After watching so much about the death of Farrah Fawcett and Michael Jackson, I started thinking about some things. One is that it’s so interesting to me how many people today want to be famous. Not because they cure cancer or really make a difference, but just to be seen. Look at all those reality shows and huge talent contests. We all have the urge and human need to be seen on some level. It seems that it has become a distorted pursuit.

Two, I’m not sure we really know what it might be like to be a superstar and all of the difficulties that come with it. Many of the people that are celebrities, started pursuing a careers at very young ages, too young to know what they were getting themselves into. For some people it is actually a calling to give us art, meaning and pleasure. As much as we could and sometimes should, talk about all of the things they do wrong, it is also good to honor their gifts and talents. This blog is to remind us all to honor the gifts and talents of ourselves and the celebrities as well as holding the truth of all of life’s complexities.

Three, there are certain pros and cons to choosing a life in the public. Celebrities, politicians, and people who are in the public eye are under a microscope. We all have opinions and can look at the lives of these public folks and say blah blah blah about it – whatever we would say, but let’s take a step back for a moment. We are all people taking this human journey. Believe it or not, whatever we do with our lives, most of us are doing the very best we can at any given moment. Ok, I’ll give you that if we choose to be public we must take on that banner. If we are willing to take the good part of being famous we must accept the bad.

Celebrities are people and we, of course, from a distance may have loved them – or maybe not – but they are human. It’s important to hold all the aspects of our humanity and develop compassion towards ourselves and others.

Let’s remember that old saying that when you point a finger at someone there’s three pointing back at you.

I would like to extend my blessings to the family of Farrah Fawcett and Michael Jackson. I would also like to give my blessings to all of us, living or dead, either public or private.

Because of the upheaval with companies and the drop of the Dow Jones, one of the big topics right now is job loss. We are living in tumultuous times and you or someone close to you may have lost their job and are feeling any number of emotions.

As a psychotherapist, I’ve worked with many clients through the years who have lost their jobs either while they were in my practice or came to me so that they could deal with the loss. As with all difficulties, it is most helpful to use our personal misfortunes as teachers to help us become wiser, stronger, smarter and more humble.

Losing a job is complicated because there are many levels that follow the occurrence. We need some time to take what happened in and allow ourselves to grieve for what can feel like a death of sorts. With this in mind, Elizabeth Kubler-Ross devised the five stages of grief:

1. Denial. In this stage we tend to think there must be a mistake. It cannot be happening to us.

2. Anger. We insist it is not fair. After all, we were a good and necessary worker. We ask, why me? We then think of any number of other co-workers more deserving of losing their job.

3. Bargaining. We try to get back in through the door in any number of ways.

4. Depression. Sadness can develop into despondency. We wonder, why bother to go on? Why bother with anything?

5. Acceptance. At this stage, we have processed enough that we begin to feel that things are going to be okay. We acknowledge that we will take care of what we are able to and do the best we can.

Even though it is helpful to look at the above five stages, let us remember that they do not necessarily go from one stage to the next. Transitions and transformations are not linear; meaning, we do not complete one stage and then move to the next. Rather, we might skip over one stage for a time and then find we are back to an “earlier” stage at an even deeper place. We might even go back and forth between the stages, deepening the process each time we return. Remember though, these stages as they are broken down can help us have compassion for ourselves as we go through the difficulties. It tends to give a map of the territory that others have walked, which helps us better understand what we are going through.

Naturally, one of the first thoughts we have when facing job loss is the loss of income. This is a top stressor. If people are depending solely on us as the bread winner, this can be a very frightening, devastating, and shameful loss. Even though what we do is an expression of who we are, so many of us identify our being with what we do for our job. In other words, many of us judge our competency and value by our work life.

In the process of grieving, there are social implications that arise. Were our peers at work a family of sorts? Depending on how long we were there, losing our job may also feel like we lost members of our “family.” Now that we are no longer a part of the team, will the employees look and feel about us in the same way? Will we lose touch with them? We are trying to figure out just where we belong now in this relationship. This will also lead us to wonder about our future work life. Will we fit in anyplace else?

Along with these thoughts, we will have the fear of survival. Will there be any employer looking for the kind of skills we can offer? This will often lead to questions of asking if we are good enough. Were we ever good enough? Depending on our childhood, certain old issues return to be confronted and any self-worth questions will come to the forefront. This is a good time to get some support from a professional psychotherapist to help ease the sting and look at these wounds through the eyes of the adult we are today. This can be viewed as an opportunity to heal some of our old historical material. It is also suggested we take advantage of support groups for the unemployed and to see if our former employer can provide a list of possible organizations.

The good news is that after the initial fear, we might find that the job loss is an opportunity for growing into something better suited for us and in turn help us feel more successful in our life. The important thing is to be kind to ourselves by eating and sleeping well, exercising, journaling and taking time to go inside ourselves to reflect on our various highly charged thoughts and feelings. Now that we have been given some time, we could take advantage of looking more closely at what is important to us. Remember, any difficulty can be taken as an opportunity for great healing. Part of being happy, productive and mature is by learning to take life as it comes and making the best with what we have. This is my sincere desire for all of us.

Most of us feel cautious about the possible spread of viruses and other bugs like the Swine Flu or what is now called the H1N1 virus. One of the ways we can start to protect ourselves from illnesses like Swine Flu and other diseases, is to work with our mind-body connection. Of course, how we take care of our physical bodies as well as our stress and anxiety levels have a lot to do with the health of our immune system and our health in general. Healthy immune systems resist disease.

Over the years there have been an enormous amount of studies on the mind-body connection including relaxation strategies, bio feedback, meditation techniques, energy therapies and others. These can help us relax and allow our own immune systems to move away from illness and strengthen towards health. In our society, much of what we hear is viewed from the frame work of a disease model that looks at everything as though we are either well or sick. We sometimes forget that there are degrees of wellness. We can actually become healthier even when we are not sick. 

So, in what ways do you begin to look at this mind-body connection to protect yourself from illnesses? You begin by examining how you take care of yourself physically. Ask yourself some simple questions:

How do you treat your body? 

Do you eat well?

Do you get enough sleep? 

Do you work out or have some form of regular activity?

These questions are some of the more concrete ways to start cultivating our body-mind connection. Besides physically, how are you caring for yourself emotionally, mentally and spiritually? These different levels of care all have their importance in our over all health and immune function.

For example, what keeps you from achieving an optimum level of wellness?  Often the answer that arises in our exploration of our internal thoughts and feelings is stress and anxiety.

What is stress? Stress is a physiological response of the body to situations or stimulus which are perceived as “dangerous” to the individual. Stress affects us all in different ways. Stress also changes as we grow and change. As we age we are also affected differently by stressors. High stress occurring regularly can cause physical harm and lower our immune response to viruses, bacteria and other diseases.

Stress is often noticed as body tension and can be caused by our non-productive internal thoughts and feelings. We perceive that we are in danger in the moment because of our history and belief systems not because we are in actual danger at the time. Knowing the contents of those non-productive thoughts and feelings begins to loosen the strong hold of this connection to the past. Not knowing the contents only gives these hidden internal operating systems power and keeps our lives stressful

How about anxiety? Anxiety is also the body’s response to a perceived threat. It is a variety of biochemical changes related to our personal history, memory and social situation. Anxiety is a feeling often linked with fear. Worries are the thoughts that can be associated with these fears. We can find it difficult at times to name the source of these fears. However, naming, understanding and processing our fears, worries and anxieties allow these amorphous uncertainties to come into the light so to speak. This takes these undefined forces of nature and reduces their power by knowing what is “behind the curtain” running the show. We then can integrate and start to actually relax.

So what does this all mean?

Even though we aren’t sure about the future of Swine Flu, H1N1 virus, we know that there are ways we can lower our stress and our anxiety levels or deal with difficult emotions that arise for you.  This will lead to a healthier immune system, healthier body and a lower chance of disease and a happier life.  

All of the hype about Susan Boyle got me to thinking. If you aren’t aware who Susan Boyle is, she was recently a contestant on Britain’s Got Talent and created quite a stir on many blogs, as well as becoming a You Tube sensation. The reason was that when the 47 year old woman first walked out on stage to sing, the audience snickered at her schoolmarmish appearance. She told the judges that she was a church volunteer from Scotland who lives with her cat and has never been kissed. Before the music even started, the judges and audience had already judged her, but once the music began and she sang the first few notes, she changed their opinion rather quickly. That initial image, often considered to be a stereotype, led me to write this blog.

It is so interesting to me how we, as a society, focus on what someone looks like, as well as other surface attributes, and I cannot help but make a correlation between the survival-of-the fittest mindset our primitive ancestors lived by. These ancestors chose their mates unconsciously based on appearance with the assumption that if they were to mate with who appeared to be a healthy individual, their offspring would then also be healthy. For them, healthy meant being the most attractive, most physically fit or the strongest. 

In the case of Susan Boyle, we could wonder what she was thinking when dressing so plainly for such a glamorous event. Maybe, though, she did wear her best dress. We really don’t know and the audience’s reaction made me feel sad. This woman’s voice is amazing, but it is important to note that it seems part of the audience’s strong reaction was based on what they expected due to her dowdy appearance. What came out of her mouth was a gifted voice that sounded as though it had an incredible amount of training.

 Still, throughout history to today, society’s strong opinions are often based on external appearances. So what keeps us stuck in this historical mindset? We have certainly progressed from the days of the cave man, or have we? It looks to me that we are a people influenced by surface appearances while wanting to impress others with a façade that may or may not be honest. Is our car good enough for our image? What about our house? Are our clothes fashionable enough? We place more value on how impressive our things are rather than their necessity or reliability. If we only consider the surface “values,” quite likely we are not going to find our true happiness. No matter how flawless the plastic surgery may be or impressive the shiny, new car is, at the end of the day it cannot give us a feeling of deep fulfillment. Sure, it’s nice to have beauty, fame and money, but those things do not equal happiness and will not matter when we are on our death bed.

So how can we rid ourselves of these judgments or stereotypic-thinking? We start by challenging them. What we witnessed in Susan Boyle is true beauty. True beauty is in all of us. It is our essence shining through whatever we do. It might be hidden from view at times, but it is there. Besides all the aforementioned contrasting elements, we were touched by her talent while her clean radiant presence opened all of our hearts and minds. It’s a lesson we should hold close.

There are definite long term benefits of working on your personal development as well as your spiritual growth. Often times our experiences don’t reflect a sense of progression from A to B to C, meaning it’s not exactly a linear progression. Even though sometimes we might think that nothing is happening, just the same our inner landscape is changing.  If we have spent time and effort doing the reading, therapy, personal growth workshops, meditation along with the other endeavors involved in becoming our best self, we will have success. Now success may not look exactly like we thought it would, but if we can step back and notice how our lives have changed we can usually see a positive difference.

As a psychotherapist I’ve heard many times from clients that they thought all of their suffering would quickly disappear if they did all the “right” things. They said that they did their affirmations, went to psychotherapy, read the books, did the12 step programs, practiced EFT, meditated, prayed and still they felt sad or abandoned at times. Sometimes we all forget that when we are in pain it hard to see the larger picture. Remember this is progress not perfection. As we grow, change and mature our definition of suffering changes greatly. We actually feel emotional pain differently. What would have sent us into a tizzy or had us shut down now just needs a deep breath when it happens in order to feel OK.

 The body, like the emotions, mind and spirit, experiences positive cumulative effects when we are more integrated. Deep memory of that integration when times are challenging will allow us to bounce back more quickly.

 An example of the body remembering those cumulative effects is when I was younger I danced, sang and acted professionally. Because I’m a former dancer, my body responds more quickly getting into shape. I still have to have to discipline to go to the gym but when life gets in the way for awhile and I don’t have time to go to the gym, my body is very good about remembering how to move and my muscles remember what it is to be in shape. This is an example of how being in shape is cumulative over the years. Now as we age, the body may have a harder time finding the past effects in some ways. However, the older I get “getting in shape” emotionally and spiritually actually gets easier. This doesn’t mean we won’t sometimes have difficult feelings but we all gather our wisdom muscles if and when we do our inner work.

 If we regularly weave into our lives doing a spiritual practice, continuing to engage our minds along with challenging our belief and emotional systems, living a content and balanced life is possible. Please remember you are worth the time. The culmination of the long term benefit is having more peace, happiness and more contentment.

Personal development is all about change, an over arching term that includes many different approaches to self-improvement. Personal development in its largest context could encompass anything that involves personal growth on all levels, meaning physically, emotionally, mentally and spiritually. Exploring personal development takes a willingness to look at ourselves with extreme honesty and examine ways we want to change and improve. Pain is a great motivator for change. Investigating our pain where we are not our best takes bravery. It might be hard at first to face the reality of our weaknesses, but this ability to be self reflective makes our lives easier in the long run. Out of this process we change and develop into being a better friend, better life partner, better employee, better boss, better entrepreneur, etc. We can have more peace and happiness in our lives. This process helps us create an easier life with less suffering for ourselves, others and the planet.

In psychology, personal development can be thought of as a comprehensive exploration using a number of methods, approaches, and theories. It explores the issues surrounding our childhood development and examines personal power and identity. This psychological viewpoint would involve the development of what we call the ego. When we are developing this personal dimension of our being, it could be said that we are refining our egos.

Many of us are drawn to personal development because of some sort of suffering. Experiences like anxiety, depression, grief, divorce, difficult relationships, parenting conflicts, career challenges, health problems and other common human struggles help us decide to pursue a resolution. Exploring these struggles often involves getting to better know our internal thoughts and feelings. As we work with the difficult issues that arise we can work towards integrating and transforming these difficulties into pathways of healing. We can even start to see these problems as our teachers or as opportunities. Instead of avoiding our difficult issues, we can use them as guides to our wholeness and happiness. This empowers and helps bring us to our deepest potential. Learning from the journey and integrating these difficult parts takes us closer to living our lives to the fullest, therefore connecting us to our true selves. We are able to then live a more balanced and harmonious life.

Personal growth and development take work and concentration and yet it is worth every bit of effort. Some ways to help in our journey of personal development are psychotherapy, life coaching, self-help books, group therapy, 12 step programs, meditation, and journaling, along with self-improvement workshops and seminars.  Psychotherapy is a great personal development tool. It is one of the fastest, most direct ways of working on personal issues and the ego.

The difficult parts of our personality and the wounded aspects of our ego cause us to be preoccupied with nonproductive sabotaging thoughts and feelings that don’t allow us to relax. Ego could be defined as our conscious mind or our conscious experience of our own identity. When we’ve integrated these painful parts of ourselves or painful parts of our ego enough, we are able to relax, sink down and live from more of our greatness. Sinking down into our greatness allows us to go beyond the ego into a larger context that contains all aspects of who we are, including our ego, body and our spirit. The more refined, healed and integrated we become, the easier it is to find and stabilize that deeper, higher, larger connection. One could call this larger connection a spiritual connection with God, Wholeness, Ultimate Reality, Christ Consciousness, All That Is or the ultimate Truth from your spiritual tradition. It is these uncomfortable personal issues that keep us blocked from opening to the grace and wholeness that is always available to us.  

 In spiritual circles, we often hear that the goal is to “get rid of the ego.” In my experience, that usually doesn’t work well as a goal. To have the fullness of what is possible we don’t want to bypass or get rid of the ego. People usually find that the unhealed ego just runs the show behind the scenes. A wounded, tense ego is always worried and trying to position itself to be better than everyone else. We believe we have to be better to survive. The wounded ego is also continuously fearful and works to protect the self from the outside world. Conversely, a healthy ego is what keeps us grounded in the world and allows us to be able to function well every day and build a richer life.

When we have a more healed ego, life feels easier and we don’t experience extreme ups and downs. This allows us to grow into who we came to be. This encourages the unveiling of our deeper wisdom, inner mystic and inner guidance. We feel more in harmony with all of life. A relaxed ego can be flexible and is not preoccupied with itself. Therefore, we can be self reflexive rather than self conscious and always concerned with how we are doing. A relaxed or healed ego can move well through life. The person with a relaxed ego is able to find his or her place in the world. From this more healed state and in our own unique way, we can take appropriate actions to help ourselves, others and the planet. Isn’t that worth taking the pathway to healing?

Through the years, most everyone I’ve talked to either wishes for or is actively searching for more happiness, peace and contentment. These wishes and searches can take many forms.

I’m sure most of us have experienced a time in our lives when we were convinced that if a certain event happened, whatever it might be, we just knew that we would be happy forever. We were confident that this event was the key to our lifelong happiness, contentment and peace. This particular occasion may have actually come to pass and we may have been happy, at least for a while. Then as time went by, we no longer felt consistently happier, more content or more peaceful. The question is why. If anything, this shows that we can see that this kind of happiness, based on outside circumstances, is fleeting. That is the nature of life.

What if lasting happiness comes from being harmonious or at one with our deeper selves? What if we can live our lives with this connection to our deeper selves and feel a deeper peace most of the time? Is it possible to find true deep lasting happiness?

Various spiritual traditions teach that on the journey to uncovering our deepest truths we start by first noticing what our truth is not. We spend our time discovering and revealing layer after layer what our happiness isn’t. In certain teachings, this is referred to in the Sanskrit term as “neti-neti,” translated “not this, not that.” In our path of self-discovery, we investigate and learn what keeps us from our true happiness. We can see as we explore that it’s not one particular desire or a fulfilled achievement that allows us to relax into peace and happiness. This process or elimination can be called “cutting through” and helps us discover the blocks that keep us from having our deeper selves and happiness as our constant companion.

So much of what we see around us is motivated by well-intentioned folks, like ourselves, looking for nirvana out there. We look for it in a new kitchen, a bigger house, more experiences, more wine or food. We all believe at times that if we can just find the “right” formula in our outward lives, we can have the happiness, peace and contentment that we long for.

All of us have certain basic needs and when they are not met, we tend to struggle. But if we look at the hurdles that most of us lay down before us in order to find more happiness, we can see that we have set an impossible bar. We won’t be able to have happiness with this thinking. For most of us, this struggle has an insatiable quality that can never be met. From here we are always craving and believing that ____ (fill in the blank) will makes us happy.

What we forget or don’t know is that a certain kind of happiness is available to us in every moment. Like right now. It is like the air. We don’t often pay much attention, but it is here at all times. It is up to us to do the internal personal and spiritual work necessary to open up to receive the flow of the Universe, God or any name that suits our personal tradition, and connect to ourselves inside seeing what might be possible. Rather than looking ahead to something else or behind at our memories, if we can open to it, we can experience the flow that is here now.

Let’s try this: Take a deep breath in and let it go. With your next breath, just for a moment imagine letting go of all your worries and concerns. Just for a moment let them go. Now, take another breath and let it go. In your next breath, imagine infusing your breath with more peace, contentment and happiness, whatever this means to you. Let these qualities permeate every cell of your body for just a moment. Now notice your body and how you feel emotionally.

Practice this a few times a day over the next few weeks. Let me know how it goes. Until next time…

We are all bombarded by the outside world with endless numbers of things vying for our attention and our time. There are so many distractions. Many of us go from place to place trying to figure out how to get everything we want and need done.

From hundreds of television channels, endless Web sites and endless interesting blogs to the every day life duties on our “to do,” “to know” and “to see” list, it never feels done. And besides, if we are being conscious, we have our physical body demands with preparing good food and getting our daily exercise. We also must attend to our jobs, our house, our children, and our relationships. Then there are all the cultural requirements of keeping up with what is deemed important.

With all these different agendas, how do we fit it all in? We become more conscious of how we spend our time. We know from the deepest reaches, time is endless. We also know from our day-to-day living, time can seem to evaporate. Most of us can say we are not sure where time goes. Sometimes we are not spending it as wisely as we could. In our ordinary consciousness, there are 24 hours in a day. How do we choose to spend our precious time?

By becoming more aware of our choices around time, we can empower ourselves. We can choose to feed the deeper part of ourselves. Feeding our soul can become part of our daily agenda. We can make more conscious choices. Take a moment to tune in and ask what is truly needed. What does this deeper self need for personal growth and spiritual growth in order to integrate our physical, emotional, mental and spiritual selves? Sometimes it only takes a minute to tune in and give ourselves soul food. We could choose to read some inspirational material while we are on the exercise bike, listen to helpful tapes while we cook, take five minutes a day to journal and ten minutes a day to start a meditation practice. What stops us from our soul’s longing? Often it’s the choices we make about what appears to us as life demands and distractions that catch us.

Let’s allow ourselves to be more mindful of how we are consumed by all that life throws at us. We can ask ourselves:

• How are we distracted?

• What choices are we making around time?

• How can we make choices that come into greater alignment with our life’s purpose?

Our true-selves are calling us. It’s up to us to turn away from all of life’s distractions and just take a moment of time to listen.

*Originally posted at The Lohasian, www.TheLohasian.com