~Womensselfesteem.com's Newsletter ~

I can

What you have just read above is not just, 'another one of those saying', nor is it fiction.

It is most definitely, an absolute fact.

It is a fact that I term as, 'The Wall'.

It is the wall that separates you from being who you can be.

It is the wall that separates you from taking control of your thoughts.

It is the wall that keeps you on the negative side of your thoughts.

It is however a wall that you can penetrate if you CHOOSE TO ~OR NOT~

The second you allow the words, 'I Can't' into your mind... you have already conceded to failing.

When one feels like a failure, they immediately begin to complicate their thinking and use excuses like, 'it's difficult to think positive'.

It is only difficult because you have allowed yourself to think in a negative way.

Try visualizing the wall collapsing with just a thought.

Visualization is a very effective way to penetrate walls of negative thought. It allows you to switch your rails of thought.

There is good in everything, another fact. It is whether you choose to see it that either builds, 'That Wall' or destroys it~

My advice to you is simply this...

CHOOSE WISELY

Dorothyl

Positive Self-talk...does it really work?

We all know that our self-esteem levels are very important in feeding our strength to deal with the challenges of daily life.

More than not you will read that one of the best ways to strengthen a low self-esteem or self-image is through positive self-talk and positive affirmations.

These are very good steps to begin with, but they cannot succeed fully without your own ability to identify why you have these negative or self-destructive feelings to begin with.

You must also identify with these steps as being new thoughts about you....not more thoughts to compare your old thoughts with. Hence that feeling like you have taken 1 step forward and 10 steps backward. Sounds like self-defeat, does it not?

Rebuilding ones self-esteem or self-image demands commitment to the change.

It demands that you let go of how you do not want to feel and you must take these steps seriously.

The mistake many people make is to allow themselves to believe out of desperation that by simply reciting these positive things and/or posting positive affirmations all over their walls that they will magically feel like a new person.

If you are one to take the easy way out and believe it will work, you have just placed yourself in what I call the 'see-saw' syndrome. You go up and down and up and down never finding a balance. All of the positive articles, affirmations, self-talk, hypnosis, even surgery will not change how you originally feel about you if you do not focus on these steps and understand that you must let go of how you use to feel.

It is vital to find out where the connection is broken just as in a car....you cannot fix a car if you do not know where it is broken now can you?

You also must take this goal of moving forward as seriously as a drug addict does when the decision to rehab is made.

Making a decision to rebuild ones self-esteem is huge.

You must also realize that it is always going to be up to you to not allow how other people or elements act to affect you.

No one can make you feel bad about yourself. That is your doing and that is your choice.

Outer beauty, also known as 'curb appeal' fades away quickly as there is always going to be a new ideal set by media as to what is in and what is not. This is another way to sabotage all of your hard work in feeling better about who you are, or creating a new feeling about who you are. If you allow your outer imagine to identify how you feel about yourself....you will fail. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder as it has been said so many times.

Get over that outer beauty wall if you want to feel good about you and have a happy healthy enjoyable life. The clock is ticking and you are wasting valuable time worrying about what you can not control. Life is waiting for you, but it will not wait forever.

Dorothyl

~~Learn to Listen~~

Have you ever wondered why we were given two ears but only one mouth? It is because listening is twice as hard as talking.

Have you ever been accused of not listening? I am sure that we all have at one time or another.
We also all know how frustrating it is when we feel what we need to say is falling on deaf ears.

In order to communicate effectively we must learn and practice the art of listening.
Listening to not only the meaning of the words but to also look for the feelings and the intent behind those words will help you stay focused.
Your body language is also very important when you are listening. If you look at your watch...are you listening...nope...you are in-fact looking at your watch. You are causing yourself to be distracted.
Work on staying focused...if you actually learn to listen, I promise you will be surprised at what you hear.

There are many reasons besides self-distraction that interfere with our ability to listen when another is speaking.
Most of our ability to be good listeners is learned through our life and experiences in life.
Some of us are genuinely all too eager to share our own thoughts before the other has a chance to finish theirs.....which only puts us into a place where we are too busy formulating our own rebuttal even before we hear the entire response.
Some of us are too preoccupied with another issue to be trying to listen.
Some of us are too easily distracted by our surroundings to give our full attention.. hence only really hearing merely half of what is being said.
Some of us are too busy mentally evaluating and/or being judgmental about the speaker to be focusing on what he/she is actually saying.
We also have the reasoning of being bored with what is being said.
All of these disable us from listening properly which in turn disables our ability to communicate effectively.

I have in my years of learning, spent a lot of time analyzing my own level of ability to simply shut up and listen. I am always afraid that I will forget my 'magnificent point' if I wait to have my turn at the podium. We all have our reasons which usually stem from bad habits. I believe mine came from being raised in such a large family and never feeling like I was being heard or if I waited my turn it would never come.

Listening is a very hard lesson not only to learn but to maintain and continue if you do not put a conscious effort into it. One way to break your habit of not listening is to nicely ask for a minute to regroup or prepare yourself to give your full attention to them. After you do this a few times, you will automatically fall into being an effective listener.

In relationships of the heart we are up against those emotional feelings that love to trap our minds into negative listening. So be very aware of that when your partner is trying to explain a touchy issue with you. Interpretation has created many wars in relationships and that interpretation is a result of poor listening in many cases.

I bet that if we took more time and patience to listen we would have a lot less issues with interpreting what we are being told or rather what we think we are being told.

In turn we should also expect to be heard when it is our turn to speak. Positive actions teach positive reactions. This rings true with listening as well as any other emotions especially when dealing with other people.

Our level of self-esteem shines through ones ability to actually listen. If we are confident in who we are and what we think, we almost naturally fall into a good listening mode. We do not feel the need to be the center of attention or always be at the front of the line.

So the next time someone is speaking to you..even if you have to ask them for a minute to prepare yourself to listen...it is a much more polite gesture than not listening.

Can you hear me now :)
~D~

~It is Time to think DIFFERENTLY~

DorothyL

Owner of Womensselfesteem.com