Clear Your Emotions Change Your Relationships

“Often the hands will solve a mystery that the intellect has struggled with in vain.” Carl Jung

To be human is to form emotional attachments to people, jobs, pets, situations, and material things. We are hardwired to do this and yet equally important is the “know how” to detach and let go of some past connections. Why is that? People and pets die, some relationships become toxic, some jobs we quit or we are fired, some situations we had our heart set on don’t pan out and we become enslaved to things.

What follows is one approach to intentionally disconnect and let go of any or all attachments that no longer serve you or you need to put closure due to death or a breakup. You are going to have a funeral for this so choose the location you wish to do it in. Some go to the beach at twilight, others go to a body of water such as a river or bayou, still others go to a cemetery or a park. If you are not sure, close your eyes and say in your mind each location and see which one your inner spirit chooses for you.

Next write out in handwriting a letter to that which you are detaching from. Start out by saying how you are feeling. Start out with the heaviest emotions such as anger or hurt and be specific about why you feel these. Next write out the feelings of regrets and fears you have, if you have any, moving forward. Conclude with thankfulness, forgiveness and love. That is the sum total of all the time, energy, and resources you spent into this relationship or job. You are left with memories and experiences and lessons for life. Some of these lessons may be yet to be discovered. Burn the letter in a metal pot. Put the ashes in a container to take to the location you selected in advance. On the way listen to music that you have associated to the person,  job, or situation. When you arrive visualize a peak experience you had with them. Thank them, release the ashes and visualize a departure that is natural for  you. Be aware of your feelings and be aware of how your inner spirit guides you in a gentle and natural way and process that is in alignment to your essence. You are free and open to new energy, relationships, opportunities, and choices. The positive memories always stay and these can be relived and savored at will.

Go home live the mystery of life!

 

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Eight Steps to Create the Lion Mindset in 2017

January is a time that mentally you are all systems go.  You are dissatisfied with the major domains of your life such as relationships, career path, health, physique, lac of recreation, desire for personal development, improved finances, greater spirituality, and more autonomy of your time. This major inertia at the start of a new year makes people change jobs, get a gym membership, create a budget, buy a self-help book, attend seminars, drop a stagnant relationship, etc.

To stay focused on your end game requires a “Lion’s Drive.” This vision is the absolute commitment to do whatever it takes to reach your objective, be what it be.  Recent research suggests that less than 10% ever reach their new year’s resolutions. Let me help you stack the odds in your favor.

The following model will take you from thinking > planning> doing > re-doing > having or reaching your outcome > enjoying.

Step 1. Decide what you want. State this bottom line result as a positive of what you “lust for or desire” as opposed to what you don’t want. The mind only responds and processes the images you give it. Create your plan and work your plan as action is eloquence. Walk your talk so you create gravity to bend divine gravity in your favor.
Step 2. What will having this do for you? Answering this question takes you to another level that will give you other options to getting what you are after. For example having more money gives you greater choices. Think of money as frozen pleasure you can always use. The key is to make it.
Step 3. How will you know when you have achieved your outcome? What time frame is involved? Describe your sweet spot (target) using all the five senses. How will you know you have achieved your outcome? What will you see, hear, taste, smell, and feel? This step activates your conscious processes that prime the unconscious mind.
Step 4. What stops you from already having this outcome?
Step 5. What resources, specialized training, coaching, mentoring, etc., will you need?
Step 6. Imagine already having what you are after. What was the first step you took? What were the subsequent steps you took until you got your Lion’s share of the prize?
Step 7. Use Cartesian logic to develop clarity for what you are pursuing. What happens if you get what you want? What happens if you don’t get what you want? What does not happen if you get what you want? This next one is a mind bender. However, it will flush out any deeply seated traps. What does not happen if you don’t get what you want?
Step 8. Do you still want it? At this point, you should have a realistic idea of what it will take to get your outcome. Some re-decide that it’s not worth the time, effort, or investment. At least you can discard something that is just a pipe dream, and you have no intention of grinding for it daily.
Finally here are some best practices to keep in mind as you move forward with your plans.

• Break down what you want into small, doable steps. In this case less is more
• Keep your goals private,unless you have a trusted confidant that will encourage you as naysayers torpedo them. Find your Lion Pride that is of the same mindset to support you.
• Be realistic, you have finite time, energy, and resources. So prioritize what your bottom lines are that you will positively do what it takes to reach.
• Keep your stinking thinking under control. When things don’t go as planned, many develop negative thinking and talk themselves out of pursuing big dreams. If you have an inner critic whose voice is it? Many find that it’s the voice of a critical parent. If this is the case, that voice usually is trying to protect you from a perceived harm. Assure that inner voice you can handle and give it a new role, your personal coach to motivate you.
• Put yourself first. Stop doing everything for everyone else that you never have time for yourself. Get out of the sheep mentality. When you take great care of yourself, you become a better caretaker of your loved ones.
• Seek like-minded goal oriented persons that can inspire you and that you can learn from.
• Reward yourself with small gains. No one will ever treat you better than you. So learn to be your best cheerleader.

Happy opportunity hunting in 2017

 

Shoo or I’ll hit myself

Every morning I’m greeted by an anomaly, a Northern Cardinal bird that is hell bent on protecting his territory from himself. Day after day he is there to fight himself when he sees his reflection in a vehicle mirror. You might feel sorry for him and think, “Poor little bird he doesn’t know any better.”

Enter Harry a former co-worker that had a victim complex. Every day as he set out to do his job, he was a disagreement waiting to happen. He had all the traits of good employee save one, being cordial and treating his coworkers as clients. Eventually, it was too much, and he was fired.

Every day we brush with the Harrys of the world who live to pick a bone or a fight with others. Or maybe at times, we have acted like a Harry. They are the Cardinals fighting a futile cause that wastes energy and time. Since I knew some of Harry’s past, there may have been a direct link to his failed dream. Harry was a former educator who held an important position in a school in from Latin America. Like most immigrants, he took any job he could get, and he settled down. Ironically, he was always educating his coworkers on their infractions of not following protocol.
This job was his territory, so he thought. He would defend his actions in being rude to others as just getting others to adhere to company policy. In essence, he took it upon himself to be the policy police. His position was one that he interacted with all the operations people regularly. I never got on his bad side because I found it easier just to do what was expected.

The bird cannot change his actions. Every day he fights himself until he’s exhausted. That intrusive bird was always staring back at him always wins. If you are channeling your inner Harry, give yourself a break. Conceive a new reality of how your life could be. Believe it with all your heart that you can make it happen. Work hard to achieve it. The first takes boldness, the second faith, and the third grit.

Ana Maria Otamendi to perform with her students ‘Musica de Amor’ extravaganza

February 11, 2016–At age 21, Anna Maria Otamendi, had to choose one of two paths in life, being a Concert Pianist or practicing her degree as a Geophysical Engineer. Her love of music was first planted in her heart and soul at the tender age of five. Her father wanted to live his unfulfilled dream of being a musician through his children. Anna Maria’s father was a self taught guitar player who never realized his passion of being a professional musician. Unbeknownst to Anna Maria’s father, his desire to have his daughter play the piano had unintended consequences, leading her to choose the path of a musical virtuoso.

This Venezuelan born native and East End resident went on to accept an assistantship position and a master’s degree at The University of Wisconsin. Although, her family was disappointed and cut her off, thousands of music aficionados around the world have enjoyed the Anna Maria’s unique performances. Her personal journey and her tenacity to be the best has given her a depth and wisdom to coach and mentor her students at the University of Houston Performing Arts.

Anna Maria has performed as a soloist and collaborative pianist at important venues and with renowned orchestras in Austria, Panama, Brazil, the United States, Spain, Italy, and Venezuela. After finishing her two-year tenure as Studio Artist at the prestigious Houston Grand Opera Studio, she is a Visiting Professor at the University of Houston, as well as Music Director, pianist and conductor for different programs at HGOCo. She has won First Prize at all the major Venezuelan piano competitions, as well as the University of South Carolina Concerto Competition and the Ouro Branco Festival Competition (Brazil).

On Valentine’s weekend February 12, from 6 to 10 p.m., Anna Maria along with her Moors Opera Center students will be performing a first and one of a kind, “Musica de Amor” (Music of Love) themed world class performance at The Esplanade. This free open air performance features award winning students, Sydney Anderson, Royce Strider, Caroline Geenen, Danielle Wojeik, Andrew Gilstrap, and Kaylie Kahlich.
Anna Maria and her troupe of singers want to bring their talents, love, and passion for music to East End families. This rare performance is another dream come true for Anna Maria to inspire Hispanic children and in her own way pay it forward. Anna Maria’s story has a happy ending with her father eventually coming around and becoming her number one fan. When she performs in Venezuela he is there every time as a front row enthusiast cheering her on. Do not miss this opportunity to experience opera singing in the open air.

Unconscious Mind: the force that goes with you

If you have ever observed someone that is extra-ordinary at doing something, you are witnessing a high performance trance state. Some examples of this are, outstanding musicians, athletes, chefs, speakers, writers, litigators, and others. If you look closely at their eyes, their vision is out of focus because their primary attention is inside their mind and body. They enter into “The Zone” where they operate at their peak. In this high performance state, they fire on all cylinders and they can do no wrong. They are completely congruent; all their inner systems are in alignment working in the right sequence or simultaneously. Years of practice have created a wiring of their neurology and muscular body that what they do is done unconsciously, or without thinking about it. This is a relaxed alert state where time is distorted to slow down or speed up.

When you engage the conscious mind at a task you are very clumsy and it seems difficult. The conscious mind can only process 7 bits of information plus or minus 2. That means that at the most 9 and at the least 5 but your unconscous mind up to 30 billion bits per second. Think of when you first tried to learn to drive a standard shift vehicle. You were only managing, 1.) focus on the road, 2.) the steering wheel, 3.) the clutch, and the 4.) gear shift. Recall how difficult it was at first to know the sequence for taking off, turning, or stopping and all you were doing was managing 4 primary steps. After extensive practice, you could get behind the wheel without thinking about it. That was an operational trance state where you processed hundreds of bits of information automatically without thinking about it.

The unconscious mind is your loyal servant and it will act on any command you give it unless it determines that it’s not good for you. If that’s the case it will run self sabotaging patterns. The unconscious mind does not know the difference between that which is imagined and that which is real. It will react with all the body sensations in the same way. Your greatest strengths and vast amount of resources all lie in the unconscious mind. I became highly interested in this field three decades ago and went on to be certified in clinical hypnosis by Dr. Jeffery Zeig one of world’s most renowned psychologists and clinical hypnotists.

I’ve used my knowledge in designing highly successful advertising campaigns, producing radio talk shows, writing, coaching athletes, and executives, removing PTSD and other remedial applications, as well as peak performance conditioning.

Join us on Wednesday at 2p.m. CST for a Blab session to listen how I helped a dentist overcome his fear of going broke and how I did it. If you have any question you want to ask me I will gladly share with you my knowledge. May The Force Be With You!

Sub-Modalities the Key to Motivation

The power of imagination has been known for centuries. Every great philosopher has opined about the capacity of man to imagine and create a better world. In fact scientists credit the area of the brain called the pre-frontal cortex (the location that drives imagination) with being one of the most important advantages of human evolution.

Every great athlete and top achiever knows the power of visualization to juice up their neurology and motivation. The unconscious mind closely associated with the right brain does not know the difference between something you imagine and something that is real. That’s right, your brain and all your body mechanisms are easily fooled into thinking of a visual image as being real. To illustrate try the following experiment; visualize cutting a juicy yellow lemon and imagine biting into the meaty part.

If you are like most people, your mouth waters and your lips pucker up in response to the mental exercise. Your body begins a biochemical chain reaction to prepare for and adjust to the spike in citric acid. Every single material invention had its start as an idea in the inventor’s mind. This is why the power to visualize your goals and heart’s desire is so important. This is easy to say but not so easy to do if you never learned how to visualize.

Our mind responds to the input from our five senses. People fall into one of 3 general categories of a preferred or dominant modality, visual, kinesthetic (or feeling), and auditory. In America 60% of the population are visually oriented with 20% auditory and 20% kinesthetic. Visual people have a movie screen in their mind constantly running to process and execute tasks. Research has demonstrated that at times these mechanisms malfunction, especially from major emotional hits in life.

Over the years, I’ve worked with individuals to help them re-calibrate their minds. If you want a quick boost to your motivation let me give you some tips. Imagine you are sitting in your favorite theater and visualize yourself inside the movie screen accomplishing one of your goals. See it from start to finish. Now re-run the exact same movie but now visualize it in I-Max size with surround sound hearing the Rocky theme song. Make the colors very vibrant and sharply in focus. See yourself bigger than life, being congratulated or reaching a milestone that lets you know you succeeded.

These are the sub-modalities or subset of elements of the visual channel of your mind. Learning to run your brain is essential to have sustained and progressive success. If you don’t, by March your new year’s resolution of a new fit physique will be represented in your mind in black and white, out of focus, and about the size of a small TV. Not very motivating and your brain represents that as not being real. The take away is learning to run your brain can have a huge pay off in 2016.

Preparation of Mind a Requiste of Success

“If you want to be truly successful invest in yourself to get the knowledge you need to find your unique factor. When you find it and focus on it and persevere your success will blossom.” Sydney Madwed

As you peer into the horizon of a new year all kinds of possibilities are there for you to create, grab, or collaborate with others to achieve your heart’s desire. You may be filled with optimism and the drive to make it happen with your New Year’s list of resolutions. What are the odds of you claiming 2016 as your banner year? That number is dependent on your preparation. In general, for the masses less than 10 % can truly claim come December that 2016 was a stellar success.

Continued and long term success does not happen in a vacuum or by accident, it has a definite structure. One of the biggest factors, if not the most important thing, is how you run your brain. Since your mind didn’t come with an owner’s manual, it’s imperative you learn how it works and how to run it like a super computer that it is.

While the masses are addicted to taking selfies and living in a virtual bubble, success is there for the taking of do-ers who are committed to the absolute desire to “go-for-it.” The super achievers have the same drives and desires as the masses, they just happen to have a different playbook and focus to play the game of life. In my experience, they are very discriminating to seek out the knowledge of the difference that makes the difference. In plain English they are after the knowhow of the winning edge. The pursuit of the unfair advantage to succeed effortlessly. Let me illustrate this for you.

Years ago a famous attorney came to me to help him overcome his fears of expanding his practice to other large Texas cities. In his mind he equated expansion to a gamble where he placed all his chips on the table and he stood to lose everything he had, if he failed. He had already hired other consultants to help him and his fears were bigger than any solution he threw at them. In my mind it was a no brainer, he was a self made millionaire with a large war chest to open up a satellite office and be an instant success. This attorney was after that illusive magic bullet to help him beat this fear that had dominated him for 15 years of planning his expansion.

After a major intervention he had clarity and complete congruency to go forward. I traveled to the first target city, San Antonio. I met with all media to create a media plan. I did a market study to identify the major competitors. I located an ideal office space and vendors he would need to launch. The complete playbook was there for him to pull the trigger. Within a couple of weeks I could see this was still too much of a stretch so I told him he needed to open up another office within the same city. The strategy was simple; this would be his pilot launch to learn in his own backyard all the logistical nuances of an expansion.

On the day of the launch we did a radio remote broadcast on a talk show I produced for him. The new office was a runaway success. It was opened in the heart of his largest demographic. New and established clients preferred that office rather than drive across town. In less than a year that office was doing more business than his central office. Jerry valued expert advice paying top dollar for it and running with it. He knew the difference that made the difference. Others who don’t know that they don’t know how to run their brain will not even invest in a book, a seminar, a continued study of how their mind works. They are the masses driven by impulse and controlled by the herd mentality of their social circle.

The take away is, learn to run your brain or pay the price of others running it for you. A successful mindset requires preparation. Preparation requires study and or a coach or mentor. To  your success, happy be-ing and do-ing.