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Empowerment through emotional intelligence

Tip of the iceberg!
Image from www.soulseeds.com.

“In a very real sense we have two minds, one that thinks and one that feels”
― Daniel Goleman, Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ

Emotional intelligence begins to develop in the earliest years. All the small exchanges children have with their parents, teachers, and with each other carry emotional messages.
Daniel Goleman
Read more at http://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/d/daniel_goleman.html#R7x3cmosuxQpFFMd.99

Empowerment through Emotional Intelligence

Many people have heard of the term “Emotional Intelligence”, made famous in a book by Daniel Goleman and now commonly called “EQ”. We were all made familiar with “IQ”, our intellectual intelligence quotient many years ago, when intelligence testing was considered the ultimate measure of a person. Fortunately, that has since been found to be a very small part of the story. It’s now recognised that a person’s “IQ” is not really as important as how the person is able to utilise their “IQ”. That level of utilisation is often a measure of their “EQ”.

Let me give you an example. I went to school with a really brainy guy. In my own high school up to Grade 10, I was considered reasonably intelligent and won class awards in some subjects. Alongside this guy, I was a dunce! We did a physics exam one day when I was in Grade 11 at College, and he got 65 questions right, out of a possible 66. HE WAS FURIOUS! The question he wasn’t marked correct on had a full stop missing! That’s all! But he wasn’t used to not getting everything right!

However, brilliant as he was in the science laboratory or the maths class, this is the guy who would walk out of the dormitory with his shoe laces untied, his shirt buttoned crookedly and was forever asking for someone to help him with his neck tie! In the world outside the laboratory, the poor guy was hopeless and helpless! I don’t know if he ever got a drivers licence, but I hope not….!

He had a very high IQ, but almost no EQ. And that is the difference.

EQ is the ability to relate to others, to communicate effectively and to empower others.

What is empowerment?

Empowerment is the ability to influence the environment around you for the benefit of all. #Empowerment through emotional intelligence is the way you utilise your communication skills, your ability to create rapport and empathy with people, to influence outcomes and the behaviours of other people.

Let’s face it: Personal empowerment only happens when you empower others. You cannot be empowered in isolation. The most powerful person on the planet is no more powerful than anyone else if they are sitting alone in a dinghy miles offshore. Put that same person in a room with other people and their empowerment becomes evident. Their influence is felt throughout the room. Even if their identity remains unknown, their effect on the people around them will be felt. That is empowerment. But your own empowerment only happens when people around you respond positively to your behaviour and treatment of them.

Empowered Couple
Image from www.essentialoilspedia.com.

You see the evidence of this in many places. A loving couple together may be a formidable team, a unit of considerable influence, power and passion. However, before their meeting and becoming a couple, either of them may have been described by their friends as lacking in confidence. Together, they empower each other.

A political leader can be a dictator and through absolute power wield much influence. However, the most loved leaders will often have more power and influence and especially the respect of their people, than the brutal dictator. As a fringe benefit, they also have more job security and in retirement will be welcome anywhere in the world.

Dictators from history – how many can you name?
Image from www.freemediaproductions.info.

An example of that would be to compare Idi Amin, Saddam Hussein or Muammar Gaddafi with Nelson Mandela. Idi Amin, Saddam Hussein and Gaddafi were dictators, responsible over their long and brutal reigns for the deaths of thousands of people. Their armies kept them in power, but ultimately rebellions and civil wars cost them their leadership. They died as they lived. Nelson Mandela had the same struggle to begin with, perhaps even harder, but when he came to power, he was loved and respected by all, and empowered other people throughout his many years as president of his country of South Africa. When he retired, he remained the most respected elder statesman in the country. The respect for him was global, and even the Pope sought meetings with him. Other world leaders sought his counsel. When he passed away recently, the nation of South Africa was just one of the nations around the world mourning the passing of one of the greatest statesmen the world has ever been blessed with.

An empowered leader, Nelson Mandela
Image from au.lifestyle.yahoo.com.

The same happens with us on a personal level. We need to be empowering others, for us to become empowered people and leaders. Empowerment does not work in a vacuum, or in isolation. Our empowerment is measured by the degree of empowerment we give to those around us.

How do you gain empowerment through emotional intelligence?

The first part of this is understanding the power of our emotions, and the effect they have on our behaviour. Below is the Empowerment Tone Scale Chart. The range of human emotions is captured down the left side of the scale, from the lowest of emotions, apathy, to the highest, up above enthusiasm. It goes much higher, but those are states not relevant here.

Emotional Tone Scale.

The critical point on the scale is the red empowerment line, just above boredom. Below this point, a person is purely reacting to stimuli, but not operating rationally. That is not to say they are not capable of high level thinking and planning, but their thinking is not constructive. In some form or another, it is destructive. Above the line is where interest and constructive thinking begin, and win/win solutions and new concepts are possible.

A person in grief is way down on the scale. In this state, the person is more introspective, turned inward. To communicate with this person, we need to empathise with them, and find a way to reach their emotional state without entering into it ourselves. Then we need to raise them up to the level of the Empowerment Line, even if only briefly, to get them to apply rational thinking to their situation. That doesn’t mean they will stay there, nor should they. There is an established grieving process that people need to complete before they can move on with life. Empowering this person is entirely appropriate, but to try to keep that person, who is suffering with their grief, in an empowered, enthusiastic state for an extended period is denying them their grieving process and unrealistic.

Comfort through grief
Image from www.yourdictionary.com

To raise a grieving person up to an empowered level for a time, respectful questions that require processing are needed. Processing can only be done in an emotional state above the empowerment line. To answer the question, their mind needs to rise to the empowerment level. Gentle questions can do this, and will rouse the person from their grief and enable them to function more rationally.

However, if the person is angry, in emotional pain or hostile, their emotions are directed outward to inflict their pain and angst on the world, to retaliate. Much as a friendly dog will bite when cornered or in pain, the person’s behaviour is also a non-rational reaction to circumstances.

Again, gentle but firm questions that require processing will have a positive effect, although it may take a series of questions and the format is quite specific. Questions such as:

“How can we sort this out?”

“How can we change this around?”

“How can we fix this problem?”

This format aligns the person asking the question with the person feeling the pain or anger, where formerly, they felt alone. It also puts the source of their pain or anger or grief out as an issue independent of the person. It identifies it as a problem that can be solved with rational thinking. Thus the person is raised to the level of rational thinking and empowerment to deal with the issue that was formerly their millstone. This is empowerment through emotional intelligence – your use of your “EQ” can provide a powerful influence on anyone suffering from a lowered emotional state.

Once the emotional state begins to rise, when appropriate, offer the opportunity for some responsibility in and a share of the positive outcomes of the solutions. Offer the hope of brightness of the future, and show them that it is their responsibility to claim it.

How important is empowerment through emotional intelligence?

Look at the vertical blue arrow in the scale. That is the emotional region where most people live, and the majority of them are probably between boredom and hostility, tapering more towards the extremities. In other words, most people you meet will need to be empowered BEFORE you can relate with them! They will need a reason to think and to start a rational thought process before you can have a positive relationship with them, because that is not a normal state for them!

Can empowerment become a normal state?

Yes, absolutely, and empowerment through emotional intelligence is the pathway. It is a learned process, and once learned and the success behaviours and actions of empowerment are formed and become habits, empowerment becomes the normal way of life. And yes, anyone can do this.

Empowerment is not an event; it is a series of success strategies that are lived moment at a time, day by day. It is a way of life. You already have a way of life, a series of strategies that you live, moment at a time, day after day. If you want empowerment in your life, some of those strategies may need to be changed. And you can do it. CLick here to learn more about Empowering YOU!

If you feel this article has empowered and benefited you and you feel it could benefit the personal empowerment of other folks you know, please reblog it, share it with your friends and associates. It might be the day you changed someone’s life for the better! If that was that special person in your life, then congrats: you just changed your own life too!

Til next time, fair winds and full sails,

Ray Jamieson

“emotional self-awareness is the building block of the next fundamental emotional intelligence: being able to shake off a bad mood”
― Daniel Goleman, Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ

Please also refer to my previous posts on Empowerment:

Financial Empowerment

Empowerment

Empowerment for Men

Empowerment for Women

Empowerment for Teens

Empowerment for Children

Personal Empowerment

What would an empowered man do?

Empowered by love

Personal Empowerment

Personal Empowerment – starting young!
Image from www.huffingtonpost.com

Personal Empowerment.

You are responsible for your life. So why expect something to happen for motivation. Self motivation is biggest drive for self empowerment. Anil Sinha

I recently sat with a man who had asked me to write his biography, his journey from weighing 350 pounds (160 kilograms) back to 200 pounds (90 kg). After he told me his story, I had a question for him. First, here is his story, briefly.

He had told me that as he grew fatter, just from being a glutton and careless, he grew too big to do his ceiling insulation batt business – he couldn’t fit through the manholes into the ceiling cavity, so he sold that business and bought a security patrol business. Then he couldn’t get in and out of the patrol cars because of his rapidly expanding girth, so he sold that business too. Eventually he began selling real estate in a city office because all he had to do was stand (or sit) near the front door where people would walk by, and he could talk to them.

Something wrong with this picture
Image from nypost.com

However, the life changing chain of events for him began with the bicycle shop next door. Sometimes he’d stand at his front door and chat to the owner of the bicycle shop, a former triathlete champion, and one day he asked him if he could try riding a bike, as he thought he might like to lose some weight. Just making conversation. The reply was that he didn’t stock a bike that would hold his weight!

Then he needed to run to the back of his shop again to the toilet, for the fifth time that hour, and the bicycle shop owner told him he needed to get ‘that’ checked out. He already knew what his problem was. The doctor told him after a few short minutes “You have chronic diabetes caused by your eating habits. If you don’t lose 100 pounds this year, you won’t see next year!” It scared him; he said those words felt like machine gun fire into his chest!

My question to him was: “If that doctor had not threatened you with your own death, at what point would you have decided you were overweight and needed to do something about it?”

His answer? “I don’t know. I never considered it! I don’t know what it would have taken to have that amount of personal empowerment, to recognise my problem and deal with it!”

Personal empowerment is not a big deal.

A whale of a time!
Image from selfimprovementdevelopment.com

My definition for #personal empowerment is the willingness to honestly see yourself as you are, and to commit to making any changes you feel are necessary for your wellbeing, on any level, physical, mental, emotional or spiritual.

That just means that if you know you are not fit, you decide to change that and you do what you need to do, to become more fit. If you have bad breath, you brush your teeth. If someone tells you that your breath is bad, you don’t abuse them for being rude to you; you thank them for being honest with you and then you brush your teeth.

Being less than you can be, less than your human potential is a crime against yourself. That doesn’t mean that you need to be training to be fit enough to run the next marathon. It doesn’t mean you need to immediately begin to diet, or take any other radical steps. It has nothing to do with vanity, and everything to do with your personal pride. Look honestly at yourself. Ask yourself if you are the person you always wanted to be. If you can see how you can become closer to that ideal, then you need the strength to commit to making the changes that will get you there.

OK, I hear some howls of protest! Personal empowerment? I’m suffering from a chronic illness, I can’t do that! I was in a car accident and my injuries won’t allow that! I am overweight because I have a medical condition and the drugs affect me!

Relax. The question is; are you being all you can be? If you are ill, then you are ill and that will place limitations on you physically. But how is your heart? How is your spirit? How is your mind?

Personal empowerment will take you from where you are in your life, to where you could be. It’s not about being fitter, faster, smarter or better than anyone else, just being the best YOU that you could be. Sometimes, personal empowerment is just being the best parent you can be, so that you can be an empowered parent for your children. What this world needs probably most of all, is empowered people, who can be empowered parents, so that the next generation who are our children now can take over this world and continue to make it better and fix the mistakes we have made in getting it to them.

Personal empowerment is worth it.

But how do you get personal empowerment?

It’s the little things that count!
Image from mylifeismymessage.org

It’s easy. Baby steps each day. It’s not a massive shift, it’s just a few little success habits to get into each day, and then continue to do them every day! Not hard at all. You already have a number of habits right now, perhaps some that don’t serve you that you could replace, others that you definitely want to maintain. Like brushing your teeth. But add some affirmations and goalsetting to that. Perhaps doing a few minutes reading of something positive each morning and evening – just a few minutes. Perhaps setting priorities for your day, specific things that will actually advance you a little closer to your goals. Perhaps at the end of the day, doing a review and seeing what you achieved, what you learned, what you felt, and checking off what you actually did. If you started a new habit, check off that you did it, or didn’t – make yourself accountable.

Get into success habits. Start feeling a sense of achievement for the little things, so that when the big things come up and real personal empowerment is needed to face those challenges, you have already been practising, you have the success habits in place, all you are doing is changing the goal……! See? Simple.

That is personal empowerment. A program with all of this exists now for you to slip into your daily routine; you can get it here. A few minutes morning and evening and it is done.

The bonus is that it teaches you lots of other cool strategies as well, such as communication skills, financial success tips, stress management and health tips, mental strategies, conflict resolution, goal setting and a whole heap more over the 90 days of the program. That’s the few minutes of positive and empowered reading material, a couple of hundred words a day to get you on track with life changing strategies in every area of your life. Personal empowerment was never so easy! Start your personal empowerment program now! Click here to begin!

Til next time, fair winds and full sails,

Ray Jamieson

Be ambitious towards your own personal enhancement. Steve Mariboli

Please also refer to other posts on Empowerment:

Financial Empowerment

Empowerment

Empowerment for Men

Empowerment for Women

Empowerment for Teens

Empowerment for Children

What would an empowered man do?

Empowerment for Children

Happy, learning children
Image from www.cumc.com

Empowerment for Children

In Empowerment for Teens, we saw that the way children are raised has a huge effect on their behaviour as teens and then young adults. This is found in the most basic of human instincts, the instinct of survival, one of the few a baby is born with, and is very relevant in #Empowerment for Children

To survive, a human being is programmed to do whatever it must. As a baby has little conscious thought capability at birth, everything is trial, error and instinct. Babies rely on mothers for feeding, nurturing, protection and survival. Therefore keeping mother close is a survival instinct. To do this, some babies cry, some laugh, some are cute and coy, some are funny little clowns. All are survival strategies initially; the range of survival strategies expands as the baby grows.

A toddler cry baby doesn’t get much sympathy. However, the baby can learn that a certain laugh, or a certain funny behaviour can get mother’s attention, so that becomes a strategy. This might be the start of the ‘clown’ survival strategy. Robin Williams claims this was his way of surviving school, where the bigger boys bullied him until he told jokes! Now, it is his career!

With most young animals in a nest, if there is competition for food, the bully always wins. The same with human babies – the instinct is to get in first and get the food to survive. A bigger or more boisterous baby may become a bully as a survival strategy amongst smaller siblings. A smaller one may realise that direct action against a bully would not work, but being sneaky and agile might – monkey like antics might become the survival strategy, or outright stealth, guile and theft. Just as a survival strategy.

Feeding time – who’s going to get it?
Image from commons.wikimedia.org

However, we see these same strategies employed in adults! This is because these survival strategies become embedded as “sub-personalities” in the mind and psyche of the child and remain embedded as the child grows up. At one time they were all relevant as survival strategies; now, as adults many are redundant, but they remain.

Can we be sure of that? Are sub-personalities real?

Think of a young mother in an ordinary day and how many sub-personalities she operates with, just to make it through the day, from leaving bed in the morning, to bedtime at night.

Waking, she becomes a mother first, looking after the immediate needs of her children, feeding, clothing and getting them ready for school. Then she becomes a taxi-driver to deliver them to school. Then it’s onto the freeway in the car to drive to work, she’s a racing driver. At work she becomes a dutiful employee, slightly subservient to her supervisor, but definitely superior to that jerk from the mail sorting room who tried to hit on her last week! Hmmph! Then she suddenly becomes mother again at lunch time with a call from the school that one of the children has fallen and scraped a knee, but it’s OK, the school nurse has bandaged it and it will be fine. A text message from her husband, saying he’s thinking about her and how wonderful it was to cuddle up naked under the sheets last night. She started reading the messages as a loving wife, but by the end of it, a nymph had emerged. She looks up from the message and sees the other office workers looking at her and she becomes a blushing teenager! Back to work and she becomes the dutiful employee again. Time to go home and she enters rush hour traffic and she becomes the road rage Mama for half an hour. Home at last, she becomes mother again. Husband arrives home and she becomes wife for a moment as he kisses her, and then mother again as she prepares dinner and scolds the children for the noise they are making. After dinner she becomes a school teacher while helping with homework. Bedtime for the kids, she becomes a wife again and sits quietly with husband discussing the day. Bedtime for her, she showers and slips into bed and the text message nymph of earlier in the day appears and for the next hour, she is none of the previous sub-personalities from throughout the day!

Herman’s Head Sub-Personalities
Image from www.sitcomsonline.com

Whew! All those different sub-personalities and all appropriate at different times of the day, with different people, and different situations. Definitely not appropriate to mix them up and when that does happen, disaster is not far away!

How are sub-personalities relevant to empowerment for children?

The baby we first looked at is developing sub-personalities as it grows older, in order to survive. The empowered child, the well balanced and happy child will confidently move between sub-personalities almost unconsciously, provided we create and foster a supportive environment around them, making it safe for them to grow, explore and experience the world.

How do we make empowerment for children possible?

As parents, it is our responsibility to create the most supportive environment for our children to grow up in. The best way to do that is for us to be fully empowered personally first – being the best parents and teachers we can be, for them to model as they grow. Empowerment for Children comes after their parents learn empowerment for women and empowerment for men!

Children do not do as they are taught. Children do as they are shown by example and that is why they model older children, rather than anonymous characters from text books! As parents, we need to demonstrate what we want children to learn, and provide the environment where this learning is possible!

Enlightened educationalists will tell us that children learn best in a happy environment where they can experience what they are learning about. Experiential learning has become a buzz word but really, children have been doing it for thousands of generations, learning through their childhood games. We need to ensure those childhood games are possible, safe and that we can participate in them to the extent we need to, so that we can give guidance as and when the children need it.

Learning by playing
Image from lindaoconnell.blogspot.com

The best way for empowerment for children to be experienced is by parents reading to children. If you have ever seen the rapt look on a child’s face as they explore a picture book with Mummy or Daddy, and the innocent questions that come from it, you will understand. As the child grows, reading more mature story books opens the child’s mind to the wider world. I remember my Dad reading “Treasure Island” to me, and another of our favourites, “Two years on Bardunyah Station”, an Australian outback cattle station where everything was larger than life. Stories such as these allowed us to create magical images of what lay beyond and enthused us with the desire to get out and explore the world, to discover our own Treasure Islands and feel the vastness of the wide outdoors. We were fortunate that we had empowered parents who understood this.

Reading to your child is empowering for them
edu101.hubpages.com

When the children do get outdoors, be there with them! Children’s school sports days are a great place for them to show off to Mum and Dad, if they are sporting by nature. Music recitals or dance classes are other great ways to participate in your children’s activities if they have come to love the arts. Whether or not they are the best doesn’t matter, as long as you demonstrate your involvement, and show encouragement for their efforts!

School sports day
www.chengelo.sch.zm

Is it OK for a child to fail?

Empowerment for Children can only happen when the child learns to fall over and stand up to try again! So many are nursed through childhood that when they reach teens and Mum and Dad can’t keep an eye on them every waking moment, that the first obstacle they come across flummoxes them! They need to learn from setbacks; learn to power on despite them and because of them, learning from the mistakes and picking up the lessons! Only in this way do they become ‘battle hardened’ for the sometimes hostile environments they will face as teens and young adults.

Ooops! Here comes a lesson!
Image from liketreesplanted.com

However, of critical importance is where Mummy and Daddy are when they fall, and how THEY react to their child’s failures! Empowerment for children happens when they learn from parents that it’s not the failure that matters, it’s getting the lesson and starting over that is important! If parents are critical of poor school results, poor sporting results or music recitals, then the child learns that it’s a hard world and their parents are just another part of it. If instead Parents are there to encourage and teach success habits, they learn that mistakes and failings are only stepping stones to success! They learn what we demonstrate!

This is important in another way too, because as parents we fail sometimes too, and our children know it! They recognise in us the mistakes we make, and if we judge them harshly for their mistakes, that is what they have learned to do with us. They become the most critical and unforgiving teenagers unless they learn the truth about mistakes – they are just part of the lifelong education system we are all enrolled in!

Empowerment for our children is directly proportional to the amount of personal empowerment we, as adult parents have. When WE are empowered, we can empower others, especially our children. Personal development and empowerment work for us is how we can best empower our children, and lead by example on their march into their teens and adulthood. Click HERE to become a more Empowered Parent now!

If you feel this post has contributed to empowerment for children, please share and reblog amongst your friends and associates. So many parents are crying out for empowerment for children, but don’t realise that it is within reach. Your sharing may change the life of another – everyone deserves personal empowerment and this could be the day you make a difference!

Til next time, fair winds and full sails,

Ray Jamieson

Please also refer to my other posts on Empowerment:

Empowerment through Emotional Intelligence

Financial Empowerment

Empowerment

Empowerment for Men

Empowerment for Women

Empowerment for Teens

Personal Empowerment

What would an empowered man do?

Empowerment for Women

Empowered!
Image from laracatone.com

Empowerment for Women

“There came a time when the risk to remain tight in the bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.” ~Anais Nin – See more at: http://livingempowered.areavoices.com/2010/10/top-25-empowerment-quotations-for-women/#sthash.xjr8fBtb.dpuf

“There came a time when the risk to remain tight in the bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.” ~Anais Nin

In a previous era, women had neither the right to vote, nor the right to complain. Most women from before 200 years ago were treated like servants or objects. The wealthy classes in western civilizations held their women in higher esteem but they still had significantly less voice than their male counterparts. Even those who were loved, cherished and respected by their husbands were still second class citizens in the broader community, with neither voting power nor political influence. Their goals had to be pursued through subtleties and relationship influence. There was no #empowerment for women.

Empowerment?
Image from chersonandmolschky.com

In eastern civilisations and cultures, even today women still have limited rights, even where they have voting powers. Many cultures and religions do not allow their women to have an education. They insist on them being totally covered while in public. They are strictly forbidden communication with other men and their movements within their communities is also restricted. There is a huge rallying cry in the Middle East right now about whether or not women should legally be allowed the right to drive motor cars!

Empowerment for women throughout history.

If we look back thousands of years, Mother Earth was The Goddess and many societies were matriarchal. Rather than the patriarchal societies which most of the world has now, women were at the head, especially in religious and community leadership. The men were the hunters and muscle, while the women were the nurturers and spiritual and community leaders. Some words in common use now attest to this, words such as Amazon – referring to a tribe of female warriors, Gaia, a Mother Earth deity worshipped by many, and the Gods of mythology, Athena, Aphrodite and more. Women had great influence in Egyptian societies from time to time, ruling equally with their Pharaohs and even without them. The Iroquois Confederacy or League created an American Indian ‘constitution’ called The Great Binding Law of Peace dating from about 1000 AD but unwritten until the late 1800s. This enshrined women in governing roles of the society and is a powerful document to read and assimilate. Ken Carey wrote about it in some chapters of “Return of the Bird Tribes”.

Indian Artifact
www.webwinds.com

However, in Christian societies, the patriarchal model was adopted from the dark and middle ages and we now see the Pope as the head of the Catholic Church. Women are not even allowed to be priests, despite their once traditional roles as Priestesses! The great exception from this rule was established by the various Queens of England and consolidated by the current Queen Elizabeth, with a continual reign of over 60 years.

Empowerment for women in the modern era.

Back on the home front, in our modern day-to-day communities, women still face a “glass ceiling” in the workplace, lower wages for the same employment roles and a smaller proportion of women in management. They are publicly lauded as having equality in everything and various anti-discrimination bodies are set up around the world and even within the organisation of the United Nations. However, should a woman ‘make it to the top’, it is headline news because of the rarity of the event. Many men still feel threatened by having to work for a woman boss!

Burning a Bra
uncyclopedia.wikia.com

In the mad rush for equality and empowerment for women through the 1960s and beyond where ‘burning the bra’ became the standard for the liberationists. Unfortunately, women created a rod for their own backs in many ways. Rather than celebrating their differences, many tried to ignore them and claim total equality where in truth, women and men have differences in areas of strength and weakness. Had the push for equality of status been along these lines, perhaps the male segment of the population may not have felt so threatened and either openly or covertly tried to crush the movement. As it is, covert discrimination still exists. It will exist for another couple of generations, regardless of the progress of any anti-discrimination laws.

In the home, we see a huge proportion of single parent families, many women who are divorced single parents, raising their children alone. In many cases it is because they became personally empowered and escaped a toxic relationship. Others are because of desertion by their husbands. Fewer men are single parents and then it is often because of the loss of the mother through some tragedy, as in divorce court outcomes, more often than not custody has been given to the mother.

This suggests a societal situation that women are less empowered in general than men. Certainly women have less outright power. However, there is another way of looking at it.

If we consider a relationship where domestic violence is occurring, in most cases it is the woman who is the victim. The male is the aggressor. However, bullying behaviour, and that is what it is, mostly occurs because of a lack of empowerment of the bully. If this bully was a self confident person, with high self esteem and a feeling of security within themselves and about their lives in general, there would be no inclination to be a bully, or to try to overpower or exert their will by force on another person, spouse, partner or otherwise. Therefore, who is the person with a lack of empowerment?

Will empowerment for women change the issues of the glass ceiling and domestic violence?

Glass ceiling
www.globaltoynews.com

On a very personal level, empowerment for women will provide women with a greater sense of self esteem and confidence in daily living. That is vital. It will provide the strength women need to break down the barriers of societies everywhere, in all cultures, religions and countries, at every level of communities, to really enjoy the benefits of equality of relationships and genuinely shared, happy lives.

Empowerment for women will still threaten some men. That is an issue that will not go away any time soon. While ever patriarchal models are cemented in place, there will be opponents to the progress of women directly in community, national, corporate and global leadership.

How can personal empowerment for women be gained?

What can an ordinary woman, with little interest in politics or other leadership roles outside her family, what can she do to gain this empowerment for women? It’s always the little things that matter. Just as a house is made from thousands of bricks, so is empowerment, self confidence and self esteem. It’s the little success habits that build the character of a person, male or female, to give them empowerment in all circumstances.

Empowerment for women does not mean they are to become all powerful and domineering. Rather, it means that as an empowered person, they have the core strength of character to refuse to accept disempowering behaviour and attitudes from others! A critical distinction.

Can empowerment for women be misunderstood?

If you find you have to force, cajole, bully or manipulate people to get things done, you do not have empowerment; you are a bully or manipulator. If people flock to your leadership and are eager to assist you, then you have empowerment. That should be your goal.

At times, some women will take it too far. As a guy who was raised by a father who was chivalrous and respected and doted on his wife/my mother, I have at times opened doors for women without asking because it was the chivalrous thing to do. I have been told rather rudely, to perform certain almost gymnastic feats on myself for my efforts. I paid a compliment to a lady once on the incredible colours of her dress and the rebuke was “What the hell do YOU want?” Those women were not empowered – rather, they were suffering the same insecurities that a bully character has and that is precisely what they need to evolve beyond.

Confidence is built on repeated experiences of success. A program that delivers repeated experiences of success, through daily pats on the back, affirmations of your self worth, consolidation and recognition of your achievements and teaches goalsetting as a way of life, is a vital and necessary component of any intention to gain empowerment for women and men. Finding your lesson from each day, acknowledging your successes of each day, gaining awareness of and control over your moods and emotions each day, breaking through the 0ld conditioning and patterns, learning to receive love as well as give it, these are critical to personal empowerment and are all built into the Life Change 90 program, designed especially for personal empowerment. Begin your journey to becoming a more Empowered Woman here, NOW!

How will you know when you have ‘got’ empowerment for women?

I was once told by a woman that the absolute worst thing that can happen is to arrive at a function and find that another woman is wearing the same dress! An empowered woman will not be concerned. In fact, she will have the confidence and self assuredness to make everyone think the other lady was trying to copy her, but doing a terrible job! That is empowerment! That level of self confidence, that ability to walk into a room and know you created waves and not be concerned about it, that is empowerment for women. It is way beyond how you look, what you wear or weigh. Empowerment transcends.

An Empowered Woman
winthem.blogspot.com

However, we are not trying to empower just one woman to be a figurehead. Empowerment for women is a global phenomenon that most people wish for. Referring back to the Empowerment Tone Scale in a previous post, you can see that the personal empowerment of EACH woman is a small step toward empowerment for ALL women and only in this way can empowerment for women be gained.

More empowerment to you!

If you feel this post has contributed to empowerment for women, please share and reblog amongst your friends and associates. So many people are crying out for empowerment, yet don’t understand that it is within easy reach. Perhaps your sharing will change the life of another – everyone deserves personal empowerment and this could be the day you make a difference!

Til next time, fair winds and full sails,

Ray Jamieson

“I do not wish [women] to have power over men; but over themselves.” ~Mary Wollstonecraft

Please also refer to my related posts on Empowerment:

Empowerment through Emotional Intelligence

Empowered by Love

Financial Empowerment

Empowerment

Empowerment for Men

Empowerment for Teens

Empowerment for Children

Personal Empowerment

What would an empowered man do?

Image from edelomahony.com

Empowerment

“If there was one wish I had for you, one gift I could give you, it would be empowerment. People without empowerment act from a survival basis and must do whatever they can or need to do, just to survive. Empowered people act from their sense of what is right and wrong, their conscience guides them. Empowered people don’t get up in the morning wondering what they can do wrong or to hurt others; they look for ways to make the world better. I wish for you #empowerment.”

Excerpt from Executive Mastermind Program 2001

Break free to Empowerment
Image from theindianuprising.blogspot.com

The daily news shows graphic images of people living in fear, striving for survival, hungry for love, affection, even just acknowledgement. These are people who are not empowered.

Less often we see images of people walking purposefully, striding out, or relaxed with their families, feeling confident, happy, secure. There are two reasons for that: Firstly, it’s not graphic news and it doesn’t sell newspapers or TV airspace time, but secondly and sadly, there are fewer people living a life of empowerment.

If empowerment was a choice, why don’t people take it?

There are probably three main reasons.

Power-hungry bullies, including governments, corporations and others in positions of power and authority find it easier to govern or rule people who fear them and don’t know that they can choose a better life.
Ignorance. They have been conditioned to living in fear or survival mode for so long, it’s not part of their reality and they neither know nor understand it, nor do they believe there is anything in life for them other than what they have.
Challenging life situations, where people have been born into or acquired a challenging situation such as poverty, chronic illness or accident causing a massive life and/or health change or other similar circumstances.

Let’s look at these reasons, and their contradictions.

Under pressure from big brother!
from gscblog.typepad.com

Power Hungry Bullies oppressing people over whom they have a measure of control. It is far easier to herd sheep from horseback than say, a pride of lions. Why is that? Because the lion is not afraid of a man on horseback! If you are in the ‘herding people’ business, it pays you to have them frightened of you! It’s that simple.

The ‘people herders’ are governments, large corporations (think Monsanto, Halliburton, General Dynamics, etc.), employers where there are dictatorial bosses, and even within families, a spouse might dominate their partner. These bullies think they need to exert massive and overwhelming power to get what they want. However, in most cases, they are coming from a level of fear and insecurity also, where their fear is that if their “subjects” become empowered, they will rise up and overthrow them!

The contradiction is that empowered people don’t really need to overthrow anyone else. They feel confident and secure within themselves and are already in control of their lives.

MONOPOLY ON FOOD SEEDS
Image from worldtruth.tv

Ignorance and conditioning. These are the people held down by their conditioning and the bullies they ‘live under’. Conditioning is one thing – education and positive experiences can, in time, overcome conditioning and in the right circumstances, enable empowerment. Getting out from under a genuine bully is another – their fear of losing control can be extreme and their actions to retain control can be extreme also.

Awareness is the first step for those living under oppression. Only once the awareness is there, the long trek out can begin.

Challenging life situations. Let’s break these down into poverty and poor birthright, and accident and illness causing an acquired chronic situation.

Poverty in a developed country may be an income of $200 per week. It may be as high as $500 per week, depending on the location and circumstances. However, in some developing countries, $200 per year is a fortune, it is fabulous wealth! Poverty is relative to the location and circumstances, but just as real in any circumstances. Where there is education, there is a way forward. Where there is no education, intervention is often necessary.

Poverty from birthright, caste and cultural status
Image from secularpakistan.wordpress.com

Poor birthright can mean a person born into a caste, race or class situation where they are deemed to have no rights. Many developing nations have this problem. The crazy thing is that when a person of poor caste migrates or is relocated to another country, often this condition vanishes because that caste or class distinction is not recognised outside their own culture. Education can be the starting point for this transition.

Chronic illness and acquired injuries forcing changed life circumstances. An insect bite can change your life. A momentary lapse of concentration while driving can do it too. A sporting injury can take a person from Olympic glory to total dependency on a full-time nurse. Life can change without warning. There is no easy way back from this and lives can change forever.

However, empowerment does not rely on wealth, power or influence. Empowerment is firstly, a state of mind, preceding the physical changes that can occur because of it.

Nelson Mandela
www.thetruthseeker.co.uk

Look at Nelson Mandela’s example: Imprisoned by a brutal regime for 27 years, he emerged as a man ready to be president of a nation emerging from possibly the darkest period in its history. When he passed away recently, he was revered as a leader, an example of a man who empowered and united a nation by his example. How could that happen?

The Empowerment Tone Scale

Empowerment Emotional Tone Scale

In the EMPOWERMENT TONE SCALE image, the TONE SCALE is shown on the left of the image, with the emotions listed in ascending order beside the scores. Empowerment is shown as an emotional state, a state of mind on the image, at the top end of the scale.

The broad blue vertical arrow shows the emotional range in which most people live. You can verify this by walking on any street and noting how many people are smiling from the inside, happy and carefree, and how many are walking with heavy hearts and steps.

The challenge of empowerment becomes one of understanding how to raise the emotional state of a person from their state of concern to where they take an interest in the world around them, and are no longer concerned with fear or survival. There is a simple, standard starting point.

Ask the question of yourself: HOW CAN I….?

What this simple question does is propel your mind from wherever on the tone scale it is, up into the region of creativity, as your mind automatically tries to answer the question. Eventually, your mind starts to live up in that area of the tone scale, as you repeatedly bounce it from down where you asked the question, to where you want it to be.

However, note that between wherever you are on the tone scale, and where you want to be, you need to traverse, and experience all the other emotions on your journey to empowerment. If you have been living in a state of ‘covert hostility’ for example, you will need to pass through and manage anger and pain and the other emotions on your way up.

At first, it will frustrate you and anger you, but perhaps that is just part of the journey. Along the way you will experience many emotions and soon understand that you travel up and down this emotional tone scale many times daily. However, you will soon find that by understanding it, being conscious of it and working with it, you will learn to live in the conscious, empowered part of it.

How can you train yourself and your mind for Empowerment?

A little intervention to get started!
Image from weheartit.com

Empowerment must be from within you, but intervention and education is usually needed to spark the fires of creativity and imagination alight. Once the inspiration for and understanding of the principles of empowerment are held, it’s up to each person then to continue the empowerment journey. A supportive environment is preferable and will speed the process. If that is not where you live, then you need to create that through the empowerment process you use.

The most effective way is to take on a program that sets out an empowerment routine for you each day. A routine that sees you establish small, achievable goals daily, for you to congratulate yourself on their achievement each evening. A program that gives you an affirmation each morning to carry you through. A program that teaches you awareness and an understanding of what really goes on in your life, your heart, mind and soul as you make your way through your day.

This all happens, regardless of whether you are aware of it. Being aware just means you can control it and create in your life those dreams and goals and experiences you want.

It’s worth empowering yourself to do it.

In coming blogs, I will be discussing more on empowerment, on topics such as:

Empowerment for Women

Empowerment for Men

Empowerment for children and teens

We will refer back to this post also, because this is the foundation of empowerment, the fundamentals on which true empowerment is based and built. Until and unless the process of empowerment described above occurs, nothing else can change!

Begin your journey to Empowerment in your own Personal Empowerment Program; Click HERE, NOW!

If you feel this blog has empowered you, please feel free to share and reblog this information to your friends, family and other people in your network. Every person on the planet desires empowerment and every one of us deserves the opportunity for it. Please help.

Til next time, fair winds and full sails,

Ray Jamieson

“Don’t confuse poor decision-making with destiny. Own your mistakes. It’s ok; we all make them. Learn from them so they can empower you!”
― Steve Maraboli, Life, the Truth, and Being Free

Please also refer to my related posts on Empowerment:

Empowerment through Emotional Intelligence

Empowered by Love

Financial Empowerment

Empowerment for Men

Empowerment for Women

Empowerment for Teens

Empowerment for Children

Personal Empowerment

What would an empowered man do?

Mapping Your Future

Travelling into the future!
Image from www.dailygalaxy.com

“If time travel is possible, where are the tourists from the future?”
― Stephen Hawking, A Brief History of Time

Recently, I took a midweek weekend with my wife. We invested two days at the resort where we had our wedding reception. We took the bridal suite (midweek rates are excellent!) and over two days, we discussed our past year, looked at what worked, what didn’t and looked at mapping our future. Susan wrote about the first part of it in her blog on Owls and Orchids under the name of “Through the Looking Glass – Part 1” and is currently working on “Through the Looking Glass – Part 2”, of what happened at our review session.

This is all part of the Life Change 90 program, and yes, we actually live this program and everything in it; all the activities recommended in the program to make our lives better, we spend the few minutes a day required to practise them. The annual “year in review” session and #mapping your future is one of the recommendations and it was just wonderful!

Eagle Heights Resort Hotel
Image from http://www.discovertamborine.com.au

As an aside, we held our wedding reception at this resort and when we returned, they treated us like royalty! It was fantastic, the bridal suite and all the trimmings and at midweek rates better than a cheap motel on the strip! But back to the blog…

Our review had us looking over last year and what worked, or didn’t work for us, and asked what we will do differently to change that. It asked what did work, and how we can do more of that to maintain the achievements. It also asked us to look forward; that is what this blog is about, mapping your future.

Time Travel is nothing special, really. There are movies made about it with fantastic scenes created as visions of what is to come. However, we travelled a year into the future and created visions of our own futures – probably better than a movie. Watching a time travel movie is OK, as long as you pay your $15 at the door but two hours later, it’s over. With what we did, the future we visited is real, and we are heading there now!

The three parts to time travel, and mapping your future.

Part 1 – the destination.

Back to the future? Let’s do this EVERY year!
Image from www.gdefon.com

The destination in any journey is the goal. When mapping your future, it is actually a series of goals, sometimes linked, sometimes not. We set a number of goals and whilst some are definitely connected and some are serial, or stepping-stones to each other, others are totally separate and stand-alone.

Our business and career goals include milestones for business achievements. A certain level of results within 3 months, but a greater level within 6 months and an annual target to work towards.

On a personal level, we have personal health and wellbeing goals which are separate to the business goals. However, there is a connection: Unless we remain healthy, we can’t run the business properly. In that respect, everything affects everything else but at first glance, those personal goals are not connected to the business goals.

We also set goals about our home. We’d like to be living elsewhere and we have clearly set that out on our Vision Boards – in the greatest of detail. Our vision boards have all our goals on them – a visual feast and travel guide to our future!

Part 2 – the journey.

Any journey requires planning and foresight. Even a stroll to the corner shop for a bottle of milk requires planning – you need your wallet or purse with some money, you need shoes for the footpath, or if it’s too far to walk, fuel in the car. When you plan a journey into next year, that requires a little more planning and forethought.

For each of the goals we set in Part 1 – the destination, we set out the action steps we needed to take to ensure we make progress to the goals. We put timetables to these action steps and mapped out the strategies on the timetable to make sure they happen. We know what we want; we know what we have to do; now we have to turn up on the day to do them, to achieve the result we specified. We also know what we need to have with us on our journey to take these action steps, and what we need to be and do – this is the travel plan.

Travel plans
Image from www.travelmuse.com

Planning a car journey requires fuel, lunch for the driver and passengers, rest stops, accommodation, money for fuel and meals and so on. Our journey of mapping your future is very similar – a journey into the future is still just a journey!

The action steps towards the goal, the timelines and deadlines, milestones and benchmarks are all part of your journey of mapping your future. Each time you think about a certain goal, a destination, you also think about the next steps you need to take to get there. Just as you can’t see the road conditions over the hill, you can only clearly see a small part of the way forward. However, you plan specifically for the close-by milestones, and more generally for the further out ones, and refine them when you get closer. Little, successful steps forward. There is your journey planned.

Part 3 – travelling companions.

Some journeys we take alone, some we travel in company. It has been said that we journey through life alone and only share certain parts of it with others, for a short time. Even within relationships there are journeys we still take alone. However, travelling companions are an important consideration when mapping your future – which parts will you travel alone and which will you travel in company?

Your Mentors, Susan and Ray, travelling companions

I am blessed to have a wonderful life partner and travelling companion, after travelling most of my life alone. Our midweek review session at Mount Tamborine confirmed it again; we really are in synch on the important parts of our individual journeys forward, and therefore we can share those journeys together as travelling companions. However, if you are travelling alone, the planning process is the same.

It’s important to understand the distinction between sharing goals and travelling together. Susan and I have individual goals and I support her totally in achieving her goals, with love and autonomy in whatever she wants to do. Compare that to a couple where one has a goal and the other is forced to work towards it also. No, that’s not sharing – that’s press ganging! We travel together and share some joint goals, but always provide support and encouragement for each other’s personal, individual goals.

Celebrations when mapping your future.

Absolutely vital! Starting tomorrow – New Years Day. The New Year timetable kicks in and the first of the targets and milestones appear on the new calendar. We celebrate each as they appear, reviewing our achievements (or otherwise) to consolidate success and resolve other issues to ensure success next time.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!
Image from www.smh.com.au

How about you? Did you read my “New Years Resolutions” blog a few weeks back? Have you made your New Years Resolutions and so begun mapping your future? What will keep you on track with all the promises and commitments you made to yourself, and your family? What system do you have in place to ensure your progress and success?

Now is the time to nail your goals for the New Year, mapping your future is the start. Systemizing your activities towards it is your guarantee of success so that when 2015 looms in the windscreen, you can look back and say “2014 was a great trip – what a ride!”

Start your mapping: Click here to begin your own Personal Empowerment Journey and create your future, from today!

We all have a future, the difference is that if you have been mapping your future, it’s more likely to be the one you want, rather than someone else’s idea of what your future should be.

We’ll see you there!

If you found value in this blog and feel it could be of benefit to others, please share and reblog it, so that everyone has a chance at mapping their future too.

Til next time, fair winds and full sails,

Ray Jamieson

“Cheers to a new year and another chance for us to get it right.”
― Oprah Winfrey

Next Year

NEXT YEAR

Image from www.wunderground.com
A new beginning

“Although no one can go back and make a brand new start, anyone can start from now and make a brand new ending.” ― Carl Bard

How was your last year?

For most people, about this time of the year, thinking about last year is pretty much the focal point of their inner reflections.

What will make next year different?

Only 2 things can or ever will make a difference in your life, its outcomes and your achievements from year to year:

Image From www.goodreads.com

The things you read, study and take into your heart and mind
The people you meet and allow to have an effect on you

(Paraphrased from Charlie Tremendous Jones)

What Charlie meant was that unless we do something different, such as allow ourselves to learn something new so we can do something new, only then can something different happen to us! If you are riding on rails like a tram, the destination is already pre-arranged! #Next year will be the same!

What can you do to ensure that positive change happens next year?

I have two recommendations only; two blog posts for you to read at these links, and then to act upon:

Why bother with Self Development for Next Year?

If you didn’t like what last year brought, it’s time to make some changes. For things to change outside, first they need to change INSIDE! To HAVE something different, we need to BECOME something different!

Why systemize Self Development for Next Year?

Systems work! You think you are a free spirit, but you are totally systemized in everything that works perfectly.

You eat something, it goes into your digestive system.

You think, choose to move a muscle, and it works through your nervous system.

You book a flight or a hotel room, it goes into the reservations system.

You post a letter, it goes into the postal system… Hey, not EVERY system is perfect every time, but you get the idea – systems work, because they deliver a result, pretty much every time. If you realise you need some personal development, when you systemize it, you’ll find it works better too. That can eliminate the ‘losing track’ or ‘forgetting to do it’ problems most people find when working on their personal development.

Take Action NOW!
Image from www.modularhomecoach.com

Once you have read these two blogs, don’t just sit there – take action! Plug into a ready-made system that is waiting to help you make the changes you want in your life. Dial them in and turn up in your life each day – the system will take care of it from there. CLICK HERE NOW TO BEGIN!

It needn’t be hard work. After all, you were going to wake up and have a day each morning, weren’t you? This will just make it flow better and give you something to be pleased with at the end of each day, and put a spring in your step at the start of each day.

My wish is that you DO have a much better next year. This is how you can do it!

If you feel this has been valuable to you, please share or reblog it for others to enjoy and gain from also. Everyone deserves the chance to make their next year better than their last!

Til next time, fair winds and full sails!

Ray Jamieson

“Failure is the opportunity to begin again more intelligently.” – Henry Ford

To Be Loved

TO BE LOVED

“Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind,
And therefore is winged Cupid painted blind.”
― William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night’s Dream

#To be loved is the stuff of the ages, the poets of old and the stories they told.

Image from englishwithatwist.com

To be loved by a puppy is cute, then they grow into those mischievous brutes

Image from hijosypadres.wordpress.com

To be loved by a child is a joy to cherish, til they hit teens and then they vanish

Image from de.dreamstime.com

To be loved by an audience is great for the ego, but they go home at the end of the show

Image from blogs.ft.com

To be loved by a nation, as president or dictator, an election or uprising and it’s “see you later!”

Image from www.patheos.com

To be loved by a fiancée is sweet and delicious, to make it to the altar is so very precious

Image from www.slate.com

To be loved by your spouse years down the track, is a feeling to cherish to eternity and back

Image from www.jewelryshopus.com

I am so blessed. I have known most of these – although I’m not aiming for president, but I can now honestly say that I am blessed to know that the lady I fell in love with and am now even more in love with, is still greatly enamoured with me. She has known me for some years now, knows my considerable flaws, knows that at times I drive her nuts, I forget things, I probably keep her awake at night with my snoring, if not because of the worrying she does over the strife I get into, and yet, she loves me.

“You don’t love someone because they’re perfect, you love them in spite of the fact that they’re not.”
― Jodi Picoult, My Sister’s Keeper

How powerful and motivating is it to be loved?

The search for love through the ages has inspired acts ranging from incredible heroism to just as incredible acts of stupidity. However, the desire to be loved the way I am loved is inspirational, motivational and incredibly empowering. It is the true magic of the universe – of all the billions of people on this planet, I found the one with whom together forever is our reality.

There are many ways people can desire to be loved. The flirtatious and frivolous one night stands or casual flings. Sure, they may be fun for a time, but it’s like eating a packet of potato crisps – almost straight away, you feel hungry for something else. Compared to a proper meal, there is no satisfaction, no comparison – it’s just an appetizer.

Another way to be loved is to have control over another, to demand their love and affection. But demanding or commanding a person to love you denies them the opportunity to choose to love you and to express and to give love from the depths of their heart. How could you know if this was what they felt, or only what you demanded? It’s an ego trip by a heart very lacking in confidence and self-esteem, scared to take a chance on love when it is easier and safer to extort it.

A very popular way to be loved is to allow yourself to be a toy for others, to be subservient to their wishes. But how would you know if they loved you, or were merely using you as a convenience? Where is your security? When they finish with you, what then?

To be loved by someone needy is scary. Once their needs are fulfilled, what then? Or will they ever be fulfilled? And is it love for you, or fear from them that keeps them close? There is no long-term tenure or happiness there either!

To be loved by someone freely, someone who knows all about you and still chooses to love you, chooses to be with you and commit to you totally, regardless of the consequences, trusting that as a team you can face the future together, that is the love to desire, when you desire to be loved. This is the stuff of ages, known by the poets of old through the stories they told.

If this is not what you have in your life, sure, learn the tricks, learn what to say, read the books, get a puppy, but above all, become worthy of the love of the person you would desire to be loved by. Do your bit. Look in the mirror at your heart and soul. Is what you see what you would expect the love of your life to become excited over? Are you excited about you?

The first step is to fall in love with yourself – like who you are and be proud of what you have to offer. Become attractive on the inside and let it overflow to the world around you. People notice. People will want to be near you, not necessarily to fall in love with you, but because it’s a great feeling for them, like a warm fire on a cold evening. And somewhere amongst those people you may find the connection to the one you desire to be loved by.

When they arrive – be worthy of them. Prepare for them. Make it worth their journey, the journey they took, to be loved by the person they seek too.

Remember, they are just like you, another person, feeling alone, seeking to be loved by someone to love them down through the ages too. Treat them as you wish to be loved.

My wish for you is to feel the blessing that I feel each morning as I wake to greet my day, my life and my wife, and again each evening as I give thanks for the day I have had, and say “Goodnight” to the one I so love to wake up with each morning!

If you feel this has been valuable to you, please share or reblog it for others to enjoy and gain from also. Everyone deserves to be loved!

Til next time, fair winds and full sails!

Ray Jamieson

“I’m selfish, impatient and a little insecure. I make mistakes, I am out of control and at times hard to handle. But if you can’t handle me at my worst, then you sure as hell don’t deserve me at my best.”
― Marilyn Monroe

Merry Christmas Wishes

Merry Christmas Wishes to all!
Image courtesy of nyse-trade.com

“Then the Grinch thought of something he hadn’t before! What if Christmas, he thought, doesn’t come from a store. What if Christmas…perhaps…means a little bit more!”
― Dr. Seuss, How the Grinch Stole Christmas!

Who will you send Merry Christmas Wishes to this year?

Christmas has changed. Looking around the world, and down through the ages where the legends of Saint Nicholas and the various other Christmas figures began, we grew up with a romanticized view of Christmas. For some people, Christmas meant snow. In Australia, New Zealand and South Africa, it was intense heat. But always, the #Merry Christmas Wishes went out to people everywhere, mostly with a picture of a guy in a Santa Suit, en route from the North Pole with Reindeer pulling a sleigh of gifts for children all over the world.

Collecting the mail at Christmas time was exciting. Checking the mailbox to see who had sent Merry Christmas Wishes to you, seeing who had replied to your Merry Christmas Wishes to them, and perhaps a parcel arriving, wrapped with string and a little bow…. That one HAD to go under the tree, until Christmas morning…

Some homes and probably most, had Christmas Trees, the lucky ones had real trees, some had pine tree branches, others had store-bought trees, and all were decorated for the occasion.

So what happened to our Merry Christmas Wishes?

All the Christmas Cards
bouncingoffthewalls.ca

It seems that from when life sped up, computers made sending E-Cards easier and cheaper than the escalating cost of posting Christmas Cards, and the nuclear family scattered to all corners of the globe, that somewhere along the way, Merry Christmas Wishes lost their power and attraction.

Almost. Those who have not lost themselves in the commercialism of Christmas and who have a family to share the occasion with may still have it. However, a new type of Christmas Celebration has evolved; that of the Christmas Orphans. Here, you are a person or perhaps a couple alone for this wondrous day of the year, perhaps working or living away in a city remote from family, or you no longer have family. Your personal circumstances may not allow you to share Christmas Day with your birth family, for a variety of reasons, and your Merry Christmas Wishes have nowhere to go.

Then along came the Christmas Orphans parties. Here, people in these situations arrange their own parties, often strangers until the day, but quite often, friends afterwards. The parties are advertised either by venues, organisations, churches or individuals who want to host the party. Most people bring something to contribute, and it’s a great day. For some people, literally a life saver! Christmas alone can be a challenge for some.

But for those for whom this is Christmas and no matter how much they enjoy the Christmas Orphans parties, there is often regret, even some remorse, for the situations in their lives that has brought them to this moment, when they have no family nearby to share their Merry Christmas Wishes with.

The First Noel?

I regret the passing of Christmas and the commercialism it has now become. Retail stores bank on the billions of dollars spent at Christmas time to shore up their balance sheets and make their profit and loss sheets acceptable, because consumer confidence around the world in recent years has been at an all-time low. The televisions blast their “spend big at Christmas Time” message at ever decreasing intervals during the rubbish programs broadcast by the TV stations, because this is not a TV Ratings period and they can get away with broadcasting the same “Christmas Specials” they have used for the last decade. I don’t know how many more times I can watch “The Griswalds”, “Polar Express”, “Uncle Buck” and the obligatory “Christmas Carols in the Park” broadcasts! Fireworks displays are in every town and village centre, sometimes in many places throughout cities and towns; the signage is out but the spirit feels low.

Yes, I regret not having the family experiences we had as children for our Christmas each year. We all have to grow up and create our own lives, I understand that. But I miss the old spirit of Merry Christmas Wishes I grew up with.

Christmas for me was always about sharing with my loved ones, not trying to buy their loyalty or affection. The Christmas Spirit, if it only comes out once a year, is a lie. If it takes an event of this magnitude for anyone to say to another “I Love You”, then they are lying too.

Is there anything about the spirit of Christmas that should NOT apply EVERY day of the year?

Family gathering at Christmas
Image from bathknightblog.com

Yes, perhaps one thing and it is purely logistical. Christmas is a time of everyone gathering around to celebrate, but because we all have our own lives and homes, often separated from each other and from close family, we can’t see each other every day of the year. However, if the gift giving and all those feel-good feelings towards one another are reserved for just that one day, then perhaps the spirit of commercialisation of Christmas has won, and the Old Christmas Spirit has gone forever.

During your Christmas celebrations this year, take a step back and observe yourself. Are you expressing things to people that you would not share with them throughout the year? Why is that? Why can we not share these Merry Christmas Wishes type feelings every day of the year?

Will next year be different?

Next Year?
fun-n-first.blogspot.com

What will make 2014 a better year than 2013 was? What have you planned that will make the difference? Nothing yet? It’s getting late and certainly time to think about your New Years Resolutions, including something about the true Merry Christmas Wishes, and the spirit of Christmas of old, all year through!

I wish for you that the value of your presence to those you love is much greater than the value of your presents for them, and that the greatest gifts you share are those you have shared all year! I send you my Merry Christmas Wishes too!

If you have found value in this post, please share or reblog it to your friends too. Everyone deserves some true Christmas Spirit at least once a year! Click here to get yours NOW!

Til next time, fair winds and full sails, and Merry Christmas Wishes!

Ray Jamieson

“My idea of Christmas, whether old-fashioned or modern, is very simple: loving others. Come to think of it, why do we have to wait for Christmas to do that?”
― Bob Hope

“Christmas, children, is not a date. It is a state of mind. ”
― Mary Ellen Chase

Passion

Image from manifestedharmony.com

What is passion?

If you look at passion in the dictionary, you find a technical description – a deep, overwhelming emotion, or with religious connotations… However, there is another, far more important way to understand #passion.

“The true soldier fights not because he hates what is in front of him, but because he loves what is behind him.”
― G.K. Chesterton

Passion is fuel!

When you set a goal, without the fuel for the journey the achievement of that goal requires, you will fail! Passion provides the fuel. No passion? Don’t waste your time.

Passion creates commitment.

Why do we commit to something? Commitment is a dedication to a course of action for a particular reason. There are only two reasons, the base emotions of fear and desire.

If you are in fear for your life and running will save you, then you will run! Fear is an incredible motivator. However, once you are clear of the danger, most likely you will run another few metres and STOP! However, the passion, the fear, the overwhelming desire to save your life gave you the commitment to run, to get you out of the danger.

Image from www.withoutwax.tv
Fear motivation!

The flip side of passion is the desire you can have. It can be an incredible motivator and empower you to perform amazing feats, many which may have seemed impossible beforehand. The passion of love has inspired so many stories, from Romeo and Juliet and tales of love and heroism down the centuries, to current real life stories of what people will do for love. That is a passion that provides an undying source of energy to continue the struggle, the journey, no matter what the cost.

Image from mubi.com
Eros Love and Passion

There is the passion of greed. That passion the fuels the gambling industries, a hunger for money, the willingness to gamble everything on the belief that they know which way the dice will roll. Losing doesn’t stop them either, unless they lose it all. Sometimes though, they are so passionate in their hunger and greed, that their addiction overwhelms common sense and reason. They borrow to continue gambling, even though they know the odds are stacked against them. No obstacle will shift them from their journey, they are committed.

Image from www.jesus-is-savior.com
Mother Theresa and friend

There is the passion for a cause. Mother Theresa had this level of passion. In the streets of Calcutta in India for half a century, Mother Theresa battled poverty, cultural beliefs, politicians, greed, corruption and natural disasters to feed hundreds of thousands of the Indian underprivileged and to raise them from their poverty. Not for personal gain, but because she believed in what she was doing.

There is the passion for the feeling of success, of achievement against odds. The feeling that only comes when incredible obstacles have been achieved. Experiences that mountain climbers and other elite athletes are almost addicted to. They regularly do what most people would consider foolhardy or outright suicidal, just for that feeling of success, elation, of achievement, at completing the challenge and winning.

The passion for a life, a rounded, complete and happy life, with family, friends and the security of knowing that life is good in your own little circle of friends, family, loved ones, with money, food, shelter and all the necessities and some of the luxuries that you believe makes life worthwhile. This is where ordinary folk are to be found, going to work each week for 5 or 6 days, to earn money to pay the bills that the cost of a life such as this generates. The rewards for their toil are the family and community they create.

There are other people who are touched by an inspirational unrest, who set higher personal goals to raise themselves from the ordinary to extraordinary levels. These people have a passion for a particular something of their own. Perhaps it is art – hence we find many struggling artists creating masterpieces that no-one yet appreciates. Writers often fall into this category, so many struggling and unknown authors. Inventors, free thinkers, entrepreneurs. So many people are affected by this inspirational unrest.

The goals are not always critical to the survival of the person, though they complete and satisfy that person. They feel whole because of their goal, or the journey towards it. Perhaps it’s a study of ancestry where you dedicate hours per week searching ancient texts and documents looking for clues to your own family history. It may be a savings goal to purchase something you really desire, a car, engagement ring, your own home, or a yacht, motorcycle or a dream to travel and explore the world.

The goal itself doesn’t matter. What matters is your passion for it. No passion, no drive, no commitment; no success is possible.

Passion is not a crazed race to the end.

Image from scrubsmag.com
Until forever…..!

Passion can be a slow burning fuel that smoulders and provides energy from deep within for many years, as well as the passion of the honeymoon. Young newlyweds exhibit the passion of “Eros” love, wild, romantic and fervent lust for satisfaction. However, it’s called a honeymoon because it doesn’t last. The passion must transmute to the “Agape” form of passionate love for it to last the distance of the vows “Until death do us part”… And so it is with all goals. The initial excitement gives way to a deep and powerful drive, fuelled by the passion for the goal.

If your goal bores you, it’s not a goal, it’s a chore! If what you do excites you, it drives you and inspires you to look forward to it each and every time you are there; you have passion and a life of excitement and challenge! With passion such as this, failure will never be an issue for you. From time to time you will have setbacks, you will rethink your strategies but you will never consider quitting.

Image from www.cloudsoftwareprogram.org
Bit of an obstacle!

When working towards your goal, if an obstacle occurs and you cease striving for it, there are only a couple of reasons why you stopped. The obstacle has little to do with it.

Firstly, you were not passionate enough. If you had the passion, you would continue to try, to the extent you might go crazy, broke or worse in your attempts to succeed and to look for other ways to get there.

Second possible reason for failure is that you either tried to do it alone, uneducated, unresourced and/or without a plan. You may not have known how to clarify your goal, so that you were actually setting the goal of your passion, not just a step towards it.

Goals must be clear, well-defined, tested to be certain they are what you need, then put into a structured plan for their achievement. This process ensures you have the right goal, the resources and the passion for it. You just need to turn up for it then with your passion, and with your plan, the goal will be yours sooner than you ever thought possible.

What if you don’t feel passion for anything?

You just haven’t discovered your passion yet. Some people never do. However, if you really want to live your life, not just be there when it happens, set a goal to experience enough diversity within your life to discover what you do feel passion for. Whether that passion you discover is for another person, a cause, a craft or any of the multitudes of things people do that excites them. There will be something – find it; feel the passion that makes life worthwhile.

If you have no other goals, no other passions, make your goal the goal to discover your passion. In doing so, you will discover the reason, the answer to the eternal question, of why you are here!

“The saddest people I’ve ever met in life are the ones who don’t care deeply about anything at all. Passion and satisfaction go hand in hand, and without them, any happiness is only temporary, because there’s nothing to make it last.” ― Nicholas Sparks

If you have gained value from this post and feel others would benefit also, please share or reblog it for them. Let’s add some more value to this world! Passion should be available to everyone! Get yours here NOW!

Til next time, fair winds and full sails,

Ray

“Passion. It lies in all of us. Sleeping… waiting… and though unwanted, unbidden, it will stir… open its jaws and howl. It speaks to us… guides us. Passion rules us all. And we obey. What other choice do we have? Passion is the source of our finest moments. The joy of love… the clarity of hatred… the ecstasy of grief. It hurts sometimes more than we can bear. If we could live without passion, maybe we’d know some kind of peace. But we would be hollow. Empty rooms, shuttered and dank. Without passion, we’d be truly dead.”
― Joss Whedon

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“In a very real sense we have two minds, one that thinks and one that feels” ― Daniel Goleman, Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ

Empowerment through Emotional Intelligence

What is empowerment?

How do you gain empowerment through emotional intelligence?

How important is empowerment through emotional intelligence?

Can empowerment become a normal state?

“emotional self-awareness is the building block of the next fundamental emotional intelligence: being able to shake off a bad mood” ― Daniel Goleman, Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ

Personal Empowerment.

Personal empowerment is not a big deal.

Personal empowerment is worth it.

But how do you get personal empowerment?

Be ambitious towards your own personal enhancement. Steve Mariboli

Empowerment for Children

Can we be sure of that? Are sub-personalities real?

How are sub-personalities relevant to empowerment for children?

How do we make empowerment for children possible?

Is it OK for a child to fail?

Empowerment for Women

“There came a time when the risk to remain tight in the bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.” ~Anais Nin

Empowerment for women throughout history.

Empowerment for women in the modern era.

Will empowerment for women change the issues of the glass ceiling and domestic violence?

How can personal empowerment for women be gained?

Can empowerment for women be misunderstood?

How will you know when you have ‘got’ empowerment for women?

“I do not wish [women] to have power over men; but over themselves.” ~Mary Wollstonecraft

Empowerment

If empowerment was a choice, why don’t people take it?

The Empowerment Tone Scale

Ask the question of yourself: HOW CAN I….?

How can you train yourself and your mind for Empowerment?

Empowerment for Women

Empowerment for Men

Empowerment for children and teens

“Don’t confuse poor decision-making with destiny. Own your mistakes. It’s ok; we all make them. Learn from them so they can empower you!” ― Steve Maraboli, Life, the Truth, and Being Free

Mapping Your Future

“If time travel is possible, where are the tourists from the future?” ― Stephen Hawking, A Brief History of Time

Part 1 – the destination.

Part 2 – the journey.

Part 3 – travelling companions.

Celebrations when mapping your future.

“Cheers to a new year and another chance for us to get it right.” ― Oprah Winfrey

NEXT YEAR

“Although no one can go back and make a brand new start, anyone can start from now and make a brand new ending.” ― Carl Bard

How was your last year?

What will make next year different?

What can you do to ensure that positive change happens next year?

Why bother with Self Development for Next Year?

Why systemize Self Development for Next Year?

“Failure is the opportunity to begin again more intelligently.” – Henry Ford

TO BE LOVED

“Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind, And therefore is winged Cupid painted blind.” ― William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night’s Dream

“You don’t love someone because they’re perfect, you love them in spite of the fact that they’re not.” ― Jodi Picoult, My Sister’s Keeper

How powerful and motivating is it to be loved?

“I’m selfish, impatient and a little insecure. I make mistakes, I am out of control and at times hard to handle. But if you can’t handle me at my worst, then you sure as hell don’t deserve me at my best.” ― Marilyn Monroe

Merry Christmas Wishes

“Then the Grinch thought of something he hadn’t before! What if Christmas, he thought, doesn’t come from a store. What if Christmas…perhaps…means a little bit more!” ― Dr. Seuss, How the Grinch Stole Christmas!

Who will you send Merry Christmas Wishes to this year?

So what happened to our Merry Christmas Wishes?

Is there anything about the spirit of Christmas that should NOT apply EVERY day of the year?

Will next year be different?

“My idea of Christmas, whether old-fashioned or modern, is very simple: loving others. Come to think of it, why do we have to wait for Christmas to do that?” ― Bob Hope

“Christmas, children, is not a date. It is a state of mind. ” ― Mary Ellen Chase

Passion

What is passion?

“The true soldier fights not because he hates what is in front of him, but because he loves what is behind him.” ― G.K. Chesterton

Passion is fuel!

Passion creates commitment.

Passion is not a crazed race to the end.

What if you don’t feel passion for anything?

“The saddest people I’ve ever met in life are the ones who don’t care deeply about anything at all. Passion and satisfaction go hand in hand, and without them, any happiness is only temporary, because there’s nothing to make it last.” ― Nicholas Sparks

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Copyright: Life Change 90 – 2014

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“In a very real sense we have two minds, one that thinks and one that feels”
― Daniel Goleman, Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ

“emotional self-awareness is the building block of the next fundamental emotional intelligence: being able to shake off a bad mood”
― Daniel Goleman, Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ

“Don’t confuse poor decision-making with destiny. Own your mistakes. It’s ok; we all make them. Learn from them so they can empower you!”
― Steve Maraboli, Life, the Truth, and Being Free

“If time travel is possible, where are the tourists from the future?”
― Stephen Hawking, A Brief History of Time

“Cheers to a new year and another chance for us to get it right.”
― Oprah Winfrey

“Love looks not with the eyes, but with the mind,
And therefore is winged Cupid painted blind.”
― William Shakespeare, A Midsummer Night’s Dream

“You don’t love someone because they’re perfect, you love them in spite of the fact that they’re not.”
― Jodi Picoult, My Sister’s Keeper

“I’m selfish, impatient and a little insecure. I make mistakes, I am out of control and at times hard to handle. But if you can’t handle me at my worst, then you sure as hell don’t deserve me at my best.”
― Marilyn Monroe

“Then the Grinch thought of something he hadn’t before! What if Christmas, he thought, doesn’t come from a store. What if Christmas…perhaps…means a little bit more!”
― Dr. Seuss, How the Grinch Stole Christmas!

“My idea of Christmas, whether old-fashioned or modern, is very simple: loving others. Come to think of it, why do we have to wait for Christmas to do that?”
― Bob Hope

“Christmas, children, is not a date. It is a state of mind. ”
― Mary Ellen Chase

“The true soldier fights not because he hates what is in front of him, but because he loves what is behind him.”
― G.K. Chesterton