Your Children

One of my favorite books by Khalil Gibran has brought so much wisdom to my life since I was a teenager. In this chapter he speaks to parents about their children......

Your children are not your children. They are the sons and daughters of life's longing for itself. They come through you but not from you, And though they are with you, yet they belong not to you. You may give them your love but not your thoughts. For they have their own thoughts. You may house their bodies but not their souls, For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams. You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you. For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday. You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth. The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite, and He bends you with his might that his arrows may go swift and far. Let your bending in the archer's hand be for gladness; For even as he loves the arrow that flies, so He loves also the bow that is stable.

Expand your knowledge and enlighten your mind with the parenting tools you need to stay on the right path with your children. Book a free session today at  http://www.denisedema.com

Living Passionately Takes Courage!

If you find yourself in a life that doesn’t fit you, take some action and do something about it! Don’t take easy way out. Don’t let your comfort zone trap you for life. It is never too late to live your passion. To live your passion, all you need is courage………

Courage is the strength to stand up when it's easier to fall down and lose hold.

It is the conviction to explore new horizons when it’s easier to believe what we’ve been told.

Courage is the desire to maintain our integrity when it is easier to look the other way.

It is feeling happy, alive and moving forward when it’s easier to feel sorry for ourselves and stay.

Courage is the will to shape our world when it’s easier to let someone else do it for us.

It is the recognition that none of us are perfect when it’s easier to criticize.

Courage is the power to step forward and lead when it’s easier to follow the crowd.

It is the spirit that places you on top of the mountain when it’s easier to never leave the ground.

The foundation of courage is solid, the rock that doesn’t roll.

Courage is the freedom of our mind, body, and soul!

It’s time to find the courage to embrace your passions again. Get coached at your business, home, by phone or e-mail to get the results you need to excel in your personal and professional life! Book a complimentary session at http://www.denisedema.com

Give It and It Will Come Back to You!

Like any lost art, saying "Thank You" can be revived! We can begin the revival by being conscientious about saying thank you to those who help us each and every day. Saying thank you is so powerful because it reinforces the importance of the simplest acts of kindness and reminds us of what we are most grateful for. Don't be in a thank you recession. The more you say thank you the better somebody feels and that energy will soon be returned. Starting today, show everyone that does something nice for you your appreciation! Learn to live each day with gratitude for the simple things that bring joy to your life. Kindness will make your world a beautiful place!

Achieving Happiness and Well-Being in Your Life!

We all want to be happy. When we're happy we are productive and become good at building meaningful relationships with those around us. However, happiness is a notoriously difficult thing to pin down and by focusing on it too intensely we can end up feeling unfulfilled. So think about what we need to do to flourish and to really be happy as a result. To help this process, here are some essential elements that should be in place for us to experience lasting happiness and well-being.

Positive Emotion
For us to experience well-being, we need positive emotion in our lives. Any positive emotion like peace, gratitude, satisfaction, pleasure, faith, inspiration, hope, curiosity, or love falls into this category and the message is that it's really important to enjoy yourself in the here and now.

Engagement
When we're truly engaged in a situation, task, or project, we experience a state of flow: time seems to stop, we lose our sense of self and we concentrate intensely on the present. This feels really good! The more we experience this type of engagement the more likely we are to experience well-being.

Positive Relationships
As humans we are social beings and good relationships are core to our well-being. Time-and-again we see that people, who have meaningful, positive relationships with others, are happier than those who do not. Relationships really do matter!

Meaning
Meaning comes from serving a cause bigger than ourselves. Whether this is a specific person or a cause that helps humanity in some way, we all need meaning in our lives to have a sense of well-being.

Accomplishment/Achievement
Many of us strive to better in some way whether we're seeking to master a skill, achieve a valuable goal or win in some competitive event. As such, accomplishment is another important thing that contributes to our ability to flourish.

Now that you're aware of all the things that make up your well-being and happiness, you can start to work on each one to live a rich, meaningful life.

Let's look at how you can do this.

Positive Emotions
Although we can't be happy all the time, we need to make sure that we often experience positive emotions such as pleasure, happiness, contentment, peace, joy, and inspiration. If you feel you're not experiencing enough positive emotions in your life, stop and think about why?

First, look at your career. Do you get to use your talents and strengths in your current role? If not how can you change that either in your current position or in another so you are valued for your contributions? Determine your strengths and look at ways to share them with others.

Next, identify people, events, or things that give you pleasure. Start to surround yourself with those things even if it is on a small scale in the beginning. For example, imagine you love being outdoors, surrounded by nature but spend a lot of time working inside. Why not bring plants or flowers into your space to experience this source of happiness in your work environment?

Spend time with positive people, do things that make you smile, and look at activities that bring joy to your world. The aim here is to find ways to bring positive emotions and enjoyment into your daily routine, and to ensure that you don't keep on putting these things off into a future that never quite arrives.

Engagement
Do you feel engaged in your career and in life? Engagement is about being fully involved and enthusiastic about what you are doing. You can experience deep engagement when participating in sports, spending time with friends, or working on things that you're fascinated with.

You can increase your engagement at work by minimizing distractions, improving concentration and focusing on projects that provide an interesting challenge for your skills. When you feel engaged you are more productive, effective and put passion into your work.

Look at your interests. Do you make enough time for a favorite hobby or physical activity? Many of us let this important personal time slip away, especially when we're stressed or overloaded with work. Try to devote plenty of time to activities that make you feel happy and engaged. This is very important to attain life/work balance.

Positive Relationships
Do you have positive relationships in your life? These can be with anyone: family, friends, neighbors, or colleagues. Do you wish you had more of these relationships?

You probably spend a good majority of your time at work, so it's important to start here if you want to build great relationships. Good working relationships give us several benefits and make our work more enjoyable when we have strong relationships with those around us. Also, people are more likely to go along with changes that we want to implement and become more innovative and creative.

Looking at your personal life, do you enjoy the company of your family and friends, and do you find that they're positive and supportive? If not, then it's important to take the time to understand why. Are you devoting enough time to strengthening these relationships? And do you need to make more of an effort to reach out to your friends and family? Don’t wait for another time to have these relationships flourish because things can change in an instant.

Make a commitment to spend significant time with a friend or family member on a regular basis. Relationships take engagement and hard work, and they're often strengthened only when we make an effort to connect with other people. On the other hand, you can't do much to change people so if your relationships aren't positive, you need to decide how far should you seek to preserve them? Know when to cut your ties and put your energy into the relationships that serve your life and are rewarding for you to be in.

Meaning
Do you feel that your life and work has meaning? That is, do you feel that you're connected in some way to a cause bigger than yourself? Most of us want to believe that we're working and living for a greater purpose. So finding meaning is important to our overall sense of well-being. When you set out to actively look for purpose in your life, the harder you try, the harder it can be to find. 

Remember chasing butterflies as a kid? The more you ran, the more they flew to escape you. But sometimes, when you just sat on the grass and watched, they'd come to rest on your leg – if only for a moment. Finding purpose in your work can be very much like this. Don't run forward franticly, trying to find meaning. Instead, do a quiet, more thoughtful search. The meaning and purpose you seek may come to you when you least expect it.

Certain activities, such as mentoring a co worker, spending time with our family, volunteering, or performing acts of kindness can really improve our sense of meaning in life. If you feel your own life is lacking meaning, do these things - you'll find them hugely satisfying.

Accomplishments/Achievement
This might be the trickiest element simply because it's very easy to take things too far. For instance, in many societies achievement is highly valued and if we're not always busy, it can seem that we're not living up to expectations and living a full life. However to continually push ourselves too hard can easily run ourselves ragged in pursuit of the next achievement.

So take your time and prioritize your drive in life. If you suspect you're not devoting enough time or energy to accomplishing your dreams, then start now by first identifying what you truly want to accomplish and discover what you'd love most to do in your life. When you set concrete goals for yourself, and discuss them with your manager, partner, parents, coach or mentor, you are creating your image and path of the future. The images you hold about the future serve to guide and inspire you. They influence your present actions and decisions. This is why the power to create your future success comes from within.
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By focusing on all of these elements, you can flourish in life and find the happiness and well-being you want. This is a good starting point for living a great life!

Achieve your full potential today! Work with a Business and Life Management Coach with over 20 years experience empowering individuals, executives and business owners to attain self-defined success in their professional and personal lives. Book a complimentary session today!

Stop Over Analyzing and Live Life!

Sometimes we often contemplate life from every angle. We weigh the pros and cons of every endeavor, every relationship to ensure we don’t take one false step. Unfortunately most of the time they do not protect us from mistakes, nor do they protect us from the very things we are looking to avoid.


Over analyzing life is the major cause of procrastination, and insidious thought. The more you think, the more you conjure up thoughts of how the world is out to get you or that you aren’t capable of attaining whatever goals you desire. We sabotage ourselves. Others don’t sabotage us unless we let them. But more often we do it to ourselves. Over and over until it becomes a part of our psyche and we have to self reprogram our minds into a healthy disposition.

We must rid our thoughts of self defeating feelings. Whether you feel you’re not good enough to date a particular person, or that you’re unqualified for a particular job, you are entitled to anything you want just as anyone else is. No one can make you believe it but you. Just as one obsesses about how they aren’t capable, one can choose to think that they are. It’s the choices they make that determine the happiness of their life. Not circumstances.

Choice is the key word in all of this. It’s what one chooses to think about. For many they consume their minds with needless, irrelevant processes that sap their energy or forms negative energy that they in turn… attract. We are what we attract and attracting these negative forces in our life is our own doing. We have the power to change it. But often many people over analyze themselves into negative dispositions that consume their thoughts, until they manifest it themselves in life.

Life is meant to be lived. The greatest people the world has ever known became great by making things happen and not merely thinking about them and every pitfall that may arrive along the way. You owe it to yourself to be the best person you can be and that starts in your head.  It’s unnatural to be positive every second of the day, but we can choose how we digest and manifest information. How we cope with the information we’re given is a reflection of how we think about ourselves. Many things you will analyze will never materialize, because they are figments of your imagination.

You cannot assume what people are thinking. You cannot assume what people will do. You cannot assume that someone is thinking of you when you are, or in the way you are. It’s a ridiculous process that only feeds fear and uncertainty. Focus on you, and what you’re doing, and don’t make judgments on the hypothetical.

Over analyzing can cripple you to non action. Free your mind of these negative thoughts and bathe in the glorious ether of self awareness and confidence. The more you do the more you’ll be focused on things that will make you happy, and less on those negatives you attract.

Learn to stop over analyzing and embrace the life you were meant to live! Work with a Business and Life Management Coach that specializes in human development and personal effectiveness for individuals and professionals. Book a complimentary session today!

The Power of Letting Go.........

A story for reflection….. Two Buddhist Monks were on a journey and they approached a rough and raging river. On the river bank they saw a young woman who was clearly in need of help to cross to the other side of the river. The junior monk walked straight past her without giving it a thought and crossed the river. The senior monk offered to help the woman and carried her across the river. Once across they parted ways and the two monks continued on their journey. As the journey continued, the senior monk could see that the junior monk had something of concern on his mind, and asked what was wrong. The junior monk replied, "As monks we are debarred from touching a woman, how could you then carry that woman on your shoulders?"  The senior monk replied, "I left the woman a long time ago when I put her down at the river bank, however, you seem to be carrying her still."
 
This story shows the importance of detachment. The things we hold onto, bear grudges or perhaps feel angry and hurt about cloud our mind and prevent us from being the best we can be. Letting go usually involves some form of forgiveness or acceptance – whether it’s for yourself, someone else, a situation or even an unknown third party. The irony is that whatever you’re holding onto, it’s probably hurting or bothering you much more than it does anyone else. Letting go doesn’t mean we condone a situation or behavior, it’s about lightening our load. When we let go of whatever is bothering us we set ourselves free and get to reclaim that energy for ourselves. You don’t need to know how to let go, you just need to be willing. You can’t change the past, but you can learn from it and change how you feel going forwards. Remember - whatever you find it hardest to let go of is probably what you need to let go of the most.

There is tremendous power in letting go because it clears your mind and takes away distractions so you can concentrate on living in the present. Letting go of all the things that drain your mind and body allows you to gain more focus and confidence in yourself to achieve your goals. Improving your present moment improves your future as well and will bring more happiness, joy and real freedom into your life..

Below is an exercise that will help you gain some clarity of the things you need to let go off.  Just listing what you need to let go of here will raise your level of awareness and you’ll naturally begin to loosen your grip on the things that do not serve you.  So ask yourself and write down what you’re holding onto, what slows you down, what riles you up and anything that gets in the way of you being the best you can be!

•   What do I need to let go of?    How I benefit by holding on?

Now look at this list and imagine letting go of everything on this list. How does it make you feel?

What have you learned about yourself from doing this exercise?

If you need to let go of something you’ve done, simply ask, “What do I need that will allow me to let this go?” Perhaps you need to make some kind of apology or find a meaningful way to make it up to yourself or someone else. While we can’t change the past, we can make peace in the present and learn from it. Also ask yourself, “What do I gain by holding on to this?” Perhaps by holding on to resentments, anger, hurt, you don’t need to accept your part in the situation, or perhaps it stops you from feeling how hurt you really were, maybe you get to stay in ‘the right’ or avoid dealing with someone.

By becoming aware of the things that do not serve your life now will allow you to start the process of letting go and redirecting your energy toward what empowers you and brings you joy.

Start today and get the support you need by working with a Business and Life Management Coach with over 20 years experience empowering people to attain self defined success in their personal and professional lives. Achieve your full potential and book a complimentary session.

Your Soul Mission

Your soul mission is your reason for being, your life purpose. It's your calling in life-who you feel called to be, what you feel called to do. Mission is an energy that flows through you-a drive, voice, or passion that you cannot ignore. It's what you know in your heart you must live if you are to experience inner peace and harmony. Achieve Your Full Potential and start embracing your true life purpose.

Being a Good Friend is a Virtue

Do you ever wonder why some people have lifelong friends and others don’t? How do people sustain good friendships no matter how many years pass or much distance is between them? The answers are simple if you live by the rules of honoring your friends the same way you would honor yourself.

To have a friend you have to be a friend. You must remember to do your part by initiating calls and spending time being part of their life. Asking how the other person is feeling or asking how their day went when you see them or talk on the phone is important. This shows that you care about them and are interested in what’s going on in their life. If you are always talking about yourself without showing interest in the other person then you can’t expect the relationship to be a lasting one. The friendship will become unbalanced and an uneasiness or distance is likely to arise.

Be Reliable and Considerate. If you and your friend agree to meet somewhere, don't be late, and never stand them up. If you're not going to make it on time or make it at all, call them as soon as you realize it. Apologize and ask to reschedule. Don't make them wait without reason because it's rude, and it is certainly not a good way to develop a friendship. When you commit and say you'll do something, just do it. Don’t wait to cancel plans because something better came up. That is being selfish and inconsiderate of your friend’s time and company. Be someone that people know that they can count on.

Be a Good Listener. Many people think that in order to be seen as "friend material" they have to appear very interesting. Far more important than this is the ability to show that you're interested in others. Listen carefully to what people say, remember important details about them, ask questions about their interests, and just take the time to learn more about them. You don't want to be the person that always has a better story than anyone else or that changes the subject abruptly instead of continuing the flow of conversation. These people appear too wrapped up in themselves to be good friends.

Be Trustworthy. One of the best things about having a friend is that you have someone to whom you can talk to about anything, even secrets that you hide from the rest of the world. The key to being a good confidante is the ability to respect their information so you shouldn't disclose things that were told to you in confidence. Before people even feel comfortable opening up to you, however, you need to build trust. Be honest about yourself and your beliefs and you will gain your friends trust.

Be There. You've probably heard of fair-weather friends. They're the ones who are happy to be around you when things are going well, but are nowhere to be found when you really need them. Part of being a friend is being prepared to make sacrifices of your time and energy in order to help out your friends. If a friend needs help with an unpleasant chore, or if he or she just needs a shoulder to cry on, or someone to vent to just by being there for them will mean a lot. This works both ways and you should surround yourself with friends who are there for you as well.

Make new friends but choose them wisely. As you befriend more people, you may find that some are easier to get along with than others. While you always give people the benefit of the doubt, sometimes you realize that certain friendships are unhealthy, such as if a person is constantly negative or introducing questionable behaviors into your life. If this is the case, ease your way out of the friendship as gracefully as possible. Preoccupy yourself with other things that you enjoy. Cherish those friends who are a positive influence in your life and do your best to be a positive influence in theirs. Never leave old good-friends because you may like someone new more. This is a big mistake. It's great to have different groups of friends, but if you abandon one group for another, you may soon find yourself without any friends at all.

Be Yourself. Don't be untrue to your convictions and beliefs, and if this causes you to lose some friends, you're better off without them. You'll also find that your integrity may help you win better friends, and if you just "be yourself" you'll make friends who like you for who you are. That is what friendship is all about. In Good times and bad, a real friend accepts you for who you are.

We cannot tell the precise moment when a true friendship is formed but when you have one it will bring forth unconditional support, honesty, trust and respect into the relationship. The most beautiful discovery that true friends can make is that they can grow separately without growing apart. The vitality in a friendship lies in the honoring of differences, not simply in the enjoyment of similarities. Look at how many really good friends you have? Develop the characteristics needed to sustain solid friendships and enhance your life. Being a good friend is how lifelong friendships start!

“A good friend is a connection to life - a tie to the past, a road to the future, the key to sanity in a totally insane world.” ~Lois Wyse

Give yourself a gift! Work with a Business and Life Management Coach who has over 20 years experience empowering people to attain self-defined success in their professional & personal lives. To book a complimentary session visit http://www.denisedema.com/

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Recognizing Subtle Addictions

When we think of the word addiction we usually think of the obvious ones like food, alcohol, drugs, gambling, TV, spending, work, sex, etc., but many people are not aware of the more subtle addictions. These addictions are often so covert and pervasive that they are invisible to us. Yet these subtle addictions may have a negative impact on us, sabotaging our professional and/or personal relationships as well as our lives on a daily basis. Many people are aware of the fact that addictions are used to avoid pain, and in a way to medicate our feelings in order to function in a manner that is within our comfort level. The reason we do this is because it is easier to make the pain go away than it is to deal with the negative feelings or issues at hand. This is not the way your life was intended to be! You can learn to live a more fulfilling life, naturally, through behavior modification.

You might want to honestly look inside and see what some of your covert addictions are. Are you addicted to blaming others for your unhappy feelings? Are you addicted to a relationship that has run its course but you are still in it? Do you use anger or tears, attempting to make others responsible for you? Are you addicted to illness as a way to avoid personal responsibility for yourself? Are you more focused on trying to control the way others feel about you than you are in taking care of your own feelings? How much of your time is spent daydreaming about what you want to say to others or how you wish life was instead of actually being accountable for yourself? How often do you explain and defend yourself rather than being open to learning? How often do you get angry or withdraw to avoid dealing with your present circumstances? Are you doing things that are habitual with your body and or emotions that are not allowing you to be healthy? Is your thinking addictive? Do you have repetitive thought patterns?

To understand if you have an addiction, you need to pay attention to your thought processes which create your behavioral patterns on a daily basis, in order to see if they are motivated by emotions in spite of adverse consequences. When logic is replaced with anger (with or without justification), the result is the loss of one’s well being. Any behavior that is outside of being accountable for your actions, taking care of yourself, and being open to learning about yourself and others, is addictive in nature. All addictive behaviors are attempts to control and suppress rather than learn, governing all that we do. If you are always defending, explaining, resisting, and withdrawing from decisions and situations, then all of your actions are attempts of getting approval and/or avoiding pain. Take a look at whether you react or respond to others. When we respond we are taking responsibility for our situations instead of reacting with emotional repetitive thought patterns that do not serve us.

In order to HEAL you have to FEEL and become aware of your addictions, which is the beginning of learning to release them from your life. Embrace your life the way it was meant to be and deal with your addictions no matter how pervasive they have been. You can achieve your full potential and live a healthy, loving life, without fear when you are able to release all that has been negatively controlling your life and the lives of others that are in it. Changing your thoughts - changes your life. To quote one of my favorite authors, James Allen, “Your circumstances may be uncongenial, but they shall not long remain so if you perceive an Ideal and strive to reach it”.

Denise Dema is a Business and Life Management Coach who has over 20 years experience empowering people to attain self-defined success in their professional & personal lives. To learn more about the author and her practice please visit http://www.denisedema.com/ or call 561 212 5550.