The Cuckleburr Times » Be My Guest Authors

Life Zigs and Writing Zags

A Guest Article Writer — Wed, 03 Aug 2011 07:00:21 +0000

This Be My Guest Article is by Paula Renaye, Author of The Hardline Self Help Handbook:What Are You Willing to Do to Get What You Really Want?

When we look back on our lives and think about how we got to where we are, it is never a straight line. That’s a good thing! It’s the zigs and zags that make us who we are. Whether mine were all necessary is a different matter!

As for my writing career, it’s hard to say exactly when, where and how it all started. Was it when I was old enough to hold my first book? Was it because of my exposure to journalism in high school? Well, that’s certainly the first writing contest I recall winning. Then again, my promising journalism career in college was important too, except that I walked away from all that for “love”—big huge zig-zag.

Of course, there really isn’t a true line in the sand that I stepped over and proclaimed myself a writer. It took a while for me to get in sync with where my heart had always wanted to go.

If I have to pick a point where that inner knowing grabbed me by the throat—kind of literally—and said it was time to get busy, it was when my dad died suddenly in 1991. I did not handle it well, and the turmoil unleashed a lot of things that had been bottled up for many years. And it came bursting out in a really odd way—I started hearing songs in my head.

The lyrics and melodies would just pop in so I started writing them down. After a while, I had a pretty good collection—a couple of local groups even played a few in public venues, which was really fun. But since I was neither a singer nor a musician, I didn’t really know what to do with them—or myself.

I was, however, really enjoying writing again and wanted to do more. So, I found a local writers group and joined in. A couple of people were writing poetry and short stories, but most were writing novels. Well, I thought, I wanted to do that!

I’d read zillions of books and I saw no reason why I couldn’t just whip one out. So I did. Here is the first line of the first book I ever wrote: Still holding the warm gun, Maddie lifted her skirt and ran for the buggy.

Now, seriously, it’s a pretty good line! That book actually won several contests right out of the gate, but never made it to print. My first published novel was Hot Enough to Kill, a humorous mystery that was featured in Redbook. My second, Dead Man Falls, won the 2001 WILLA Literary Award for Best Original Paperback. The third, Turkey Ranch Road Rage, was released last year and I’m working on Killer Moves in all my spare time.

So, you ask, how did it happen that I went from writing funny mysteries to self help books? Well, if you’d read my fictional tales you wouldn’t need to ask that question!

Actually, after the first book came out, life happened. The second book was already set to be published, but life kept zigging and sagging—and not in a good way. In short, death, divorce and delusion took a toll. And, like many people, I started searching for ways to ease my own pain.

I spent a lot of years feeling like I was just treading water—I knew I needed to do something, but I couldn’t see what or how. I love the movie The Secret, but when I was in that stuck place, the only thing I was capable of manifesting was more pain. I needed a pre-requisite class—I needed the secret before The Secret!

Over the course of about ten years, I started some version of a self-help book at least six different ways, but it just never came together. I knew what I wanted to do—to help people who were in the same boat I was, people who feel stuck and yet were afraid to be un-stuck. I wanted to give people in pain, as I had been, a simple and direct roadmap out of it.

That’s really what The Hardline Self Help Handbook is about. It’s a do-it-yourself short course based on what I learned on my own jagged journey and what I now do with my coaching clients and in my workshops. It’s a step by step guide to help people figure out what they really want in their lives, why they don’t already have it—and how they can.

And while the title of the book let’s you know you’re in for some tough love, and with times as they are today, it’s exactly what a lot of us who have been zigging and sagging need and are ready for. Which is exactly why the subtitles asks: What Are You Willing to Do to Get What You Really Want?

Take the challenge, do what you need to do, make your zigs and zags a little less harsh and start living your joy!

Paula Renaye is a professional life coach, motivational and empowerment speaker, regression hypnosis practitioner and award-winning author in both fiction and nonfiction. She has been a consultant for 18 years, holds a degree in Financial Planning and is a member of the International Association of Coaches. Her passion is helping people face reality and take personal responsibility for their choices in order to reclaim their own power and live the life they really want. For special book tour bonus materials and a link to purchase the print book at a discount, visit www.hardlineselfhelp.com. The book is also available here at http://www.amazon.com and on Kindle.

How The Ego Co-Opts Feelings

A Be My Guest Author — Mon, 11 Jul 2011 04:54:10 +0000

This Be My Guest Article is by Richard Moss, Author of Inside-Out Healing: Transforming Your Life Through the Power of Presence

In an evolutionary sense, feeling is a much older mode of consciousness than thinking. The large brain and highly convoluted cortex that supports the thinking of modern human beings is a newer development than the midbrain and thalamus that govern most of your feelings. It is feeling that dominates a young child’s experience because until the ego has developed, thinking is very limited.

Just watch babies, and you can see that they are constantly experiencing ever-changing feelings, from utter bliss and contentment to screaming distress and misery. A young child feels his own internal reality as well as the emotional environment around him. But he does not yet realize that some feelings arise from within himself and that others are being stimulated from outside.

Now try to imagine how a baby learns to deal with feelings as her ego develops, and she begins to see herself as a separate self: Gradually, feelings that seemed to come and go without cause become objects of consciousness that the ego interprets as self. The baby begins to identify with the feelings and to regard herself as happy or unhappy, good or bad, according to the nature of the feelings. Once the ego has claimed these feelings as self, her only defense against them is to try to turn the untamed into the tamed through thinking. In other words, the ego turns feelings into its emotions.

I think this is why the emotions of children change so quickly. A few weeks ago, for instance, I was with a friend and his five-year old son. In the course of an hour or so, the little boy was smiling and happy, closed and complaining, angry and demanding, timid and clinging, crying and inconsolable. . . round and round. The father expressed concern because his son seemed more disturbed and emotional since starting kindergarten. Moreover, whenever his son expressed any unhappiness, the father wanted to immediately do something to take that emotion away; such a normal response for a parent who imagines that something is wrong.

But what I saw was completely normal and to be expected. I saw a young ego trying to come to grips with the flux of feelings (some of them agreeable, and others confusing and dark) that were arising in him because of so many things: having a new daily rhythm, being away from his family more, being in a new environment surrounded by new people (teachers and children with all their own behaviors and emotions), and even the changing of his own growing body.

I could just imagine his young ego bombarded by feelings and his mind racing with thoughts. And because a child has no way to meet feelings with focused-spacious awareness and no way to evaluate his thoughts, those feelings are instantly co-opted by the ego and invariably turned into emotions. For me, it was like looking at the history of humankind and how the thinking mind inevitably makes us all crazy once that which is not of the ego (feeling) has been appropriated by the ego.

How can you tell if your ego has appropriated a dark feeling? You find yourself compulsively thinking. Your mind will spin with story after story about what is wrong with you, what strategy to pursue, why your situation is hopeless, why your life is ruined or meaningless, or how you can save yourself. It will find every way it can to attack you, judge you, blame others, or even attack them. It will make you guilty, resentful, terrified, hopeless, impulsive, and aggressive. . . one after the other. It is frantically trying to create a known (albeit, terribly amplified) misery in a desperate attempt to be in control of an unknown and ultimately unknowable feeling that it doesn’t even realize that it is reacting to.

But the ego can never control what comes from a deeper ground of consciousness. Even though thinking is a newer evolutionary development that has given human beings great power, it is the wrong mechanism for addressing feeling. The more your ego spins stories in the face of abysmal feeling, the more miserable you come. It is the thinking mind that drives a person to suicide or to abusing drugs and alcohol — not the actual feeling.

Until you understand what is happening to you and can stop your thoughts and instead turn your full awareness with focusedspacious attention directly toward the dark feeling, you might as well be in hell. Indeed, I believe this is the only hell that exists, and it is purely mind-made. The abysmal feelings in themselves are never as terrible as what the ego creates to try to control them.

The above is an excerpt from the book Inside-Out Healing: Transforming Your Life Through the Power of Presence by Richard Moss. The above excerpt is a digitally scanned reproduction of text from print. Although this excerpt has been proofread, occasional errors may appear due to the scanning process. Please refer to the finished book for accuracy.

Copyright © 2011 Richard Moss, author of Inside-Out Healing: Transforming Your Life Through the Power of Presence

Richard Moss, MD, author of Inside-Out Healing, is an internationally respected leader in the field of conscious living and inner transformation. He is the author of six seminal books on using the power of awareness to realize our intrinsic wholeness and reclaim the wisdom of our true selves. He lives in Ojai, California.

For a calendar of future seminars and talks by the author, and for further information on CDs and other available material, please visit www.richardmoss.com and follow the author on Facebook and Twitter.

The Power of Intention

A Be My Guest Author — Sun, 19 Jun 2011 01:52:37 +0000

This Be My Guest Author Article is by Pascal Marco, Author of IDENTITY:LOST.

I’ve had fun quoting Oprah’s “There’s no such thing as a coincidence” mantra and I will tell you I have fully embraced this belief with Lady O. She has been the world’s #1 proponent (besides my own personal life coach and wife, Karen) of the belief of the power of intention.

I guess it’s really all about letting go and having fun. Children embrace this belief by playing and using their imaginations. I was once like this with my own creative imagination, many, many years ago. But for various reasons (some valid, some purely weak excuses) I hid and buried my desire to create for decades.

Then it all changed about five years ago.

Through a series of remarkable, serendipitous events, things started to happen. Some would call them coincidental but for me they had a distinctly stronger message than just mere happenstance occurrences. One of the first was when I attended Game 5 of the 2005 ALCS Championship when the Chicago White Sox visited the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim. If my White Sox won then they would be playing in their first World Series in 46 years. Chance got me and a friend not only into a game when we were told no tickets were available but had us sitting in the opposition owner’s box seats with his family.

The White Sox won and that event spurred me to write a story about it. That story turned into half-a-dozen more I wrote over the next year on a White Sox fan web site. By this time my desire to write had been rekindled and I began to think about this story I had locked away for over twenty-five-years.

I had recently sold my business, which provided me with a very modest profit, enough I hoped to give me a brief amount of time to not have to work full-time. I took that time to look for my notes I had kept along with newspaper clippings about that story only to find that after moving a few times over those 25 years I had misplaced the documents. The power of the Internet and the help from a friend’s daughter who attended a Chicago university, allowed me access to the Chicago Tribune’s historical archives.

I plunged headlong into finding the details of that crime that had been committed along the shores of Lake Michigan in Chicago’s Burnham Park. Along the way, I discovered this rich, long forgotten history of the area where the crime occurred. That took me down another road and re-ignited my love of history. By this point I was completely hooked and spent many months researching, reading, and writing.

It was at about this same time I stumbled upon a local writers group called the Scottsdale Writers Group. I was back to work, keeping afloat a fledgling Internet business I had started, which now consumed the majority of my time. But I was too deep into my pledge to myself to not quit on my dream of writing this story. So, with some trepidation, I walked into the SWG one day and announced I’d like to join. I was warmly welcomed by such an unselfish group of people, all willing to help me (as well as themselves) develop our writing skills and story ideas.

After two years of bringing in a new chapter every other week, I was done, and my novel (with the working title “The Murder of Manny Fleischman–Last of the Black Sox”) was complete. How naive I was because from that point forward the real work had only just begun.

That was March 2008 and about two months later I had another serendipitous event occur that would change my life forever. I was summering in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin and one day saw a small poster at the library in nearby Fontana, announcing that New York Times best-selling author Brad Thor would be in town signing his latest book. I had never heard of Brad Thor but I knew I had to go to this event. When would you ever expect to meet a NY Times best-selling author in Fontana, Wisconsin? So with my wife and brother-in-law at my side, went to meet Mssr. Thor.

It was a very intimate signing for his latest book, THE FIRST COMMANDMENT, but that setting gave me an opportunity to speak with Brad. I admitted to him I had never heard of him but that as a budding writer I felt compelled to meet a real author, let alone a best-selling one. The words gracious and warm don’t do justice to describing Brad’s demeanor toward me and when he found out I had a completed manuscript he immediately recommended I attend ThrillerFest in NYC. He told me if I got there to “look him up” and he’d be happy to help me in any way he could.

When I got to my computer and investigated this event, I was blown away at the cost. The event was less than two weeks away and putting a last minute trip to NYC added to the financial challenge. We were stretching (squeezing) dollars at this point and as far as I was concerned, if there was a definition of a trip we could not afford, this one was it. But Karen scoffed at my fear, dismissing the thought of my not going. “He invited you, didn’t he?” she reminded me. “If you really want to get this manuscript publish you have to go.”

I paid the last minute airfare, booked the mid-town Manhattan hotel, sent in my non-member attendee fee. When I landed at La Guardia, I hailed a cab and headed to ThrillerFest 2008.

And…well…here I am now, ready to see my novel on bookstore shelves across the country with its release this week.

There are no coincidences anywhere in this tale. It is just a story of a naive guy who grew up on the southeast side of Chicago who always kept believing even someone like him could one day make his intentions come true. And so can you.

Pascal Marco was born and raised on the far Southeast side of Chicago, the grandson of Italian immigrants. Listening to his father’s advice, he stayed close to home and graduated with honors from the University of Illinois – Chicago with both B.A. and M.A. degrees in Communications and Theatre. He’s thankful and blessed he grew up in the Windy City, a place which helped inspire him to create the rich and unforgettable characters in his debut thriller novel, IDENTITY: LOST from Oceanview Publishing. Visit Pascal at www.pascalmarco.com and join him and his fans on Twitter and Facebook.

The Good China

A Guest Article Writer — Sat, 28 May 2011 07:02:16 +0000

This Be My Guest Article is by Eric Poole, Author of Where’s My Wand?: One Boy’s Magical Triumph Over Alienation and Shag Carpeting.

A while back, a friend of mine told me that her mother’s aunt used to stand in front of the stove, cooking dinner, wearing a full-length mink coat and her best jewelry.

This is my kind of woman. Not just because she sounds slightly insane and obviously doesn’t care if somebody breaks a tooth on a diamond brooch in the meatloaf; but because this kind of behavior represents a “live for today” attitude that I pretty much suck at.

Don’t get me wrong, my furniture isn’t covered in clear plastic (yet). I don’t reuse toilet paper (yet). I do manage to have a little fun. But all too often in my life, I’ve “saved the good china”.

And then, I lost a work friend to diabetes. And another friend’s longtime partner to AIDS. And last week, my partner’s twin brother to liver disease. All of them in their 40′s. All in the space of a few weeks.

And I began to think that life is waaay too short. So maybe I should just go crazy. Maybe I should take a trip around the world or try out for America’s Got Talent or blow all my money on a talking robot.

Of course, I can’t take months off of work to backpack the world. And it’s unclear exactly what talent I actually have. And I don’t really need one more person yelling at me on a daily basis.

Maybe I’m just too practical for my own good. I’ll probably end up in the spirit world going, “Damn, why didn’t I show up at Starbucks in my SpongeBob p.j.’s? Why didn’t I hand out $100 bills at homeless shelters? Why didn’t I rent an Amish buggy to drive to a rave?

Which leads me to a question: What constitutes “living for today”, and what is just plain irresponsible?

Trying to balance having a life of No Regrets with the possibility that you might outlive both your money and your liver is not exactly easy. I’d kinda prefer not to hit my expiration date lying in some gulag nursing home staffed by Nurse Ratched and the guy from Saw.

So what’s the answer?

Maybe Controlled Crazy. Maybe I’ll travel as far around the world as I can get in two weeks. Maybe I’ll try out for a stand-up comedy class at the Improv. Maybe I’ll blow $100 on a talking pedometer.

Hey, baby steps.

Eric Poole, author of Where’s My Wand?: One Boy’s Magical Triumph Over Alienation and Shag Carpeting, is a VP of marketing for a major media company and the winner of more than thirty advertising awards. He was once called “the best undiscovered writer I’ve ever met” by Tracey Ullman, an accolade he continues to live up to. He lives in Los Angeles with his partner of nine years.

For more information please visit http://www.ericpoole.net, and follow the author on Facebook and Twitter.

Touching on What We All Share

A Be My Guest Author — Wed, 04 May 2011 07:00:34 +0000

This Be My Guest Author Article is by Susan Avitzour, author of And Twice the Marrow of Her Bones

I recently published a memoir, And Twice the Marrow of Her Bones, about my daughter Timora’s struggle to lead a normal life while battling leukemia, and about my own journey as a mother while she was ill and as a bereaved parent after she died at the age of eighteen. To my delight and deep gratitude, “compelling,” “moving,” and “inspiring” are just a few of the kind words readers and reviewers have used to describe their reactions; many have said they couldn’t put it down – even stayed up all night reading it. I believe this is so partly because I wrote the book straight from my heart, the way I wanted – needed – to write it, rather than thinking about marketing considerations in mind, or obeying accepted wisdom in the publishing world.

Like every other writer, I had to make many decisions concerning the book’s focus and structure, and asked the advice of published authors and other professionals in the literary world. Most said the same thing: that I should write either about Timora’s illness or my grieving process, but not about both, because the two types of memoirs’ readerships (“markets”) are separate. But try as I might, I didn’t see how I could possibly divide the stories. At least on the emotional level, losing Timora has meant that I can only revisit her life – both before and during her six years fighting cancer – through the looking-glass of her death. And how I’ve grieved for her has been inevitably and inextricably colored by the way I lost her – after a long, grueling, and cruel illness. In addition, I felt very strongly that capturing the complexity of my story, and of Timora’s, required more than one literary form. So – again, against some people’s advice – my memoir became the written equivalent of a “mixed media” work of visual art.

My book, then, comprises more than one story, told in more than one literary form. In its first part, I tell the story of Timora’s illness from my own perspective. But because she was also a writer, we hear her voice as well, through some of the poetry she left behind. She wrote this poem, for example, after her cancer relapsed. She’d just gathered all her strength and determination and appeared in one of the many performances she gave in the framework of her high school’s Theater major:

And again came the wave I’d awaited so long
Which I cried for, I moaned, bit my pillow and prayed
It lifted me high, brought me close to the rest
At the very last second before the too late
From the pit, from the suffering, the cold, chilly fear
My heart fainted before it, so glad to be near.
But I really don’t know.
Will it stay after all?
Before me tomorrow is closed, a dark wall.

Part Two, a journal, records my personal, spiritual, and philosophical reflections on Timora’s life and my loss, as well as the turns my own life has taken since she left this world. The journal serves multiple purposes: while it documents my grieving process over the year and a half it covers, its entries are also thematic. Some look back at certain aspects of Timora’s life as a whole; the first, for example, is called “Hair,” and relates her adventures with the first subject most people think of when they hear the word “chemotherapy.” Others follow my own experiences as I struggle to process my loss and how it changed my world-view as well as my relationships with family, friends, and community. Many reflect on the most basic human experiences, such as food, fun, and work – and enjoying life despite its sometimes impossible-seeming challenges.

One of my memoir’s central themes is spiritual. Although deeply rooted in my own religion, my exploration of this theme ultimately brings me to conclusions and insights relevant to all. In some journal entries, I start by examining how the principles and practice of Judaism affected and were affected by my experience mothering a child with cancer, and losing her so far before her time. In “Forgiveness,” for example, I write how Jewish beliefs about Yom Kippur taught me to let go of obsessive thinking about what I might have done differently:

“In this imperfect world, there’s sometimes nothing we can do to get things “right.” I could not have prevented Timora’s illness and death; these things were in God’s hands. And though I might have chosen differently while she was still alive if I’d known then what I know now, God loves and accepts me as the imperfect human being that I am.”

The concept of God’s loving forgiveness is common to all religions, and can comfort any person of faith, whether Christian, Jewish, or Muslim.

I also address more universal questions, including the most perplexing of all: How can the loving God in whom I believe have allowed all this to happen? And, conversely, how I can continue to love God even after all that has happened? Indeed, how can a loving God preside over a world in which people – including millions of children – have suffered and died unjustly since the beginning of human time, and how can any thinking person remain faithful to such a Being? I haven’t found “the” answers to these questions, of course, which philosophers of religion have pondered for centuries. But readers can explore them with me and, perhaps, feel less alone as they grapple with their own.

Writing without a particular readership in mind, then, ultimately produced a book that touches on the deepest parts of what we all share – what it means to be a human being living in a world where suffering and loss are inevitable. This, I think, is why it has interested, and (as I’m told) benefited quite a variety of readers. It’s relevant to bereaved parents, of course, and generally to people who’ve lost loved ones, whether to cancer or otherwise, as well as professionals accompanying the bereaved in their process of grieving. But, providing as it does a model of resilience in the face of the seemingly unendurable, it will also speak to anyone who has struggled with life’s trials and tragedies, and the challenge of nurturing and sustaining the faith and love that are so crucial to our ability to brave them with courage, dignity, and a measure of happiness – even joy.

To learn more about Susan Avitzour, author of And Twice the Marrow of Her Bones, we invite you to visit her site – http://www.fiveyearslater.blogspot.com. To view her full virtual book tour schedule, please visit http://bookpromotionservices.com/2011/01/06/twice-the-marrow-virtual-tour/

7 “Rituals” for Spring Renewal

A Be My Guest Author — Fri, 22 Apr 2011 07:00:01 +0000

This Be My Guest Author Article is by Abigail Brenner M.D, Author of Transitions: How Women Embrace Change and Celebrate Life

After a very long and harsh winter, spring has officially arrived. The spring or vernal equinox is the day of the year when light and dark are balanced. True or not, it’s said that on this day you can balance an egg on its end. And by the way, the egg is the universal symbol of rebirth.

Although we still have a little way to go to really enjoy the warmth and light that spring brings, we can begin to think about what we can do to renew ourselves and to better balance our lives. What better time than spring to re-group and re-prioritize, and even re-invent ourselves, and the lives we find ourselves living. Here are some spring “rituals” to help you get started.

1.) De-clutter your living space.

Get rid of anything you no longer need. Here’s the rule of thumb: If you haven’t worn it (or used it) for two years, out it goes. Donate clothing and household items that are in reasonably good condition to an organization or charity and books to your local library or hospital.
Clear out kitchen cabinets of items that have been lying around since you can’t remember when or whose expiration date has long passed. Dispose of medications and first aid products beyond their expiration date.

2.) Clear out mental and emotional clutter.
When we think of renewal we often think of rebirth; something old dies and something new is born. Why not use this season of renewal as a reminder to get rid of things that are weighing you down and sapping your energy?

Allow yourself to let go of the past to make room for new things to come into your life.
Commit to making decisions you’ve been putting off.
Challenge limiting beliefs about yourself and about how things should be.
Think positively. Recent research has shown that we can actually change the circuitry of our brains. When something negative comes up pair it with something positive and stay with that feeling.

3.) Start a Practice.
A new discipline will ensure that you invite mindfulness into your life. A daily practice affords you a “time-out” from your every day routine. This is a gift to your self; a promise to honor who you are.

A spiritual practice such as yoga, meditation, or chi gong are easy to find almost anywhere and relatively affordable.
Another practice that you can do on your own is researching and reading sacred texts from many cultures and traditions. Read them with an eye on universal themes — those things that connect all of us.
Walking is a wonderful way to help your body while clearing your mind. Walk instead of drive. Use the stairs instead of the elevator. And remember to change your route! We all are so programmed to do the same routine every day. Change the scenery, change your perspective!

4.) Begin something brand new.
Focus on spring as a time of new beginnings and resolve to do something you’ve always wanted to do but never felt you had the time.

Assess your health. Maybe it’s time to begin taking care of your self? It’s far better to change the way you live, beginning now, instead of waiting for things to get out of your control. Create an inventory of your health including diet, exercise, genetics, and stress level. Begin slowly, one change at a time, eventually incorporating others.
Explore your creativity. Learn a new language, take piano lessons, awaken the diva within, take a computer class, or go back to school. It’s never too late to fulfill a dream.
Volunteer your time. Teach reading to those who want to learn, become a mentor, or help clean up your community; there are so many ways to give of yourself.

5.) Spend time outdoors.

Plant a garden. If you have no outdoor space, plant an herb garden in your kitchen or plant pots of flowers to bring the outside into your home.
Plant a tree with your child and watch it grow together.
Build a birdhouse with your child and watch the inhabitants come and go from year to year. This provides connection to the earth and continuity in the life.

6.) Take a trip.
This is something to look forward to annually, especially if you live in a place that experiences the extremes of winter. These could include:

A personal retreat away or a weekend that you give to yourself every year to reflect on your life, the past year, and what new things you may want to incorporate into your life moving forward.
A family reunion, to meet extended family at different destinations each year, allows people to stay connected and affords a sense of belonging and continuity for younger family members.
A family vacation can do the same thing for the immediate members of your family. Camping, hiking, or fishing, visiting an historic site, or a part of the country that’s very different from your own can help family members bond and reconnect from their busy, daily lives.

7.) Simplify your life.

Slow down. As life moves so quickly, surrounding us with the constant stimulation of the information stream, we need to find a way to quiet our minds and make quality time for ourselves.
“Downshift“, or streamline your life however you can in order to “upshift” the overall quality of your life. Reorganize your highest priorities and re-evaluate your commitments. What do you value most in your life? How much quality time do you spend with the people and the things you care about the most? What is the best way to use your time to create the life you want to have?

Hopefully, these 7 rituals for renewal will set you on course for a life that is not only fulfilling and meaningful — but fully your own.

Abigail Brenner, M.D., author of Transitions: How Women Embrace Change and Celebrate Life, is a board certified psychiatrist currently in private practices as well as an ordained interfaith minister who helps people design, create, and perform personally meaningful rituals. She is also author of SHIFT: How to Deal When Life Changes, and the co-author of The Essential Guide To Baby’s First Year, to be released April 2011.

For more information please visit http://www.abigailbrenner.com/ and follow the author on Facebook

Does the Road to New York Start with Self-Publishing?

A Be My Guest Author — Wed, 30 Mar 2011 08:49:40 +0000

This Be My Guest Author Article is by Donald Maass, Author ofThe Breakout Novelist: Craft and Strategies for Career Fiction Writers

I’m asked the question at every writer’s conference: Am I ruining my chances in New York by self-publishing? The short answer is “sort of”, but maybe not for the reasons you may think.

Self-publishing used to cost a bundle, but in the Kindle age that’s no longer true. Anyone can throw up their e-book. And why not? It might gain momentum and attract the interest of New York editors and agents . . . right?

Every year there’s one gigantic self-publishing success story to keep the dream alive. Authors from Margaret Atwood to Zane started that way. Lesser success stories circulate like urban legends in writers’ circles. Still the resistance, even contempt, of New York types is real.

How come, when self-published work can be a preview of later riches? The fact is that while there definitely are success stories, they’re as rare as gold doubloons on the floor of the ocean.

The overwhelming majority of self-published novels aren’t ready for wide distribution. Most have some strength but in almost invariably their authors have yet to master the many techniques needed to make fiction great.

Why do novelists self-publish? Mostly it’s impatience. Knocking on New York’s door for years is discouraging. The praise of test readers rings loud. At a certain point it seems, why not?

Self-publishing can temporarily relieve the aching need for validation, but that relief is short lived. It’s a hard road. I have never — I mean, never — met a self-published author who did not want their book republished by a New York house.

Self-published status may not poison your chances forever, but it does distract from and delay the learning that serious novelists need to do. Taking your fiction to level required for New York is hard and takes a long time — much longer than most writers imagine. But let me ask you, why are you writing fiction? To whisper stories to a few followers, or to shout to the world?

Self-publishing isn’t wrong, it’s just a short cut that usually leads to a dead end. Learn the craft. Keep at it. Smash through your limits. Others have. So can you.

© 2011 Donald Maass, author of The Breakout Novelist: Craft and Strategies for Career Fiction Writers

Donald Maass, author of The Breakout Novelist: Craft and Strategies for Career Fiction Writers, heads the Donald Maass Literary Agency in New York City, which represents more than 150 novelists and sells more than 100 novels every year to publishers in America and overseas. He is a past president of the Association of Authors Representatives, Inc., and is the author of several books. For more information please visit http://www.maassagency.com/ and Amazon.com, follow the author on Facebook and Twitter.

The Addict in Me

A Be My Guest Author — Wed, 30 Mar 2011 07:00:27 +0000

This Be My Guest Author Article is by Rain Mitchell, Author of Tales from the Yoga Studio.

In advance of the publication of my novel, Tales from the Yoga Studio, I spent a portion of the Fall talking it up to as many people as I could. I was trying to promote my book as a good reading group selection, and attempting to convince everyone I know who is either a big reader or a yoga practitioner (or both) that I thought they’d have a lot of fun with it.

In the midst of all this self-promotion, one friend said, in a slightly peeved tone of voice, “So what are you reading right now?”

I hesitated for a minute and then mentioned that big fat novel that everyone was supposedly reading, the one whose author was on the cover of Time magazine and, even more famously, on Oprah.

“Enjoying it?” she asked.

“Well, I’m just at the beginning,” I confessed.

What I didn’t tell her was that I had bought the book over a month earlier and had barely read twenty-five pages. I’d given myself the usual excuses for why I hadn’t made more progress — too busy, book too dense, don’t like the print. And so on.

But when I went home that night, resolved to dip into the book and really make a dent in it, I had to face the truth. For months (okay, years) I had been too Internet-involved/distracted/addicted to do even a fraction of the reading I did throughout my life. My mother was an English teacher, and my sister and I were brought up to love books. I never (and I mean never) left the house without carrying a book. No matter what happened — car breaking down, traffic jam, mom in grocery store for too long — it would be a perfectly fine day because I had my book with me, and that’s all it took to make me happy. I’d choose the next book I was going to read before I was halfway through the one I was reading, and for my birthdays, I always asked for a gift certificate to our local indie bookstore. Vacations meant unlimited reading time, and I identify certain period of my life with the novel I was reading at the time.

But about five or six years ago, I began spending more and more time online. I’m not even sure doing what. I’m not a big Facebook person, I don’t “get” Twitter, I don’t gamble, and I’ve never (I mean it) had any interest in porn. But there were all those emails to check, all those YouTube videos to watch, all those news stories to read, songs to download, blogs to peruse, gossip sites to dip into, and real estate listings to drool over. Add it all up, and it spells hours. Hours. Daily.

Every time I sat down to read, I lasted about five or six minutes before I had to jump up and check my email or get a live update on something really important, like Angelina Jolie’s marriage or a reality star’s plastic surgery nightmare. The sad truth is, I had whittled down my attention span to seconds and had impaired my powers of concentration. As a result, for years, I had been struggling through a mere few novels a year instead of the two or three per week I had enjoyed before I ever heard of gmail.

When you spend a vast chunk of your life doing something that has no intrinsic value and robs you of the ability to do what you do love, something’s off balance. I’ve watched enough episodes of Intervention to know that I was hooked and out of control.

I decided, right then and there, to cut down to thirty minutes online per day. To monitor myself, I wrote down when I went online and when I went off, the way a dieter is supposed to write down everything she eats.

That lasted about twelve hours.

I went to a hypnotist recommended by a friend. I guess I’m not suggestible enough.

I tried to convince my nurse practitioner that I needed a prescription for Ritalin. She wasn’t buying it.

Then, around Thanksgiving, I had the realization that instead of trying to convince myself to stop doing something, I should take a more positive approach. Why not just try to encourage myself to read more and see what happened?

In the past, checking my email was the last thing I did at night and the very first thing I did upon stumbling out of bed in the morning. My new plan was to make a cup of tea, lie on my favorite sofa, and read for fifteen minutes before I touched the computer, before I did anything. It’s always good to start off slowly, as I learned in yoga classes.

What surprised me the most was that I initially found it painful to avoid the computer. I mean physically painful. For the first few mornings, I actually felt a kind of muscular withdrawal, as if my whole body was straining to sit down at the keyboard and go online. It hurt!

But fifteen minutes? I could do that. I was reading Maryann in Autumn, a novel by Armistead Maupin. Light, funny, and short chapters. Not too intimidating. Each morning, it got a little easier to avoid the computer, and by the fifth day, I found myself reading for half an hour. Then, without even realizing it, I started getting up a little earlier so I’d have more reading time before sitting down to write. A few chapters before the end of that Maupin novel, I was eagerly searching my bookshelves for the next book I was going to read.

Like any addict, I’m taking this one day at a time. But it’s now over three months since I started, and I haven’t missed a single morning. I usually read for at least an hour after I get up, and even better, I find myself reading instead of doing you-know-what in the evening as well. I’m back to reading about two novels a week, and I feel as if my concentration has improved in all kinds of other areas as well. I feel as if I have my life back.

When I was describing this to a friend, she said, “Gee, Rain, it sounds as if you’re getting addicted to reading books.” I happily admitted that I am. I always have been. And honestly, I can’t think of a more wonderful addiction.

So now, let me tell you about this novel I wrote . . .

© 2011 Rain Mitchell, author of Tales from the Yoga Studio

Rain Mitchell, author of Tales From the Yoga Studio, began practicing yoga as a teenager and is currently at work on the second novel in the series. Rain’s favorite pose is corpse. For more information, visit http://www.talesfromtheyogastudio.com/

Five Ways to Be Happier as You Grow Older

A Be My Guest Author — Wed, 30 Mar 2011 00:53:34 +0000

This Be My Guest Author Article is by Lewis Richmond, Author of the upcoming Aging as a Spiritual Practice

In researching my upcoming book Aging as a Spiritual Practice, I investigated a new specialty in psychology called “happiness studies.” One recent example is a 2010 Stonybrook University study that polled over 300,000 people and concluded the people in their fifties are generally happier than people in their thirties. The researchers couldn’t say exactly why, but they guessed that people who live longer have more experience at managing stress and knowing how to cope.

Happiness researchers have concluded that there are three factors that reliably increase happiness as we grow older — gratitude, generosity, and re-framing (this means seeing your situation from a more positive perspective). To these three I would add two more — curiosity and flexibility.

Gratitude.

During my one-day workshops on aging, I begin by asking people what they like about being older. Invariably someone will say “being grateful.” I follow up by asking the whole group, “What are you grateful for? What’s the first thing that comes to mind?” People speak of grandchildren, good health, free time, wearing what they want, the chance to travel, giving back to the community. Then I ask everyone to take up pencil and paper and expand that list. People are surprised at how long their list becomes, and how many simple things they are grateful for. One person included the ham sandwich she had just had for lunch. That’s right; one of the gifts of aging is learning to appreciate the small things. You can make a list yourself, or keep a gratitude journal. You too will be surprised at how much gratitude there already is in your life.

Generosity.

One aging study reported that if giving weren’t free, drug companies could market a great new drug called “give back” instead of Prozac. It’s scientifically proven: giving back and helping others makes us feel happier and more content. Giving is a universal spiritual value taught by every religion, and the desire to give back naturally increases as we age. It is part of our emerging role as community elders — something we can do into our sixties, seventies, eighties and beyond. Giving is indeed a spiritual practice, and it naturally lifts our spirits.

Re-framing.

This means seeing the bright side. Aging includes its share of reverses, losses and sorrows. That’s true for everyone; the difference is our attitude about them. Some people are more optimistic than others, but everyone can work at positive re-framing. Gratitude is one kind of re-framing; if we develop a cataract in one eye, we can be thankful for our good eye. If we lost money in the recession, at least we didn’t lose it all. It’s an attitude that can become a habit, if we work at it.

Curiosity.

Here’s a two word slogan to help you stay happy as you grow older: Be curious! Try new things. If you see an ad for a bird-watching class, and you like birds, take it. If you go into a bookstore, browse in sections you don’t usually visit. If you haven’t seen a friend in too many years, call him or her up — today! Curiosity is a key factor in healthy aging. There’s a tendency as we age to hunker down in our old familiar routines. Resist that temptation. Physical exercise grows new muscle, mental activity grows new brain cells, emotional engagement lifts the spirit. Curiosity keeps you young; cherish it.

Flexibility.

Things change as we age, and some of those changes are irrevocable. Our youthful stamina is gone forever; a dying friend will never return. In the face of these changes, do we become rigid and stuck in our ways, or do we roll with the punches? Flexibility is another kind of re-framing. If your knee goes bad and you can’t run, walk or bike. If you have financial reverses, cut back and make do with less. Try not to feel sorry for yourself. As aging’s reverses come at you learn to bob and weave. No matter what the issue, no matter how big the problem, there is always something that you can do. Never give up, never let aging get the better of you. This is how the “extraordinary elderly” do it — the ones who have beaten the odds to enjoy their old age to the very end.

These five principles for happiness as we age really work; science says so and common sense says so. You may already be doing many of these without realizing it. If so, good! Keep at it. Aging is the reward for having lived a full life.

© 2011 Lewis Richmond

Lewis Richmond is a Buddhist writer and teacher, and the author of the upcoming Aging as a Spiritual Practice, to be published Spring, 2012. Lewis leads a Zen meditation group, Vimala Sangha, and teaches at workshops and retreats throughout the San Francisco Bay Area. He has published three books, including the national bestseller Work as a Spiritual Practice. Lewis also leads a discussion on aging as a spiritual practice at Tricycle magazine’s online community site.

For more information please visit http://www.lewisrichmond.com/, his blog Living And Aging as A Spiritual Practice and follow the author on Facebook and Twitter

The Quake That Shakes Us All

A Be My Guest Author — Wed, 30 Mar 2011 00:32:23 +0000

This Be My Guest Author Article is by Eric Best, Author of Into My Father’s Wake.

How prepared are people for the bigger reverberations of major events, and how to deal with them intelligently, of which the first step might be anticipation and planning?

As a longtime scenario practitioner, I have an aversion to certainties of all kinds, partly because it is always the unexpected that changes the way we think and subsequently must behave. Humans must live and work in a constant tension between confidence about what they think they know and flexibility in the face of incomplete information, and sheer ignorance. But how to identify what you do not know well enough and should consider?

Enter Japan’s earthquake and unfolding disaster. Were quakes of this kind uncertain? No, they were inevitable (and still are). Were those plants “safe?” No, they never were, located on the geological “Ring of Fire” that promises serious quakes from here to eternity.

The quake’s timing, however, was uncertain, and also the extremity of its effects. We must now all reconsider whether:

A nuclear cloud will get into the atmosphere and increase cancer risks everywhere
Anti-nuclear movements will extend globally as the world comprehends that it potentially shares in every other country’s nuclear risks
Nuclear plants should continue to answer the world’s energy appetite, given what we now know, and know that we know
Recalculation of insurance liabilities will render nuclear energy just too costly
Makers of potassium iodide pills are suddenly a valuable stock investment (Or are you too late?)

I mean this last only partly facetiously. It says something about positive pricing effects in negative macro conditions.

Vital lessons may be taken from Japan’s experience – which, pray, does not continue to multiple meltdowns and swathes of dead areas of Japan from nuclear contamination. One lesson might be in the approach that executives and managers take to major “uncertainties” that are likely to unfold at some level and at some point reasonably soon. Don’t we know what some of them are?

As much as a U.S. Treasury-market collapse, Middle East (Libya, Saudi-Bahrain) disruptions, oil prices above $120/bbl, rapid global inflation, European financial meltdown and China disruptions are known to be real and proximate possibilities, many corporate and public policy leaders have not really taken the time to think these through.

Scenario thinking continues to be an invaluable tool in the risk-manager’s toolbox because it allows for the unthinkable to be more easily thought and for the unspeakable to be spoken in ways that may be heard and acted upon in time. Examples are many of risks that were contemplated with scenarios and where subsequent actions saved millions or produced strategic options that were acted on profitably. Lives might well be saved as well.

Maybe Japan’s quake has shaken the rest of the world enough to reconsider how prepared we are, and are not, on some of these fronts. “What if?” remains a powerful question for managing future risk, but only if you really ask it – the right way with the right people around you – and think it through.

Then you must act.

© 2011 Eric Best

Eric Best is an author, speaker, and strategy consultant to individuals and corporations. Educated at Hamilton College, Harvard and Stanford Universities, his background as a journalist (Lowell Sun, USA Today, San Francisco Examiner), futurist (Global Business Network, Morgan Stanley), and solo ocean sailor (SF-Hawaii and back, ’89 and ’93) inform his insights. The father of three, he lives and maintains offices in Brooklyn, NY, where he currently consults for a global financial firm and is working on two new books.

For more information please visit http://ericbestonline.com and follow the author on Facebook and Twitter

12 Bits of Advice For a Rewarding Life

A Be My Guest Author — Mon, 21 Mar 2011 14:54:26 +0000

This Be my Guest Author Article is by Tina Sloan, Author of Changing Shoes: Getting Older -Not Old- with Style, Humor, and Grace.

1) Be True to Yourself. Always make sure that the shoes you wear are your own. That way your feet will know where to take you.

2) Never Compromise All of Yourself. The truly great thing about women dating at our age is that, unlike in their younger days, most are not willing to compromise.

3.) Claim Your Feel Good Energy. I think, more than anything, feeling sexy and desirable is about energy. It’s all about tapping that flirtatious instinct that all women have.

4.) Live in Kindness and Generosity. We need to be generous with the women following in our footsteps in the hope that they will be generous with us.

5.) Embrace Change. Change often leads us somewhere interesting, whether we’ve looked for it or not.

6.) Expect Bitter-Sweet Moments. There is perhaps nothing more rewarding for a parent than watching your child grow up and spread his wings- and for many, nothing more heartbreaking at the same time.

7.) Prepare to Reinvent Yourself. Kids bring so much energy into your life- different people and all sorts of new experiences and ideas. When you get older, you have to generate that energy yourself, and you have to work at it.

8.) Give Back. Nothing quite prepares you for the unsettling feeling of being called upon to care for those who once cared for you.

9.) Persevere. We do learn something about ourselves when we are up against the wall, and we do most certainly come out stronger.

10.) Draw Your Own Map. Aging is like a marathon. The key is to stay in the race and continue putting one foot in front of the other until we cross the finish line on our own terms.

11.) Choose to Live Rather than Exists. You have to learn to silence the voice that tries to cajole you with excuses and reasons why it would be better to just sit this one out.

12.) Don’t be Afraid of Falling. Whenever I wondered if I was brave enough to take another chance, or stretch beyond my normal range, or try something completely new I remind myself that I was an expert at the fine art of falling, and that most of the time, I landed on my feet.

Copyright © 2011 Tina Sloan, author of Changing Shoes: Getting Older -Not Old- with Style, Humor, and Grace

Tina Sloan, author of Changing Shoes: Getting Older – Not Old- with Style, Humor, and Grace, played the role of Nurse Lillian Raines on Guiding Light, which aired its final episode in 2009 after a seventy-two year run on radio and television. She has appeared on many other television shows, including Third Watch, and Law & Order: SVU, and in a variety of feature films, including The Brave One and Changing Lanes. She is currently shooting two feature films and touring nationally in her acclaimed one-woman show, Changing Shoes. She lives in New York with her husband, Steve McPherson. They have one son, Renny.

For more information please visit http://www.changingshoes.com/ and follow the author on Facebook and Twitter.

Changing Your Life with a Simple Thought: What You Can Do to Get Back on Track

A Be My Guest Author — Tue, 01 Mar 2011 03:42:40 +0000

This Be My Guest Author Article is by John Edward, Author of Infinite Quest: Develop Your Psychic Intuition to Take Charge of Your Life.

Consider how you react when things do not go “your way.” Are you quick to judge the situation from a negative or blaming viewpoint, or do you stop and think about the experience as a whole and what valuable lesson might be there for you to learn? How you program your experiences makes all the difference in the world. In my new book, Infinite Quest, I give readers a “metaphysical toolbox” of sorts, which they can use on their spiritual path. One of the first tools offered is a clear and definite change of perspective.

I was only nineteen when my mother passed over and losing her left me feeling very alone at the time. As I sat in my car looking up at my mother’s bedroom windows, I heard a simple message that I still remind myself when encountering any difficult situation. In that moment of grief I was given two options: Option #1: BE A VICTIM and spiral further into negativity and use whatever the situation is as the excuse, or Option #2: MAKE IT AN ADVENTURE and turn life into whatever good you can manifest.

Live Passionately and Be a Force for The Universe To Use. You can accomplish a lot, or you can stagnate and slow down the process. Ultimately your destiny is in your hands. Often it seems much easier to just blame it on “the man upstairs” and say it’s his entire fault that these things are happening in your life. You could blame your parents or your childhood experiences, but as of today you know that your life is solely your responsibility and you no longer can use anything or anyone as an excuse.

Take the time to make things happen for you instead of letting them happen to you.

Be the Best YOU Possible

Know you are capable of rising to any challenge. You can start to realize that your free will is alive and kicking and it’s totally up to you how you choose to live your life. The more energy and effort you put into this experience the more you will benefit from it. It goes back to the simplistic boomerang theory of energy–what you project out comes back.

I am not trying to give you the impression that all you have to do is say a few affirmations and everything will fall into place. Both magic and change require commitment and perseverance to manifest. There is no quick fix and it doesn’t happen overnight.

There is a conscious lifestyle shift that has to happen and only then can real change take place.

As long as you see yourself as a student of the Universe — eager to learn and willing to listen — you will continue to grow mentally and spiritually. Be hungry for knowledge and keep your mind open to whatever lessons you are meant to receive.

The spiritual results play out very differently for every one of us. It is important not to look for the instant gratification or the immediate reward. One step at a time. You will see, feel, and experience life through a different lens and that is the true prize. Know that the decisions and choices you are making today yields a more amazing tomorrow. Open your eyes and pay attention, but not just to people and situations, but what the Universe itself is whispering in your ears.

© 2010 John Edward, author of Infinite Quest: Develop Your Psychic Intuition to Take Charge of Your Life

John Edward, author of Infinite Quest: Develop Your Psychic Intuition to Take Charge of Your Life, is an internationally acclaimed psychic medium, author, and lecturer. On his internationally syndicated talk shows, Crossing Over with John Edward and John Edward Cross Country, he captivated audiences worldwide with his unique abilities to connect people with loved ones who have crossed over to the Other Side. John has appeared on many other talk shows, including the Today Show, Oprah!, and The View, and has been a frequent guest on CNN’s Larry King Live. He is a regular guest on morning radio, including New York’s WPLJ and Los Angeles’ KROQ. John has been featured in articles in the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, People, and Entertainment Weekly. John is the author of several New York Times best-sellers, including Crossing Over: The Stories Behind the Stories and What if God Were the Sun? He conducts workshops and seminars around the world, and is the founder of the metaphysical website InfiniteQuest.com. John lives in New York with his family.

Please follow the author on Facebook and Twitter.

The Find Your Voice Process

A Be My Guest Author — Fri, 18 Feb 2011 20:56:21 +0000

This Be My Guest Author Article is by Dr. Brian Alman and Stephen Montgomery, Authors of The Voice: Overcome Negative Self-Talk and Discover Your Inner Wisdom.

Here’s how to deal successfully with any physical or emotional challenge. Spend just a few minutes a day, and as often as needed, taking yourself through the following three steps:

Step 1: Experience Your Challenge
First, stop trying to get rid of your challenge; that never works and is even counter-productive – - the harder you try to fix yourself, the stronger your challenge becomes. Instead, begin to focus deliberately on the experience of your pain, craving, fear, sadness, and so forth. Let yourself become fully aware of all your difficult thoughts, feelings, and sensations – - everything that’s part of your challenge. Then flow right into accepting your experience just as it is. And last, find some private way to expresseverything you’re thinking and feeling – - go ahead and say it all to yourself, write it down, act it out in your imagination. When you go deep inside and experience your challenge thoroughly and wholeheartedly, you learn what it feels like to be in touch with your true, authentic self, and this begins to empower the voice of your inner wisdom.

Step 2: Judge Your Challenge
Next, you need to deal constructively with your Inner Judge, that self-critical voice in your head that’s quick to blame you and punish you for your mistakes and imperfections- – even for being challenged at all. Poised in opposition to your true healing voice, your Inner Judge is the tireless voice of your social/family programming, and it’s been drilled into you for so long that there’s no getting rid of it. In fact, if you try to fight your Inner Judge, you only end up being more judgmental- – you are, in effect, judging your Judge- – and this only gives it energy. As in Step 1, the better way is to become aware of, to accept and to express your Inner Judge. Only by embracing your Inner Judge and working with it can you relax this controlling, overanalyzing, never-satisfied, endlessly adversarial part of your mind.

Step 3: Resolve Your Challenge
Finally, as you experience and engage positively with all your pain and negativity- – as you embrace all the thoughts, feelings, and self-criticisms that are driving your challenge- – you find yourself spontaneously developing a new and more loving relationship with yourself. This new perspective on yourself naturally quiets the many strident voices of your challenge clashing in your mind, and almost immediately you begin to hear your true, authentic voice, your deep intuition, your TruSage. This voice is the real source of your healing power- – it’s where all your own best answers come from. And once you’re able to listen to your voice, you quickly and effortlessly imagine creative ways to resolving your challenge. It’s as if new ideas for health and happiness simply bubble up from your unconscious. And the more you listen, the more the craving, the pain, the fear- – whatever your challenge- – just dissolves away. It’s really quite a miracle. And I don’t use the world “miracle” very often.

That’s all there is to it: 1-2-3. In no time at all, you’ll be moving quickly through the process, feeling confident that you can manage your challenge, instead of having it manage you.

The above is an excerpt from the bookThe Voice: Overcome Negative Self-Talk and Discover Your Inner Wisdom by Dr. Brian Alman and Stephen Montgomery. The above excerpt is a digitally scanned reproduction of text from print. Although this excerpt has been proofread, occasional errors may appear due to the scanning process. Please refer to the finished book for accuracy.

Dr. Brian Alman, author of The Voice: Overcome Negative Self-Talk and Discover Your Inner Wisdom, is on of the world’s leading authorities on mental fitness and mind/body wellness. During his thirty years of private practice, he has coached and trained more than ten thousand people on quality-of-life issues such as weight loss, stress reduction, pain control, problem-solving, relief from addictions, and disease management. Through his company, TruSage International, Dr. Alman reaches many hundred thousand more. TruSage International i mind-body wellness company that helps clinics, hospitals, and specialists deliver high-quality, personalized follow-up through wireless technology.

Dr. Alman has worked with dozens of world-class organizations – - including Apple, Harvard Medical School, Kaiser Permanente, Kraft, Procter & Gamble, Sony Pictures, the University of California, and the University of Paris. He is the author of five books, including Six Steps to Freedom and Keep it Off: Your Keys to Weight Loss for Life, which was favorable reviewed by Deepak Chopra in the New York Times. Dr. Alman studied at Suffolk University in Boston and received a PhD in clinical psychology at the California School of Professional Psychology in San Diego.

Stephen Montgomery, co-author of The Voice: Overcome Negative Self-Talk and Discover Your Inner Wisdom,is the editor-in-chief of Prometheus Nemesis Book Company, the publishers of Dr. David Keirsey’s works on personality types and temperament styles. Montgomery has worked with Alman for twenty years and is the co-author of his most recent book, Keep It Off.

For more information please visit TruSage International or follow the author on Facebook and Twitter.

Thoughts on Genesis as Literature

A Be My Guest Author — Wed, 12 Jan 2011 02:53:02 +0000

This Be My Guest Author Article is by John R. Coats, Author of Original Sinners: Why Genesis Still Matters

We tell our lives in stories made of fact and fable. The former skims along the surface to report in the language of who, what, when, and where; it is not required to look below the data. The latter issues reports of the same life, but in data found elsewhere, and in another language. The former was unknown to our deep field ancestors. Their media for preserving and passing the essence of a culture between generations was only the language of fable, tales of creation, of gods, of heroes and heroines – - epics that both teller and listener knew to be mythic. Genesis is a pastiche of such stories, and from so deep in our human past that the book, as we have it, is a retelling, memories of ancient tales told by old men and women. But is it literature?

First, another question, “Why bother with literature at all?” Harold Bloom writes that, “A prime reason we should read is to strengthen the self.” Okay, but strengthen what about the self? In high school and university, I read many of the classics, but mostly without enjoyment. In my pre-literature adult life- – clergyman, trainer and speaker for an international foundation, management consultant- – like so many others, I read little that did not directly impact my work. In the eighties, I bought day-planner-sized synopses of the classics and of the hot new business books. A tidbit of Hemingway, Fitzgerald or even Proust with the right client- – that is, one I was certain had not read the book- – could take me one notch closer to a new contract. While I’d learned early on how the biblical stories can be used as mirrors in which to see the self with greater clarity, I didn’t suspect that this stuff called “literature” might offer something more than an opportunity to score points by pretending to know what was between their covers.

Then the literature bug sank its teeth, and I discovered that a deep reading of most any serious work can, and without warning, suddenly become a reflecting pool in which the reader sees himself. Whether he likes it or not, and to a greater or lesser extent, the behavior, attitudes, and motives displayed by its characters are his own. By providing insight into self, into the larger human condition, this mirroring offers an opportunity to “get out of the sensible world . . . [to] feel parts of the soul awakening that had never been awake before . . . [to] rise at last above all this stuff, the accidental, the merely phenomenal, the wastefully and randomly human, and be fit to enter higher worlds.” If giving access to these “higher worlds” is one of the marks of literature, then, beneath the layers of doctrinal varnish, Genesis more than makes the cut.

The other characteristics of literature are there, as well: A plot (sort of) with plenty of nuance and surprise, fully drawn characters (the lack of physical detail calls on the reader’s imagination), narrative drive, and, at the end, a sense of completion. In contrast to the Bible’s reputation for dreariness, once the reader steps back from the habit of regarding the text through the gauze of centuries-old doctrinal filters, the characters in Genesis emerge into the light as participants, however fictive, in a world that did exist. They love, hate, are jealous, betray one another, disappoint one another, experience death and grief. One character even laughs – - out loud, no less. The rest of the comedy, of which there is an abundance, is subtle, embedded in the burlesque of human behavior, and available only to the reader who brings a sense of humor, a love of eye-rolling irony, and at least some affection for human beings and their endless capacity for screwing up their lives.

Genesis comes with oddities you won’t find in modern literature. For one, it is not the work of a single hand, divine or otherwise, but of several unknown authors from different traditions whose work was woven into a single narrative about 2500 years ago. A second oddity, an outgrowth of the first, is that the reader encounters different versions of the same story. For instance, the first four chapters contain two separate accounts of the creation – - chapter 1.1-2.4a, written by the source designated as “Priestly” (P), and Genesis 2.4b – 4.24, written by the “Jahwist” (J) – - each of these with a separate idea about the nature of the divine. A third oddity is that so many of us were taught to regard the Bible as history, its characters as people who’d once lived. From there, a shift in perspective is required before the reader can see Adam, Eve, Cain, Abel, Noah, et al., not as historical characters but as literary creations, mythic expressions, characters in an ancient, archetypal, fable.

Finally, the question, “Does it belong in a literature curriculum?” Whatever attitude one might have about the proper place of the Bible in society, the shaping effect of Genesis on our literary canon has been significant. To name but a few, without the “J” source, there’d be no second creation story with its Garden of Eden, without which there’d be no Paradise Lost in which Milton re-imagined the “Fall”, no Paradiso for Dante to journey toward, thus no Divine Comedy to inspire Shakespeare. Nor would there be a Yahweh to influence the Bard’s vision of Lear, no serpent on which to model Claudius, “the serpent” in Hamlet, and perhaps the arch-villain Iago whose whisperings into Othello’s ear end in tragedy. And there’d be no Adam and Eve to inspire Mark Twain’s funny, outrageous The Diaries of Adam and Eve. Like the proto-tale of Romulus and Remus, Cain and Abel is a story of fratricide without which there would be no East of Eden, what Steinbeck considered his magnum opus. In my own book, Original Sinners, Why Genesis Still Matters, I likened the dilemma of Bigger in Richard Wright’s Native Son to that of Cain. Kafka wrote four midrashic reflections on the Tower of Babel, and his Amerika, writes Robert Alter, was a “fantastic fusion of Genesis and Exodus with a contemporary New York and Oklahoma.” In his essay “The Story of Abraham and Sarah,” Philip Lopate likens the restless wonderings of Port Moresby, in Paul Bowles’ The Sheltering Sky with the wanderings of Abraham, the patriarch who also put his wife in harm’s way- - twice! Thomas Mann’s Joseph and His Brothers is the retelling of the last thirteen chapters of Genesis. Then there are T.S Eliot’s “The Waste Land,” William Golding’s Lord of the Flies and The Spire, John Donne’s “Twickenham Garden,” Hardy’s Tess of the d’Urbervilles, D.H. Lawrence’s Sons and Lovers and, with a twist, Shelley’s The Revolt of Islam, in which the serpent symbolizes goodness.

So, yes, Genesis belongs. Without it, any survey of Western or world literature would be not only incomplete, but impoverished. Moreover, if Harold Bloom is correct, and “the purpose of reading is to strengthen the self,” and if that strength is to be gathered through deeper understanding of oneself and one’s fellow human beings, then this ancient book that has so influenced our culture, with its array of human characters so rife with imperfection, is an absolute must.

© 2010 John R. Coats, author of Original Sinners: Why Genesis Still Matters

John R. Coats, author of Original Sinners: Why Genesis Still Matters, holds his master’s degrees from Virginia Theological Seminary (Episcopal) and Bennington College Writing Seminars. A former parish priest, he was a principal speaker and seminar leader for the More To Life training program. He lives with his wife, Pamela, in Houston, Texas.

For more information please visit www.JohnRCoats.com and connect with him on Facebook and Twitter.

3 Tips for Avoiding Weight Gain Over the Holidays

A Be My Guest Author — Fri, 24 Dec 2010 08:13:27 +0000

This Be My Guest Author Article is by Heidi Grant Halvorson, Ph.D., Author of Succeed: How We Can Reach Our Goals

The holidays are a difficult time for those of us who both enjoy eating and worry about our waistlines. Chances are good that if you overindulged a bit at Thanksgiving, you are now looking ahead to the month of December with a wary eye – - only too aware of the minefield of cookie platters, holiday parties, family dinners, and gift baskets that you will have to somehow navigate.

You know from experience that you cannot get through these trying times on willpower alone. So here are three very simple and proven-effective motivational strategies for ending up in your current pant size on January 1st.

Tip 1: Acknowledge That You Probably Can’t Have Just One. According to the laws of physics, bodies in motion tend to stay in motion, unless something acts to stop them. Well, the same thing can be said about human behavior, too – - including eating.

Your actions have a kind of inertia – - once you start doing something, it often takes more self-control to stop than it does to just avoid doing it in the first place. And it gets harder to stop the longer the behavior goes on. So it’s easier to be abstinent if you stop at the first kiss, rather than letting things get hot and heavy. And it’s a lot easier to pass on the potato chips entirely, rather than just eat one or two.

Stopping before you start is an excellent strategy to keep your need for willpower to a minimum. Consider cutting out all between-meal snacking over the holidays. The fewer times you start eating each day, the less you’ll have to worry about stopping.

Tip 2: Set VERY Specific Limits. Before you get anywhere near the cookie platter, the fruit cake, or the cheese plate, think about how much you can afford to eat without over-indulging. Decide, in advance, exactly how much of any particular holiday treat you will allow yourself for dessert, or at the Christmas party.

The problem with most plans, including diet plans, is that they are not nearly specific enough. We plan to “be good,” or “not eat too much,” but what does that mean, exactly? When will I know if I’ve had too much? When you are staring at a table overflowing with delicious snacks, you are not going to be a good judge of what “too much” is.

An effective plan is one that is made before you stare temptation in the face, and that allows no wiggle room. Studies show that when people plan out exactly what they will do when temptation arises (e.g., I will have no more than 3 cookies and nothing else), are 2-3 times more likely to achieve their dietary goals.

Tip 3: Savor. Savoring is a way of increasing and prolonging our positive experiences. Taking time to experience the subtle flavors in a piece of dark chocolate, the pungency of a full-flavored cheese, the buttery goodness of a Christmas cookie – - these are all acts of savoring, and they help us to squeeze every bit of joy out of the good things that happen to us.

Avoid eating anything in one bite – - you get all the calories, but only a fraction of the taste. Also, try not to eat while you are socializing. When you are focused on conversation, odds are good that you will barely even register what you are putting in your mouth.

Eating slowly and mindfully, taking small bites instead of swallowing that bacon-wrapped scallop or stuffed mushroom whole, not only satisfies your hunger, but actually leaves you feeling happier.

And that, ideally, is what holiday feasting is all about.

© 2010 Heidi Grant Halvorson, Ph.D., author of Succeed: How We Can Reach Our Goals

Heidi Grant Halvorson, author of Succeed: How We Can Reach Our Goals, is a social psychologist, educational consultant, and most recently assistant professor of psychology at Lehigh University. She has received several grants from the National Science Foundation. In addition to her work as author and co-editor of the highly-regarded academic book The Psychology of Goals (Guilford, 2009), she has authored papers in her field’s most prestigious journals.

Dr. Grant Halvorson is a member of the American Psychological Association, the Association for Psychological Science, and the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, and was recently elected to the highly selective Society for Experimental Social Psychology. She received her PhD from Columbia University working with Carol Dweck (author of Mindset: The New Psychology of Success), and her BA in Psychology from the University of Pennsylvania.

For more information please visit http://heidigranthalvorson.com/ and follow the author on Facebook and Twitter

Thanksgiving Focus Phrases That Work

A Be My Guest Author — Fri, 19 Nov 2010 11:50:27 +0000

This Be My Guest Author Article is by William Gladstone, Richard Greninger, and John Selby, Authors of Tapping the Source: Using the Master Key System for Abundance and Happiness

As we approach Thanksgiving and the beginning of the holiday season, we hopefully find our hearts opening, eager to share in uplifting feelings like gratitude, inner harmony and joyful relating. During this time of year we can realize that true happiness comes not from possessions and accomplishments but from inner feelings of compassion, thankfulness and belonging to a greater community of family, friends, and world sharing.

But experiencing these uplifting feelings during the holiday season, for most people, is easier said than done. How can you take charge of your own inner experience, and actively tap into the true spirit of the holiday season?

My co-authors and I sought to answer this core question in our new book and upcoming film, Tapping the Source, wherein we explore in depth the true “secret” to achieving not just wealth, health and material abundance – but spontaneous joy and lasting happiness.

The secret of feeling genuinely good inside your own heart has been known for thousands of years: you must first look inward regularly and reconnect with your ultimate Source of life and love and power, in order to nurture all the good feelings that constitute happiness. Connect with your Source, and then open and up and feel natural thankfulness for everything that’s coming into your life each new moment.

The truth is, without experiencing gratitude you will never be able to access the true joy of your authentic self. Feeling thankful, and in response giving of yourself to others, does feel good! That’s the heart of the holiday spirit. Your challenge is in remembering to focus on these positive feelings, so that they manifest in your life.

In our book, we explore practical Focus Phrases that will help you refocus your attention regularly inward, so that you make essential contact with the spontaneous feelings of thankfulness and sharing which are the true secret of the holiday season. At the core of your being you are an essential part of the that infinite wisdom and power that created this entire universe and continues to manifest each emerging moment. Your challenge is to remember to focus on your Source – and then bring its infinite love more fully into your personal world.

When you look inward to your Source and realize the joy inherent in your true nature, you naturally become brighter and more giving in your life. While interviewing over a hundred highly-successful people for our film and book, we were told again and again that the greatest joy for these artists, entrepreneurs, writers and leaders was to be of service to others. They talked about the gratitude they felt in just waking up and being alive every new day – to breath, to see, to experience … and to share their feelings and creativity and insights with others.

Where you focus your power of attention determines everything in your life. And as you approach this new Thanksgiving holiday it will be important to focus, as philanthropist Shari Arison states, “on what is, and not on what is not.”

Enjoy each new breath. Accept your family and friends just as they are. If you can remember to focus regularly on your ability to create joy for yourself and others, and feel thankful for each new moment of your life, then your holiday will naturally flow with more brightness and heartfelt sharing.

To help you do this, try holding special Focus Phrases in your mind as often as possible. As we teach in Tapping The Source, you can let these key words fill your whole being with the clear intent of what you want to manifest in your life:

1: “I choose to enjoy this moment.”

2: “I feel thankful for all that I have.”

3: “I want to share my happiness.”

4: “My inner joy is right now perfect and complete.”

Whatever you do this holiday, and throughout the year, you can hold these Focus Phrases often in your mind. Aim your attention in uplifting directions more often, and you’ll feel brighter, healthier, and more loving. In this age of ‘magic bullets’ and synthetic external solutions, it’s wonderful to know that you need nothing outside of yourself to feel gratitude and joy.

For more audio and video support in focusing upon what you really want this holiday season and for the rest of your life, visit www.TappingDaily.org where you can preview the movie and the book, and share your experiences and insights with others.

© 2010 William Gladstone, Richard Greninger, and John Selby, authors of Tapping the Source

Author Bios.
William Gladstone is an author, literary agent, and pioneer in the publishing industry who has worked with respected and influential authors including Eckhart Tolle, Deepak Chopra, Barbara Marx Hubbard, and many others.

Richard Greninger is the producer for Muk Victor Hansen’s book, Mega Speaking, and the Mega Marketing seminar programs; John Assaraf’s “Cloning of Success” seminars; Debbie Allen’s “Maximizing Success” seminars; and Adam Urbanski’s “Small Business Success Summit” seminars.

John Selby is the author of more than two dozen self-help, spiritual-growth, business-success, and psychology books published in fourteen languages with over half a million books in print. Early in his career he conducted mind-management research for NIH and the New Jersey Neuro-Psychiatric Institute, and explored innovative approaches to meditation with J. Krishnamurti, Alan Watts, and others.

Five Ways to Create and Manifest Positive Change

A Be My Guest Author — Wed, 20 Oct 2010 16:54:55 +0000

This Be My Guest Author Article is by John Edward, Author of Infinite Quest: Develop Your Psychic Intuition to Take Charge of Your Life.

When I first started doing psychic readings for clients, my grandmother used to get so frustrated when she would hear me say to my clients that they didn’t need to see me, because they could learn to pay attention to the signs and symbols all around them, instead. I often suggested that they study metaphysics, meditate, or just learn to listen to their own intuition. My grandmother would exclaim, “Why are you saying that? You are not going to have any business!” I always laughed because I believed that it was my responsibility to pass this message of self-empowerment on to my clients. I can’t help but smile to think what she would say now [twenty-five years later] about my latest book, Infinite Quest, in which I share how to develop their own intuition. Bearing in mind I am only a teacher, I can’t change your life. You must create and manifest that positive change. How? My guess is that you instinctively already know, but tapping into that knowledge is the key. Here are a few suggestions to get your intuition flowing.

1. Update Your Attitude

I know some of you are rolling your eyes right now, but even though it sounds so simple, changing your attitude can be tricky for everyone at some point in their lives. In fact, many people never seem to be able to break free from outdated or negative thought patterns. Observe your reactions and pay attention to the messages you give yourself and others. You might be surprised at how often you criticize yourself, or how much energy you waste worrying about what will go wrong. Decide to make a conscious change in attitude. and then practice, practice, practice. Look for the adventure out of every experience and encounter. Live passionately and be a force for the universe to use.

2. Take Back the Remote Control

What are you watching on your mind’s TV? What songs are you singing internally? What old tapes are still playing from your childhood? It’s critical to be aware of the ways you are programming your mind, consciously and unconsciously. Turn off the news if you find yourself getting upset, stop watching violent shows before you go to sleep, and kindly excuse yourself from the office gossip. Start programming in your mind’s eye what you really enjoy and want for your life. You are the writer, director, and star of the show. Program your station with positive affirmations, songs of joy, visions of a fulfilling future, and things that make you laugh.

3. Law of Attraction: The Boomerang Effect

Think of it like this: Like attracts Like. For example you are stuck in a negative thought pattern then [unfortunately] until you change it, more negativity will follow. You will start to find that that there will be people in your life who are willing to confirm or exploit your fears. Raise your energetic vibration and attract more positive energy. Look for the best in the people you meet, your experiences, and maybe most importantly, yourself. Instead of listing all that is wrong with something or someone, name three things that are right. The more effort you put into this lifetime the more you will extrapolate from it. Don’t ever forget, whatever you send out energetically will find its way back to you.

4. Honor What You Feel Not What You Fear

I am not saying to deny the feeling of fear and pretend it is not present; instead I am suggesting that you embrace it and then let the fear go and move forward. Choose to use The Love Principle as much as possible. Keep in mind that Fear paralyzes and Love empowers. You could worry that your spouse might cheat on you and then unintentionally, create an atmosphere of suspicion, or you can focus on building a marriage that is full of honesty and trust, giving the relationship the best possible chances for success. Remember, Fear is just False Evidence Appearing Real. Focus on the love you feel and not the fear.

5. The Power of Meditation and Prayer

Meditation is enormously important in the process of your psychic development and evolution. It is an essential tool to assist you in creating a life that is centered and balanced, which is the key to achieving your spiritual goals.

Practicing daily meditation can help you release stress and negativity on a conscious as well as an unconscious level. It relaxes the physical body and teaches the mind to focus for a specific period of time. When you can focus, then it is much easier to visualize–which is the basis for creating your own reality. Don’t panic, it can be as simple as five minutes in the shower, a ten-minute walk in the woods, or even three minutes before you run out the door; just do it at least once a day. It helps you to build a strong foundation by raising your vibration and enabling you to be in the essence of your spirit. It allows you to quiet the physical body, work from your higher self, and open up to higher planes of energy and consciousness. The power and healing energy of prayer is something I believe in quite strongly and encourage you to include in your meditation time.

Keep in mind that you don’t need to look outside yourself for what you already have within. The ultimate goal is to live a psychic life every day and to use that newfound recognition to take chances and make choices with confidence.

© 2010 John Edward, author of Infinite Quest: Develop Your Psychic Intuition to Take Charge of Your Life

John Edward, author of Infinite Quest: Develop Your Psychic Intuition to Take Charge of Your Life, is an internationally acclaimed psychic medium, author, and lecturer. On his internationally syndicated talk shows, Crossing Over with John Edward and John Edward Cross Country, he captivated audiences worldwide with his unique abilities to connect people with loved ones who have crossed over to the Other Side. John has appeared on many other talk shows, including the Today Show, Oprah!, and The View, and has been a frequent guest on CNN’s Larry King Live. He is a regular guest on morning radio, including New York’s WPLJ and Los Angeles’ KROQ. John has been featured in articles in the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, People, and Entertainment Weekly. John is the author of several New York Times best-sellers, including Crossing Over: The Stories Behind the Stories and What if God Were the Sun? He conducts workshops and seminars around the world, and is the founder of the metaphysical website InfiniteQuest.com. John lives in New York with his family.

Please follow the author on Facebook and Twitter.

The Demons of the Ego Mind

A Be My Guest Author — Wed, 13 Oct 2010 07:00:41 +0000

This Be My Guest Article is Adapted from Dr. Ronald Alexander’s new book, Wise Mind, Open Mind: Finding Purpose and Meaning in Times of Crisis, Loss, and Change (New Harbinger Publications, 2009)

Doesn’t everyone desire happiness, joy, bliss, and peace? Then why are so many people stuck in unhealthy or unfulfilling jobs and relationships? Traditionally, we’ve been told that to achieve happiness, we should use our minds to figure out what would make us happy and then work hard to achieve our goal. The problem is that even the sharpest, most clever mind is limited in its ability to create opportunities and see possibilities. Without guidance from the heart, we’re merely playing notes on a piano, not composing a melody. To move out of suffering and back into contentment and joy, we must listen to the music that calls to us from our hearts and go where it takes us.

Some people are able to embrace the process of transformation so easily that they evolve seemingly without effort, while others get stuck, afraid to make a move, hoping in vain that the change they desire will come about magically and painlessly. For those that get stuck their ego, or false self, often presents them with a long list of arguments for fighting the changes they long for or avoiding the changes that requires them to break out of their comfort zone—even if the cost is their own happiness.

Most people desire change, and even radical change, because their lives are out of sync with their most heartfelt longings. Yet, when they’re faced with overwhelming evidence that it’s time to move on, to let go of what was and enter into their deepest, or core, creativity, where all sorts of overlooked possibilities will begin to reveal themselves to them, they freeze in fear. Resistance takes over. To access their power to transform, they must start by exploring and dissolving their deeply rooted resistance to change.

I don’t believe that we can ever get rid of certain resistances or emotions so instead of trying to overcoming a hindrance I write about the importance working with mulching them. There is an ancient Buddhist story that illustrates what I mean by mulching. In the parable two farmers are living next to each other. One farmer takes all of his horse manure and keeps throwing it over the fence into the other farmer’s yard. About six months later, he notices the other farmer’s tomatoes are gigantic, his pumpkins are huge, his corn is green and his front yard is filled with tall grass.

The first step in embracing your resistance is to identify it and also check if you have any hidden hindrances. Then it is important to understand the payoffs of resistance as these are what is holding you back from moving forward. There are five basic payoffs that I call the demons of the ego or egoic mind. First by resisting change, we can avoid the unknown. What’s familiar may not be terribly comfortable, but sometimes it seems that the devil we know is better than the devil we don’t know. We fear that venturing into the unknown will cause us to discover painful secrets about the world and ourselves that have been hidden from us. Secondly we can avoid being judged as “strange.” When parents are frightened by their child’s differentness, labeling them as “strange,” they’ll usually try to stifle his creativity. The child, sensing their disapproval and fearing abandonment, can shut down his creative flow and then either tries to conform to his parents’ expectations or acts out, claiming not to care what anyone thinks of him.

Another payoff is that we can avoid failure. When we fear failure, we tend to overestimate the risk we’re taking and imagine the worst possible scenario—the emotional equivalent of our parents deserting us as children. Conversely, we can also want to avoid success. Strange though it may seem, a fear of success can cause as much resistance to change as a fear of failure can. While you may consciously long for a promotion or hope that your romantic relationship will result in marriage, unconsciously you may be afraid of what will happen if these changes occur. The last payoff is that we can avoid feeling guilty. If we take a risk and make a change, we may feel guilty because we’re contradicting what others think we should or shouldn’t be doing with our lives.

If your resistance is stronger than your desire for a better situation, you must find your courage and delve deeply into your psyche. There, you can discover this hindrance, break it apart, and access the fuel of your passion. This passion will pull you out of your routine and resistance, and into the creative process, opening your eyes to infinite possibilities. Freed from the burden of creating avoidance behaviors and repressing your anxiety and fears about change, you’ll be invigorated.

There is an old Zen proverb that says, “Happiness and Suffering are both getting what you want and not getting what you want! Both bring happiness and suffering something to ponder as you dream!”

Ronald Alexander, Ph.D. is the author of the widely acclaimed book, Wise Mind, Open Mind: Finding Purpose and Meaning in Times of Crisis, Loss, and Change. He is the Executive Director of the OpenMind Training® Institute, practices mindfulness-based mind-body psychotherapy and leadership coaching in Santa Monica, CA, for individuals and corporate clients. He has taught personal and clinical training groups for professionals in Integral Psychotherapy, Ericksonian mind-body healing therapies, mindfulness meditation, and positive psychology nationally and internationally since 1970. (www.openmindtraining.com). For full details about the Wise Mind, Open Mind virtual blog tour, visit here.

Protecting Your Child From Cyber-Monsters

A Be My Guest Author — Mon, 11 Oct 2010 18:58:26 +0000

This Be My Guest Author Article is by Jilliane Hoffman, Author of Pretty Little Things

Last December, New York’s Attorney General Andrew Cuomo announced that more than 3500 registered sex offenders had been purged from the social networking sites Facebook and MySpace in the state’s first database sweep for sexual predators.

That’s 3500 caught, convicted and registered sex offenders who’d actually used their real names when they signed up for a Facebook or MySpace page. That’s not counting all the deviants that haven’t yet been busted, pled to a lesser charge, had charges dropped, never registered their emails with their probation or parole officers, socially communicate using an alias, or live outside the Empire State. With that in mind, consider this sobering statistic: According to the Center for Sex Offender Management (CSOM), the average sex offender offends for 16 years before he’s finally caught. In that time span, he has committed an average of 318 offenses and violated 110 victims.

Wow. Now just imagine who your kids may be chatting with online.

The explosion of the Internet over the past decade has spawned fertile hunting grounds for sex offenders. Kids, and particularly teens, live their lives instantaneously and out loud on social networks, where every detail from where they’ll be hanging out that night to who they’ll be with and what they’ll be wearing when they get there is posted for all of their “friends” to see. And those friends are not just the traditional bunch of kids you’ve known since elementary school. Social networking sites and chat rooms have literally opened up a whole new cyber-world to children. Online, they can be “friends” with hundreds, sometimes thousands, of people from all over the globe, most of whom they’ve never met outside of a WiFi connection. And of course, as the tragic headlines constantly remind us, in this faceless cyber world not everything is kid-friendly and not everyone is who they say they are.

There are over 665,000 registered convicted sex offenders living in the United States. According to a study commissioned by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, one in every seven kids has been approached by a sexual predator online. That’s 13% of children who use the Internet. Sex Offenders no longer need to leave the comfort of their living rooms to find and “groom” fresh victims. Rather, with just the click of a mouse, they can mingle in chatrooms, send and receive child pornography, and, of course, purview the walls of Facebook and the posts of MySpace like they might entrees on a dinner menu, replete with helpful personal information and pictures. Just ask the detectives who work online undercover or the producers of Dateline’s popular To Catch a Predator — in this fast-moving cyber-world, a predator can be anyone he wants to be: A twelve year-old boy, Jay-Z’s agent, a modeling scout, a fourteen year-old girl. And teens, being the invincible bunch they are, always believe they’ll be able to spot a poser or a predator a mile off on the computer, when the truth is they can’t — oftentimes until it is way too late. They’ve already been groomed.

Back in the mid 90′s, in response to the headline-making abduction of eleven year old Jacob Wetterling of Wisconsin, and the sexual assault and murder of seven year-old Megan Kanka by her neighbor, a repeat child sex offender in New Jersey, the feds enacted a series of laws designed to warn the public of the presence of dangerous sex offenders and heighten community awareness on an issue that was literally moving in right next door to Joe the Plumber. Each state was charged with establishing a sex offender registry and implementing a community notification program. The theory behind which was simple: Knowledge is power. If a sex offender is going to be out and about in the community, people — and more particularly, parents — should arm themselves with information about their identities and whereabouts so as to better protect their kids. Without promoting vigilantism, making yourself aware of the scum living in your zip code that your children might very well come in contact with and warning kids appropriately can be a very effective crime-fighting tool. But in today’s world, where every kid has a cell phone in their pocket and a computer in their room, it’s just not enough.

My daughter was in the fourth grade when a fellow eleven year-old classmate was approached on AIM (AOL Instant Messenger) by a 43 year old sexual predator who went by the screen name of “rooster69″ and claimed he was a 16 year-old boy. It wasn’t until he asked one of the little girl’s friends to send him nude pictures that one of the children finally spoke up. I thought I had more time to ready myself on the dangers of the Internet. I was wrong.

So what’s a parent to do? How can you make sure your kids are Facebooking with fellow thirteen year olds and not forty-three-year-old convicted sex offenders? I’m a big believer in the real world. Show kids the headlines. Let them read the stories of teens who disappeared or were assaulted after meeting up with someone they met online. The stories are out there, and there are plenty of them. Check out perverted-justice.com for a real eye-opener. Then talk to your kids about limiting the amount of personal information they post, particularly addresses and schedules; inappropriate posts and pictures; the new horrible growing fad of sexting; and finally, limiting the amount of “friends” they have and just what those friends are able to see. And as a parent you have to know of what you speak. So if you don’t have a Facebook or MySpace yourself, you better thoroughly check it out. And if you do allow your kid access to a social network, it should be a number one rule that he or she “friends” you with unrestricted access, so that you can monitor what he or she is doing.

Then make sure you do just that.

© 2010 Jilliane Hoffman, author of Pretty Little Things

Jilliane Hoffman was an Assistant State Attorney in Miami between 1992 and 1996. Until 2001 she was the Regional Law Advisor for the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, advising special agents on complex investigations including narcotics, homicide, and organized crime. Pretty Little Things is her fourth novel, following the international bestsellers Retribution, Last Witness, and Plea of Insanity. She lives in Florida.

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Back to School Pep Talk! 8 Tips for a Confident & Successful Year

A Be My Guest Author — Mon, 27 Sep 2010 00:58:26 +0000

This Be My Guest Author Article is by Rachel Simmons,
Author of The Curse of the Good Girl: Raising Authentic Girls with Courage and Confidence.

It’s that time again. By now, you’ve probably back to school shopped, fashion show angsted over your outfit and even heard that first bell ring. I’ve been getting lots of emails from girls stressing about the first week, so I’m sharing some advice to keep in mind as you relearn to wake up at the crack, detox from 24-7 access to all things digital and bid tearful farewells to spaghetti straps and those cute little running shorts you were wearing all summer.

‘Kay, here we go.

Don’t expect your friends to be perfect. Because, well, they won’t be. If you hold your friends to impossible expectations, not only will they for sure disappoint you, but it will feel way harsher when they do. Batters get three strikes. Your friends need some, too. Be forgiving. That doesn’t mean being a doormat. Just give people a little room to screw up. It’s classy. Trust me.

Don’t make assumptions about how your friends feel. If someone seems weird or cold or otherwise unusual, just ask what’s up. Don’t decide they hate you or are ignoring you unless you’re 100% for sure that’s what’s going on. You will spare yourself a whole bucket of drama by just asking, “Are you okay?” or “Are we cool? You seem a little distant.”

Apologize when you really mean it. Otherwise, bite your tongue. If you constantly apologize to people, even when you’re not at fault, be careful. You can easily send the message that you’ll take the heat for other people. If you never apologize, you’re sending the message that you think you’re better than others and don’t take your friendships seriously. How do you know when a real apology is called for? Do you regret what you did? Did your actions hurt someone? Yeah, then now would be a good time.

Remember what you’re grateful for. This one helps me a lot. If you’re having a really bad day, just stop and think of one thing in your life you’re lucky to have. Maybe it’s your parents, maybe it’s your dog, maybe it’s your incredible talent for ice fishing . . . whatever it is, just stop and go, “I am lucky to have it. Life is not totally a mess.”

Smile. Okay, I admit it, this one’s slightly out there. But I read it in this cool book and I tried it and it worked. Just smile and you feel better. Plus, people prefer this face of yours to that one you sometimes show that looks like this.

Take a risk. No, not that kind. Or this kind. I mean, take a chance and put yourself out there. Raise your hand when you’re not sure of the answer. Make eye contact with that cutie you’ve had your eye on. Ask a person you think is cool to be a partner on a project. Sit — gasp — at a new lunch table (okay, okay, calm down. I won’t make you do that). But seriously, no guts, no glory, girlfriend. You do the same thing over and over again, you’ll get the same thing. When school starts, the window for change opens. Now’s the time to try something different before everyone gets all crusty and set in their ways.

Take care of YOU. I don’t care how much work you have tonight. If you need to watch Glee, do it. You deserve an hour to yourself! When I was in high school, I was obsessed with this show called Thirtysomething. It was on Tuesday nights at 10. I could seriously have the biggest test of my life the next day, bombs could be falling outside, and I was on the couch watching it. Who cares about DVR and Hulu? If it’s going to give you some peace right now, go for it. And bee tee dubs, try not to waste all your downtime online. It’s just not nearly as satisfying.

Dance. Dance. Did I say dance? Turn it up and just let it go. It’s the best stress release ever. My personal favorites to go nuts to: Walking on Sunshine, Say Hey (I Love You) and a whole slew of stuff by Janet Jackson. (Yeah, I’m old. So?) If you don’t like to dance, move your body in some way. Run, walk, stretch, skate, cartwheel. You get my drift. No matter how bummed I am, getting my heart rate up always makes me feel better.

Bottom line is this: Take care of you and your girls (and guys, and also the animals), be true to yourself and know when it’s time to take a nap. Remember: the rest is still Unwritten. Happy back to school!

Rachel Simmons is the author of New York Times bestseller Odd Girl Out: The Hidden Culture of Aggression in Girls. She is the founding director of the Girls’ Leadership Institute. She lives in Brooklyn, New York.

For more information please visit www.rachelsimmons.com and follow the author on Facebook and Twitter.