive self-defeating mindset? Don’t believe everything that your mind is telling you – especially if it’s negative and self-defeating. You are better than that. “The mind is a superb instrument if used rightly. Used wrongly, however, it becomes very destructive.” Eckhart Tolle
5. Give up your limiting beliefs about what you can or cannot do, about what is possible or impossible. From now on, you are no longer going to allow your limiting beliefs to keep you stuck in the wrong place. Spread your wings and fly! “A belief is not an idea held by the mind, it is an idea that holds the mind” Elly Roselle
6. Give up complaining. Give up your constant need to complain about those many, many, maaany things – people, situations, events that make you unhappy, sad and depressed. Nobody can make you unhappy, no situation can make you sad or miserable unless you allow it to. It’s not the situation that triggers those feelings in you, but how you choose to look at it. Never underestimate the power of positive thinking.
7. Give up the luxury of criticism. Give up your need to criticize things, events or people that are different than you. We are all different, yet we are all the same. We all want to be happy, we all want to love and be loved and we all want to be understood. We all want something, and something is wished by us all.
8. Give up your need to impress others. Stop trying so hard to be something that you’re not just to make others like you. It doesn’t work this way. The moment you stop trying so hard to be something that you’re not, the moment you take of all your masks, the moment you accept and embrace the real you, you will find people will be drawn to you, effortlessly.
9. Give up your resistance to change. Change is good. Change will help you move from A to B. Change will help you make improvements in your life and also the lives of those around you. Follow your bliss, embrace change – don’t resist it. “Follow your bliss and the universe will open doors for you where there were only walls” Joseph Campbell
10. Give up labels. Stop labeling those things, people or events that you don’t understand as being weird or different and try opening your mind, little by little. Minds only work when open. “The highest form of ignorance is when you reject something you don’t know anything about.” Wayne Dyer
11. Give up on your fears. Fear is just an illusion, it doesn’t exist – you created it. It’s all in your mind. Correct the inside and the outside will fall into place.
“The only thing we have to fear, is fear itself.” Franklin D. Roosevelt
12. Give up your excuses. Send them packing and tell them they’re fired. You no longer need them. A lot of times we limit ourselves because of the many excuses we use. Instead of growing and working on improving ourselves and our lives, we get stuck, lying to ourselves, using all kind of excuses – excuses that 99.9% of the time are not even real.
13. Give up the past. I know, I know. It’s hard. Especially when the past looks so much better than the present and the future looks so frightening, but you have to take into consideration the fact that the present moment is all you have and all you will ever have. The past you are now longing for – the past that you are now dreaming about – was ignored by you when it was present. Stop deluding yourself. Be present in everything you do and enjoy life. After all life is a journey not a destination. Have a clear vision for the future, prepare yourself, but always be present in the now.
14. Give up attachment. This is a concept that, for most of us is so hard to grasp and I have to tell you that it was for me too, (it still is) but it’s not something impossible. You get better and better at with time and practice. The moment you detach yourself from all things, (and that doesn’t mean you give up your love for them – because love and attachment have nothing to do with one another, attachment comes from a place of fear, while love… well, real love is pure, kind, and self less, where there is love there can’t be fear, and because of that, attachment and love cannot coexist) you become so peaceful, so tolerant, so kind, and so serene. You will get to a place where you will be able to understand all things without even trying. A state beyond words.
15. Give up living your life to other people’s expectations. Way too many people are living a life that is not theirs to live. They live their lives according to what others think is best for them, they live their lives according to what their parents think is best for them, to what their friends, their enemies and their teachers, their government and the media think is best for them. They ignore their inner voice, that inner calling. They are so busy with pleasing everybody, with living up to other people’s expectations, that they lose control over their lives. They forget what makes them happy, what they want, what they need….and eventually they forget about themselves. You have one life – this one right now – you must live it, own it, and especially don’t let other people’s opinions distract you from your path.
http://worldobserveronline.com/2012/04/25/15-things-you-should-give-up-to-be-happy/#comments
Happiness comes from within. This is why, if you truly want to be happy, you need to work on yourself, first
22 Positive Habits of Happy People
What’s the secret to being happy? You can learn how to do it, just as you can learn any other skill. Those who are happy tend to follow a certain set of habits that create peace in their lives; if you learn to apply these habits in your own life, there’s a good chance you’ll be happy too.
The featured article compiled 22 such behaviors that you can use to enhance your life and your happiness:1
1. Let go of grudges
Forgiving and forgetting is necessary for your own happiness, as holding a grudge means you’re also holding onto resentment, anger, hurt and other negative emotions that are standing in the way of your own happiness. Letting go of a grudge frees you from negativity and allows more space for positive emotions to fill in.
2. Treat everyone with kindness
Kindness is not only contagious, it’s also proven to make you happier. When you’re kind to others, your brain produces feel-good hormones and neurotransmitters like serotonin and you’re able to build strong relationships with others, fostering positive feelings all around.
3. Regard your problems as challenges
Change your internal dialogue so that anytime you have a “problem” you view it as a challenge or a new opportunity to change your life for the better. Eliminate the word “problem” from your mind entirely.
4. Express gratitude for what you have
People who are thankful for what they have are better able to cope with stress, have more positive emotions, and are better able to reach their goals. The best way to harness the positive power of gratitude is to keep a gratitude journal or list, where you actively write down exactly what you’re grateful for each day. Doing so has been linked to happier moods, greater optimism and even better physical health.
5. Dream big
Go ahead and dream big, as you’ll be more likely to accomplish your goals. Rather than limiting yourself, when you dream big you’re opening your mind to a more optimistic, positive state where you have the power to achieve virtually anything you desire.
6. Don’t sweat the small stuff
If the issue you’re mad about will be irrelevant a year, a month, a week or even a day from now, why sweat it? Happy people know how to let life’s daily irritations roll off their back.
7. Speak well of others
It may be tempting to gather around the office water cooler to get and give the daily gossip, but talking negatively about others is like taking a bath in negative emotions; your body soaks them up. Instead, make it a point to only say positive, nice words about other people, and you’ll help foster more positive thinking in your own life as well.
8. Avoid making excuses
It’s easy to blame others for your life’s failures, but doing so means you’re unlikely to rise past them. Happy people take responsibility for their mistakes and missteps, then use the failure as an opportunity to change for the better.
9. Live in the present
Allow yourself to be immersed in whatever it is you’re doing right now, and take time to really be in the present moment. Avoid replaying past negative events in your head or worrying about the future; just savor what’s going on in your life now.
10. Wake up at the same time every morning
Getting up at the same time every day (preferably an early time) is deceptively simple. Doing so will help regulate your circadian rhythm so you’ll have an easier time waking and likely feel more energized. Plus, the habit of rising early every day is one shared by many successful people, as it enhances your productivity and focus.
11. Don’t compare yourself to others
Your life is unique, so don’t measure your own worth by comparing yourself to those around you. Even regarding yourself as better than your peers is detrimental to your happiness, as you’re fostering judgmental feelings and an unhealthy sense of superiority. Measure your own success based on your progress alone, not that of others.
12. Surround yourself with positive people
The saying “misery loves company” is entirely true. That’s why you need to choose friends who are optimistic and happy themselves, as you will be surrounded with positive energy.
13. Realize that you don’t need others’ approval
It’s important to follow your own dreams and desires without letting naysayers stand in your way. It’s fine to seek others’ opinions, but happy people stay true to their own hearts and don’t get bogged down with the need for outside approval.
14. Take time to listen
Listening helps you soak in the wisdom of others and allows you to quiet your own mind at the same time. Intense listening can help you feel content while helping you gain different perspectives.
15. Nurture social relationships
Positive social relationships are a key to happiness, so be sure you make time to visit with friends, family and your significant other.
16. Meditate
Meditation helps you keep your mind focused, calms your nerves and supports inner peace. Research shows it can even lead to physical changes in your brain that make you happier.
17. Eat well
What you eat directly impacts your mood and energy levels in both the short and long term. Whereas eating right can prime your body and brain to be in a focused, happy state, eating processed junk foods will leave you sluggish and prone to chronic disease. My free nutrition plan is an excellent tool to help you choose the best foods for both physical and emotional wellness.
18. Exercise
Exercise boosts levels of health-promoting brain chemicals like serotonin, dopamine, and norepinephrine, which may help buffer some of the effects of stress and also relieve some symptoms of depression. Rather than viewing exercise as a medical tool to lose weight, prevent disease, and live longer – all benefits that occur in the future – try viewing exercise as a daily tool to immediately enhance your frame of mind, reduce stress and feel happier.
19. Live minimally
Clutter has a way of sucking the energy right out of you and replacing it with feelings of chaos. Clutter is an often-unrecognized source of stress that prompts feelings of anxiety, frustration, distraction and even guilt, so give your home and office a clutter makeover, purging it of the excess papers, files, knick knacks and other “stuff” that not only takes up space in your physical environment, but also in your mind.
20. Be honest
Every time you lie, your stress levels are likely to increase and your self-esteem will crumble just a little bit more. Plus, if others find out you’re a liar it will damage your personal and professional relationships. Telling the truth, on the other hand, boosts your mental health and allows others to build trust in you.
21. Establish personal control
Avoid letting other people dictate the way you live. Instead, establish personal control in your life that allows you to fulfill your own goals and dreams, as well as a great sense of personal self-worth.
22. Accept what cannot be changed
Everything in your life is not going to be perfect, and that’s perfectly all right. Happy people learn to accept injustices and setbacks in their life that they cannot change, and instead put their energy on changing what they can control for the better.
A Healthy Lifestyle Naturally Enhances Happiness
You may have noticed that some of the habits of happy people are one in the same with those that are essential for leading a healthy lifestyle – exercising and eating right, for example. Once you adopt a happiness mindset, and even before you do, embracing healthy habits will help keep your mood elevated naturally even in the midst of stress. Happy people tend to behealthy people, and vice versa, so in addition to healthy food and exercise, the following lifestyle strategies can also help to support emotional wellness:
· Proper sleep: Sleep deprivation is linked to psychiatric disorders such as anxiety and bipolar depression, while getting the right amount of sleep has been linked to positive personality characteristics such as optimism and greater self-esteem, as well as a greater ability to solve difficult problems.2
· Animal-based omega-3 fats: Low concentrations of the omega-3 fats EPA and DHA are known to increase your risk for mood swings and mood disorders. Those suffering from depression have been found to have lower levels of omega-3 in their blood, compared to non-depressed individuals. Krill oil is my preferred source of omega-3 fats.
· Regular sun exposure: This is essential for vitamin D production, low levels of which are linked to depression. But even beyond vitamin D, regular safe sun exposure is known to enhance mood and energy through the release of endorphins.
· Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT): If difficult life circumstances and the negative emotions they create are making happiness hard to come by, try EFT, which is a form of do-it-yourself psychological acupressure. This simple technique can help clear your body and mind of negative emotions so you can implement positive goals and habits more easily in your life.
From: http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2013/04/08/22-happy-habits.aspx?e_cid=20130408_DNL_art_2&utm_source=dnl&utm_medium=email&utm_content=art2&utm_campaign=20130408ProdTest2
We are the music makers,
You, the young people of the world, are the movers and shakers, the music makers—the most privileged people who ever walked the Earth. For the first time in history, one generation—your generation—holds the key to the greatest challenge our species has faced since it proudly named itself homo sapiens. This is the challenge of change—of profound, timely, and conscious change.
I met Debbie Ford back in the day, when self-help books and spiritual workshops were just hitting their stride in American culture. Back then, most of the authors and teachers who came to Omega were teaching spiritual techniques for rising above the problems of the world, transcending the messiness, embracing silence, and inner peace.Then there was Debbie! She marched to the beat of a different drummer, and I knew the minute I read her work that hers was the beat to follow. She believed, as did Carl Jung, that the first order of business on the spiritual path is to turn around and face your shadow—your darker impulses, your secrets, your insecurities and imperfections.
Yes, Debbie was all about joy and success and love, but she was also all about the nitty-gritty of being human. Here was this beautiful, original, brave young woman, talking honestly about her less-than-perfect qualities, and encouraging others to face their own shadow.
"Many of us are frightened to look within ourselves,” she said, “and fear has us put up walls so thick we no longer remember who we really are. By choosing not to allow parts of ourselves to exist, we are forced to expend huge amounts of psychic energy to keep them beneath the surface.”
She assured her students that inner peace and transformation were waiting for us, when we used that same psychic energy to look within, take responsibility for our lives, heal our wounded places, and celebrate our gifts. She called this the shadow process.
So many of Omega’s students thank us for the time they spent with Debbie in workshops and professional trainings. Ultimately, I believe that a world full of people who have turned around and faced their shadow will be a better world, a compassionate world. As Debbie said, "For when I can love all of me, I will love all of you."
Rest in peace and joy, Debbie. We love you.
Dear Friends,
My beautiful, brilliant and very brave sister Debbie Ford made her transition Sunday night into the waiting arms of her ancestors and guardian angels.
She told Brian and me that she was tired and ready to go. She had accomplished her mission, even though she would have liked more time with her son Beau, her family, her devoted Julie, her gazillion friends and many beloved co-workers and community members.
Debbie wasn't just my little sister. She was my friend, teacher, biggest supporter, and sometimes unmanageable client. (She was always stubborn which served her well these past two and half years when she defied the odds of cancer. I'll never forget the day one doctor told her in September 2010 to get her affairs in order because she was ready for hospice. She told him to F-off, that there was no way she was dying.)
If I had to choose just one word to describe her I would say that first and foremost Debbie was a seeker.
In her teens and twenties, she was seeking excitement, parties, wild adventure and of course shopping.
In her thirties she began seeking to understand the mind, body, spirit connection in order to heal herself of addiction.
She was simultaneously committed to discovering her own spirituality while gaining a college degree in transpersonal psychology as she sought more and more understanding of herself, the divine, and the world. Debbie also earned two honorary doctorate degrees for her contributions to the field.
From her forties and beyond, she devoted herself to teaching and sharing her own powerful process of healing while always seeking new, deeper paths to wholeness.
Debbie innovated groundbreaking work around the human shadow and grew into her role as a teacher, sharing her insightful shadow work through her many books, lectures, workshops, coaching programs, TV and radio shows, and even a movie -- helping hundreds of thousands around the world transform their pain into "their best life." Debbie helped so many people go beyond their limited perspective of themselves and reconnect to the love, joy, and peace of their true selves.
Her legacy and work will live on through the programs she developed and through her loving and devoted staff at The Ford Institute for Transformational Training and her worldwide network of Integrative Coaches.
Debbie was also a giver. Her generosity is legendary and one of her proudest accomplishments was assisting Beau with his Bar Mitzvah project to build a school in rural Uganda. Through her Collective Heart Foundation in partnership with the Just Like My Child Foundation, several important programs to help women and children are now thriving including a Girl Power project. You can support this by visiting www.TheCollectiveHeart.org.
If you would like to post your memories and stories about Debbie, prayers for Debbie, or messages for the family, please share at RememberingDebbieFord.com
The staff of The Ford Institute for Transformational Training have planned a special Community Call about Debbie's passing on Monday February 25th at 5:00 PM Pacific/8:00 PM Eastern. Come to the call to connect, to share, and to begin to integrate this experience of loss. To register for your own personalized dial-in number and PIN or to register to receive a recording of the call, please register http://evolvingwisdom.com/artoflove2/event/#debbie-ford-seminar.
As a tribute and to honor Debbie, I've decided to make her seminar for The Art of Love Relationship Series available for people to listen to at no cost for the rest of the series. It was her last public dialogue, and it was so powerful that I really want everyone to be able to listen to it who might want to. You can listen to "The Shadow Side of Love: Finding the Beauty and Perfection in Imperfection" by clicking here.
Thank you for the ways you inspired my sister every day with stories of your own transformation. Debbie shared on her final Hay House Radio show last December that 2012 had been the best year of her life. I know there would be no better tribute to her than you having the best year of your life this year.
Love,
Arielle
Debbie Ford, 57, the bestselling author and teacher known for her work in helping people break free of their emotional baggage and fears, died on Sunday, February 17, 2013 in her home in San Diego, Calif. She was surrounded by friends and family who gathered around her to lovingly send her off to her next journey.Those of us who knew her, or were in some measure touched by her work, remember her as a physically tiny person who was a huge force of nature – dynamic, passionate, engaging, fearless, funny as all hell, and the person who always delivered laser sharp insights meant to help you grow, whether they were comfortable or not.
“From the time she was a little girl, Debbie was one of those people who had a strong mind of her own, and did things on her own terms and that is how she lived,” says her sister, Arielle Ford. “And she was always so funny! Even up to the end, she had us laughing. She leaves us with such an impressive body of work. We know that her contributions will live on through the millions of people she has touched with her books and teachings, and the thousands she has trained in her work.”
Considered a thought leader for her generation, Debbie burst onto the scene with her first book, The Dark Side of the Light Chasers, in 1998, showing the world that even loving and self-aware people have a darker side. She took readers on a journey of identifying, facing, and embracing their shadow selves. Her Shadow Process Workshop became the foundation of her work in nearly two decades to follow. She penned nine best-selling books and was working on her 10th book at the time of her death. Her books are translated into over 20 languages and have sold millions of copies.
She was a popular media guest, with many stints on “The Oprah Winfrey Show,” as well as appearances on “Larry King LIVE!,” “Good Morning America,” and “Fox News.” She also hosted a weekly radio program on HayHouseRadio.com. Having overcome a drug addiction, a difficult divorce, a heartbreaking betrayal, and many hard knocks in the University of Life, Debbie was never shy about sharing her personal story. In fact she often mused, with a laugh and a roll of her eyes, that a great deal of her wisdom and insight came through her own difficult life experiences. Even when faced with a grave cancer diagnosis, she opted for courageously sharing her journey. In an interview with Oprah Winfrey on OWN in 2012, she revealed the news about her difficult, yet often miraculous, dance with incurable cancer. She also shared her journey in her most recent book, Courage.
Debbie's books are still considered pioneering work in the world of emotional and spiritual education. They include: The Dark Side of the Light Chasers (1998); Spiritual Divorce: Divorce as a Catalyst for an Extraordinary Life (2001); The Secret of the Shadow: The Power of Owning Your Story (2002); The Right Questions: Ten Essential Questions To Guide You To An Extraordinary Life (2004); The Best Year of Your Life: Dream It, Plan It, Live It (2005); Why Good People Do Bad Things: How to Stop Being Your Own Worst Enemy (2008); The 21-Day Consciousness Cleanse: A Breakthrough Program for Connecting Your Soul’s Deepest Purpose (2009); The Shadow Effect: Illuminating the Hidden Power of Your True Self which she wrote with Deepak Chopra and Marianne Williamson (2010); and Courage: Overcoming Fear and Igniting Self-Confidence (2012).
Early in her career, Debbie realized that one of her gifts was to bring large groups of people through the transformational process. To facilitate this work, she founded the The Ford Institute for Transformational Training and began to train others in her process. She trained thousands of transformational life coaches around the world to utilize her innovative coaching models, tools, techniques and processes to support others in healing their hearts, clarifying their goals, creating lives beyond the limitations of their old beliefs and behaviors, and embracing and integrating their whole selves. Her quick wit, ability to stand strong in the presence of human pain and suffering, and true belief that we are all encoded with the ability to serve others and love ourselves gained her the admiration and support of the greatest spiritual teachers of our time. She was known for her straight talking, honest approach to helping others heal their own self-hatred and release self-criticisms with forgiveness.
“It's easy to love yourself when you feel good enough, when you feel special enough, when you're loved enough, when you have enough money, and you're appreciated,” she told me in a 2010 interview. “But what about loving yourself when you're crying and you're in pain, feeling powerless and hopeless; when you feel like a reject and nobody loves you? That is what shadow work demands from you. That you embrace those parts of you that you have deemed inappropriate or wrong. Maybe you've decided that you're not lovable. Well, you know what? You're both – you're unlovable and you are lovable. And they both need equal time. We were birthed with one soul to take care of, and we must take care of it.”
Debbie believed wholeheartedly in the soul. She would often say, “The evolution of one’s own soul is a process. It’s not a quick fix. It’s not a five-day workshop. It’s a lifetime process where we let go, discover and then allow for futures to come into existence.”
She felt that acknowledging the mountains that stand in our way will create a path to freedom. “One of the biggest diseases of our time is people pleasing,” she said. “People saying 'yes' when they mean 'no.' Then they feel resentful. They can't actually go about and meet their own soul's vision because they're too busy working on all these other people, or staying nice, or just thinking that they won't be loved or they won't belong if they're not pleasing somebody else. When people start doing shadow work they often say: 'I can't say no to my mother because I don't want to be a bad daughter.' 'I can't say no to my husband because then he won't love me.' ““Or, 'I can't say no to my kids and set a boundary because then I'll be a bad mother.' The more we identify these things, then the more we realize it is related to something we were shamed for – such as selfishness. That's a quality that most people hate about themselves. They don't want to be selfish. But any quality that we make wrong or judge becomes part of the shadow – and becomes our nemesis.”
She made it her mission, day after day, to inspire people. She believed one of her greatest gifts was to help others accept their flawed and scared selves and to help them to embrace and even celebrate their shadow selves. She once described the shadow as "the parts of ourselves that we hide, deny, or suppress. There are parts of ourselves that we are unaware of or we're in denial of or the parts of ourselves that we don't like, that we feel ashamed of or embarrassed by, that we suppress. We spend our time, sometimes knowingly, sometimes unknowingly, hiding them."
"In trying to express only those aspects of ourselves that we believe will guarantee us the acceptance of others, we suppress some of our most valuable features and sentence ourselves to a life of reenacting the same drama with the same outworn script," Debbie told me. "Reclaiming the parts of ourselves that we have relegated to the shadow is the most reliable path to actualizing our human potential. Once befriended, our shadow becomes a divine map that reconnects us to the life we were meant to live and the people we were meant to be. We do have to, ultimately, bring the shadow out of the shadows and bring the light to it.”
Philanthropy: Giving Back
In 2008, Debbie founded The Collective Heart, a nonprofit organization with the mission to encourage people to make a difference in the lives of others, especially children. Inspired by Oprah's commitment to educate girls and at the urging of her friend Vivian Glyck, founder of the Just Like My Child Foundation, Debbie and her son Beau committed to building the first "Children's Academy for the Collective Heart" in rural Uganda. With contributions from around the world, the first school was built, and began educating students in the spring of 2009. Since its inception, the Collective Heart has raised over $350,000, and provided the resources and provisions for six primary schools to be built in two African nations – five schools in Uganda and one in Kenya – that will empower thousands of children over the next 20 years with the lifelong gift of an education. In her latest endeavor, Debbie helped inspire her community to raise $100,000 in support of The Girl Power Project, a dynamic year-long leadership training for adolescent girls in Uganda.
Education
Debbie earned her Master's Degree in Psychology with an emphasis in consciousness studies from JFK University, and in 2001 received the Alumni of the Year Award for her outstanding contribution in the fields of psychology and spirituality. In 2003 she was awarded an honorary Doctorate from Emerson University, and in 2004 she received an honorary Doctorate of Humane Letters from the John F. Kennedy University Board of Regents.
Here is my interview with Debbie Ford, Deepak Chopra and Marianne Williamson:
Dim lights
Jeane Haner teaches: Wisdom of Your Face -
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You’ve probably experienced it in any number of ways: A client is a nightmare to deal with; a neighbor is making your life miserable; or that new employee turns out to have an entirely different personality than in their job interview!
Or especially at this time of year, it may be that relative who spoils the family gathering for everyone else. The “difficult person” can show up anywhere and send your stress-o-meter off the charts!
Imagine if you could not only spot a difficult person as soon as they walked in the room but also anticipate the trouble that walked in with them?! You may not be able to avoid the person, but what if you could know how to avoid the stress they’d normally cause you?
Here are a few examples for how to spot a difficult person, and ways you can stay balanced and not get caught up in their issues!
The Drama Queen
This woman’s enormous eyes, with the whites visible under her irises, combined with her full lips, slightly upturned upper lip and diamond-shaped face all conspire to show you a woman whose emotions are close to the surface and will frequently spill over into your life!
Her feelings are far too easily hurt, and she’ll be sure to let you know when this happens. She’ll unconsciously seek drama in life, take everything you say personally, and if she’s not frequently assured how loveable she is, she may eventually have a meltdown.
This is actually a woman with a hugely open heart and who’s always looking for ways to both give and receive love. But a heart this open is a vulnerable heart and it can be hard for her to keep boundaries around her feelings.
Here’s how to deal with someone like this: Be realistic! If there’s a crisis, she should be the last person you turn to for help or action. Don’t expect her to be logical - Expect her to be emotional and appreciate that. Show her she’s special and loveable and she’ll love you back - forever!
The Winner
Here we see a woman with a strong brow bone, which indicates someone who can behave aggressively. This can mean she’ll be very successful in her career, but it can interfere with everyday relationships.
For instance, even in a casual interaction at a party, you might find that she turns a normal conversation into an argument that she has to win.
She may try to one-up you about her career achievements or her best time completing a marathon. Your mild comment like, “Nice place you’ve got here” will cause her to challenge you: “How do you know? You’ve only seen this living room!”
Here’s the way to deal with someone like this: Let them win. This is someone who needs to feel in charge, and always believes they’re right. If you challenge what they’re saying, you’ll be giving them what they love the most – a good fight! “You may be right,” is a comment that’ll get you off the hook and give them nothing to fight about.
The Victim
This woman’s face shows patterns of disappointment and negative thinking that have gotten stuck in her system. Her downturned mouth, her heavy squared jaw, the wrinkles around her mouth, and the horizontal lines across the bridge of her nose all convey this strong message.
If this is your family member, you may find her judgmental and overbearing as she tries to tell you the right way to do everything. Someone like this often feels deeply unappreciated, and even like a victim who feels everyone’s taken advantage of her over the years.
This is actually a sign of a woman who in her heart wants to help others. But she’s stuck telling herself a story that all her help goes unrecognized and over time, she can become full of self-pity and end up angry and resentful.
Here’s the way to deal with someone like this: Thank them. And then thank them some more. They may be a bit of a bulldozer about telling you what to do and how to do it, but rather than resist, shower them with gratitude and talk about how generous they are. They actually are very generous people and it’s what they’re so hungry to hear. Then they may relax and back off as a result!
And have you ever considered that some other people may judge YOU as a difficult person? There may be ways your natural behavior rubs them the wrong way, and this can create unnecessary conflict or discomfort.
Often, the real issue is just how stuck any of us is in our own personality – our own thick layers of perception and belief; the patterns of emotion and behavior that can keep us from understanding others’ needs and points of view.
You actually can get so stuck because you hold so much negative self-judgment, it sets your system off balance. You regain your balanced self only when you can relax into the truth of who you are.
When you can see yourself clearly, with love and acceptance, you bring a spacious presence to the world and that alone can allow even the most difficult of people to transform into a pussycat!
This is one of the most valuable things you’ll learn when you come to a workshop – just how perfect and beautiful and right you really are, and how you can help others to feel the same. Have a look at next year’s flyers to learn more!
This lovely video of Eckhart Tolle answering a question on stopping the mind -
seems he is in a lovely state.
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