Afternoon Delight

Been a bit busy lately. It's my son's birthday today and I've been madly sorting lego. He has a huge tub and about 30 instructions which he can't use because there is too much to sort through, so I've made it a goal to sort through it all back into their sets, order in the parts we are missing and make that his birthday/Christmas present. Much better to get 30 sets back (some very large) than me buying one piddly set! Unfortunately it's a huge job and since it's not done today I must finish my Christmas!! I've also started to do some unpicking work on tutus for my daughter's ballet teacher.

Yesterday I also had a renewed second wind with my belief in myself.  Earlier this year I thought to do work as a Personal concierge, but lost track of that belief due to outside influences and my own lack of confidence. Also after looking at other concierge services, the fees are so high I thought no one would want to pay that so I gave up. Last night I had a doh! moment realising that I don't need fees that high. I'm currently wanting to live in enough comfort to be happy, not to build up a huge business - of which I wouldn't be able to run currently. So I could provide a slightly more limited service but with significantly cheaper prices. 

Today and for the next couple of weeks I will be testing how fast I can do different jobs within an hour so I know how to quote on the spot.

On to the books. I have read the forward of 'Your Child's Self-Esteem' (Step-by-Step Guidelines for Raising Responsible, Productive, Happy Children) by Dorothy Corkille Briggs

It raises the point of the increase in mental disorders in adults which can actually be prevented by raising self worth in children at the youngest age possible. No age is too late, although there are statistics showing the likelihood of mental illness against the raising of self worth and different ages. This really links with Louise Hay's belief that many things step from our childhood, however with this book we are looking at it from the other side. Louise shows how we can fix things as adults. This book shows how we as parents can help our children get to adulthood without having to fix things at the other end. 

As a mother of an autistic child, I know there are mental disorders that can not be cured. However they can be helped. My son has very low self esteem as he has moderate autism so while he can't help so many things he does, he is very aware he is different. I do believe it will help him significantly when he moves to a specialist school next year where he will be one of the more higher functioning children, so hopefully will not believe he is stupid anymore (which he most definitely is not). Most of the higher functioning children there are actually moderate rather than high functioning on the scale, however most higher functioning children with austism actually stay in the normal school system with helpers as my son has had since starting main stream school in prep.

Now I have been attempting to start the book 'Out of the Blue: Delight Comes into Our Lives' by Mark Victor Hansen & Barbara Nichols with Patty Hansen however the introduction is hard going due to the fact that every time I try to read I get the following song stuck in my head!!!

Will get to finishing it as soon as it is possible to read without this bloody annoying song on repeat!

(Sorry for getting this stuck in your head, but if I have to suffer - so does everyone else! hehehe

Dale Carnegie & Doreen Virtue

One key thing I've now started to do as a result of reading the Introduction of Doreen & Grant Virtue's "Angel Words: Visual Evidence of How Words Can Be Angels in Your Life" is to record myself saying affirmations and quotes/advice. These will be put on to two different play lists and I plan to play them throughout the day whenever possible. I try to say affirmations when ever possible, but I don't always remember - this will help during the times I would otherwise forget to be saying them.

Doreen's book discusses research  she and her son have done on the energy levels of words. Positive words have high energy and negative words have low energy. This makes a lot of sense as through reading Louise Hay I've understood the importance of stating things in a positive way. Positive leads to positive. However seeing that it is not only a feeling but an energy has made things very clear to me. I generally have very low energy and I can recognise that I quite often look to the negative. I attempted to stop this today. Lately I've been repeating my frustration at a situation with my ex and his wife to my close friends, I have no idea how many negative words I used, but there were a lot of negative thoughts. Although I got things off my chest I feel like I'm on repeat only making myself feel down when there are so many positives I could be focusing on and phrasing in regards to that same situation. I am certain I'd have a lot more energy to actually improve my lot in many different ways if I did.

Today when chatting on facebook to a very dear friend who I haven't talked to for a while, I attempted to stop myself from this negative verbal diarreah when she asked how things were going in that arena. While I wasn't able to stop myself completely I did manage to keep it short. While I'm not there yet, this shows that my brain is now actively making an effort to make changes to my way of thinking.

I've just realised how many times I've written the word negative here... and I'm already getting tired... so I'm now going to move on to my next book which I found to be a revelation!

Dale Carnegie's "How to Stop Worrying and Start Living - Time-Tested Methods for Conquering Worry" is brilliant - and this only after the first chapter! It talks about breaking time up into compartements. Yesterday has past, tomorrow is yet to come. We can only live in today. How amazing if I could focus like this. I'm full of worry about things I've done in the past and in terror of things that could happen in the future and quite frankly wasting each day when I should be living my day to the full without fear or worry. There are so many things I fear or wish for, for the future, and I often don't believe I'm good enough because of the past.  I need to remember I can be successful today if only I can shut out the others.

There are some great quotes in the chapter which I have duly recorded to listen to at a later date. This is one message that I do not want to forget.

New plan...

I keep forgetting that the purpose of the blog is not to repeat everything from the books... it is supposed to be my actions resulting from the books! After all the books should be read by you as every individual person gets books differently from others.

Like always I'm constantly changing my mind on how to attack the self help books. I guess I'm just too impatient to stick to one book till the end, so I thought to read a chapter a book one after the other. Keep things fresh so I don't get too bogged down with one author (no matter how good they are I always lose track of it half way through the book). I also get to see many different perspectives at once and also cover different topics that I am needing to follow.

As I had already read the first chapter of You Can Heal Your Life by Louise Hay, the next book chapters I have read since last night are:
*A very funny book called "The Absolutely Essential Penguin Guide to Etiquette" by Pat Lawson-Black & Tom Hazell. - How to behave in the mosh pit, on the mobile phone, and at Government House. 

First chapter covers Dealing with People, The Art of Conversation, The Eavesdrop, The ins and outs of service, Effective complaining, Attitude & the Gift.

Haven't had much of a chance to put it into practice yet, however I did put one tip into practice before reading thanks to advice from my mum. I got a quite inflammatory text from my ex who I need to be on good terms with for my kids. I am actually usually on good terms with him as he is a decent man. I was very angry and upset so I knew to call my mum first to calm myself down. She advised me to respond as the following tip from the book says:

 "Kindness and Courtesy are there own reward: The satisfaction is in knowing you have conducted yourself in an exemplary manner. Do It. It will make you feel good."

I answered with this in mind and his follow up texts were a lot more friendly and I felt calmer and more willing to see that while I disagreed, he did come from a place of caring.

*The other book is: WeightWatchers Healthy Parent Healthy Child by Karen Miller-Kovach - Simple rules for a healthy-weight home.

The first chapter mainly discussed BMI's and that it is best to take control of your child's weight while they are young as the longer they are overweight or at risk of being overweight the higher the risk they will have weight issues as adults.

Being overweight myself I know is not a good example to set for my children. I do have the extra difficulty of being on medication that makes it more difficult to lose weight, but not impossible. Unfortunately my son is on medication that is more extreme. His medication makes him hungry all the time and he has gone from a tiny thing that no matter what he ate stayed tiny, to a bigger boy. He already has enough difficulties in his life with his autism, I do not want that exacerbated by weight problems.

My daughter has a very healthy weight as she is a very serious dancer and also plays netball, however we do also need to pay a lot of attention to her diet due to the high amount of exercise she does and her huge growth spurt this year. We also need to pay attention to it due to her auditioning for a serious dance high school next year. While luckily they do not require the girls to be teeny tiny girls who look like they would fall over (would not send her there if they did), there is a body type she will need to fit mainly at this stage so she has the fitness and stamina to keep up with the high demand of the school. (Half their day is academic and the rest of the day till 5pm is dance - 5 days a week!)

I did learn that I must practice caution with focusing on healthy weights for children. It is best overall to try and maintain your child's weight as they grow. This will help them reach a healthier BMI without any risk to their growth.

Next book to read: Dale Carnegie's: How to Stop Worrying and Start Living

You Can Heal Your Life - Louise Hay Chapter One

First up I will be writing out the affirmations given in the chapters so they are easily accessible to myself. Affirmations need to be repeated often for belief patterns to change, but it's not always possible to remember the many affirmations you can do or remember to do them when you are slipping back into bad thought patterns.

While I may be putting many of the affirmations directly from the book, do not consider that this is all you need... you always need to read a book yourself to get the most from it.

"Everyone is always helpful"
 In the infinity of life where I am,
all is perfect, whole, and complete.
I believe in a power far greater than I am
that flows through me every moment of every day.
I open myself to the wisdom within, knowing that there is only One Intelligence in this Universe.
Out of this One Intelligence comes all the answers,
all the solutions, all the healings, all the new creations.
I trust this Power and Intelligence,
knowing that whatever I need to know is revealed to me,
and that whatever I need comes to me
in the right time, space, and sequence.
All is well in my world

Chapter One - What I Believe...

After reading this chapter I have realised that I do not truly believe I am deserving of much at all. I seem to be always unsuccessful at any job I do, unable to lose weight, unable to start a relationship, unable to keep a good home. Why do I do this? I really don't know. Louise says that we get into thought patterns that could be dating right back to when we were children. However we should not blame others. Holding on to resentments only causes us problems, forgiveness will set us free.

I grew up with a wonderful mum and dad, however my dad did die when I was only 9 after an illness of 2 years. I have had experiences though of feeling not good enough. I was the youngest in the family and was not treated as an adult for years after I became one - mainly because I was always just the little sister. At 35 I still feel alienated from some of my older siblings because of this. There is a definite age gap, however I get along very well with many friends who are the same age.

"The Universe Totally Supports Us in Every Thought We Choose to Think and Believe"
This is a very interesting thought. How else could it be that I never seem to get anywhere? I'm not stupid, I'm a nice, caring person. I should be successful in all my endeavours. I also need to remember:
"No person, no place, and no thing has any power over us, for "we" are the only thinkers in our mind".

I find it fascinating Louise's belief that we choose our parents based on what we need to learn or accomplish in this life. I love this belief and have adopted it as my own. It gives me great comfort to know that I have chosen this, so I should not waste the reason I am here... the time to work on my life's lesson is now.

The main issue is that like many I believe that I am not good enough... so it's not surprise that the universe will support me in this belief.  I also feel guilt, sadness, frustration, resentment and anger.

Many different things to look at.. the first steps are to love myself, forgive others for their actions:

"I forgive you for not being the way I wanted you to be. I forgive you and I set you free."

Also I need to approve of myself exactly as I am. Not how I think I should be by next year. Love myself for all that I am right now.

Do not blame others for how we have been or things in the past, I have the power to change my life myself, and do not blame or criticize myself.

I Can Do It.

I Can Do It

Well, it's been a while, obviously lost my flow again. However in the mean time I did go to the amazing seminar "I Can Do It" with many authors from Hay House speaking including the amazing Louise Hay herself. She is now 82 I think and she signed books for 2 hours!! When mine was signed I asked to hold her hand for a moment as I felt she would have that aura of peace around her that some amazing people have - and it was so true. I got an amazing feeling of love and acceptance.

I also got my book signed by Suzi Orman. In her lecture she asked us to think of an affirmation to believe we are financially successful. When she asked, I told her that my affirmation was to be financially successful to buy things for other people - she said "No, it is for you first and foremost then she actually didn't let me go until I repeated the affirmation that I was financially successful for my own benefit. She made me say it to her about 4 times! There were still people in the line behind me but she gave me that extra time to help me!

I ended up going a bit crazy and buying books from all the lecturers there, in some cases a number of books - so I have plenty to go through!

Everyone was so amazing and uplifting and had a wonderful message.

I have already read Louise's "You Can Heal Your Life". I will go back through it now. I think it is a good  idea to read a book through once then go back through chapter by chapter looking more closely. Gives you that much more ability to take it in on the second time. I will also be reading "You can heal your body", while discussing the former here so I can move on to discussing the latter straight after.

Declutter Day... Thank you Karen Kingston... Ready Set Go!

Felt physically sick most of the morning knowing today was declutter day. Put it off, however didn't allow myself to read fiction or watch tv. Instead I chose to read through Karen Kingston "Clear your clutter with Feng Shui" to get me in the mood. It has worked before and it has again. One of my major problems is letting go, but I feel if I allow myself to let go of everything I have that I haven't used it will be a whole lot easier. One other problems is what to do with it. There are many things I just can't throw away, including papers I feel I have to keep (sentimental pictures my kids drew etc).

Going by the seat of my pants...

Reading Karen Kingston...  I feel I can't move on at all to anything good while my house is still such a wreck! She is completely right in describing the feeling of clutter as sticky. It's depressing, embarrasing and completely sucks the energy right out of me. There are so many books and websites that give you tips on how to declutter over time, and I have tried many... but they didn't work for the type of life I currently have. How are you supposed to do a small box an evening when you quite often don't have energy for the normal household chores???

Internal alarm going strong

Very weird experience this morning! Last night fell asleep without setting my phone alarm and the power went out through the night stopping the other alarm from going off. You'd think I'd end up waking up really late! Well, I didn't wake up late, and I didn't wake up early... I woke up at the exact time I would have set my alarm for. Not going to rely that that will happen again, but very glad for it today! Still think it was very strange though!

Told you it was tough going.... Carnegie

I did just so well this morning only to crash and burn this evening!!! Although I still ran late because my daughter still dawdled, I got into work refreshed and unstressed as I was calm in my dealings with her rather than criticising and yelling. It didn't actually change the result but it definitely did help our relationship.

Don't Criticise, Condemn or Complain (Dale Carnegie)

Only 6 hours after reading the first chapter of "How to Win Friends and Influence People", I already proved how true it was... unfortunately I was the one criticised.

Giving a number of interesting case studies including Al Capone, Carnegie shows how people don't criticise themselves no matter how wrong they are. All it does is to bring about resentment and sometimes long lasting emotional wounds. You hurt people's pride and instead of listening and considering your point of view all that person will do is justify their own position and perhaps condemn you in return.

Dale Carnegie - Brilliant advice if you can handle it!

My mother recommended Dale Carnegie's 'How to Win Friends and Influence People' to me when I was a teenager and I recall starting to read it but then losing interest... oh how I wish I had persevered. It could have made so much of a difference in my life.

Unfortunately after years of bad habits, it becomes just that much harder to pick up the principles when you are older. I finally read the entire book earlier this year and immediately attempted to put the advice to work. I had been having difficulties at work and thought it may make a difference... and so it did, a few times.

Using the advice in social situations was also helping... however, it was all too easy to drop when I stopped actively trying, assuming I had it in hand. Some of Carnegie's principles sound easy but they require effort and checking in with yourself regularly otherwise you will slip back into old habits without realising.

Tim Ferriss - The Four Hour Work Week

I found Tim Ferriss' "The Four Hour Work Week" by chance when looking for advice books on starting my own business. It was amazing I even saw it as being only 160cm, the chances of me seeing a book on a top shelf are not normally high. I see it as one of those things that was meant to be.

At the time I was trying to figure out how to start my own business as I was heading up to my 2nd warning at work and knew I would end up getting let go.

A lecture with Malcolm McLeod - 'The Hand-Writing Guy'

Earlier this year I was lucky enough to be sent to a conference in Vietnam. There were a number of lecturers there, some good, some bad, some amazing.

Malcolm McLeod was one of those that I was disappointed his time was over so fast. He was funny, fast paced, got you thinking, got you uncomfortable, got you laughing, got you involved. I only wish that I could see his lecture again now I am in more of a position to be more open to self change.

His lecture encompassed showing us just how our handwriting can show the type of person we are, quite often putting people on the spot when told something they weren't expecting or something that was known but not spoken of (the uncomfortable part).