By Vironika Tugaleva | Tiny Buddha

“You yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe, deserve your love and affection.” ~Buddha

In 2012, self-love became the most important thing in my life. After self-loathing and addiction led me to rock bottom, there was nowhere to go but up. When someone asked me last year how long I’d been on the self-love journey, I counted back from 2012. That’s when I thought it began.

In my old journals, however, I recently found something strange and incredible—my self-love journey started long before I thought it had. Years prior to hitting rock bottom, I’d been having the same epiphanies: I need to love myself, I need to stop trying to get other people to love me, I need to be kinder to myself.

Yet those epiphanies wouldn’t last. In fact, I habitually forgot about them as I returned to my “normal” back then—anxiety, depression, self-judgment, social anxiety, and a host of addictive behaviors that helped me escape these uncomfortable states.

Strangely enough, when my suffering was at its worst, few people could have said that self-love was the problem. I had an outward facade of ironclad self-confidence. Most people thought I loved myself too much.

Yet my journals tell another story. It is a story of not only silent suffering but also accidentally ignoring all my attempts to heal that suffering. Even though I was chronically self-sabotaging, I was also trying to help myself along the way.

In a Facebook comment to one of my other posts on Tiny Buddha, someone wrote, “A lot of truth in this, but I’m so tired of the thing about loving yourself. Nobody has ever written about how this happens when you don’t feel that way. It sounds so simplistic—just love yourself first. Great, still no answers!!”

Related Article: 11 Life-Changing Rules of Success (from the “Why” Guy, Simon Sinek)

It might be ironic to give an even more simplistic answer to this, such as “Find the answers within you.” But I think it’s important to note that there is a difference between simplicity and ease. The most important lessons in life really are simple—love yourself, find your own answers, know yourself. Yet implementing these lessons is a lifetime job full of tears, fears, and uncertainty.

The truth is—the answers are within you, just like they were within me. It’s just a matter of discovering them and implementing them consistently.

Your answers are within your experience. But they aren’t filed into neat folders. They’re scattered in every moment between alarm clocks, worries, and errands. They’re also not labelled by which questions they answer. You might get a bad feeling about something and that could be self-love, but it could also be fear.

So, instead of answers, I’d like to provide some questions. Your relationship with yourself is unique and your answers will be unique. And the answers will keep changing. You can ask these questions every day, and that wouldn’t be too much.

1. How can I better understand this experience?

One sentence that I found frequently written in my old journals was, “Why does this always happen to me?” I said this about periods of depression as much as relationship patterns.

When I asked this question, I wasn’t looking for an answer. My biggest mental health breakthrough was learning to genuinely ask that question. No, really, why do I always end up alone when I most need people? Why do I sometimes experience overwhelming periods of depression? Thus, I started to learn important things about myself.

I learned that I had a tendency to never take breaks, strive for perfection, and burn myself into the ground. I also learned that I had a way of pushing people away to “test” if they’d stick around. Seeing these patterns was painful, but much less painful than believing I was broken, unworthy, and doomed to being alone.

When you’re in the middle of criticizing or judging yourself, take a moment to shift your focus toward understanding.

Instead of trying to fix your emotions or your reactions, how can you understand them better? What are your feelings trying to communicate to you? How can you acknowledge these messages?

Instead of beating yourself up for saying or doing something, how can you get a more holistic perspective on your motivations for saying/doing this thing?

When you make a conscious decision to be more curious about your experience, you will naturally stop resisting, judging, and criticizing it. The more you embrace each moment, the more you will be able to embrace yourself.

2. Who am I beyond my behaviors, thoughts, and emotions?

To be able to embrace the ups and downs of life without losing self-love, you must love yourself beyond those ups and downs. This is the difference between self-approval and self-love.

Approval comes and goes. When you make a mistake, you might disapprove of yourself. This is healthy and normal. If you didn’t experience lulls in self-esteem, you might never learn from your mistakes and end up hurting others.

Self-love, on the other hand, is something you need in each moment—especially when your self-esteem is low.

When you don’t approve of your behaviors, ask yourself who you are beyond those behaviors. How can you accept yourself beyond the rollercoaster of day-to-day experience, so that no matter what those experiences are, you continue to think of yourself as worthy of existing?

Related Article: How to Meet Your Grief with Mindfulness and Open the Door to Joy

3. What do I need right now?

Each day, ask yourself what you need. Like this, you can begin to nourish yourself. You can also begin to understand some of the side effects that you experience when you don’t meet your needs. Once you feed your hunger, you’ll better understand your symptoms of starvation. This can lead to profound self-forgiveness.

Especially when you are trying to break bad habits, you can ask which needs you’re trying to meet with those habits.

Every single self-harming action, even if it hurts you deeply, also serves you in some way. Maybe your unhealthy habits make you feel comfort, control, or even help you gain attention. The need behind each behavior is always valid, but some behaviors are more sustainable and healthy than others. By acknowledging your deeper needs, you can make a plan to consciously meet them in a healthier way.

One thing I’ve discovered that I need is movement. I have so much energy in my body from day to day. I didn’t realize this for a long time because I expended that energy on chronic anxiety.

When I realized that I could use my energy to be physically active, my life changed. My anxiety levels plummeted. I formulated a completely different relationship with my body. I also got a new perspective on my long struggle with eating disorders, smoking, and addiction.

I had a basic need to control my body, to influence my physical state. I still have that need. The only difference is that, now, I’m making conscious choices about how I’m going to meet it.

4. How can I give myself what I need?

Once you discover what your needs are, you can begin to anticipate them and fulfill them.

Simply to acknowledge your desires is half the work (especially if they are different from those of the people around you).

The other half of the work is asking yourself, every day, how you can meet your needs. The key is to foresee your hunger and feed it before you feel starved. This way, you can avoid relapsing into those desperate self-destructive habits.

READ THE REST OF THIS ARTICLE…

I wanted to write this week about dreams and aspirations. Each of them gives you hope, something to look forward to and to plan. Dreams can help you align your gifts and talents with those things you absolutely love to do the most so that you can bring to fruition a living that you never have to consider to be “a job”. To me THAT is the definition of success.

With the realization of how vital they are to actually achieve goals, I also took in the understanding that you can’t always keep your dreams “out there” in front of you. You must bring them in close, into your heart, into your reality and beliefs, and most importantly you must welcome them into your NOW.

When we keep dreams as a proverbial carrot dangling in front of us, sure they may keep us moving, or they may just keep us daydreaming and growing ever resentful of those around us that took steps we haven’t yet. There’s a certain safety in always having our dreams out in the distance. It’s comforting to know we always have that goal to strive for and deep down it might terrify people to actually reach the horizon and achieve that goal, because then what do we do? Actually, enjoy our lives? 🙂

This is where the anxiety of the process stems from…straying from the present moment into a future of uncertainty or one that you have convinced yourself is full of impending doom or failure. Sadly, it is a self-fulfilling prophecy if we do not become aware of it.

Just as our perceptions of what the future holds are subconsciously tied to the faith we have in ourselves to make the choices needed to get us there, we need to consider how our perceptions of our past can act to limit or alter just how many steps we take or even attempt to take towards ever creating that future we dream of.

I often say that the stories we tell ourselves cause us the most suffering. It is not usually situations that are necessarily good or bad per se, but the stories we tell ourselves about them and the judgment we create in our minds. When we convince ourselves those things just ARE this way or that, not only are we limiting ourselves to having to now navigate within the constraints of a small box, but we are also putting ourselves in the equivalent position of getting into a car with no steering wheel.

We may not stop to consider how damaging or hindering our own thoughts about things, people, and events from our past can affect not only our present lives but our future as well. If we hold onto guilt, regret, anger, or shame for things we did or didn’t do; things others said or didn’t say, it is we who keep ourselves locked in a prison in our own minds. And oftentimes, if we just simply revisit these events we have tortured ourselves with for so long, we may see them in a completely different light.

Can we KNOW for sure that the way we perceived the events actually did happen the way we keep replaying them in our heads after all these years? Did the person really mean it the way we took it? Hanging onto these perceptions and stories; this is where depression can come from that feeds our insecurities and fill our minds with the “what-if’s” and “I should have done this or said that”. Our past is meant to be our teacher and while the lessons are often painful they are what add to your integrity and strength.

There are so many factors that allow us to justify our hanging onto things from our past like we are doing something to get back at the other person. Or that it’s benefiting us in some way not to let it go and move on. But what we don’t often realize is that forgiveness is never about the other person. Forgiveness is so YOU can have peace; it has nothing to do with them. And letting go and moving on doesn’t mean you are a sucker or had one done over on you. It means you simply respect and love yourself enough to cherish your own peace of mind. You are confident that you deserve to be happy and that nothing anyone has ever done or said to you is ever worth losing your smile.

This is not to suggest we all become unemotional robots; not in the least. To experience the full spectrum of emotion is human and is, in my opinion, a beautiful thing (yes even the sad or “negative” emotions). What I am saying is that all emotions serve their purpose and that is ALL they are there to do. To serve their purpose and be let go of. If we sit with emotions too long, they begin to consume us.

Happiness is NOT an emotion; it is a state of BEING. It cannot exist anywhere but inside you and cannot be found in another person or in a future time, yet that is where most of us are conditioned to look for it. Joy IS an emotion and like all others is fleeting and temporary and the trick is to learn to ride the wave of emotion that comes with life. Happiness isn’t some destination in the future that we need to strive to get to. It is a state of being that we either choose for ourselves or we don’t and regardless of what is ever going on, we always have that choice – no one can take that away from us.

If we are always thinking that happiness comes from or is taken away by others, guess where it will always be? Just out of reach. No wonder so many of us are so guarded, untrusting, or on edge! Yet, once we realize that happiness is there within us at all times, smoldering like embers in those unique gifts we haven’t yet gotten the courage to share with the world, we no longer see the world as a place we need to compare, compete or conquer.

I say the key to unlocking our self-inflicted prison is merely self-love. Once you learn to love yourself, the door appears. Once you get the courage to approach the door with the intention to explore what lies on the other side, you will then be anointed with the key. The funny thing is, the key was within your own heart the whole time.

We ARE our greatest dream. And the greatest day of your life will be the day you find out.

Tamara Rant is a Co-Editor/Writer for CLN as well as a Licensed Reiki Master, heart-centered Graphic Designer, and a Conservative voice in social media activism & awareness. She is an avid lover of all things Quantum Physics and Spirituality.

Tamara posts new original articles to CLN every Saturday.

Follow Tamara on Facebook and Twitter

This article was originally created and published by Conscious Life News and is published here under a Creative Commons license with attribution to Tamara Rant and ConsciousLifeNews.com. It may be re-posted freely with proper attribution, author bio, and this Copyright/Creative Commons statement.

Looking back on my own life, I can quickly refer to the times I totally avoided something (or someone). Whatever the reason, if it was because I wasn’t being true to myself or the situation, well, that is some of the strongest energy to have to work through.

It’s as if there is an unseen, but undeniably felt a pull from the ethers when you are not being authentic. The Universe itself shakes you up, but in reality, it is just rippling back to you what you’ve sent out into the world. It took me a lonnnnnng time to understand this infinite, cosmic dance and how to learn to work with it rather than against it.

The first thing I had to do was to stop being someone I wasn’t. I had to let go of behaviors that were not filling my heart up. I used to be a “yes” person and literally did not know how to say “no” to people. This drew in those who were always in need in some shape or form, and while I was often thanked and praised for being “such a good friend”, I often felt drained and empty inside, like there was nothing left to give myself at the end of the day.

When I started to listen to that inner voice (Spirit) and that energetic pull calling me to take better care of myself, my entire life changed. When I stopped denying the fact that I deserved MY help and attention as much as anyone else, and in fact, I should be helping myself first, well, then magical things started to occur in my life; if only because I finally cleaned out the space for them in my life. I made them welcome.

You see, we cannot give from an empty vessel. We must do for ourselves the utmost caregiving in all areas: mental, physical, spiritual, and emotional. When we do this, we put ourselves in a space where we can have the most confidence we can be of service to others. We can rest assured we are living a balanced, harmonious life because we know we’ve personally given each of these areas of our lives the attention each deserves; not expecting others to fix things for us, but seeing those people in our lives are mere puzzle pieces in it.

Another example of denial would be if you had words or conflict with a friend, co-worker, family member, etc., and then act as nothing has happened. I’ve had experiences with this a couple of times in my life. Once it was a simple misunderstanding, another time the person was just the type to pretend if you don’t talk about things, they just go away. Accountability shows you truly care about others and own up to mistakes. It’s how you earn respect in my opinion because it is a reflection of integrity.

This ties in with the expectations we put on others as well, and can be very disrespectful to others, especially if something hurtful, rude, or a genuine misunderstanding did occur. If you act to ignore it, and then furthermore act like you are setting the tone and expect (once again) for the other person to cater to your emotions, well I don’t need to elaborate how that will not help you grow personally or in your relationships.

“Denial does not change reality for everyone else. Only for the one denying it.” – Elle Casey

Growth comes from not avoiding issues or so much trying not to have them, but rather knowing how to handle them when they occur. If you can be open and honest with yourself and with others, you will most likely be an effective communicator and grow quickly from your experiences.

Most of us, however, lol tend to repeat mistakes a few times just to make sure. I think it’s the human way…I know I am one of the most stubborn people on this planet, so I always tend to really learn my lessons. Get them good and deeply ingrained in there so I can grow and expand.  And while I have seen a million teachers in a million different faces, I can always say the girl in the mirror, who was so mean to me for so long, was perhaps my greatest teacher of all; for now she is my very best friend. <3

Tamara Rant is a Co-Editor/Writer for CLN as well as a Licensed Reiki Master, heart-centered Graphic Designer, and a Conservative voice in social media activism & awareness. She is an avid lover of all things Quantum Physics and Spirituality.

Tamara posts new original articles to CLN every Saturday.

Follow Tamara on Facebook and Twitter

Even though you might feel limited and not in control of your life because of the current lockdown, there ARE things you can do now to feel more empowered and you have the perfect opportunity to plan for when the lockdown is lifted.

We all want to feel like we’re in charge of our lives, having everything together. The unfortunate truth is that many of us struggle to take charge of our lives and feel like we’re lacking some control. This happens even more when we get around those who seem to have control of their lives with everything they need at their fingertips.

Never fear; here’s a guide to help you get control and take charge of your life. In this article, you’ll learn ten ways to help you get in control, be in charge of your own life and become truly empowered.

1) Commit to making time for yourself

It’s crucial to make time in your week to devote to self-care. The busier you get, the harder it seems to be to make time for yourself and, unfortunately, that’s when you need it most. Make time to take care of your personal needs, whatever they may be. After all, if you’re not at your best how can you expect to do your best work. Taking charge of your schedule and your personal health is an important first step to take control of your life.

2) Do what you want, despite convention

A big part of taking charge of your life is putting an end to the bad habit of letting others have a say in what you do. Don’t disregard good advice but ultimately live a life that is yours.

3) Get organized

This step may seem a little different and trivial compared to the others but getting organized is an important part of taking control of your life. Being organized can help to lessen your stress and anxiety, keep you in command of your schedule, and make your life easier overall.

4) Remember the power of “no”

While it’s important to be open to new experiences and opportunities, it’s more important to know your limitations. You can’t do everything, and no one can expect you to. You have to prioritize and say no to some things to keep your sanity. The decision of what to say no to should be left entirely up to you, allowing you to take charge of your life.

5) Be open to new opportunities

It’s easy to let saying no get out of hand and become closed off to new opportunities, experiences, and adventures. If a new opportunity comes your way, weigh it out. Consider the following: is it good for you; is it something you want to do or a stepping stone to something you want? If you answered yes to either of those questions, don’t let the opportunity slip through your fingers.

6) Make a goal list

Making a goal list is a good way to take charge of your future. It’s most effective when you organize your goals into multiple, reachable goal lists. This will help ensure you actually achieve your goals rather than just making the list and setting it aside. Be sure to measure your progress as you go, so you know where you stand.

7) Make “By the time I’m [age]” lists

Slightly different than the generic goal list we mentioned above, the “By the time I’m…” list is for things you want to have or have achieved by that age.

For example, common “By the time I’m 30” lists include things like getting married, getting set up in a career, and starting a family, while common things found on “By the time I’m 65” lists are retirement, moving to the beach, and traveling more frequently. These lists can help you keep track of what you want and ensure that you’re getting the most out of your life and taking charge of it.

8) Strive to empower and be empowered by others

One way to truly take charge of your life and ensure you’re headed in the right direction is to both be an example to others and learn things from others. It’s important to learn from those around you and allow them to inspire and empower you. It’s also important to strive to empower others and to be the best example you can be.

9) Stop Settling

If you’ve been wasting your time settling for things you don’t really want, you’ll wind up wasting your life on adequacy. While in certain cases, settling is excusable or even acceptable, you can’t settle for everything in your life. A big part of taking charge of your life is getting rid of or turning down things you either don’t want or are detrimental to you.

10) Love and accept yourself

The only way in which you’ll ever take charge of your life is if you accept yourself for who you are, accept what you want in life, and treat yourself with love and kindness. Accept and appreciate the things you want in life, because if you don’t, who will.

Jan Shaw – The Success Alchemist, is a Spiritual Empowerment and Intuitive Success Coach and can be found at www.thesuccessalchemist.net. She delivers practical life and business strategies plus intuitive guidance, sprinkled with spiritual and metaphysical principles so you can create unstoppable success in life and business. Get your FREE copy of her Dream Achievers Success Kit or apply for a complimentary Unstoppable Success Strategy Session. Her book Empowered Manifestation is available on Amazon. Visit her YouTube Channel for more tips, tools, and training to help you become unstoppable. You can also visit her Facebook Page and join her Facebook Group, Unstoppable You – Breakthrough to Brilliance. Jan also hosts the Cosmic Creating Show every Saturday on Cosmic Reality Radio – listen to the recordings here.

By Lisa Ferraro | Self Synthesize

Simply put: believing in yourself grounds hope into action. I have written several blogs about the importance of self-love as a strong foundation to grow straight and tall as a beautiful human expression. Self-love is a High-Frequency expression that creates a powerfully positive presence in one’s life. And recently it dawned on me, what’s next after self-love? What lies beyond self-love for a person on their life journey?

As I reflected, I was reminded of my yogic teachings that manifestation begins as a thought, moves to verbal expression and ends as physical action. Self-love forms as thought and then becomes a spoken expression.

But then, It takes belief in oneself to make the manifestation visual as an action. The hope becomes physical within the umbrella of action. Believe in self allows us to take charge and manifest action. We can love ourselves but not believe in our strengths or capacities. I realized that this belief in self was associated with but different from self-love. Maintaining High Frequency definitely supports both.

What is the belief in self? How do we acquire this belief and trust in ourselves? Hmm… these questions inspired me to deeply reflect. How did I believe in myself? Contrast came quickly to mind.

We compare ourselves to others and then assess our strengths and our foibles. The trap here would be to misunderstand the value we bring versus the other person. This value and strength might be radically different, but just as important; a bit like comparing apples and oranges: both delicious and different, one is not superior to the other.

The trap is not recognizing that difference is strength and that the world needs differences and different capacities. Haven’t we all fallen into this trap before? AND seen accurately, comparison can be a quick route to recognizing our power, our strengths, and what we bring to the negotiation table.

Surely other ways of discovering that belief in ourselves exists. I also realized that challenges helped me discover strengths and capacities I had never seen or never acknowledged. Challenge acts as a test that pushes us to and past limits we set for ourselves. Not fun going through these challenges, but glorious in reflection.

We discover parts of ourselves we never knew existed. We achieve states we never thought we could. In effect, we come to trust ourselves because we rose to a challenge and conquered it. How empowering!

Once we establish that strong foundational belief in our capacities, turning these into action grounds that hope from self-love, that hope from the Infinite part of ourselves. We came into this earth cycle as explorers, creators, determined to bring Divine into physical form and ultimately become co-creators with Divine, allowing that Divine creation to flow into physical form as us. Our desires form a new creation from our belief in ourselves.

I find this flow both magical and empowering.

Keep that glorious Divine action flowing; hope into creation!

Read more great articles at Self Synthesize.

On Valentine’s Day, everywhere you look there are red hearts, red roses, gifts for the one you love, all the symbols of romantic love. The emphasis is on giving love tokens to your loved one, but the question is “Are you open to receiving love?”.

Here’s a simple test…

When someone compliments you (an act of love), do you accept the compliment with gratitude or do you reject it and put yourself down in response?

If you can’t accept a compliment it’s a clear indication that you are not open to receiving love.

Love is the most powerful energy in the Universe and it’s the fuel that powers the manifestation of everything in your life, including relationships.

The ability to give and receive love is dependent on your level of self-love, so a truly loving relationship requires that each partner develops self-love.

What is Self-Love?

Let’s be clear about it…

Self-love is not to be mistaken for narcissism, egotism or self-absorption, which is an excessive preoccupation with self.

Self-love is a positive acceptance (love) of all aspects of yourself; an understanding and appreciation of both your strengths and weaknesses. It is linked to self-esteem and incorporates a positive self-image.

When you lack self-love your inner critic (the ego) is in charge which constantly criticizes you for not being good enough, pretty or handsome enough, slim enough, not (fill in the blanks) enough!

The ego lives in fear and the higher self lives in love – the ability to love yourself and others. The degree of self-love that you have is related to the level of control the ego has over your thoughts.

What Stops You Receiving Love?

When you lack self-love you criticize yourself and you assume that everyone else is criticizing you too! This makes it impossible to receive love because you don’t believe anyone could love someone with all the faults you imagine yourself to have.

You have a subconscious belief that you are unlovable!

Instead of being able to give love, you need to get love to fill the inner void where the self-love is missing; to convince yourself that you are worthy of love. But, paradoxically, you can’t accept the love you’re given because you don’t feel worthy of it.

How to Develop Self-Love

We all have an ego, and becoming ‘conscious’ involves becoming aware of the ego and overcoming it, so that you put your higher self in control of your beliefs, thoughts, and emotions. The more you grow in consciousness, the more the higher self is in charge and the more love you can give to yourself and your partner.

Listen to the voice in your head (your thoughts) and get tuned in to when your thoughts turn to self-judgment and criticism. At the same time you’ll notice that you feel uncomfortable too – that sinking feeling in your stomach, or a feeling of anxiety.

When it happens, don’t try to analyze your thoughts, and definitely don’t criticize yourself for having them! Just smile lovingly to yourself and silence the voice by immediately switching the critical thoughts to self-affirming thoughts instead.

Choose a mantra to say to yourself, such as “I am enough”, “I am beautiful”, “I am infinitely lovable”, or “I put my higher self in charge”. Your brain can only think one thought at a time, so doing this will automatically block out the critical thoughts of the ego.

Each time you shut down the voice of the ego you are weakening it and at the same time increasing the presence of your higher self and the love it represents.

You’ll find joy in your ability to give and receive love, and your self-love, self-esteem and the quality of the love in your relationships will grow and grow.

Jan Shaw – The Success Alchemist, is a Spiritual Empowerment and Intuitive Success Coach, Success Strategist and Mindset and Manifestation Mentor and can be found at www.thesuccessalchemist.net. She delivers intuitive guidance, spiritual and metaphysical teaching, plus life and business strategies, to support you in fulfilling your Soul Mission and Life Purpose. Get your FREE copy of her Dream Achievers Success Kit or apply for a complimentary Success Strategy Session. Her book Empowered Manifestation is available on Amazon. Visit her YouTube Channel for more tips, tools, and training. You can also visit her Facebook Page and join her Facebook Group, Breakthrough to Brilliance. Jan also hosts the Cosmic Creating Show on Cosmic Reality Radio.

I believe not only that the Universe is alive, conscious and self-aware, but also that we are an infinite, eternal, ever-expanding part of it, and as we expand we add to the overall expanse of the Universe itself. As our self-awareness and consciousness grow, as does the Universe’s own magnificent vastness. Therefore, it makes sense, to me at least, that to make our mark on this world, we would be wise to learn what makes us expand out; to shine that light within and to never stop reaching for the proverbial stars.

If you’ve ever studied Sacred Geometry, then it is likely that you have come across the manifold structure known as the Torus. A Torus is the 3-dimensional doughnut form which has been used to represent a number of things in our “real” material world as well as our “potential” imaginary one.

A Torus is the perfect representation of the “Cosmic Flow” – everything in, everything out. There is no attachment, no judgment, just a perfect working order of absorption and release keeping things in harmony and balance. This is surrender; perfect trust, cooperation, connection, and oneness with the Universe and all that is. The only thing that disrupts this natural flow which sustains balance within us is our own free will; our own thoughts.

Here on Earth, we reside in the 3^rd dimension which happens to be one of duality, or so our perceptions would have us believe. As humans, we tend to see our capability of self-knowing, of consciousness, as what puts us at the top of the species pyramid on this planet. Our ability to think logically somehow makes us the ones in charge, the rule-makers, the way-showers and controllers of all other life-forms and of course, of one another. We walk this path of supposed linear time, convincing ourselves it is a path of progression as we see continual advances in medicine and technology, but along the way have we lost sight of our most precious gifts towards Self-Mastery, simply by overseeing the nonlinear truths lying just beneath the surface of our own egoistic minds? Are we too distracted by our outer world which we struggle to control, that we have forgotten to retain the natural state of the Torus, which brings forth the knowing that there really is no need to try and control anything? If we only stop for a precious moment and surrender, we then allow the creation of the space where everything we expect the outer world to fulfill for us, can actually manifest within us.

When one is solely focused on the physical world around them, it becomes easy to be governed by the illusion of duality. The veil of thoughts and the five senses pulls the mind outside of ourselves and we get enamored with the endless opposites all around us; everywhere we look and in everything we know and care about. There’s good/evil, light/dark, and perhaps the hardest to deny are the ones that the laws of physics support moving more into polarity such as up/down, hot/cold, big/small, etc. But if we look closer, they are all relative and mere measurements of the same whole, just on opposing scales.

To further instill the illusion, we are usually taught at a young age that we must be on one side and must not like whatever is at the opposite end, without any regard for the middle-ground, or the fact one extreme could not exist without the other. We often see this in gender inequality, racial tensions & segregation, religious wars, homophobia, etc. We might even be taught that we are “special” or “different”, to compete or “be the best”, all which emphasize separation, however we are not often taught that we are all connected, or that things like race, religion, gender, and nationality are mere labels and underneath it all we are one and the same. We are rarely told of the beauty and balance found by walking in the middle, and that to be of the Light, we must also face in ourselves all that is Dark. Instead we are usually forced to repress or condemn certain feelings that are labeled as bad or evil. As we know, repression only emphasizes, builds up and leads to an eventual full-blown release. Why, then if we see so much damage done to our psyches, relationships, self-esteems, etc. are we not taught about healthy ways to know and feel through all of our emotions so we can best maintain our emotional, physical and spiritual bodies? This has been a question I’ve been trying to answer for myself for over 20 years now, and it always leads me back to the “damage of duality” and how we’ve literally been stuck in a generational loop of misguided consciousness about who we really are, where our true power comes from, and how we can all have the best chance at being our whole, happy selves.

So, how do we begin to transcend duality and walk the path of Self-Mastery? I’ve compiled a list of 3 main things I go to when I tend to get distracted, or “stuck in the mud of matter” to re-center, to find my balance and essentially my way back home.

1. Remember – It’s All an Illusion. I always remind myself that when anything gets on my nerves or annoys me for not going as planned, that it is merely coming from my interpretation that I am separate from whatever or whomever might be bringing this feeling up in me. Instead of immediately reacting, I ask myself, “What is this trying to show or teach me?” “What can I learn here?” And more often than not, things that didn’t work out the way I initially had wanted them to ended up turning into something even more awesome! Allowing myself to trust and be in the natural flow of the Universe has only brought me more peace and less stress. We always have that choice as to how we react to things going on in our “outside” world, and I’ve learned that not immediately reacting emotionally serves to not only empower us, but has saved me from saying or doing things out of anger I would later regret. This is not to say I am repressing my feelings, but instead acknowledging them, sitting with them for a moment & feeling through them, and then letting them go energetically rather than verbally or physically spewing them onto another. This has not only empowered my life by allowing to step out of the “victim” role I used to so easily jump into, but also has given me a better understanding of just how conditioned we all tend to be, and how with practice, we can all learn to make conscious choices in our everyday actions and overall lives that work to better serve ourselves and our relationships. This in turn, deepens our connections and strengthens our bonds, reminding us of the truth that we are all connected; we are all students and we are all teachers. And when we can live in that heart space, rather than in fear, we find we are not so easily fooled by the illusion of separation. We begin to know; above all else that nothing truly exists but Love.

2. Take Time to Be Still. Meditation is a daily ritual for me as it is for many. It is a way to declutter the mind and take control of your head-space. Too often we let the mind run on auto-pilot as we go on about our lives, and to me it is absolutely vital to put it in “time out” at least once a day. When you take time to quiet the mind and just be present, you are giving yourself the gift of your own full awareness and attention. Just like you would appreciate that from a friend while you are speaking, be kind enough to give that same attention to yourself as often as possible in the stillness of your own being. You will learn things about your body you may never have noticed before, simply by being fully present with yourself. It is only our thoughts that ever disrupt this presence. Yet it is in the stillness where truth lives, because it just always IS; always just BEing. If you have trouble quieting the mind, do not give in to rising emotions of frustration or judgement. Just let the thoughts and feelings come, feel through them and release them with a good exhale of your breathe. Think of it as a game you are playing with your thoughts, where you just always come back to center; to stillness; to peace. Your conscious mind will fight you tooth and nail to chat away endlessly as it doesn’t like being told to be quiet, especially if you are new at meditation. But over time, this will become easier. Even if you start with a couple minutes a day, that will be a welcomed break for your spirit, as ANY amount of time you literally pause your thoughts and become present, you immediately connect your heart space to all that is; to the Universe…to the pulse of existence.

3. Keep Your Cup Full. One of the hardest lessons for me to learn on my own path was accepting the fact that I was teaching others how to treat me. I was always the super nice girl, the “yes” girl, the girl who would help anyone, anytime with anything no matter what it took from me emotionally, physically or even financially. I would act from guilt and a feeling like I wouldn’t be accepted as a “good” person if I wasn’t always giving, giving, giving of myself and while I told myself I was doing something nice, I could never figure out why it always left me feeling horrible. I would agree to do favors for people who I knew were taking advantage of me, but to whom I simply lacked the courage to set boundaries with and say no to. And perhaps my greatest lesson of them all lies within my past relationships where I always dated guys that I felt needed to be fixed in some way. And every time they left me, they left me completely drained in every area of my life. I eventually learned that I wasn’t being my authentic self and I wasn’t truly helping ANYONE by doing what I was doing. I realized that to truly be of service to others I had to “keep my own cup full” so that I was never depleted.  How could I ever help others if I have no energy, no resources, no self-esteem, no direction and no self-love? Fact is I couldn’t. So, I had to learn to finally put myself first and to be okay with that. Self-love is far from being selfish, and in fact it’s the most important love you need in your life as without it you truly cannot love others. Until you love the entirety of your own being, including all of your flaws, shortcomings, etc. you will only continue to pull in people who act as mirrors to you who will reflect those most inner parts of yourself you still do not love. And you will see this as something wrong with them, unless you are aware enough to know better. So, it’s actually the most conscious, healthy choice you can make for yourself, in my opinion…to love yourself first, so that you can then love the world with your whole heart! To love yourself enough that you are constantly receiving from the Universe as much as you are giving out, doing your service in the flow, rather than depleting your own energy. This is the magic of working with Source-energy rather than against it.

It might sound selfish to love yourself first, but it all depends on where you are coming from. If you come from a place of fear & separation and act as if you are better than or more deserving than others (inflated ego), then yes, that is not a good place to be. But when you love yourself from your heart space, with the intention to want to be the best you, so you can shine the brightest light and expand the farthest you can out into the world, making a difference; a positive mark for the greater good…well, I believe that just might be what life is truly all about. Coming from this space allows us to overcome the insistent illusion of duality and to walk the path of Self-Mastery with confidence, courage and peace in our hearts. This speaks not only to the individual, but to the entire collective consciousness we are all a part of. We are but a drop in the ocean, but as much of a vital part of it as any. Do not be afraid to make waves!

Tamara Rant is a Co-Editor of CLN as well as a Licensed Reiki Master, heart-centered Graphic Designer and a progressive voice in social media activism & awareness. Connect with Tamara on Facebook by visiting Prana Paws/Healing Hearts Reiki or go to RantDesignMedia.com

As a writer, it’s not uncommon for me to sit blankly staring at my laptop. I’ll be quite honest, most of the time I can literally just sit down and type like a mad-woman as the words just flow out of me, but sometimes it is nearly impossible seemingly no matter what I do. And I know it’s not just writers who experience this discouraging sense of being disconnected from your own creative well.

So, what is going on exactly when this happens? Usually, it is just a matter of something else entirely having our attention, other than that which we are trying to get inspiration from. If we are trying to beat our best lap time in the pool, but can’t stop thinking about that awful fight we had with our boyfriend or girlfriend, then chances are we will not succeed.

Another factor that can play into how much or how little we are feeling creative and inspired is how we feel about ourselves personally. In other words, where are we at regarding our level of self-esteem and self-love? When we truly do love ourselves (just as it goes when you truly love another), it is near impossible to do something that would prevent you from attaining a goal, or make you feel bad about yourself, or not practice or dedicate the time that you need to excel at your current target (no matter if this is a promotion at work, losing that last 15 pounds, etc.)

And lastly, how we feel in general about others and about the world and life play a huge factor I believe in how strongly one’s creative juices will flow. Although this one is two-fold and I will explain. If we feel safe in the world and connected to people generally on a friendly level, then it would be safe to assume we live a generally peaceful and happy life as we wouldn’t see the world through threat-colored lenses. And this could inspire one to open the flood gates of creativity as the greater we feel connected to people, the easier it is to open up to them and show love. And I cannot think of any greater creative force than love.

However, if one sees the world as a threatening place or dark and dangerous for the most part and has a solid core belief that people are “bad” and cannot be trusted, well fear, angst, resentment, etc. are all wells of creative force and inspiration as well, just an entirely different type of energy. I can recall in my teenage years just how dreary and depressing my poetry was. And all of my short stories were like that of the beatnik writers’ style in their “eff the system-esque” prose, and anti-government undertones.

So, as we can see creativity energy isn’t all flower fields and rainbows. And I bet if you stopped for a moment and looked back at your own life, you would say that the time you took the biggest chance or turned your life around in a big way, etc. was after something really hard happened to you. Something where you felt tested and had to be strong and came out more experienced, wiser and yes, of course…stronger than ever! It’s the human condition to have to hit rock bottom sometimes in order to ever even be able to turn around, look up and remember there’s a beautiful blue sky up there, over a world just waiting for us to show it our awesomeness!

And how exactly does one find his or her own awesomeness? Look. Within.

You cannot NOT be awesome. It’s an impossibility. Just for you being who you are, where you are, when you are in the fabric of time/space makes you innately AWESOME! But sometimes we don’t always know how exactly to get all this awesome “out” of us, and this is exactly what imagination and creativity are for. This is why some of us rock at the drums or guitar, why others can do complex math in their head, and yet others are simply the best listeners and therefore some of the best friends you ever had. We are ALL ingrained with our own individual awesomeness and once we learn how to tap into the pipeline, well…that’s when things really get cool. 🙂

METHOD 1 (FOR DISTRACTIONS)

First, if we find we are lacking inspiration because we simply cannot stop thinking of something else, I’d highly recommend meditation in this case. Sometimes all we need at the moment is just to slow down and really listen to a few deep breaths. Hearing yourself breathe; there’s just something about it when you really are paying attention to it and take it into your heart-space. For me personally, I feel like a video game character that just had their mana restored. It literally feels like recharge and feels even better the more that you do it. So, if you are struggling with overpowering thoughts when you need to focus, practice, write, paint, etc. simply take a mental time out and just breathe!

METHOD 2 (FOR SELF-ESTEEM/LOVE)

When we lack self-esteem and/or self-love, we tend to put things on the backburner even if we know they are beneficial to our growth, well-being, health and overall happiness. We tend to self-sabotage when we don’t think so highly of ourselves, don’t we? And this can for sure put a damper on your creative juices! If we can’t get inspired because we simply aren’t feeling “good enough” then we will convince ourselves that even if we do follow through, we will fail, so we convince ourselves to not even bother. Or we will convince ourselves that no one will like or support the outcome (a book we are writing, painting, etc.)

We can tell ourselves a million stories, but a good reminder is to know that we always have the choice of which ones to believe. And my suggestion for when you are lacking creativity when you are perhaps just stuck in a rut with a case of the “blahs”, is to remember why you are even doing this in the first place. When you truly love something, it never feels like “work”, so if you are not enjoying it, it might be time to revisit what you are doing, or it might be time to just start being nicer to yourself as well. And all that support you might be seeking from the outside; give it to yourself first, and then see how the outside world shifts right along with you.

METHOD 3 (FOR FEELING DISCONNECTED)

For times we feel disconnected from our audience so to speak, what better way to reconnect than to dive into the crowd? If you are an artist, go to an art museum or gallery. Talk to other fans of art and spark conversations. Or host a show of your own showcasing past work and get people’s opinions. You NEVER know where creativity will spark and a simple conversation can lead you down a path you never imagined you go, painting things you really enjoy that you might otherwise have never discovered a love for within yourself.

Whatever the case, get out there (or online for us hermits lol) and get talking to your tribe!!! None of us are ever alone, no matter what we are into. There is always someone we can relate to if we are truly looking to do so and sometimes all it takes is having one single conversation or getting another’s perspective on something to perhaps change your perspective and open blocks you had preventing those creative juices from flowing.

My last piece of advice is to just keep an open mind at times. Like I said you truly never know where creativity might strike and it actually often does strike in some very strange places and with/from some of the last people on Earth than you might expect.

Whatever your passion, never give up and stay inspired…the world needs your awesomeness!

Tamara Rant is a Co-Editor/Writer for CLN as well as a Licensed Reiki Master, heart-centered Graphic Designer and a progressive voice in social media activism & awareness. She is an avid lover of all things Quantum Physics and Spirituality. Connect with Tamara by visiting Prana Paws/Healing Hearts Reiki or go to RantDesignMedia.com

Tamara posts new original articles to CLN every Saturday.

Follow Tamara on Facebook, Twitter and Google+

By Dylan Buckley | Lifehack

When you cultivate relationships with new people that forge a lifelong bond, it is doubtful that you are going to try to change that person. You’re not going to make them feel that they are any less of a person because of who they are, what they like, or what they pursue in life. We all know that this isn’t the right way to make connections with another human being.

Yet when we approach ourselves and continue our relationships with ourselves, there seems to be a desire to change, punish, or alter ourselves to meet certain expectations. If you were doing this to another person, this would be seen as unacceptable! We shouldn’t treat ourselves any differently.

The simple truth of life is that your only stable and lifelong relationship is with yourself. Because of this, it is the most important one you are going to have and, one that you will need to nurture if you want to lead a happy life. True, you will want to change some things but there is a massive benefit to simply accepting and moving forward from there.

If you have a hard time settling down with you, here are some tips on how to accept yourself so that you can start living a life that others dream of!

1. Take Some Time to Sit With Yourself and Discover Who You Are

The major problem that many people face when it comes to self-acceptance is that they have yet to engage in self-discovery. Many people may feel purposeless and lost, which is ultimately due to a lack of self and an unclear understanding of who you are and what you want.

Self-discovery is a necessary first step but it is one that comes with a lot of work and is ever-changing. Starting your own self-discovery journey may consist of the following:

Discovering Your Purpose

Each of us may feel like we are called to do something at some point in time that will help to grow others as well as ourselves.

What are you passionate about? What gets you fired up and makes you forget about everything else? What is something that you could picture doing for the rest of your life?

Sometimes, the best way to discover purpose is simply to go out and do until you learn more about where your passions lie.

Learning More About Your Values and Beliefs

Values and beliefs, which may stem from childhood or, may come from experience in recent years, help to set up a structure in our lives and drive us towards the things that matter most to us.

Are you someone who has strong ties to the family? Do you rely on honesty and integrity to live your life? What are your spiritual or religious beliefs? What type of community do you want to build or belong to?

These are some important questions to ask as these questions dictate what choices you make along your path.

Journal and Keep Track of the Day-to-Day

Even if you are unsure of who you are, what you do on a regular basis will certainly tell you everything you need to know.

What are some things that you like to do? What are things that are not necessarily fun for you? What are some habits that you have cultivated, healthy or otherwise? What are your dreams? Ambitions? Goals?

We all have things that make us unique. Take the time to learn more about those aspects of the self.

There’s this misconception that acceptance goes hand-in-hand with a refusal to change but that’s not true. Acceptance starts with recognition and embracing who that person is. You will then go on to nurture them and to change some of those unhealthy aspects so that you can become who you want to be.^[1]

2. Accept What You Can’t Change

You are who you are. You love what you love. There are some things that you will be able to change in your life (for the better) and, there are some things that will simply be for the rest of your time here on earth.

Expending mental energy on wishing you can change things that are never going to change is a waste of your time and will inevitably lead to sadness. Whatever it is that you wish you could change, know that you are a worthy human being regardless of what it is you are insecure about.

Take time to be kind to yourself, let your guard down and embrace these things, and learn how to overcome that inner voice that tells you that you’re not good enough. In order to be happy with who we are, we must allow ourselves to be accepting of all aspects of the self.

The biggest barrier for most people, however, is learning how to cultivate acceptance of the self. If you are struggling at this point, here are some tips that will allow you to tackle the project easier:

• Practice positive self-talk and challenge any negative thoughts that come out of you as they are released.
• Choose to be loving towards yourself and your flaws, rather than trying to hide them away or ignore them.
• Accept that everything that has happened has led you to this point and will carry you to your goals as you work towards them.
• Spend some time with yourself engaging in enjoyable activities so that you can bond with yourself and fall in love with that person.
• Know that you will have easy days as well as hard days. Take them as they come.

It may take time but in the end, you are going to be grateful that you put in the effort to cultivate self-love.^[2]

READ THE REST OF THIS ARTICLE…

Let’s face it, no one is perfect. Absolutely no one.

Even if you take the richest person on the planet with a tremendous amount of influence and power, this person is not good at everything or perfect in every way.

If you take the very best athlete in the world, this person might not be that good at art or music. The truth is, all of us are a mix of strong points and weak points. That is to be expected. That is part of the human condition.

If everyone was good at everything, we would have no means of choosing what we want to do with in life – we would have no passion or purpose because all our skills would be on the same level.

By the same token, nobody’s an angel. Even people you know who are really kind, compassionate, loving, giving, and good can wake up on the wrong side of the bed and have a bad day.

Accept Yourself and the Value of Your Flaws

Your flaws are what give you character and shape your personality – they make you who you really are. They are actually what make you special and unique.

What gives you character is your weird laugh, your quirky sense of humor, your off-beat way of looking at situations. These are the things that people hang on to. These are what define you and make you different.

Unfortunately, if you keep on focusing on how you meet some sort of impossible standard, you become blind to the flaws that give you character. Even if you recognize your flaws, you may be tempted to hide them or try to correct them.

How many film stars resort to plastic surgery to try to create perfection – and how many then lose their natural beauty and the character in their face?

If you try to reshape your flaws or beat them into submission, you’re fighting a losing battle. Please understand that they never go away and the stress of trying to be someone you’re not and constantly comparing yourself to others and feeling less than them puts you under immense strain. You end up becoming extremely dissatisfied with yourself and unhappy about your life because of unrealistic and unachievable standards.

Learn to love yourself

Learning to accept yourself is really the first step in learning to love yourself as your authentic self, and self-love is the key to living a happy and fulfilled life.

You are actually tapping into a deep reservoir of personal power if you accept your flaws and learn to love yourself flaws and all. You choose to stop running away from them, apologizing for them, justifying them, or otherwise avoiding them. Instead, you acknowledge them and value them as part of your unique identity.

Acknowledgment is the first step. Next, you learn to live with them. Then you embrace them. Eventually, you will get to the point you need to reach: making your flaws work for you instead of against you.

When you accept yourself as who you really are rather than wishing you were like someone else or good at something that isn’t a natural talent, your life flows much more easily, you gain self-confidence and are willing and able to take on bigger and bigger challenges and success comes naturally to you. When you truly love and accept yourself you will attract people who love you as you are and your relationships will be so much better. You focus on your strengths rather than your flaws and discover your passion and purpose – the unique gifts you are bringing to the world.

Accepting yourself really is the key to happiness and fulfillment so what are you waiting for?

Jan Shaw – The Success Alchemist, is a Spiritual Mentor and Intuitive Success Coach and can be found at www.thesuccessalchemist.net. She delivers intuitive guidance, spiritual and metaphysical teaching, plus practical life and business strategies, to support you in fulfilling your Divine Soul Mission and Life Purpose and create unstoppable success in life and business. Get your FREE copy of her Dream Achievers Success Kit or apply for a complimentary Unstoppable Success Strategy Session. Her book Empowered Manifestation is available on Amazon. Visit her YouTube Channel for more tips, tools, and training to help you become unstoppable. You can also visit her Facebook Page and join her Facebook Group, Unstoppable You – Breakthrough to Brilliance. Jan also hosts the Cosmic Creating Show – listen to the recordings here.

While forgiving others may be one of the more difficult things we do in life, forgiving yourself is actually much harder for most of us. It is easy to hold onto past mistakes and regrets for years, sometimes even our whole lives, and these negative thoughts can lead to anger and bitterness, in addition to affecting your self-image and relationships with others.

Learning to forgive yourself is an essential life skill and a process that is different for everyone who tries to do it. To be better at forgiving yourself, it is essential to understand why self-forgiveness is so difficult to achieve.

Forgiveness Comes From Love

Forgiveness is so much easier when you really love someone. So, if you are having trouble forgiving yourself, chances are this stems from a lack of self-love. Learning to love yourself and treat yourself in loving ways can be hard, especially if it is not the way you have traditionally thought of yourself. Forgiving yourself starts when you have a trusting relationship with yourself and learn to accept your imperfections.

When you are dealing with other people who have wronged you, and you are unable to forgive, you can cut them out of your life or move on. That’s not possible when the person you need to forgive is yourself. So, the first step in forgiving yourself is learning to love and accept yourself.

Your Brain Makes It Hard to Forget

Your nervous system keeps track of all your mistakes, every time you have wronged someone else or yourself. If your mistake was against someone else, chances are you have feelings of regret or guilt. These feelings lead to limiting beliefs that can change your confidence in your abilities and choices. So, the mistake leads to emotions, which turn into beliefs.

Changing this whole system must go back to dealing with the feelings that are tied to the reason you need to forgive. Releasing the anger, sadness, guilt, or other emotions associated with your past errors tells your nervous system that it’s okay to move on, and you can finally learn to forgive.

You Have to Consider Mistakes as Learning Experiences

Instead of looking at mistakes as things we must forget or surpass, forgiveness can also come when we learn to think of mistakes as just learning experiences. Avoiding errors keeps you from learning from those errors which, in the long run, may not be the best thing for you. An essential part of forgiving yourself is first admitting that you made a mistake, and then looking at the situation as a learner.

What did you learn from this experience, and how have you used what you learned since then? If you keep making the same mistake or type of misstep over and over, perhaps the reason you have trouble forgiving yourself if you have not yet learned the lesson life is trying to teach you. Learning from your past errors is a vital step in personal development as well as forgiving yourself.

Forgiveness Means Letting Go

The problem with forgiveness is it involves something that happened in the past. Once events occur in our lives, they become a part of our identity, a part of who we are moving forward into the future. When you try to let go of past mistakes, you are essentially trying to let go of a part of your past, a part of who you are. And that’s hard to do.

Regrets or mistakes have a way of building up in our minds, of morphing into their own story or becoming so important in our minds, we have a hard time imagining what our lives would be like without them. Instead, you must accept that you did the best you could at that time, and now, you know better, which is why you try not to make the same mistakes. Releasing your connection to this old version of you can help you move on and accept yourself for who you are today.

Forgiveness can be tricky, especially when it is your own self you want to forgive. Understanding why you have such a hard time forgiving can help you find peace and let go of your past errors, allowing you to move forward with a happier heart.

Jan Shaw – The Success Alchemist, is a Spiritual Empowerment and Intuitive Success Coach and can be found at www.thesuccessalchemist.net. She delivers intuitive guidance, spiritual and metaphysical teaching, plus practical life and business strategies, to support you in fulfilling your Divine Soul Mission and Life Purpose and create unstoppable success in life and business. Get your FREE copy of her Dream Achievers Success Kit or apply for a complimentary Unstoppable Success Strategy Session. Her book Empowered Manifestation is available on Amazon. Visit her YouTube Channel for more tips, tools, and training to help you become unstoppable. You can also visit her Facebook Page and join her Facebook Group, Unstoppable You – Breakthrough to Brilliance. Jan also hosts the Cosmic Creating Show – listen to the recordings here.

If you’re reading this article you’re probably dissatisfied with the level of success you’ve achieved so far in your life and you’re looking for the solution.

Is this you?

• You have a BIG Vision for your life but something is holding you back from achieving it…
• You have a deep desire to Make a Difference in the world…
• You’re still searching for your life’s mission and purpose…
• You’re dissatisfied with your life but you don’t know how to change it…
• You’re tired of living small when you should be living BIG!

If you relate to any of these statements, read on to learn how to overcome these challenges and create the change needed for Unstoppable Success.

What do I mean by Unstoppable Success?

Before I go any further I’d like to take a minute to explain what I mean by Unstoppable Success.

I certainly don’t mean success at any cost, especially at the cost of other people. It is not a way of achieving success by riding roughshod over others or by using unethical methods to achieve what you want.

The kind of success I’m talking about starts within you, is ethical and of integrity, focused on service to others and is in alignment with your mission and purpose and with Universal Laws.

That is the only kind of success that will result in joy, inner peace, happiness, fulfillment, and true prosperity.

Why is this so important?

The world needs you to fulfill your Life Purpose and Divine Destiny because this is the most critical time in the history of this planet.

I am about to share with you the 3 Keys to creating Unstoppable Success that is in complete alignment with your life purpose and soul mission, feeds your SOUL and enables you to live a life of prosperity and fulfillment without compromising your vision and values.

#1 Break Through Your Blocks

The first key to Unstoppable Success is that you must BELIEVE in yourself and BELIEVE in the possibility of your success.

What stops most people from achieving success and from fulfilling their purpose is that they believe they are not good enough, that they’re unworthy, that they don’t have what it takes and/or they have put a limit on what they believe they are capable of achieving.

Everyone has fears doubts and limiting beliefs to some degree – it is part of our soul mission to overcome these core issues so that we can step into our power and make a difference.

These inner gremlins are responsible for limiting what you can achieve but It isn’t something to beat yourself up about, it’s an opportunity to GROW.

You are here to fulfill your purpose and you need to remove anything that stands in your way!

The first step is to clear the limiting beliefs, fears and self-doubt.

In almost every case, a fear, self-doubt or limiting belief was caused by a painful and emotionally traumatic experience. Most of these originated in childhood when we are most vulnerable and impressionable. The solution is to go back to the source of beliefs, revisit the original experience and change your perception from negative to positive.

How do you do this?

This is where you apply The Power of Neutrality, one of the Universal Laws, which I’ll now explain.

Everything in the Universe is neutral until we give it meaning. This means that we can choose to interpret ANY situation as neutral, positive or negative. It is our interpretation that creates our perception. By choosing the negative, we create self-doubt, self-judgment, and even victimhood; by choosing the positive we create empowering beliefs, self-worth, and self-belief.

Using awareness and non-judgment you can become the observer of the situations that caused you pain and you can use The Power of Perception and choose a different interpretation of events in your past and clear the blocks that are holding you back.

If you struggle to see a different interpretation it is helpful to have someone who is not emotionally involved to help you explore other ways of looking at the situation such as a coach or mentor. That is how I cleared my deep-seated belief that I was ‘not good enough’ and I use the same process that helped me to help my clients to release their core issues.

#2 Awaken Unshakable Self-Love

It is through this second step that you create a deep-seated belief in yourself, your abilities, and your true potential to create success in whatever way you envision it.

Self-knowledge is the path to empowerment and self-love.

“Getting in touch with your true self must be your first priority” ~ Tom Hopkins

Some of the barriers to self-love are:

• You’ve never properly explored your unique gifts and talents
• You take your skills and talents for granted and don’t celebrate them
• You pay more attention to what you can’t do than what you’re good at
• You think that celebrating what you’re good at is boastful and you shouldn’t blow your own trumpet

You can start by exploring your personality and really get to know your natural talents, gifts, and abilities that are perfectly matched to your purpose. By understanding who you are and how your gifts, talents, and qualities equip you perfectly for what you are here to do you can let go of self-judgment and negative comparison with other people.

Here are some free personality tests you can take to get insights into yourself, why you behave and communicate the way you do and what your natural talents and preferences are:

• Myers Briggs (MBTI)
• D.O.P.E
• Human Design (Jovian Archive)

Another critical factor in knowing yourself is to understand your soul purpose. By doing so you’ll understand why you keep experiencing the same challenges in your life and rather than judge yourself for them, you’ll realize that they’re in your life because you elected to learn these lessons in this lifetime. The only way you can progress is by being challenged and these situations will continue to occur until the lesson is learned and you’ve moved from a negative experience into a positive one.

The best source of information that I’ve discovered is the book by Dan Millman “The Life You Were Born to Live”, which has given myself and my clients their “aha’ moments of insight as to why we’ve been going through our life challenges. You can also get it as an app for your Android or iPhone.

The more you get to know and accept yourself for who you truly are, the more you are able to make conscious choices that play to your strengths and put you ‘in the flow’. It’s when you’re in the flow, doing what you love, that opportunities present themselves which will take you beyond what you thought was possible.

#3 Empowered Manifestation

The key to empowered manifestation (manifesting what you want rather than what you don’t want) is to tackle those core issues I covered in #1 and reprogram the thoughts and feelings that are perpetuating the problems, or preventing the manifestation of your desires.

Wayne Dyer’s quote in the image above and Eckhart Tolle’s quote “You can only manifest what you already have” from his book “A New Earth” puzzled me for a long time until I realized that they were both referring to your state of consciousness.

If you believe that life is a struggle and full of problems, that’s what you’ll experience because you’ll perceive every situation in the light of that belief. You’ll create that reality for yourself.

If you believe in scarcity and that money is hard to come by, that’s what you’ll experience.

So if you have dreams and desires that you’re struggling to manifest (and I know lots of people that have been on the same frustrating treadmill for years), it’s important to:

a) recognize why your desires aren’t manifesting

and

b) make the necessary changes within you to create a different outcome.

By knowing how manifestation works and taking responsibility for creating your own reality, you can create the outcomes you want rather than repeating the ones you don’t want and literally change your life.

So, think about the areas that you’re trying to manifest and ask yourself:

“What are my beliefs about myself and the world?”

“Who do I need to be to create this outcome?”

“What do I need to change in myself to create this outcome?”

By asking these questions, you’ll be able to identify the inner blocks that are affecting your ability to manifest your goals.

The critical factor in becoming a successful manifester is to develop the right mindset of mindfulness and awareness of every thought and feeling that is either supporting or contradicting what you want to create in your life. It requires a higher consciousness to become a ‘master manifester’ which can only be done by following steps 1 and 2.

If you would like to learn more about how to become a master manifester, you can get my book Empowered Manifestation, along with a bundle of bonuses, that will help you develop the Superpowers necessary to manifest your dreams and create Unstoppable Success.

Jan Shaw – The Success Alchemist, is a Spiritual Empowerment and Intuitive Success Coach and can be found at www.thesuccessalchemist.net. She delivers intuitive guidance, spiritual and metaphysical teaching, plus practical life and business strategies, to support you in fulfilling your Divine Soul Mission and Life Purpose and create unstoppable success in life and business. Get your FREE copy of her Dream Achievers Success Kit or apply for a complimentary Unstoppable Success Strategy Session. Her book Empowered Manifestation is available on Amazon. Visit her YouTube Channel for more tips, tools, and training to help you become unstoppable. You can also visit her Facebook Page and join her Facebook Group, Unstoppable You – Breakthrough to Brilliance. Jan also hosts the Cosmic Creating Show – listen to the recordings here.

No matter how much the hardest among us deny this – we all have a desire to be loved. Often, it’s a romantic love that we crave. We are caught up in our loneliness and it’s normal to have a want for companionship. Though, romance isn’t everyone’s struggle or want – it may be a familial want or a platonic friendship. While for some it may be a combination of all of these.

As a result of feeling abandoned when my father left when I was seven and the fact that my mother was unable to provide emotional support because she was so focused on survival while bringing up three children on her own, I spent many years searching for love in romantic relationships only to find that they couldn’t fill the void in my heart.

Rejection and hurt can leave us feeling unfulfilled and disillusioned with how we expect relationships to play out. When they don’t go as we want them to we often blame ourselves and wonder where we went wrong… that’s not what it’s about.

This is where learning to love yourself comes in – and that comes with some incredible benefits, here are six.

1. You’ll Be Large & In Charge
Instead of making bad choices because you’re being led by shame, guilt or fear – you will be empowered to make choices that truly make sense for who you are – meaning you will be living your authentic life. You will no longer be caught up with people pleasing, instead you will live a life that brings you satisfaction. Self-love means trying to honor yourself because you know your needs are just as important as others.

2. You Set Boundaries & Stick To Them
Once you have the hang of honoring your needs you start to feel more confident, which means you are more assertive. Of course, this results in a more purposeful attitude, especially when it comes to dating. You start to see who is wasting your time and you’re strong enough to move forward without them. More to the point, you are strong enough to set clear boundaries with people and stick to them.

3. The Approval Seeking Will Stop
When you truly love yourself, you stop worrying about what everyone else thinks about you – which means you’re a less defensive person and more confident about living a life that is authentic for you. Why would you need acceptance from everyone else when you truly accept yourself?

4. You Will Be A Conscious Decision Maker
Loving yourself gives you the courage to cut things from your life that don’t truly bring you joy or provide you with ample space to grow. It’s easy to make courageous decisions when you value yourself and actively make choices that are intended to honor you, rather than risk harming you.

5. You Will Enjoy Alone Time
A lot of people get caught up in keeping busy schedules simply because they’re terrified of feeling or being alone. You surround yourself with people, throw yourself into work, and make decisions that help you avoid that loneliness. Why would you do all of the things that you don’t love? You could be filling that time with things that you actually enjoy doing – whether it’s meditation, swimming, writing or watching a movie. It doesn’t need to feel scary to spend time alone, you should enjoy time with yourself. Self-love brings more comfort when you’re spending time in your own company.

6. Happiness
You don’t need to find happiness in relationships, whether they’re romantic or not. The only love that you truly need to be happy is the love of yourself. When you start taking responsibility for it and stop giving your power away to everyone else, you will naturally feel happier. If you’re not in a romantic relationship you will find that you aren’t as desperate to be in one as you once were because you know you don’t need them. When the right person shows up, you will be ready for that love.

So how do you develop the self-love that will deliver these, amongst other, benefits?

Self-love can only be realized after a process of self-discovery so you can release the limiting beliefs and core issues that have kept you trapped in self-criticism, and develop an appreciation of your unique gifts and purpose enabling you to accept and love who you REALLY are. Because I have worked through my own issues with self-worth and overcoming my belief that I was “not good enough” I can empathize with others who are facing the same issues and I have an intuitive ability to see the beliefs and core issues that are holding you back from leading a fulfilled, happy and successful life.

If you are struggling with a lack of self-love and would like to experience a sample of what I do to help you transform into the person you came here to be, please accept my offer of a free Success Strategy Session in which we’ll explore the source of your lack of self-love and identify a strategy for resolving it so you can experience these amazing benefits.

Jan Moore – The Success Alchemist, is a Spiritual Empowerment and Intuitive Success Coach and can be found at www.thesuccessalchemist.net. She delivers practical life and business strategies plus intuitive guidance, sprinkled with spiritual and metaphysical principles so you can create unstoppable success in life and business. Get your FREE copy of her Dream Achievers Success Kit or apply for a complimentary Unstoppable Success Strategy Session. Her book Empowered Manifestation is available on Amazon. Visit her YouTube Channel for more tips, tools, and training to help you become unstoppable. You can also visit her Facebook Page and join her Facebook Group, Unstoppable You – Breakthrough to Brilliance. Jan also hosts the Cosmic Creating Show every Saturday on Cosmic Reality Radio – listen to the recordings here.

Many of us have been taught that when we need something, that it must always be a struggle to get it. That we must somehow suffer to prove we somehow deserve objects of our desire, to satiate any feelings of righteousness as to not over-inflate our egos. Or perhaps we’ve been taught to feel guilty any time we have something nice or good in our lives; as we’re reminded not everyone is so fortunate.

There are many reasons we may struggle with the natural flow of life, which believe it or not, is to keep you in a state of peace. The Universe knows nothing else, and as a pond will return a ripple to stillness after a pebble has been tossed, it will continue its natural motion to resettle in “neutral”, to re-center at Zero-point.

Of course life has its obstacles (I prefer to call them opportunities 🙂 ); how else are we to learn, grow and expand? But as far as using what we‘ve learned to assist us in creating the lives we want for ourselves, why does THAT continue to be a struggle for so many of us? Why are so many good-hearted, talented, intelligent people still finding themselves in jobs they deplore? Or perhaps they aren’t be challenged enough in or not getting to use their gifts and abilities? Why do so many us still find ourselves attracted to people that are no good for us? People who continue to draw up old wounds and cause us pain?

After pondering on such things for quite some time, I’ve come to one conclusion and that is before the skies clear…before that truly life-altering epiphany finally hits us, there is one simple thing that must occur.

That one thing is self-love.

Once you learn to love yourself above all else, it’s almost as if the puzzle pieces of your life come out of the shadows and reveal themselves to you.  You may not entirely see how they all fit together yet, but that’s okay. You now see the magic and fun in that and look forward to putting them together with your new outlook; with your new eyes.

I’m not speaking of self-love in the egoic sense of the word. True self-love means you finally see yourself in those whom you used to hold in a higher regard. In other word, you realize there is no difference between you and those you idolize. You can now see the connection in all things and this inner knowing forever instills a sense of being cared for on a cosmic level that ultimately cannot be explained in words.

You only need to make this realization once, and while you are human and may happen to mistreat yourself at some future point in time, perhaps letting someone take advantage of your kindness, you will be forever changed in how you see yourself and your place in the world. Because once you learn to love yourself, you also learn the fact that it’s really the only way you can ever truly love another, or ever let another truly love you back the way you truly need to be loved.

You will begin to see your relationships change for the better because you are no longer with people subconsciously to fill something that is missing with yourself, since now that there is nothing missing, you are free to be in a relationship, simply to love and enjoy the other person and their company. There is neither absolutely nothing more freeing nor more empowering and to me this is the definitely of what true love means and what most of us are continually striving for. But until we fully learn what it means, and that it is vital to first achieve self-love, then sadly most will continue to repeat old patterns as well as the same old relationship habits.

And circling back to allowing things you desire to come into your life gracefully, and without loading yourself up with an extra heaping of guilt, you will soon discover after you learn to love yourself just how simply you literally surrender to the flow and allow the Universe to answer the calls of your heart. Now, this isn’t to say some magic genie will appear or that one would be wise to get caught up in visions of grandeur materialism, but rather that when one is literally living IN LOVE, in that vibration of creative force itself, we are more in tune with our ability to manifest in our lives and just how much responsibility we actually do have over what “happens” to us. This is beyond empowering and unleashes a whole new field of view when it comes to playing the game of life. You innately begin to see a bigger playing field. You have a better scope on the other players, and you are a hundred times more confident in your own abilities.

This is the power of love… <3

Tamara Rant is a Co-Editor/Writer for CLN as well as a Licensed Reiki Master, heart-centered Graphic Designer and a progressive voice in social media activism & awareness. She is an avid lover of all things Quantum Physics and Spirituality. Connect with Tamara by visiting Prana Paws/Healing Hearts Reiki or go to RantDesignMedia.com

Tamara posts new original articles to CLN every Saturday.

Follow Tamara on Facebook, Twitter and Google+

I think it is quite safe to assume that we’ve all wanted something so badly that we took such great care to make sure every little detail was taken care of to ensure we had the greatest chances of having that certain something happen or appear in our lives.

We might do a ton of research and get all our ducks in a row to prepare. We do the work and we put our heart and sweat into it thinking how awesome it’s going to be to reach our goal. But what happens if we don’t? Or that which we’ve put so much into and worked so hard for just simply does not manifest into our lives?

For some reason, most of us tend to immediately go to self-blame, wondering if we missed something or did something wrong. Perhaps we go onto to tell ourselves the story that “we didn’t work hard enough” or that “we really don’t deserve it” and that’s why it never showed up.

I used to be one of those types of people. When I truly care about something, I put my heart and soul into it and in the past when things didn’t work out the way I had envisioned in my head, I was often overcome with disappointment and would immediately blame myself. I should’ve tried harder…I should’ve given more of my time and attention. And the worst and most common story I continually told myself was that I simply didn’t deserve it. This story, I later found out, stems from a core belief that I wasn’t good enough and the second I changed that belief, my entire outlook on life changed as well.

What I’ve come to realize about people and most importantly about myself is that the more we are able to see ourselves through eyes of love, the more we are able to live our lives peacefully, without fear and with full trust that the Universe has got your back. And when we are capable of doing that, we are also more easily able to see that when things don’t work out the way we planned, it’s not that we don’t deserve the things we want. Sometimes the Universe just has a strange way of wrapping the gifts it delivers to you. 🙂

For instance, we might really want a certain position at work, and while we know we are more than qualified we learn that we didn’t get it. At first it’s tempting to start thinking badly about ourselves, or maybe even that there’s some favoritism going on and “the other guy” got chosen for the job over you because he’s just the boss’ favorite and is always kissing up to them. But when a month goes by and you hear just how horrible of a time Mr. Favorite is having, plus you get offered a newly created position that allows you use some other creative skills you have…well NOW it just all makes sense why you didn’t get the first job, right? It simply wasn’t meant for you, and the Universe knew it the entire time and beautifully orchestrated what it had to, to align you with the path you were more in resonance with.

The more I bring this mindset to times I could’ve been disappointed, I always come to find that I was being lead to something even bigger and better than I could’ve imagined. This has allowed me to learn to live more deeply involved in my own life, but less attached to it if that makes sense. (I feel like I read that in a fortune cookie somewhere, but it is EXCELLENT advice!)

Being less attached to the outcome has also allowed me to stop worrying about the “how”. When I look to manifest something in my life I know that it’s more than just intention and focused thoughts and that I must put action behind my intentions and thoughts. But I also know that I cannot get caught up in minute details of how it will happen. I’ve had some amazing things manifest in my life and I could never in a million years have ever imagined it would come together or work out the way it did. I truly think that the Universe does that on purpose so that we don’t forget the magic of our own creations! 🙂

Tamara Rant is a Co-Editor/Writer for CLN as well as a Licensed Reiki Master, heart-centered Graphic Designer and a progressive voice in social media activism & awareness. She is an avid lover of all things Quantum Physics and Spirituality. Connect with Tamara by visiting Prana Paws/Healing Hearts Reiki or go to RantDesignMedia.com

Tamara posts new original articles to CLN every Saturday.

Follow Tamara on Facebook, Twitter and Google+

This article was originally created and published by Conscious Life News and is published here under a Creative Commons license with attribution to Tamara Rant and ConsciousLifeNews.com. It may be re-posted freely with proper attribution, author bio, and this Copyright/Creative Commons statement.