Bev Baker's Blog, page 8

What is Love…?

What is love

I have been thinking about this crazy little thing called love for a while. What does it mean to say “I love you”? I decided to ask my husband “What is love”

“Ahhh” he replied….the Latinos always put the romantic slant on things…”love is many splendid things”. What does that even mean? He could offer me no more.

I took my question to the hairdressers. Surely there would be someone who could give me an answer. I asked my hairdresser. She didn’t know. She asked a ‘flighty gal’ who was dating 2 guys at the same time. She should know but she didn’t. She called 1 of the men in question. He didn’t know that he was on loud speaker…and so I cannot repeat what he said in mixed company. There was a salon full of women waiting with baited breath for his answer. He went into a spiel about love being ‘unconditional’. The disappointment on our faces was visible. She hung up on him but not before muttering “I’ll deal with you later”.

My hairdresser having got the bit between her teeth…asked her boss. She of Somalian origin could have insights that I had not thought about. She went into monologue about ‘wanting to love’ but she couldn’t love because her partner was a dirt bag …she said this:

“If he cheats on you what can you do…?”

If he tells you lies what you going to do…?”

If he doesn’t tell you anything what you going to do…?

None of us had the answer to her questions so we collapsed into laughter instead. We alternated between silence and laughter until the next client arrived.

It started something like this…”I have a question for you… I hope you do not mind … but we are all interested to know…what love is”. At which point the person would go into shock.

The facial expression would be the same …I imagine …if you had asked “Did you have a bowel movement this morning”?

The funniest response of them all was a woman who came in only to enquire how much it would cost to have her eyebrows done.

“Eyebrow threading £4.50 …What is Love?”

“What is love”?

“Yes what is love”?

“Excuse me I don’t understand the question”

“What… is love”?

“I don’t know….what a weird question… I’ll let you know when I come back for my eyebrows”…and she was gone! I don’t know if she ever returned.

Now I have been going to my hairdresser for about 5 years and I know her very well. I knew her cunny plan. She was prolonging the discussion…for one reason and one reason only…she wanted to wait until it was a reasonable time so that she could phone her man in New York to ask him. As soon as the clock stuck 11.30 am London time she called him.

“What is love”?

For some reason whenever this question is asked the receiver has to repeat the question at least 4 times. So we went through the ritual. In this guy’s case it at least 9 times. He then preceded to say that love was her body and personality. It was a little too Barry White for a Saturday morning but ‘hey’ no one was leaving. She was giggling like chipmunk (don’t ask?) He had obviously passed the test. He knew he was doing well so he went in for the kill….”love is 90% personality and 40% sex”. I don’t think maths was his strong point.

I walked home and pondered the question for my 10,000 steps. What is love? Where do our ideas of love come from? Our parents. The movies. Fairy tales. Wherever our ideas comes from…there is something not quite right. Everyone… if we are honest is looking for true love but if it is impossible to define how will you know it when you see it. How do you know that it isn’t already here…right under your nose… If we are looking for the fairy tale romance or the movie boy meets girl scenario we are probably going to have a very disappointing love life.

So perhaps I should rethink the question. I want something beyond the of the top of the head explanation. There must be more…

What is it like to be in love?

Being in love cannot be described by mere words.

There are no words to describe the rainbow burst of emotions you feel when you are in love. The love is all consuming. You want to hear, touch, taste, feel and smell the person all at once. Day and night. It is madness. It is obsession. You can’t sleep. You can’t eat. You can’t think straight. They heighten your experiences because all the emotions come together and create the synergist emotion called love. Anything and everything reminds you of the other person. You memorise everything and play it back in your head savouring… repeating and rewinding…so that you can wring every last piece of joy and happiness out of the moments you share.

Can you feel love?

Oh yes!

The love bug gives you a rush of hormones that puts you on your very own natural high. An endorphins, dopamine, serotonin and oxytocin cocktail floods your body so hard you do not know what hit you…boosting your immune system…making you feel as if you could conquer the world…making you feel positive about everything….making you feel very smug about yourself. Love is the drug and everyone wants to score!

Love is like catching a bug…and wishing for all your life that you never find the cure!
Why do we crave love?

We crave love because we are social animals.

We need to find someone to share our lives with. It is a lonely world and it feels good to know that there is someone who cares about you. Someone to whom you are significant. To whom you concern. They care when you sleep or whether you have eaten. We crave that feeling of someone paying attention to the things we care about. The feeling of sharing moments, dreams and experiences gives us connectedness. It enhances the moments and deepens the memories. It is only through loving and hopefully being loved in return in equal measure that we get to experience life. If you do not love then you do not get to live.

What happens when the love goes?

Love can be replaced by many things

Couples can be heard saying ‘I love them but I am not in love with them’. The spark has gone. Love becomes routine. Love is familiarity. Love is safety. Love is dependency. Love is indifference. Love is convenience. Love is order. Love is neglected. Love is assumed. Love seldom gets to be the focus. Love gets no nourishment. Love has left the building and love is a past tense.

Watch a couple who have been together way too long. They have a symbiotic relationship like the Oxpecker and the hippo or the whale and barnacles. Both function alongside each other, parallel lives…passing on the stairs. Both getting something from the relationship…enough not to leave and not enough to care.

Why do we fear love?

We fear it because we cannot control it.

We have no control or power over who we fall in love with and neither can we make another person love us. We are at the mercy of love. Because in order to love we have to do the one thing we have been designed not to do. That is to be vulnerable. Survival is in our DNA. We know instinctively that only the strong survive. So we put up walls, barriers and make conditions. We protect ourselves from the thing we desire the most.

To know love is to know:

• The fear of losing one’s self into another person.

• The fear of losing control and being made to look ridiculous

• The other person has the power to annihilate us.

• The responsibility of caring for someone more than you care for yourself.

• To love someone more than the air that you breath.

• The constant fear that something will happen to them. You might lose them or someone might take them.

• To submit. To surrender. To be vulnerable.

When you surrender to love it is a form of dying. It is the death of your preconceived ideas of love. The fairy tales. The movies. The media. Your folks. Your friends. Your circumstances. Your culture. Your language. Your beliefs. You die and you are born again in the person you love. You give your heart and you hope beyond hope that they will be kind.

Can you change the person you love?

Why would you want to?

If you want to change someone that you love what is it and who was it that you fell in love with in the first place? When you love another everything changes. But the idea that you can change the other person…never works. Because as soon as you think about changing another person into what you want them to be…you have declared that your way of being is better than theirs and so you have placed yourself in superior role. Superiority is not a good basis for love. The other person instinctively picks up on this and resists. When they don’t change this leads to all sorts of resentment.

Is love hard work

Oh yes!

I have heard it said on many occasions that love is hard work. How hard can it be? If you have to work at love then how can it be love? When you love someone there are angels singing and lots of wine…right? Actually it is a lot of hard work. But the work is on you. You see you cannot know yourself by yourself…you can only know yourself in the context of someone else. You get to know yourself in the reflection of the other. They annoy you…why do they annoy you…you get to find out what annoyance is to you and therefore you get to know yourself a little more. …if you are smart you will learn from it…you will communicate … you both work at it and grow…together!

All you need is love

…yes …but…

You are not supposed to fall in love with your so called ‘soul mate’. You are supposed to fall in love with someone who challenges you. You are supposed to experience every emotion known to man and women with that person. Hate. Jealousy. Anger. Warmth. Passion. Love is an emotions fest. It’s like going to a music festival. When you are in love you get down and dirty, you get wild and free and little mad. You see sides of each other doing crazy things that you would rather not see… but it bonds you. You sing in and out of tune. You dance in and out of steps… yet…always at each other’s side. I have found this to be true….when you love someone you let them be. You love them in spite of the fact that they drive you crazy and nobody in your circle understands their antics….because you know that life without them would be a whole lot crazier and not in a good way…You love them despite the fact that they do the stupidest things because without them you do not want to do anything at all. You love them because you see beyond them…you see their soul and to you it is beautiful.

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20 years experience….Consultant and Trainer to large companies including Microsoft and Intel…Subscribe and every 7 – 10 days you will receives… career coaching… life skills and professional advise…from me…Bev

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What is Love…

I have been thinking about this crazy little thing called love for a while. What does it mean to say “I love you”? I decided to ask my husband “What is love” “Ahhh” he replied….the Latinos always put the romantic slant on things…”love is many splendid things”. What does that even mean? He could offer […]

HOW TO DEVELOP CONFIDENCE ONCE AND FOR ALL: PART TWO

#confidence#personal development#emotional intelligence#the self

If you are serious about developing confidence, being happy and living your life to the full…there is one key element you must address. You. Commonly known as the self. Before we delve into the self …let’s send a moment recapping on what we talked about in How To Develop Confidence once and for all: part one. http://bevbakerseminars.com/blog/?p=284

In that post I explained that most people’s definition of confidence is unhelpful and misleading. Most people dream about what they will be able to do when they get this ‘thing’ called confidence rather than ask the question: ‘What is confidence and what do I need to do to get it?”

If you have a fuzzy interpretation of confidence this will lead you into all sorts of trouble. If you think that confidence is outside of yourself or something that others have and not you… this can lead to a life time of disappointment and misery.

The starting point

• When you decide that you have the right to be confident and happy.

• When you decide you deserve to be confident.

• When you decide to ‘remember yourself’ in everything that you say and do.

Once you have made these decisions… your confidence has a solid foundation on which to grow.

More about confidence

The idea that you have no confidence is the beast you keep feeding….and it simply is not true. If you had no confidence… how come you have a job/got an education/live somewhere/have friends…You have confidence you’ve been looking for it in all the wrong places that all. If you can sustain a job, choose something to wear in the morning and cross the road without getting run over…you have enough confidence to work on…so all is not lost! Now it’s time to turn up the gas on your confidence levels.

In order to develop confidence you need to get your house in order. Confidence is what the world gets to see when you have done the work on yourself. The foundations of confidence is an inside job.

The foundations of confidence

Defining yourself

When you suffer from a lack of confidence somewhere along the way someone tells you that “You need to believe in yourself more”. Here in lies the problem. Who is the ‘self ‘that you’re supposed to believe in’? Most of your upbringing was about being selfless and not focussing on your needs at all. How do you go about believing in yourself?

“What is the self?” “What do you think?” How do you describe yourself after you have said your name and a few other bits and pieces? I am not being rude but I am 100% sure you don’t know who you are. Don’t worry you are not alone…

The self is that which separates you from other people. You have skin which stops all of your insides from spilling all over the place. The self is the ‘skin of the mind’ if you will…which is supposed to stop your thoughts running into other people’s thoughts. You watch a film with friends. Each of you has an unique opinion about the film. The unique opinion come from you because you are an individual. What would the world be like if we all thought the same? How boring. The fact that you think… and what you think is different is part of life rich tapestry. You are supposed to be different. You were not put on this planet to morph into other people… or be a mini me… or be a clone of someone else. You need to be seen and heard. You have unique way of seeing the world. People need to know. No one can see the world like you because they are not you. They were not raised by the same parents, they didn’t go to the same school…they didn’t have the same challenges. In other words your life is not their story to define or have an opinion about. They were not there. They do not get to have an opinion. That’s your job! The only duty you have to yourself is to define who you are.

Now, in order to truly define the self. You need to balance and get 3 main elements right. The self-image; the ideal self and self-esteem. All of these elements work together to form the self. You! If one of these is ‘out’ you will not develop sustainable and healthy confidence.

Ideal self

Your ideal self is the person you want to be. Smarter. Thinner. Richer Sexier. A healthy ideal self means that you have something to strive towards. If the ideal self gets out of control it means that you set goals for yourself which are unobtainable. Your dreams have to be realistic. I am 1’53cm in my bare feet… it is no good me having a dream to be taller it isn’t going to happen. Similarly I may have a dream to be a millionaire…it could happen (here’s hoping) but it isn’t going to happen if I sit at home watching the Kardashians all day long.

Self-image

Your self-image is how you see yourself. What you see when you look in the mirror or how you define yourself. Are you smart? Are you good-looking? Are you kind? The point is what do you see when you look in the mirror?

Self esteem

Self-esteem is the evaluation or the price you put on your self-image. Is it good or is it bad? Self-esteem is what you think about yourself deep down. It is the element that can build you up like a nourishment or it is the part of you that can do serious damage. Low self-esteem is a form of self-harm. What’s more… it is relentless. If you suffer from this condition it means that you do not like yourself.

In the beginning

Believe me; when you were a baby you were born with all the self-esteem you needed to propel you into life. You had to push through to learn 2 big feats of childhood…learning to walk and learning to talk. You used all your wits to figure them out. You made mistakes. You’re supposed to…that’s how you learn. Life doesn’t come with a manual. You fell flat on your butt. Literally. At that time you had the guts and the determination to succeed. You fell you got up…You fell you got up. So when did it happen that you fell and you didn’t get up. When did it happen that you made a mistake and you didn’t learn from it…when did your mistakes define you?

When the elements are out of balance…you

• Get to live the life of a victim.

• Never see the good in yourself.

• Beat yourself up on a regular basis.

• Never realise your potential. You go at things half-heartedly because you do not believe that you deserve to succeed. If you succeed you put it down to being a fluke.

• Never give yourself credit for anything.

• Undermine your achievements.

• Your default emotions are embarrassment/ shame/ guilt/ fear and anger

• When people compliment you… you think they are doing it to be kind/they feel sorry for you /they want something/ their standards are low/ they are plain crazy.

• Dumb down so as not to draw attention to yourself.

• Live with ‘confidence draining harpies’ in your head that talk to you about how stupid/useless/ridiculous you are.

All in all you get to live a miserable life!

When you define who you are…this happens

• People know exactly where they stand with you. They do not step over the boundaries that you have set for yourself. They know they can’t take liberties.

• People will be drawn to you because they know that what they see is what they get.

• People have the opportunity to learn from your story. Your point of view is just as valid as the next person.

• People will blossom in your company because by being yourself…and staying true to yourself you give them permission to be themselves.

You get to live an authentic and happy life.

Readjusting the elements

What you need to do is readjust the elements. When each element is in balance they interlock and create synergy. This is the solid foundation that is necessary for your confidence to show up. Most important these elements are what is necessary for sustainable confidence. This mean that no matter what comes your way…no matter what the worlds throws at you…you will be fine…and you know it. That is what believing in yourself is all about.

• Assess apects of your life. Choose one thing to upgrade in each category. Make the adjustement very small. Keep going over the categories…tweeking…inventing…defining… adjusting refining. Have fun.

The aspects to look at are:

a. health and fitness… body size and shape.

b. mental agility and ability to learn

c. emotional intelligence

d. finanacial security

e. great relationships wit family an friends.

f. spiritual vibes

g. career aspirations

• When you achieve something…you must celebrate. This is feedback to the elements that you succeeded. They love feedback!

• If you want to change something about yourself. Make a plan. Make it real. Make it specific. The magic is in the detail.

• When you set your goals put a date against them. Focussing your mind on your goals is a good thing and the elements love it.

• When you achieve a goal no matter how small it is important to reflect on what it is that you achieved. This may seem like bragging and yes it is..but come on if you can not bragg to yourself for few minutes what is the point of doing anything. Spend a couple of minutes a day telling yourself how pretty darn smart you. Your systems need positive feedback in order to continue. By telling yourself good things about yourself you strengthen the wonderful relaionship between ideal self… self image self esteem. They in turn create the solid foundation necessary for confidence to develop and grow. They creat a circle of excellence and the circle is you.

Good Luck!

Suscribe and get: How To Develop Confidence once and for all: part one. http://bevbakerseminars.com/blog/?p=284

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20 years experience….Consultant and Trainer to large companies including Microsoft and Intel…Subscribe and every 7 – 10 days you will receives… career coaching… life skills and professional advise…from me…Bev

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Your email:

 

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 Do Well!!

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 Want to read more…order my books on Amazon.

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bev@bevbakerseminars.com

How To Develop Confidence Once And For All: Part One

#Confidence#personal development#emotional intelligence

How to develop confidence is a tricky one. Everyone wants more confidence. In this age of consumerism we should be able to buy it somewhere online…but we can’t. Everyone wants more of it. What is this thing that we crave? The folks that have it seem to be having all the fun. They get the good jobs, seize the moment and win the day. On top of it all…they are happy! That’s it…if we had more confidence we would be more successful and happy. So our lack of confidence gets the blame for all the ills in our lives.

Let’s look at little closer.

What do you think confidence is? What is your definition? Who said that having more confidence will make your life a happy ever after story? Excuse me I didn’t get that memo. Who said that some people are entitled to it and others are not? Yes… being confident can give you great results. But …and it’s a big ‘but’…you have to fight for it…and…you have to want it…you have to think yourself worthy of a better life. Confidence isn’t going to come your way unless you work at it…and work hard. The question is…are you prepared to put yourself first? Are you prepared to work on yourself to get all that you deserve? The difference between people who have confidence and those that do not is… that the ones who have it are willing to put up a fight for it.

What is confidence?

There are lots of definitions of confidence banded about and most of them are unhelpful. The common definition is that notion that confidence is the ‘absence of self-doubt or fear’. That simply is not true. Confident people are fearful and doubt themselves most of the time but instead of turning away from that which makes them fearful, they face it and embrace it. They feel the fear and they do whatever they have to do… regardless! If we support the common definitions out there it causes us to believe that the people with confidence do not have issues or they have some sort of super power. Again this is not true. The confident person is an everyday person like you and I.

To me confidence is a decision. It is the decision to ‘remember’ yourself in everything you do. You put yourself first. You put yourself forward. You honour yourself….that is not to say that you tread on others…quite the contrary…having confidence is extending the respect you so readily give to others to yourself. Confidence is being kind to yourself first and foremost. You do not undermine yourself and you certainly sabotage yourself.

You are confident when you declare to the world this is me… this what I do this is what I believe in…and that’s it! You decide that you are not on this planet to make everyone else’s life a reality to fit in with everyone’s plans on how you live your life at the expense of your own desires. A confident person doesn’t have the ‘disease to please’ others or is overly concerned with what other people think of them. What other people think of you is none of your business. All you have to know is what you think about you. You do not fit in… you do not comply…you do not conform. Those days are gone. There is no over thinking or second guessing. Confidence is the faith that whatever you do will be fine…why? Because your best friend in all the world, the number one on whom you can depend and the one that will never let you down… is …you! It’s always been you actually!

How we lose it…a typical scenario

When you were a baby you had no concept of yourself. You were defined by all the adults around who had their version of what smart, beautiful and good was. If you didn’t measure up against their standards you were made to feel inadequate. Over time you started to believe these inadequacies to be true. You buried the true essence of you along with your potential inside of you. Now here is the rub…when all the adult stopped telling you about your short comings…who do you think took over from them…you! You became your own worst critic. You’re the one that keeps up the steady flow of self ridicule, reproach and reprisal. Once you get through all the self-criticism you repeat to yourself on a daily basis…isn’t it any wonder you have no energy left to do anything.

Where did it go?

Actually your confidence hasn’t gone anywhere. It is lying dormant inside you waiting for you to show up.

The 7 Confidence killers

• Measuring yourself against others.

• Thinking that anyone’s opinions views are better than yours

• Worrying about what other people think of you.

• Not being good enough

• Being a perfectionist

• Being lazy

• Being a victim

All of the above kill what little confidence you may have stone dead. Thinking any of the above is tantamount to wearing a large badge for the world to see which states: “I do not like myself and you can use and abuse me if you like” People will never treat you better than how you treat yourself. You’re the one that sets the standards. If they see that you lack confidence in yourself then they will treat you accordingly. If you come across like a door mat…they will treat you like a door mat. If you make yourself available to be kicked, disregarded and disrespected they will do that too. Oh and for the record people do not like hanging around with people who lack confidence …it makes them feel on edge. Let me put it this way…. if you were to take a trip on a plane…which pilot would you prefer…The one who is cool, calm and collected or the one that is nervous and jumpy?

What the lack of confidence does for you

The answer is absolutely nothing! You have heard I am sure of the people who report of having ‘a near death experience’ well if you lack confidence what you have is a ‘near life experience’. An existence of nearly realising your potential or following your dreams. The worst thing of all is to live a life full of regrets and ‘if only’. Lacking confidence means that you ‘sit out’ your life. You are a bystander in your own life. That can’t be any fun at all!

The 7 habits of confident people

If you watch very carefully you will notice that all confident people have certain habits in common. They pull it out of the bag when it’s necessary.

1. Determination

2. Resourcefulness

3. Courage

4. Positive mental attitude

5. Resilience

6. Decisive

7. A heathy relationship with making mistakes

Building a solid foundation…from scratch

Many would say that confidence is simply a matter of believing in yourself and this is true in part but it is by no means the full story.

You see…it is near impossible to believe in yourself when you don’t know who you are. Neither can you believe in yourself when who you really are has been eradicated to fit in with other people’s concept of who you could be.

In other words who is the self that you are supposed to believe in? In order to develop confidence therefore it is necessary to define and redefine yourself. Confidence is more about believing in your right to be confidence.

You have to be willing to go on a journey of self-discovery and analysis. You need to learn to believe in yourself but first you have to examine that which you are.

The 7 Questions to ask

1. Who are you? (A clue: You are not your job…nor the roles you have…nor the things you possess).

2. What’s important to you in your life (A clue: Why do you get out of bed in the mornings and why do you do the things you do?)

3. List 7 thing that you believe in (A clue: What do you believe about yourself? Who told you to these things? Are these beliefs about you still true today?)

4. Who are you in relationship to all the people in my life? (A clue: You have to figure out if the people in your life are on your side or are they are just contributing to the drama called ‘no confidence’

5. What is your purpose it life (A clue: In an idea world what you be doing/where would you be and with whom?)

6. What makes you happy (A clue: When do you feel the most happy/when was the last time you were happy

7. In what way do you take care of myself? (A clue: How do you take care of your body your mind and your soul?)

So have a go at these questions. They are not easy I know but it is important to you to keep asking and answering.

This, is the first of a series of blogs I am going to post in the future ‘How to develop your confidence once and for all’. Each post will build on the previous one and in total will give you all you need to develop your confidence, realise your potential and live your life as you want to.

Subscribing might just change your life!

If you like what you read and you want more…then press the little button and subscribe…subscribers get it first, fast and furious and sometimes thy get little something fabulous as a thank you from me!

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20 years experience….Consultant and Trainer to large companies including Microsoft and Intel…Subscribe and every 7 – 10 days you will receives… career coaching… life skills and professional advise…from me…Bev

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 Do Well!!

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bev@bevbakerseminars.com

Forgiving is an act of kindness…. To yourself!

#forgiveness#emotional intelligence#personal growth#persoanl freedom.

What does it mean to forgive? What does it take to truly forgive when someone does you wrong? There is a cliché that people trot out from time to time which really annoys me. They say:

“I’ll forgive but I won’t forget”. What a dumb statement!

It is a cliché. It rolls of the tongue. But what does it even mean? Do the people who say it… say it to feel superior? Smug. Do they think that they are doing the other person a favour?

Let’s stop and analyse the cliché.

If you don’t forget them how on earth can you forgive? Every time you see the person or remember the deed, the whole thing comes up again to haunt you. The inability to forget gets in the way of your emotional intelligence and your emotional health. Because if you cannot forget what someone did to you…it is tantamount to telling the world that you live squarely in the past. If you can’t forget, and this is the essential part of the forgiveness equation then you haven’t forgiven anything or anyone.

This cliché needs to be dumped because it serves no purpose whatsoever other than to raise your defences… and pull up the draw bridge on your emotions. The people you encounter never get the real deal or the best of you. What they get is a person who is cautious and protected. If you do not forgive and forget then you walk around in fear that someone could hurt you again and so you don’t allow people to get too close. You carry people’s wrong doings from the past in a big emotional suitcase and you carry it everywhere you go. You ever trust or take people at their word. You are always waiting to see if they’ll mess up.

People are people and if there is one thing we are good at doing…it is messing up. I prefer to believe that people do not mess up intentionally. Seldom do people set out to hurt others. It happens! Shit happens! We are making life up as we go along. We do not come with a user manual. If you are waiting for people to make mistakes as sure as ‘eggs is eggs’ it will happen and if you are unable to forgive and forget all you get to do is haul around a big emotional suitcase on your shoulders. Excess baggage.

Why it’s hard to forgive and forget?

There are a 3 main reasons…

1. When someone has done something to you. You feel bad because the relationship that you thought you had with the person wasn’t what you thought it was. You suffer loss for what might have been and can no longer be. You feel disappointed in yourself for being suckered and you feel disappointed in the other person for letting you down.

2. You think the person will get the better of you. You don’t want to let them off the hook. You partially let them off the hook…but not quite… and you get to demonstrate how magnanimous you are.

But you never quite let it go because as soon as there is a whiff of misconduct you are at hand to drudge up all the ill doings from the past. Your anger is barely under the surface all you need is a little provocation and off you go again… like a broken record. What you are actually saying is that it isn’t over. The main reason why you do this is to reset the balance of power and control. Without forgetting… the forgiveness will never happen and so the relationship withers and die.

3. We find it difficult to forgive because of our egos. That voice inside our heads goes over the wrong doings over and over again. Our ego tells us not to be a pushover or weak, so we come out with nonsense about the other person and the situation. We are outraged. Shocked. Indignant. Insulted… these emotions are the work of the ego!

This story sums up all there is about forgiveness

There was a mother whose son was killed by a gangster on the streets. When the gangster was convicted she stood up in court and said “I am going to kill you”. She started to visit the gangster boy every week. At first he was very wary of her. She talked to him. She read to him and over time she educated him. When he was released she was waiting from him at the prison gates. She took him in. On day she sat him down and asked if he remembered the day when in court she said that she was going to kill him. He replied that he did. She told him that she had forgiven him the moment she had met him. He had taken her son’s live and she was dammed if he was doing to take hers. She decided that she was going to kill the ‘gangster’ in him. She asked him then, if he would be her son as she had lost hers. And he said “Yes”!

If this mother had not chosen to forgive and forget her life would have stopped the day her son’s had.

Why you should learn to forgive and forget…

Forgiveness is all about you and the way that you chose to live your life…and that is a life which is light with no excess emotional baggage. Actually the whole point of forgiveness is so that you can free yourself and move on. Forgiveness has nothing to do with the other person and everything to do with you. Forgiveness and forgetting doesn’t mean condoning what happened. It is not a sign of weakness on the contrary it is a sign of great strength, humility and empathy. To forgive and forget is an act of kindness to yourself and is a deep process of the heart. There is loads of evidence to suggest that forgiveness boasts your immune system and is good for your emotional wellbeing. Forgiving and forgetting is emotional intelligence.

Principles of forgiveness

Forgiving is not about overlooking or accepting what happened. It is about dealing with what happened in a skilful way. This means facing what happened with mindfulness. Working it through in every sense so that it releases its hold on you.

In reality non-forgiveness does damage to you and nobody else. Let’s face it in a many cases the person who has offended you is probably walking around and getting on with their lives, completely oblivious to the fact that you are hardening our own arteries with resentment or sticking metaphorical pins into effigies of them. When someone has done something to you it sets of all sorts of stress signals in our system. The body acts as if it is in real danger. Every time you see that person you get a rush of adrenalin. The brain alerts the body to watch out. The mind reminds the body what happened and to look for signs for betrayal. All the emotions associated with the event come flooding back and puts you in an emotional head lock. Commonly known as a double bind.

Get your attitude right

• Decide that no one can take away your joy unless you let them. It is your moral obligation to be joyful.

• Understand that forgiveness and forgetting is a process. It is an act that is easier said than done. You’ll probably need a few stabs at it before you can really say that you have forgiven and forgotten.

• Realise that forgiveness, forgetting and empathy go hand in hand. People make mistakes. According to my knowledge none of us have been here before. We’re making it up as we go alone. We all make mistakes. We all do things unwittingly. If you put yourselves in the other person’s shoes for a second and empathise, then it is easier to forgive.

How to forgiveness

1. Start of small. Think of someone who has done you wrong. Let’s say the person who stepped on your toe and didn’t say sorry or the person who cut in front of you at the traffic lights the other day. Think about what happen…who did what…and now decide to forgive the person. How does it feel? If you have really forgiven then you will feel a shift in your body. If you have really forgiven then you then you will not be able to remember the details of what happened and when. You have removed it from your psyche and you are prepared to move on.

Now you can move on to something a little bigger. Forgive a work colleague. Forgive your parents. Forgive a lover. Notice were you get stuck. Notice if when you say “I forgive you” if you mean it or not… or do the words sound hollow. If you get stuck it doesn’t matter. Think about what being stuck is doing for you. Are you massaging your ego? Are you being superior or are you being self-righteous, are you he victim or just plain pig headed. Take your time and chip away at it and one day you will be free and healthier.

2. Take responsibility and take the opportunity to face the person who has done you wrong to let them know exactly what they did and how what they did offended or upset you. Instead of hoping that the person get struck by lightning or that bad karma comes their way… face them and deal with it. Own up to your feelings and let them know. Letting people know how you feel is the only way they will know. If you say nothing, they may live under the illusion that what they did didn’t affect you. Which of course leaves you wide open for them to do it again. Sometimes is may not be feasible for you to face the person. It doesn’t matter do the forgiveness in your head. Look in the mirror and talk to the person as if they were right there in front of you. In doing this, you exorcise the grudge and the negativity associated with the incident. Eventually you release the energy necessary to forgive and forget.

Final word

You will know when you have processed what has happened to you well enough and you will know when it is time to move on. When there is no more hurt or pain and you actually feel a push away from the situation…just like the feeling you get when you push a door open. When you push open a heavy door it needs a bit of effort on your part, but once you apply the effort the door gives way. You walk through the open door you let the door close gently behind you. That is what forgiving and forgetting feels like…

The beautiful picture is by the artist Alexander Milor f/b the Idealist who work depicts this very topic.

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Forgiveness

#forgiveness#emotional intelligence#personal growth#persoanl freedom. What does it mean to forgive? What does it take to truly forgive when someone does you wrong? There is a cliché that people trot out from time to time which really annoys me. They say: Read More…

Could you be Bear Grylls’ survivor?

There is something about Bear Grylls that everyone loves. If you are going to be stranded in the wilderness you want Bear Grylls at your side. He is the guy that slays snakes, guts them and then urinates into the skin to drink later. He is the modern day superhero, the intrepid explorer and all round nice guy that everyone can relate to. Grylls has 2 programs on British TV at the moment. In each he is looking for a person who can conquer their fears, find out what they are made off and show him that they could be his survivor. According to Grylls the biggest test is not strength or youth …it is what goes on between your ears and behind your eyes. Each week contestants are given tasks and challenges and the one that doesn’t quite have what Grylls is looking for is sent packing. What we love about the program is that it causes us to wonder… from the safety of our sofas…if we could survive. What would be the thing that causes us to crack and scream for our mums? For me it would be the sight of a snake. But what about you? Could you drink your own urine? Could you eat road kill or wiggling bugs? Could you abseil down a shear rock face?

One of the things I love to do is design exercises for training courses. So I have designed an exercise to see how you would fair out in the wilderness and to see if you could be Bear Grylls’ survivor.

Picture the scene

You have been airdropped in the African bush. The terrain is treacherous and dangerous. There are wild beasts such as lions, hippos and rhinos to contend with. The waters are murky and home to bull sharks, crocodiles and snakes. The trees host deadly berries. The rocks are slippery and as sharp as knives underfoot. The weather is stifling hot during the day and freezing cold in the night.

Bear is waiting for you on the shores of the Indian Ocean. He has supplied you with a few basics. Knife. Plastic sheet. Kindle to make fire. A canteen of water. Rope. A few bits to eat that will last you a couple of days.

Bears message to you…

“I will wait for you on the shores of the Indian Ocean for 10 days only after that time I will assume that you are dead and did not survive. If you are going to make it you will need to make some very good choices. There are 4 things I look for in a survivor:

1. Resourcefulness…the ability to use what you can find around you…

2. Courage to face and go beyond your fears…

3. Positive mental attitude…that get up and go attitude is the most powerful tool you need in the wilderness.

4. Determination never to give up…

I hope to see you in 10 days…good luck!”

There are 11 multiply choice questions. Choose the one that is as close to what you would do in the situation. Every question that you get right gives you 1 more night in the jungle and 1 day closer to Bear.

Could you survive are you the survivor Bear is looking for?
Let’s begin…

1 You are in snake country. Your best option to avoid snakes is to:

a) Make a lot of noise with your feet

b) Walk softly and tiptoe around

c) Travel at night

d) Try to catch a snake so that you can urinate in it and show Bear your skills

2. You are hungry. You see some berries on a tree: You

a) Eat anything that you see the birds eating

b) Eat anything except those that look a little weird to you

Place any berry on your lower lip and wait for about 5 minutes. If it seems aright then try a little more

3. The day is excruciatingly hot. You have a full canteen of water that Bear supplied you with. It’s about a litre and it will not last long in this heat. You:

a) Ration yourself by drinking a cupful a day

b) Drink as much as you need when you need it

c) Not drink anything at all

4. You must get across a fast flowing river. It has a strong current and large rocks underfoot. You carefully select a crossing spot where the water is not so fast. You:

a) Leave your boots and backpack on

b) Take your boots and backpack off

c) Take off your backpack but leave your boots on

5 You decide to walk out of the bush by following a series of ravines were water is available. It is night time and you need to pitch up for the night. You pitch your camp:

a) Next to the water supply in the ravine

b) Midway up a slope

c) High up on a ridge

6. You hear an animal in the bush near your camp. You:

a. Make a lot of noise to scare the animal away

b. Stay quiet and hope they move on

c. Go and investigate.

7. There is nothing to drink apart from dirty stagnant water: You

a. Leave it

b. Drink it and hope for the best

c. Use a tube and give yourself a rectal hydration

8. You have come across a body of water full of fish. You have to catch a fish otherwise you will go hungry for yet another night. You:

a) Try to net a fish with your plastic

b) Wade into the water and corral the fish into a corner and then spear a fish with your knife.

c) Try to spear a fish with a makeshift piece of stick.

9. You find yourself rimrocked. This means your only route is up. The rocks are slippery and mossy. You attempt it:

a) In your socks

b) Barefoot

c) With your boots on

10. Unarmed and unsuspecting you come across a huge gorilla. You:

a) Run

b) Climb a tree

c) Freeze but be ready to back away

11. You can see Bear but he cannot see you. You have no signalling equipment. The best way to grab his attention is:

a) Call ‘help’ in a low and strong voice

b) Scream and shout

c) Whistle loudly and shrilly

The answers

1:a) 2:c) 3:b) 4:a) 5:b) 6:a) 7 : c) 8:b) 9:a) 10:c) 11:a)

Add up your score…..
The rational

These are the answers and the explanation that Bear gave on his TV shows… so don’t blame me!

1. The right answer is a). Snakes do not like people and will do anything to get out of the way. If you tip toe around you may surprise one… in which case the snake will have to take you on. It’s a matter of honour amount snakes. Snakes feed at night so if you travel at night them you are more likely have a strange encounter of the snake variety. Don’t even think about killing a snake to show-off to Bear…he snake will try to do the same to you and the chances are that it has a lot more experience in killing things than you have.

2. The right answer is c). Put a berry on your bottom lip for minutes and if your lip doesn’t explode you can eat more. Birds have a different digestive system to humans so it is not wise to eat what they eat. Only eat fruit that you recognise and you’ve seen in your local supermarket…otherwise do not touch them.

3. The right answer is b) Drink as much as you need when you need it. The problem is dehydration and once the process starts… 1 litre will not get you out of trouble. Saving water is one thing but it will not help you if you are lying unconscious somewhere. So drink what you need and then try and find water. Fast!

4. The right answer is a) leave your boots and your pack on. You will need your boots on to protect your feet underfoot from sharp rocks, uneven footing and creatures that love feet. Leave your pack on. If you arrange your stuff well enough inside it should float and give you some stability in the water.

5. The right answer is b). Midway up the slope. If you pitch at the top you will be open to all the elements. If you pitch by the water if there is a downpour of rain you will be toast. If you pitch in the middle you will be relatively safe from harm. Miserable but safe!

6. The right answer is a). You need to make as much noise as possible to try to let the animal know that you are bigger than they are. Staying quiet will not mask the smell of fear… going to investigate is tantamount to serving yourself up on a plate.

7. The right answer is c). The issue here is that if you do not drink you will be dead in 3 days. If you drink the stagnant water you will vomit or have diarrhoea (“the shits”) and loose even more fluids. Bear tells the story of a family lost at sea whose lives were saved by the mother giving each member of the family rectal hydration. Don’t ask!

8. The right answer is b) Fish are very slipper creatures and unless you are Robinson Crusoe you will not catch a fish by spearing it. The best way is to corral the fish into a confined space and then attack with your knife. You will get one! I saw Bear do it!

9. The right answer is a) If you take your boots off it will be too slippery and you will be nowhere fast. In barefoot you will have no protection on the sharp rocks. Socks will not protect you fully but it is you best option.

10. The right answer is c) You need to freeze and be ready to back off slowly. It would be ridiculous to try to out run a gorilla…where would you go? If you climb a tree that gorilla is probably going to sit under that tree until you come down or fall out. If you fall out the only chance you have of surviving is if you fall on his head!…

11. The right answer is a) Call ‘help’ in a low register….a la Barry White. Low tones believe it or not travel further and is far sexier. Help is also a good word to use as Bear will be alerted to your plight. If you scream and shout he will think it is the birds making a racket.

So are you the one Bear Grylls is looking for. Are you his survivor?

The amount you scored is equal to the amount of days you would survive. You would need at least 9 out of 11 to be able to stand a chance of survival. If you scored less than 9…Bear Grylls would say “Don’t give up your day job”.

Let me know how you got on…better still tweet him and let him know …if I don’t hear from you I’ll assume you didn’t make it!

If you like what you read and you want more…then press the little button and subscribe…subscribers get it first, fast and furious and sometimes thy get little something fabulous as a thank you from me!

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20 years experience….Consultant and Trainer to large companies including Microsoft and Intel…Subscribe and every 7 – 10 days you will receives… career coaching… life skills and professional advise…from me…Bev

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bev@bevbakerseminars.com

Are You a Bear Grylls Survivor

There is something about Bear Grylls that everyone loves. If you are going to be stranded in the wilderness you want Bear Grylls at your side. He is the guy that slays snakes, guts them and then urinates into the skin to drink later. He is the modern day superhero, the intrepid explorer and all […]

Simplify your life: Learn how to ‘Say No’

Hands up if you hate saying ‘no’?. What is it about this tiny little word ‘no’ that has us in a spin? We hate saying it. It’s a loaded word. It bring with it such trepidations. When I run a personal effectiveness training I can bet my last piece of toffee that someone on the course has a problem with saying ‘no’. There is an exercise which I use were I make a request of each delegate in turn. The requests are usually outrageous…like can you give me a lift to the airport or can you go and get me something to eat? The whole idea is for them to say ‘no’ to me. It is amazing to see people squirm and come up with every lame excuse under the sun rather than say ‘no’.

The ability to say ‘no’ ranks very high on the emotional intelligence list… it shows that you can deal with situations as they arise…there is no awkwardness only appropriate interaction. It also shows that you are your own person and can make the decisions that determine your life.

So what went wrong…?

Every child from the age of 2 knows how to say ‘no’. They are experts at it. Saying ‘no’ is necessary for child development. At the age of 2 a child starts to separate from the parents… find their feet and exercise their independence. It is a time when the child starts to individuate. You cannot individuate if you don’t know who you are…what you like and don’t like. So the child sets off on a magical mystery tour to explore their environment. This is an adventure for the child and a nightmare for the parents who suddenly have to develop eyes in the back of their heads. Saying ‘no’ is part of the process. The ability to say that tiny word and say it loud is part of child growth into being who they are. The average 2 year old knows about 5 random words. The word no is one of them. They say ‘no’ very often. (I have first-hand experience of this) The word ‘no’ trips of the tongue of a 2 year old…and it never fails to get a reaction.

Somehow along the way and for reasons too many to mention here… the word ‘no’ got associated with being bad, rude, selfish, inconsiderate, mean and more. Saying ‘no’ is insolent. It had to be knocked out of you. So every time you said ‘no’ you were made to feel guilty, embarrassed and ashamed. You knew that if you said ‘no’ it would only lead to problems so you stopped saying it. You complied…you acquiesced and the ability to say the word was expelled from your consciousness. The associated negative feelings are so powerful that you’d rather go against yourself than experience them.

Have you ever found yourself at an event that you got talked into and had a dreadful time? Have you ever found yourself doing the lion share of the project while others coast? Have you ever gone against your better judgement and loaned money to a friend and you’re still waiting to see it back.

What’s the inability to say ‘no’ says about you…

o That other people can decide how you spend your time and ultimately how you live your life.

o That you do not care about yourself.

o That you have the disease to please others and you would do anything to avoid conflict or upset anyone.

o That you have a lack of self-worth.

o That you have a weak and passive personality and can therefore be treated as a doormat.

Whenever you say ‘yes’ when you should be saying ‘no’…is giving people signals how to treat you. You give them permission to take you for granted. By saying ‘yes’ you damage the most important relationship of all. It is the relationship you have with yourself. Every time you say ‘yes’ to something that you need to say ‘no’ to is saying to yourself and all those around you…that you do not matter.

You will begin to say no when you realise that…

o There comes a time when you need to redefine yourself as a person who takes themselves and your time on this planet very seriously.

o Life is too short to find yourself doing things you do not want to do or fitting in with other people’s plans.

o Although you love your friends and family and you get on well with colleagues you need to set some boundaries and respect yourself more.

o It is not selfish to put yourself first. When you listen to the safety instructions on an aeroplane they always tell those with children that in case of an emergency that the parent should put on their safety equipment first.

o Saying ‘no’ is good for your health and for your stress levels because it is you taking care of yourself and acknowledging what you can do and what you can’t do.

Breaking bad habits…

o The notion that saying ‘no’ means that you are bad, rude selfish and the like are limiting beliefs. They are limiting because they hold you back from being who you are. It is the most frustrating thing on the planet to be somewhere you don’t want to be or doing something you don’t want to do. You have to ask yourself the question: “whose life is it?”

o The belief system which supports that saying ‘no’ is negative is out of date and needs deleting. Many years’ ago as a child you no doubt believed in Santa Claus. As you grew you realised that Santa was a fictitious character. Santa doesn’t have much use in daily adult life. What you need to do is put the belief that saying ‘no’ is bad or selfish in the sack labelled ‘figment of my imagination’ and send it to the North Pole along with Santa.

o You need to break the association and neutralise the negative feelings. A good place to start is to tell yourself that it is your basic human right to say ‘no’. It is your human right to determine how you send your time and with whom. It is your human right not to have to defend or justify your ‘no’.

Strategies for saying ‘no’

1. Keep your reply short. Saying ‘no’ is a sentence. You do not need to justify or defend yourself. You are the one that gets to decide what you do with your time.

2. Only give a reason for refusing the request if you want to. Don’t invent excuses unless you have a photographic memory and can remember what you’ve said to everyone at all times.

3. Take responsibility for yourself. If you don’t want to do something you need to own the fact. Say: “I thought about your offer/request and the answer is no”. The key word here is ‘I’. By using the word ‘I’ it shows that you are taking ownership of your decisions. Avoid words like “I can’t…” It makes you sound like a child.

4. When asked to do something or go somewhere tell the person that you need time to think it over. Take time out to ask yourself if it is something that you really want to do. Listen to your gut!

5. When your manager puts more work your way ask them to priories the work.

“I’m not able to complete all the work you’re asking for by tomorrow but if we can agree some priorities I’ll ensure that they are completed in time”.

6. If you have many bosses then get them to prioritise the work that needs to be done. Call a meeting with them all and go through your workload together.

7. Take little steps. Say ‘no’ to people that try to sell you things in the street. All you have to do is say “no thank you”. When you get comfortable with that move on to something a little more challenging.

8. Say ‘no’ to the request and acknowledge the person at the same time.

“Thank you for asking me Dan that’s very kind of you, but I don’t feel like going out tonight”

Final word…

As I said earlier saying ‘no’ is one of the components of emotional intelligence. Contrary to popular opinion emotional intelligence is not about being vanilla all the time. Emotional intelligence requires you to be autunitic and true to yourself…that takes stamina and guts. Moreover it requires you to pay attention to what’s going around you and within you. It means that you need to take your wants seriously and treat yourself with respect. It is having an awareness of self and others and the ability to deal with what’s happening. Head on! When you can do this people will know to respect you and not take liberties.

Good luck!

If you like what you read and you want more…then press the little button and subscribe…subscribers get it first, fast and furious and sometimes thy get little something fabulous as a thank you from me!

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20 years experience….Consultant and Trainer to large companies including Microsoft and Intel…Subscribe and every 7 – 10 days you will receives… career coaching… life skills and professional advise…from me…Bev

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 Do Well!!

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 Want to read more…order my books on Amazon.

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bev@bevbakerseminars.com

Saying No

Hands up if you hate saying ‘no’?. What is it about this tiny little word ‘no’ that has us in a spin? We hate saying it. It’s a loaded word. It bring with it such trepidations. When I run a personal effectiveness training I can bet my last piece of toffee that someone on the […]