This is a first for A Miracle A Day… a guest post.  This is one that I, personally, could use, and I hope that you find it useful as well.

Here it is, then, a guest post from Gaetano at http://www.FruitfulTime.com.

By far the best technique to impress when you are networking and building relationships with prospective clients or business partners is to remember their names. Can you remember the last time someone remembered your name how flattered you felt? When someone addresses you with your name, you feel that you are important.

Our name is something hard wired into our brain. This is quite natural. Our parents were the first to call us using our name and therefore it is something we react to subconsciously. When we hear our name we pay more attention to what is being said and there is a higher probability that we will act upon something when we are addressed by our name. Therefore, it is invaluable for you to remember peoples’ names if you want to draw and keep the attention of someone, be it a friend at a party or a potential client in a business meeting.

Also, since many people have trouble remembering names, if you manage to remember names using the below techniques you will manage to stand out from the rest of the crowd. You will also come across as a bright person and this definitely gives bonus points to your charm score.

The above was just a summary of the benefits of remembering names. I hope it was enough to convince you how important it is to remember names when networking and socialising. If you are like how I used to be and you keep on forgetting names, then I suggest you start following these tips. The following tips can help you remember more names and in doing so help you build stronger relationships both in your business and in your personal life.

1. Make Sure You Get It Correct From The Beginning

   It happened once to me and I will make sure it will not happen again. I once was introduced to a person and I didn’t get the name right. I didn’t ask him to repeat his name since I was embarrassed. I hoped that his name will be mentioned in a conversation. But it didn’t happen. I still have the cell phone number saved with “Unknown name” as his name. I can still remember that this person was an English teacher.

   So pay attention when you get introduced. Make sure you get the name right as from the beginning so as to avoid embarrassing situations like the one I have described above.

2. Call The Person By Their Name

   Once you get introduced address the person using his/her name. Do this for two reasons. First of all to make sure that you got the name right. If you got the name wrong you want the other person to politely correct you before you go ahead and memorise the name.

   The second reason is because such a technique will help you to associate the name with the person and his/her characteristics like face, voice and general character. Such association will help you remember the name more and will come handy if you meet that person another time.

   For instance, I find myself better at remembering voices rather than faces, especially where women are concerned. Women have a tendency to change hair style, making them look completely different. Even though years pass their voices remain the same. Hence I find myself remembering more names by associating a name with a voice.

   Finally, calling a person by his name makes the conversation more personal and enjoyable.

3. Ask How To Spell It

   If someone has a rare name and you do not know how to pronounce it or spell it you could say something like “That’s an interesting name. How do you spell it?” This way you will get the information you need without sounding boring. I also understand that this technique highly depends on the situation in which you are socialising. If you are in a formal meeting you don’t want to ask how a name is spelt. But if you are socialising in an informal way, then it will be a good idea to ask how a name is spelt. No, such question is not intrusive but it shows interest. Once you know how to spell the name, try to spell the name in your mind by visualizing the spelling of the name. This process further helps you  memorize names.

4. Associate The Name With A Characteristic Of The Person

   When you get introduced to a person try to ask for some details about the person like what s/he does, hobbies etc. The more information you know about a person the more you have to associate with the name. It is very hard to remember a name which is not put into context. By getting information about the person, you will associate the newly learned name with a context.

PS – I (Jason) still need a question to answer for tomorrow’s article, so if you have one, please send it in, either in the comments or via email – jasonivers at yahoo dot com.

Tomorrow is Valentine’s Day, a day to show your significant other that you love them.  Marketers, of course, love this, throwing one thing after another that you can buy in order to show your love.

Many of the best ways to show your love, though, actually cost very little.  They are also not limited to Valentine’s Day… you can remind your significant other any day, in ways that mean more than money.

Being a husband, I think about how to remind my wife I love her from time to time.  I have, for your use, put together a list of nine different ways to do so… I may at some point try to come up with things that would work in reverse (how to remind your husband you love him), but I don’t naturally think that way, so it takes more effort, and therefore more time.

Some of these do cost, but not much (well, the cost of one depends on how long you’ve been together… if it’s been long enough, it could get pricey)… and most of them cost only time and attention.

How To Remind Your Wife You Love Her

1. Give Her 1 Rose For Each Year You’ve Been Together

   This is what I’m doing for my wife tomorrow (yes, she’s a subscriber, but she doesn’t read the articles the day they come out, so I’m safe)… unless you’ve been together a very long time, it’s relatively inexpensive, and it has significance beyond simply buying her flowers.  You’re showing that you’ve been thinking about the relationship, and remembering the past, by taking the time to get one per year.

2. Read To Her

   This won’t really work for all women… but my wife loves it (as do a few who are slightly jealous of her for it).  You could try it out yourself, or try to find out something else that provides an opportunity for being close while still building memories that appeals to your wife specifically.

3. Frame (Or Re-Frame) An Older Photo

   This works best if you can find a photo of something significant in your relationship… a wedding picture, the day you proposed, or some other time that has a special place in both of your memories.  It doesn’t have to be that, though… anything that features you together will work.

4. Call Off Work

   This is another option that has a cost, although for most it doesn’t have a direct monetary cost… and taking an entire day off work shows your wife a little bit of how much you value her, much more so than buying her chocolates or even a necklace.  It lets her know that she is more important to you than anything else, enough so that you took a day away from everything else just to spend it with her.

   Of course, if your wife works, too, this would have to be something you plan together… it wouldn’t do much good for you to do it and then have her gone all day while she’s working.

5. REALLY Look At Her And Tell Her How Much You Love Her

   When you’re together long enough, you tend to grow accustomed to each other.  That leads you to stop really appreciating each other so much, so that you look past them, not really seeing them, and even when you have time together, you don’t make use of it… quantity time instead of quality time.

   If that’s the case for your relationship, taking the time to really see her and appreciate her can be very powerful… for both of you.  It can remind you of how much she truly means to you, and if you are really looking at her, and really present, and you tell her how much you love her, she will notice… and most likely appreciate it.

6. Kiss Her In A Way That Shows Her What You Just Told Her

   Another thing that tends to fall away as you’ve been together longer is those kisses where the rest of the world fades away, and all that is left is the two of you in one unending moment.  Really looking at her, and being present, as mentioned above, provides a great opportunity to correct this mistake.

   It also adds another level, showing her how much you love her, in a way that words haven’t the ability to express.

7. Intentionally Touch

   A lot of couples, especially ones where the wife needs reminding of the love they share, don’t touch nearly enough.  Touching intentionally brings intimacy, no matter what parts of you are touching.  It can be feet under the table, legs as you sit beside each other, or even lips while you kiss.

   Touching intentionally makes a really big difference in a relationship, and should be something that you make a conscious effort to keep up, not something that is saved for special occasions… it should be more that the occasion reminds you if you have let it slide.

8. Hold Hands

   One of the best ways to intentionally touch is to hold hands.  Skin on skin contact has more impact than clothing on clothing (ie your legs touching), and your fingers are exceptionally sensitive… making the impact that much greater.  As long as you are both doing it because you want to, it tends to convert quantity time to quality time… bringing you closer together and reminding her that you love her.

9. Skip A Movie And Do Something That Gives You Slow, Quiet Time Together

   I’ve written about this before (in fact, it’s my most popular article), but it bears repeating:  if you want your relationship to be strong, close, and in general live up to its potential, you really need to have slow time together.  Slow time is time when you are focusing only on each other, leaving the rest of the world behind.  It’s being together, and fully aware of each other and the fact that your significant other loves you enough to dedicate time to you alone.  It is, by definition, quality time… and of critical importance.

   Movies and other things that involve focusing on something else makes it much harder to have this kind of time… it’s hard to focus on the person you’re with when something else constantly requires your attention, too.  If you want good slow time, skip the movie on your next date.

Some of these ways are things that come naturally when a relationship is new, but that doesn’t make them less true or applicable… it just makes them take less conscious effort.  They are all focused on making you closer, reminding your wife that you love her by increasing your intimacy.

If you have a close, intimate relationship your wife will have no doubt that she is loved… that love will be present around her the vast majority of the time.  You will, essentially, be reminding her constantly, through action and not just words, of your love.

What better Valentine’s Day gift can you give?

There is very little as important to your overall health as getting enough good sleep.  It affects your mental state, your emotional state, your physical health, and pretty much every other aspect of your life.

Note, however, that I didn’t just say enough sleep… I said enough good sleep.  Plenty of people get eight hours of sleep each night… some even get ten or more.  A lot of those same people, however, still wake up tired (and stressed!).

The difference between bad, indifferent, and good sleep is huge.  Normal, indifferent sleep is enough to get by, as long as you get plenty.  Bad sleep, on the other hand, can leave you more tired than when you started.

Good sleep can leave you feeling well rested, and just give you a positive feeling all around.  Better quality sleep also means that you need less overall sleep, meaning you can do great with less sleep… sometimes a lot less sleep!

So, on to the list:

1. Have A Bed Time

   When you set a standard bed time, a time that you go to bed each night, your body starts to adjust, getting ready for bed when it knows that time is coming up.  You’ll start to get tired at the same time, you’ll fall asleep faster and easier, and your body can adjust all its rhythms to match, meaning it doesn’t have to waste time and energy, using them instead for deeper rest and better rejuvenation.

   Having a set time that you get up every day is also a good idea, though your body can generally handle different wake up times for set days (ie waking up later on the weekend).

2. Have A Bed Routine

   It also helps to establish a routine for other things, setting up a routine that tells your subconscious and your body that it’s time to start shutting down and getting ready for sleep.  Your body and subconscious then work together to tell your conscious mind that it’s time to slow down by making you feel sleepy.

   That means that you are going to sleep in a natural sort of way, rather than trying to force yourself.  The result is that your body and mind shut down together, rather than fighting each other, making the whole process smoother and easier.

3. Avoid Having Large Meals Near Bed Time

   When you have a large meal near bed time, it means that your body is going to be working on digesting that food while you sleep, keeping it from spending its resources on other things, like healing and rejuvenation.  It also may mean that other processes from the digestion disturb your sleep, like indigestion or even having to get up to go to the bathroom.

   A small snack, on the other hand, especially if it’s the right kind of snack, can actually aid your sleep and the healing that goes on during it.  One good example is a protein shake containing casein (a protein that comes from milk… not sure if it triggers lactose intolerance or not).  Casein is a protein that breaks down slowly, providing fuel for repairing muscles for much of your sleep.

4. Avoid Going To Bed Long Before You Go To Sleep

   Another relatively common practice that causes inferior sleep is going to bed and doing something other than sleeping, such as reading or watching television.  When you do these things, you’re training your subconscious mind to recognize that place (bed) as a place where more input occurs, so that it needs to pay attention.  When you use it only for sleep you are telling your subconscious that bed is a place for rest and relaxation… so when you head there, that’s what it immediately starts implementing.

5. Listen To Your Body

   Your body communicates with you all the time, every day… and you’ll sleep much better if you listen to it.  If you are itchy before bed, take care of it… the same goes for hunger, feeling dirty, or anything else.  When you take care of such things beforebed time, then they aren’t constantly taking part of your subconscious mind’s attention away from the important business that it generally takes care of during slumber.

6. Get At Least Moderate Exercise Each Day

   You are set up so that it is intended that you get mentally tired and physically tired in proportion… when you work your mind all day without working your body, it throws you out of sync, meaning that one part of you is telling your subconscious that it’s time to rest while another part is communicating that it has plenty of energy, and is ready to do more work.  This imbalance causes your subconscious to try to find something in the middle, resulting in too much rest for part of you and not enough for another.

   Physical exercise, even when it is just moderate, balances out the equation for the growing proportion of the population that has a job that doesn’t require physical exertion.  More exertion brings more physical tiredness (and thus less imbalance), so generally the harder you work, the better you’ll feel and sleep.

7. Get The Right Lighting

   Lighting plays a much larger role in your sleep than you might think… if you have the right amount of light (not too little or too much) it can tell your body, and your subconscious, that it is time to go to sleep.  This is especially true if you can find a light that can slowly dim, simulating sunset (here’s an example).

   The same holds true for waking up, as well… the right amount of light (which, as you may have guessed, is more than for going to sleep) can help you to wake up in a much better way.  Lights that simulate sunrise work even better… and most lights that do one (sunset or sunrise) do the other as well.

8. Get Up When You Wake Up

   One final suggestion, from my own personal experience… I almost always feel better, more rested, and have a better outlook on the day when I roll out of bed as soon as I wake up.  When I lay there, even for a few moments, it makes it causes my body and subconscious to relax back into sleepy mode.  That conflicts with my mind’s need to get up and do whatever needs doing that day.

   The exception of course, is when you actively do something like, oh, I don’t know, snuggling your wife.

You can find all sorts of people who tell you that you need to get your eight hours of sleep, but most of them ignore the quality.  If you get good sleep, you may only need six hours… if you sleep poorly, you may still not feel rested after twelve hours.

The quality of your sleep is much more under your control than most people think… reclaim your rest starting today!

 

PS – It occurred to me this morning that I should make clear that I’ve never used the techniques from yesterday’s articles… they come from a summarization of many studies I’ve read, my own observations, and what I’ve noticed brings my wife and I closer together (or where the lack keeps us from being as close as we could be).  That doesn’t mean it’s a guess… just that I’ve never had occasion to do it.

It happens to both men and women… someone you are interested in only looks at you as a friend.  For women, it tends to be the “just one of the guys” phenomenon, while men get the dreaded “You’re such a great friend” (dreaded because it implies that a friend is all that you are).

Sometimes it’s due to circumstances when you meet… maybe the other person is in a committed relationship (that has since ended), or has recently gone through trauma, and they simply aren’t looking for a potential romantic interest.  Other times it’s because you simply give off that “vibe”… you make the wrong sort of impression on them in the beginning.

The good news is that it doesn’t really matter why it is that you fall into the “friends” category.  The process to get out of it is the same, and it’s not all that physically or financially difficult.  Mentally and emotionally, on the other hand, can be quite a different story.

The first and foremost thing to remember is that you need to maintain an awareness of the other person’s unspoken reactions, both through body language and through things like the speed with which they speak… these things can be a map showing you where land mines lay under the surface, allowing you to avoid them.  They can also tell you when the other person truly isn’t interested, rather than simply not having thought of you that way before.

So, here goes… 6 steps to turn a friend (or even acquaintance) into a romantic partner:

1. Be Around Them More

   This should be obvious enough to not even need saying, but it is the basic building block for the rest.  The more “active” time you spend around them, the more you will be in their thoughts, which provides you with a little subconscious “step up” from just the other people around them.

   “Active” time is time when you are doing something that causes interaction between the two of you… talking, working together, or anything else that makes them actively think about you.

2. Ask Questions

   A great way to get someone to feel closer to you is to give them an opportunity to talk about themselves without directly asking them something they would consider “too personal”.  You can do this by asking questions… particularly if you are creative enough to ask them a non-standard question, ie “What’s the worst food you’ve ever eaten?” instead of “What do you do for a living?”.

   This gets them to open up and let you past the initial set of mental walls to the next set, generally reserved for people they connect with in some way.

   I have an entire article on creative questions, if you want more ideas.

3. Do Things Together

   The next step after breaking the ice a little more is to actually get them to do things with you.  These don’t have to be major things, and they don’t need to be dates… anything you do together, where there is a lot of interaction between the two of you, helps build shared experiences, and helps to put you more in their thoughts.

   It’s even better when the things that you do together are unusual, whether because they are new to them or simply because they don’t happen that often (as in something that happens once a year or less)… that makes both the event and you stick out even more in their memories.

4. Be Close Physically

   As humans, we subconsciously group people into categories, with a different “comfort zone” of physical closeness for each.  Strangers make us uncomfortable when they are even vaguely near us, while acquaintances can be somewhat closer, friends closer yet (including touching, depending on the closeness of the friendship), and romantic interests the closest of all.

   That being the case, if you keep to the “friend zone”, that is where the person is likely to subconsciously categorize you.  If, on the other hand, you make smallventures past that comfort zone when opportunities arise (preferably naturally… most people can recognize when you are trying to create them) , you force them to subconsciously re-evaluate that status.

   Small ventures is key here… they give you a chance to evaluate body language.  You need to be able to see if they are subconsciously welcoming the closer approach, or if they are rejecting it.  If they are welcoming it, you are well on your way, but if they reject it, it’s a sign that you need to pull back and be patient.

5. Be Open Emotionally

   If you want to build a romantic relationship with someone, you will first have to expose some of your own inner self.  They can’t form a relationship with a blank wall… you have to provide them with some sense of who you are for them to be able to reach out to you.

   At the same time, you don’t want to be pushing your self on them… you want to make it available when they show interest.  Otherwise they may feel like they are unimportant to you, that you are simply looking for a place to have more attention on you, you, you.

6. Small Romantic Gestures

   You also may need to make small romantic gestures from time to time, things that are culturally accepted as being things that “couples” do.  This could be something like buying small pieces of jewelry for a woman (an inexpensive necklace, bracelet, or pair of earrings, for example), or making a meal for either… it doesn’t really matter as long as it’s not too large a gesture, but is still something that is generally accepted as something that a significant other would do.

   This, as long as you keep it from being overwhelming from either magnitude (too big a gesture) or frequency (doing it too often), helps to break you out of the “normal” friend mode, and bring you into consideration for something more.

All of these things work together, if you leave out any part of them, you are going to have a much harder time reaching the place you want to go.  Again, the awareness of their non-verbal reactions to your actions is essential… if you don’t pay attention, you won’t know what’s working and what is pushing them further away.

This advice is intended to help you get a chance to move out of the “friend” mold… a chance, not a certainty.  They may truly not be interested you in that way, no matter what… their response may permanently be “no”.  If that’s the case, no matter how much you love them, you need to accept it.

Good luck… if you follow this advice, and don’t rush, you should get as good an opportunity as is available to you.  Make the most of it!

 

Businesses, relationships, or anything that you want to grow, or build, are based upon a foundation.  It is no different when it comes to trying to build your self, when you are seeking personal growth.

The foundation for anything is the core platform upon which everything else involved rests… if it fails, the rest will come crashing down as well.  If you want to avoid that, then it is essential that you understand what that foundation consists of, what strengthens it and what weakens it, so that you can ensure it is strong enough to support what you are building.

The foundation of a business will depend somewhat upon the business, although some things are common to all businesses, such as understanding what you’re truly selling, what your client wants, and similar things.  Relationships have a foundation built upon trust, shared experiences, and shared interests (whether you’re referring to romantic, friendly, or business).

Everything you do in your life, however, has another foundation, a layer beneath… your foundation for your self.  Everything in your life is affected by it, from the clothes you wear to the food you eat to the friends you make to the job (or business) from which you make money.  It is, essentially, a foundation for your other foundations.

When you think of it like that, you can see just how important it is that you not neglect it.  Still, the vast majority of people never really consciously attempt to build or strengthen their foundation of self.

If you have gotten this far, you have already taken the first step… the first step is to become aware of that very foundation.

Building A Strong Foundation

1. Evaluate Your Foundation’s Current State

   The first thing that you need to do is determine the current state of your foundation.  You need a general picture of where you are before you begin working on it.

   Are you sick a lot?  Do you feel stressed out or overwhelmed often?  Do regularly feel drained, or even depressed?  Do you have sudden bursts of anger completely out of proportion to the situation?

   All of those are signs that your foundation has weakened.

2. Begin At The Bottom

   When reinforcing a foundation, it’s essential to start at the bottom and build your way up… you don’t want a weakness beneath you to undo the work that you are doing.  The very bottom of the foundation for your self consists of four things, three physical and one mental/emotional/spiritual.

   The physical bases are your eating, your sleeping, and your activity level (not necessarily in that order).  If you make changes in any of those three things, you will see that change reflected in the others… if you improve your eating, you will tend to sleep better, and have more energy for your activities.  If you increase your activity (provided it’s not just before bed time), your body will actually change what it wants to consume to healthier products, and you will sleep better.  If you get the right amount of sleep (which may be more or less than you get now… some people tend to oversleep), that also changes which food your body wants and your energy levels.

   The foundational base that covers the rest of you (your mind, emotions, and spirit), is quiet time to yourself.  By quiet time, I mean time when you are not seeking things to do to distract you, when other people are not interrupting you, and in general, your mind is not needed for anything.  That allows the constant chatter and activity of your conscious mind to fade, allowing the rest of you to use some of your resources for whatever it is they need… mostly, in my experience, resting and healing.

3. Eliminate Ongoing Actions That Weaken Your Foundation

   A major part of building a strong foundation has to be eliminating things that damage and weaken it.  Again, there are both physical and non-physical things that harm it, but this time the non-physical are limited to one part of you… your conscious mind.

   Physically, you can eliminate things like eating a lot of sugar or consuming a lot of caffeine.  You can also work on bad posture… the power of posture is extraordinarily under-rated.  You can eliminate bad sleeping habits, like random times for going to sleep, or too much mental stimulation late at night.

   There are many mental things that may need to be let go, too… things like blame (whether for yourself or others), anger, and guilt.  Most of all, you need to stop building more mental walls… those walls form the basis of your own personal prison, trapping in pain and draining your energy.

   These are not the only actions that might weaken your foundation, but they are a good target for a place to start.

4. Begin Actions That Strengthen The Foundation

   There are actions that strengthen your foundation, as well, and they are mostly a mirror image of those that weaken it.  That is, instead of eliminating unhealthy food, you can add healthy food… you can establish good sleeping habits like a regular schedule, and consciously maintain the body language and posture that strengthens what you want to communicate.

   Mentally, the action that strengthens your foundation the most, by far, is tearing down the walls you have built up to keep others out and your self in.  Each wall you eliminate brings healing and reduces your overall burden of pain, giving you more energy for any other activity that you choose (including tearing down more walls).  You’ll also find your existing relationships growing stronger and new relationships forming easier as you eliminate the barriers that you have previously used to keep others away.

5. Maintain Awareness

   Finally, in order to have a strong foundation, you have to maintain a certain level of awareness, so that you can eliminate any new habits that you pick up that weaken it, as well as find new actions to strengthen it.  You don’t have to be constantly vigilant (which will actually weaken it… you need your rest mentally as well as physically), but you do need to avoid letting it slip back to a subconscious level.

One of the great things about working on building a strong foundation is that the change is almost immediately noticeable, and builds quickly.  One of the bad things is that it’s easy to get comfortable with the fact that you have a strong foundation, and start slipping back into old habits (or forming new ones) that weaken it.

If you maintain your conscious awareness of it, though, you’re very likely to see major positive changes in your life.  This applies to nearly all areas… career, relationships, happiness, etc.  It also has a strong likelihood of making positive changes in a way you might not expect… other people who are around you are likely to see the change in you and begin to change in a positive way themselves.

On a personal note, I am currently rebuilding my own foundation… I had let myself go in many areas after my grandma (who I was close to) died, and I can feel the change in everything about me all day, every day.  It really is just amazing how fast and drastic the change can be.

PS – My birthday is coming up soon, and if you’re feeling in the giving mood, you can spread the word about this website, telling anyone you know who might be interested, and give me a present I’d really love:  1,000 subscribers!

 

Your conscious mind tries to pretend that it is all of you, that it is what defines you.  It isn’t… it’s just the part with the loudest voice, drowning out the rest.

Your conscious mind not only isn’t “you”, it doesn’t even follow your best interests.  It’s as likely to sabotage you as to help you, misleading you and telling you to do things that deeper down you know aren’t true.

It tells you things like you’re not good enough, or pretty enough, or smart enough.  It tells you not to try because you might fail.  It even tells you not to do something just because it might be hard.

It tells you these things over and over again, at a high mental volume, drowning out the rest of you, your body, emotions, and spirit.  Many times these other parts of you just give up and go along with your conscious mind because they can’t get a word in edgewise.

Fortunately, your conscious mind doesn’t have infinite energy, and you can use that against it.  One of the best ways do that by going to a place where it doesn’t have fresh input (a nice quiet place where everything is pretty much still, or at least has no call for your attention) and letting it talk itself out.  Eventually, with a lack of anything new to talk about, it winds down and pretty much shuts up.

It’s amazing how much of a relief it is to have your conscious mind shut up, so that the rest of you can actually communicate, like leaving a huge crowd that’s packed too tightly… you don’t even notice how much it affects you until you feel its absence.  All of a sudden the rest of you starts relaxing and letting go, freeing up resources for healing physically and emotionally.

Your spirit gets to rest and recharge, replenishing its energy.  Old mental wounds start closing and healing while your body cleans out the toxins it has built up.  If you’ve never been there before, or if it has been a long time, the difference can be absolutely amazing, making you wonder why in the world you waited so long.

There are other ways to get your conscious mind out of the way, to make it stop talking… they mostly involve strong focus, especially on something that you are passionate about.  Some people call that kind of focus being in the zone, or in the flow.  While you’re there, everything else just sort of fades away, keeping your conscious mind from receiving new input, like the quietness above.

You can also intentionally listen to one of the other parts of you, which has a similar effect… exercising makes you listen to your body, meditation and prayer can help you listen to your spirit, and loving contact can help you listen to your emotions.  Any of these things brings relief to all of you… pretty much anything that takes your conscious mind out of the picture allows the rest of you to rest, heal, and do what it needs to do.

The good thing is that you can train your conscious mind to be quieter, to listen more to the rest of you… the more you do any of the things listed above, the more you are training your consciousness to stop promoting itself at the expense of the whole.  Doing so generally results in improvements in all areas of your life, leading to a happier, more satisfied existence.

So, knowing that the things I mentioned (exercise, mediation and prayer, loving contact) are very general categories of things, do any of you have any specific practices that help more than others?  For me it’s definitely exercise (followed by a nice relaxing shower) and quiet time (which is sometimes the previously mentioned shower)… how about you?

The conscious mind is a funny thing… it’s essentially a filter for the world around you, allowing you to concentrate your resources on a much smaller piece of, well, everything.  In spite of this, your conscious mind fools itself into thinking that it IS the whole thing, all of you.

In reality, there are at least three other major pieces of who you are:  your spirit (or subconscious, for the more scientifically minded), your body, and your emotions.  All four pieces are intertwined… a shift in any of them can produce a noticeable effect in any, or all, of the others.

Of these four, your spirit and your mind (the conscious part of it) are the strongest, with the other two often being used to send messages between them.  When the spirit and mind are in disagreement, the other two can become chaotic, causing pain and distress.

You can see this when the path you are choosing to follow in any area of life conflicts with what it is that you really want.  That holds true for any area that you choose, from your relationship to your career.

When you move in a direction other than what you really want, at the deepest levels, it sucks up your energy… it’s like swimming against the tide:  you can do it, but it’s very draining, and eventually you run out of energy.  When you move in the direction of the current (your deepest self), however, it becomes very easy, freeing up that energy for whatever else needs it.

For example, if you have a job as a computer programmer, but what you really want to do is write fiction, that job will slowly drain you, even if you are very good at it, and well paid.  If, however, you were to find a job where you could write fiction, even if it didn’t pay as much, you would be considerably happier, with far more mental energy.

Relationships can work in the same way… if you are struggling and fighting to make your relationship be the way that your conscious mind says that it should be, it can leave you feeling very tired mentally.  If, on the other hand, you stop worrying about what it should be, and start focusing on, and expanding, the good parts of what it actually is, the speed with which your relationship and your mental state improve can be nothing short of amazing.

The drain of following your conscious mind when it conflicts with your spirit shows up in your body as stress and its bad effects, like headaches, stomach problems, and even just getting sick easier.  When it comes to emotions, you can recognize it by the balance of negative emotions to positive emotions… the more you fight your self, the more negative emotions you will experience.

The natural state of our emotions is positive.  It is only when we try to fight ourselves, to do something that we “should” do, instead of something that is right for us, that this positive emotional energy drains away, leaving room for negative feelings and, ultimately, no feelings at all.

It is both harder and easier than you might think to stop doing what you “should” do to focus on what is actually right for you.  It’s harder if you are like most people and have built up a habit over your entire lifetime of doing what you “should” do, and breaking a habit that strong is difficult… but it’s easier than you might think to maintain because you see and feel the difference so dramatically and so quickly.

So, three quick steps for bringing your conscious mind back into step with your deeper self, and thereby bringing more happiness:

1. Figure Out Who You Are Beneath The Surface

   The first step is to figure out what part of what you’re doing is “should”.  In order to do that, you’re going to have to figure out who you really are, deep down… you might want to start by reading this article about being who you choose to be and this one about breaking down walls to let your deeper self out.

2. Determine What You Really Want

   Once you figure out who you are, the next step is to figure out what it is that you really want to do, what it is that you are passionate about… your calling.

3. Gather Your Courage And Take A Step On Your New Path

   Once you know what it is that you want, what fires up your passion, the next step is, well, to take a step along that path… but be careful that you don’t become too goal focused, or you can lose a lot of your fire.

Even after you make the choice to change, and start doing so, there may be points where start to slip back into the old way of doing things, worrying too much about should… that’s quite normal.  When you realize you’ve done so, just pick yourself back up and let should go again

PS – Thank you all for the time and attention you have given me… I know how valuable they are.  I really appreciate you spending the time to read my articles, and especially when you go through the trouble to let me know your thoughts, whether in the comments, by reviewing the article on StumbleUpon, or by email… thank you!

How deeply inside is your true self, the way you really think and feel hiding?  Do you let others beneath the surface, or do you have carefully crafted walls to keep them out?  Do you let others form relationships with the real you, or just a persona?

A persona is a person that you pretend to be that is not really you, much like a spy in the movies, except for most people the persona consists of faking their personality, rather than their passport.

If you pretend that you are happy when you are not, because that’s the way you are “supposed to be”, that is part of a persona.  If you fake interest in something that you really couldn’t care less about, that is part of a persona.  If you dress or act a certain way just to “fit in”, that’s part of a persona as well.

Virtually everyone has a persona… most people have more than one.  They may have one for their spouse, one for their children, one for their friends, and one for their coworkers… or they may even have more than one for some of those categories, like different groups of friends, or boss versus peer.

Most people even have at least one persona for themselves, trying to fool even the one putting on the act.  And your conscious mind can be fooled… you can completely convince it that you are someone other than who you really are.  Your subconscious, on the other hand, cannot be fooled… it’s the one that is projecting the persona for your conscious mind.

These personas are intended for one thing, and one thing only… to keep the target from getting to the deeper part of who you are.  The deeper part of who you are is where you are vulnerable, without your customary mental armor.  It’s where you feel mental pain without the aid of a painkiller.

We see this part of us as the weak part, since it is vulnerable to pain.  Because we see it as weak, and because it is our instinct to protect our weak spots, we bury it under layers and layers of mental armor, walls upon walls to keep others out.  And then, because it is where we feel pain, we build walls to keep ourselves out, too.

That deep, vulnerable part of us, though, isn’t our source of weakness… it is our source of strength.  It is where the strength to live our ordinary, day to day lives originates.  It is where mental healing comes from… the pain that we feel is caused by the process of healing, just like muscles ache when you are healing from exercise.

When we wall it off, we stop the pain, at least somewhat, because we stop the healing… but the wound is still there, weakening us, draining our energy.  Each of these wounds that we wall off drains a little more of the energy we need to heal and to go on with life, until we reach the point where our strength is failing.

When we reach that point, we no longer have the strength to maintain all of those walls… so one or more of them is going to come crashing down, bringing forth the pain it was holding back, but also the healing that is the source of that pain.  Sometimes we just heal enough to rebuild the wall… other times we let that wall stay broken, and have a little energy back to get back to living.  Sometimes we can even take that lesson and turn it on our other walls, breaking them down and letting loose the pain and the healing.

And, unfortunately, sometimes people let the pain drain the last bit of their energy and lose themselves in insanity or death.

You don’t have to let things get to that point, though, the point of failure.  You can, instead, choose to take a good look at yourself, and choose parts of the persona you use on yourself to let go.  You can choose to face some of the pain that you have walled away, letting the pain and the healing wash over you.

It doesn’t have to be all or nothing… you can choose to face the pain one piece at a time.  You can, if you choose, start with the smallest things first, or you may dive right in and start breaking down the oldest and thickest walls… the ones that hide the real, full power pain, the kind that leaves you feeling raw after it passes.

Each wall you break down, each pain that you face, brings hurt, yes, but healing also.  This healing is no more instantaneous than that of sore muscles after a hard work-out, though… you’re going to have to allow yourself time to rest, and not expect an instant transformation from the depths of pain and suffering to zen-like calm and enlightenment.  It takes time… you can notice a difference very quickly, but it will take some time, even up to years or decades, to overcome everything.

You have a choice, when you’re at that low point, of living in constant pain (and the negative emotions that come with it) that flares up at unpredictable times, causing chaos in your life, or opening yourself up to the pain directly and allowing the healing you have walled off with it to have its effect.

It’s a lot tougher choice than it might seem… you’ve mostly grown used to the way things are, and are comfortable with it, knowing what to expect, even if it is unpleasant.  The stuff that is buried behind walls, on the other hand, is less familiar and more scary, especially because what you DO know is that it is going to bring that dull, constant ache up into your consciousness, where it expands to its full self… you know the pain is there, and are likely uncertain of the healing, unless you have let things go, broken down your walls, before.

How do you do it?  How do you let go, and let the pain come, so that you can heal?  People can deal with things in different ways, but one thing that is almost always effective is internal quiet.  It has worked for me, and for everyone I know that has tried it… but some people I know have refused to do it because they are too afraid of the pain that they know will come.

Don’t be afraid… even though it hurts when you let it out, that pain is necessary to let the healing begin.  Gather your courage, and let go… oddly enough, letting go is how you become anchored.

Everyone has their own dreams… mine is to be supported by my writing.  Yours may be something completely different… it may be to travel the world, be a professional chef, or something else.  You probably even have more than one dream… I wouldn’t mind traveling the world, too.

There are a lot of individual steps to making your dream come true, of course, but those will vary depending upon what your specific dream happens to be.  There are four key components, however, that are part of making any dream come true.

These four things will help you to make your dream real, and will help you with most other aspects of your life at the same time.  They may come naturally to you, or you may have to work at adopting them, but once they become part of the way you approach the world, you will notice that things just start happening more easily.

So, on to the actual list…

How To Make Your Dreams Come True

1. Sharing

   The first key is to share your dreams with others.  This helps to make it more real and more conscious for you, making you more likely to notice opportunities related to it.  It also helps to remind you that it is there, and that it is something you are working toward… so that you don’t let your dreams die.

   Besides helping you to be more conscious of it, sharing your dreams with someone can also make them feel included in that dream, making them far more likely to wantto help you achieve it.  It makes them feel that by helping you, they are helping something that they are part of succeed, like they have partial ownership.  How much more likely would that make you to help someone that you know?

   And just think, even if someone likes you for other reasons and would be more than willing to help you, they can only do so by accident if they don’t know what it is that you want.  When you do open up and share your dreams with them, they can actively do things to give you a helping hand.

2. Networking

   Building on the first key, the second key is networking (and not the kind dealing with computers).  Networking refers to keeping in contact with people that you meet, people with whom you connect.  When you stay in contact, and check in on them from time to time, you keep that connection alive and you keep yourself in their thoughts, if something were to come up that they relate to you.

   For instance, with my particular dream, if I were to stay in contact with someone, and they happened to make friends with someone high up at a magazine or newspaper, they might suggest to that person that they read my articles, or even directly that they should consider having me write columns for their publication.  If I hadn’t stayed in contact, then that person likely wouldn’t have thought of me, and so that opportunity would never have come along.

   Here’s my confession:  This is my weak point.  I moved around a lot as a child, and I developed the habit of letting people go easily.  This is a place where putting some time and energy into changing myself would probably really pay off.

3. Persistence

   The third key to making your dreams come true is persistence… most likely it will take a fair amount of time to make your really big dreams come true.  You will need to have the persistence to see you through until that time, persistence in sharing your dreams, networking, openness… and persistence in just continuing through life’s ongoing costs and opportunities until you make it through.

   Keep in mind, though, that there is a difference between persistence and stubbornness… don’t just keep doing something that doesn’t work without a reason to believe something will change.  Persistence is continuing in spite of obstacles, not just continuing blindly.

4. Openness

   The final key is openness… being open to seeing opportunities that might take you in the general direction of your dreams, without being on the direct path.  This might be something like me going to a conference for authors and publishers, where I might meet someone who could eventually help me to get a deal to write a book, or a syndicated column.

   It might also be being open to making a friend somewhere that you might not ordinarily look for one… perhaps when you meet, in passing, a friend of a friend, or someone from your significant other’s family.  It might be that you are open to everyone, and are friendly to someone at a key moment in their life, and that person might eventually be the person who brings your dream to you.

   It might also be that you help someone achieve their own dream, without looking for anything in particular in return… just being open to whatever might come your way.

   Whatever life may throw your way, when you close up, you cut off opportunities for your dreams to come true.  It is natural to mentally curl up and try to protect the injured part of you, but that reaction is more often harmful than helpful over the long run.

If you can learn these things, or if they come naturally to you, you’ll likely find success in whatever it is that you do.  They don’t guarantee instant success, the instant fulfillment of all your dreams… they provide the tools to build the framework upon which success hangs, the ladder to your dreams.

It is relatively rare for someone to have all four of these attributes naturally… mostly you have at least one of the areas listed above where you are weak.  Fortunately, however, you can learn them, and make them part of who you are.  If you work at it hard enough and long enough, you can make them nearly as instinctive as someone who DOES have them naturally.

My weakness, as I said above, is networking… it simply doesn’t come naturally for me.  I’m working on it, and intend to keep working on it, but it’s something I have to consciously work on right now… hopefully I’m persistent enough to make it more natural.

What about you?  What’s your weakness?

Question:

I’ve been divorced 5 years, and in that time my daughters have never liked any of the girls I’ve dated.  I have been dating my current girlfriend for a year, and we are getting serious, but they still won’t accept her.  Sometimes they are actually rude to her.

She is hesitant to take it to the “next level” because of my daughters.  What can I say to them to make them understand without them thinking that I’m putting her above them?

Answer:

Note – I’m going to answer a slightly different question, “How do I get my step-son (or daughter) to like me?”, because it’s a little more general use to my readers, and the solution is the same in both cases.

Introduction – Connections As The Basis Of Relationships

Relationships are all about connections… your connections to other people.  This is true regardless of your age, whether you’re an infant or approaching your 100th birthday.

These connections are in a constant state of change, growing stronger and weaker from day to day, and sometimes from hour to hour.  In general, however, these changes are within a certain range… a little bit up here, a little bit down there, but all fairly consistent.

As time goes by, and these connections exist for a longer time, we start to rely on them, even to the point of basing our perception of how the world is on them.  The longer they are around, the more “that’s the way the world is” they become.

The Problem – Your Step-Son (Or Daughter) Blames You

So what happens when you introduce a new person into the mix and there is a sudden, and drastic change in those connections?  It feels like your whole world has come unanchored, spinning around with no sense of up or down… everything is in flux.

That’s not a comfortable state to be in regardless of whether you’re a child or an adult.  It’s very hard to quickly and easily accept this new person, and very easy to blame them and resent them for any disruption in your life, particularly anything bad.

Most of this happens at a subconscious level, however, and the people affected may not even know why they feel the way they do… they just know that they don’t like the “intruder” who caused all this chaos.

The Solution – How To Connect (And Get Them To Like You)

When you do know why, however (as you do now), it provides you with the opportunity to consciously work to make it better.  Happily, it’s actually actually even pretty easy to do, though not necessarily quick.

You can get started by establishing new patterns, new traditions, that involve all of you such as having a picnic every Sunday or eating dinner out each Friday as a family.  This allows you to establish new connections in the context of ones they already know, and also to start building shared experiences, which are key components of your connections to other people.

Once you have those connections established in regards to the whole family, you can work on building your own unique connection, one that is just between the two of you.  You do this, again, by building shared experiences… go somewhere together, just the two of you, and do something you both like, particularly if it’s something new to one or both of you.

Conclusion

The strength of your connection with someone is very strongly related to your shared experiences, and then with shared interests.  Shared interests are hard to improve, other than by being open… it’s quite difficult to make yourself truly interested in something if you aren’t that way from the beginning, except by being open to seeing it from a different angle where there might be something that is of interest to you.

Shared experiences, on the other hand, are very easy to build up… just do things together, and be focused on the moment while you’re doing them.  That last part is important… if you are thinking about what you are going to do afterward, or making a mental to-do list, then you’ll lose the majority of the benefit, and sometimes even turn it into a net negative.  So just relax, and enjoy your time together, getting to know each other and building a deeper connection.

PS – If you are in a situation similar to the actual reader who sent the question, all you have to do is apply this to your girlfriend (or boyfriend)… start doing things all together, and then encourage them to do things individually with your children, once the relationship seems comfortable enough.