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Archive for the ‘Touchstone To Awareness’ Category

Tips To Curb Emotional Overreactions

Author, Life Coach, BPD and Mental Health Coach, A.J. Mahari will be interviewing Dr. Judith P. Siegel, Ph.D., LCSW, on Wednesday September 1, 2010 at 6pm EST on her Psyche Whisperer Radio Show Do you overreact to many things emotionally? Do you feel easily triggered or easily angered? Are you unaware of what you are actually feeling? Are you sensitive to rejection or criticism? Do you withdraw often due to overwhelming emotions? Would you benefit from discovering a new way of processing impulsive feelings and thoughts and understand how overreacting emotionally can undermine your ability to think rationally in moment of crisis or stress? Well, in her book, Stop Overreacting – Effective Strategies For Calming Your Emotions, Dr. Siegel will give you practical information and and strategies to more effectively calm your emotions.
 
© A.J. Mahari, August 29, 2010 – All rights reserved.

 Tips To Curb Emotional Overreactions

Be confident. 

 Stop Overreacting – Effective Strategies for Calming Your Emotions, Dr. Judith Siegel, Ph.D., LCSW, presents some of the most effective methods to curb overreactions within the everyday realms of family, relationships and the workplace.

For more: Psyche Whisperer Radio Blog about the interview

 

You can also read more about this interview at: Psyche Whisperer Show Blog The archived show (after the interview takes place live) will be available on the above link as well.

Confidence propels us to seek control while self-doubt leads us to defer control to others. On the other hand, when we believe no one is in control we may feel a sense of panic, which can often trigger overreactions.
 
 
 
 

Give your emotions a name.
 
 
 
 

The process of naming emotions can stimulate the circuits connecting the left and right-brain, which allow us to see situations in terms of both what we know and what we feel.
 
 
 
 

Don’t Detach.
 
 
 
 

While self-confidence helps us establish control, taking a passive stance and relying on the capabilities of others can instill a feeling of powerlessness. This perceived lack of influence over a situation’s outcome sets the stage for overreaction triggered by rage and/or defeat.
 
 
 

Develop mind-body awareness.
 
 
 
 

 

For more: Psyche Whisperer Radio Blog about the interview

 

Be aware of subtle physical responses that occur during emotional experiences. Focusing on physical sensations can alert you to an impending storm if you know how to read your radar map.
 
 
 

 

Consider the consequences.
 
  
 
 

Searching stored memory for lessons we may have learned activates the higher areas of the brain which we use to be calculative in our actions.

Take a stroll down memory lane.
 
 
 
 

The personal values we acquire during childhood play a key role in what can trigger our emotions as adults. By taking time to think about the qualities that you observed and reacted to growing up, you’ll be aware when these values are challenged and why it bothers you.

For more: Psyche Whisperer Radio Blog about the interview

 

 
 
 
 

Practice what you preach: Share.
 
 
 
 

When we never let others take over we make life more stressful than it needs to be. As a part of a family unit or partnership, difficulty sharing can inspire us to use force or questionable tactics to maintain full control, leading to mistrust and jealousy; both known to trigger overreaction.
 
 
 
 

 © Dr. Judith Siegel 2010 – All rights reserved.

Radical Acceptance is The Pathway to Freedom

Author and Life Coach A.J. Mahari, in working with clients, has witnessed the empowering reality of Radical Acceptance in people’s lives. Radical Acceptance is a philosophy and a skill that can be learned and practiced and that helps people to stop resisting what is actually blocking them from wanted and needed change and healing. Whether you have a mental illness, personality disorder, Borderline Personality Disorder, love and care about someone who does, or whether you are stressed out, often anxious, or if you have been sexually abused or had a traumatic or even a merely difficult up-bringing (most have some wounds from childhood) or consider yourself to be healthy and just fine, Radical Acceptance can and will enhance your overall quality of life and your spiritual experience in and of everyday life.

Radical Acceptance requires that you change the direction that you allow your mind to go in. It requires that you accept that you have the ability to act with the power of choice and that most things we think and do are choices. Practicing acceptance, actually being accepting of whatever is, is a choice. It is a choice that brings with it emotional freedom. It is a choice that replaces chaos and suffering with manageable pain and in time, peace of mind.

Radical Acceptance practice allows you to unearth the very root causes of so much of your emotional angst and suffering. 

Radical Acceptance is a way of saying yes to each and every moment mindfully. If we can radically accept that we won’t always be accepted or liked by others and that life is full of challenges, for example, we can clear the pathway from the power of rejection and negative experience and/or thoughts and how we may have experienced them as severing our belonging. We can then make way for much more positive thoughts and feelings. Rejection or any other defined negative experience only has the power that we continue to give it. Radical Acceptance frees us up emotionally in reassuring ways that allow us to take back our personal power, or to not give it away to circumstance and whim anymore.

Practicing Radical Acceptance will, as Dr. Wayne Dyer, talks about in his book, Your Sacred Self” enable you to become more in tune with your “observer self”. It is from this “observer self” that one can begin to see things much more clearly. You can merely observe and accept whatever is. You don’t have to react to it. You don’t have to interpret it as “good” or “bad”. It can just be and so too can you just be. Just be with it, whatever, it is. Radically accept it. By doing so you will be exercising the power of your “observer self” and as a result you will be able to choose to stay in a calm and peaceful state no matter what emotions you are observing and/or feeling. Your “observer self” does not do anything with the emotions that you feel or that are at hand. They are just observed as existing. No more and no less.

Literally, using radical acceptance, through your “observer self” will gift you with the true “power of now” (Eckhart Tolle). The power of now is the inherent reality that willfully we can experience whatever the now has to offer us through observing and radically accepting without interpreting or taking any action whatsoever. This is freeing.

In Your Sacred Self Dr. Wayne Dyer says, “The little three-letter word ego has had various meanings applied to it…there are many misinterpretations of the word ego…I look upon the ego as nothing more than an idea that each of us has about ourselves. That is, the ego is only an illusion, but a very influential one…The ego is a mental, invisible, formless, boundaryless idea. It is nothing more than the idea you have of your self — your body/mind/soul self. Ego as a think is non-existent. It is an illusion. Entertaining that illusion can prevent you from knowing your true self.”



As I have written in my Ebook,  The Shadows and Echoes of Self, “Your true self awaits your mindful radical acceptance of things, thoughts, feelings, people, and events in your life. Your true self awaits your warm nurturing loving kindness, your forgiveness, your attention to his/her woundedness and pain. It is in these precious new moments of radical acceptance that the true self begins to slowly re-awaken from a trauma-induced slumber of denial and bullying abandonment through one’s own pain by his/her false self. That knock on the door of your soul is your spirited inner-child, authenticity personified clamoring to get your attention that he/she might have, finally, his/her wounded unmet needs satiated” (A.J. Mahari)

Learning about, reading about, and then beginning to practice Radical Acceptance is a crucial aspect of learning to find, know, and continue to develop your authentic self. Radical Acceptance, in my experience is like a pause button on a VCR, it gives you time to experience things that you otherwise wouldn’t. These experiences over time begin to be life-changing. These new experiences, even seconds at a time will open small new windows for any and all who have become enslaved to the repetitive and self-defeating worry thoughts and cognitively-distorted beliefs of his/her false self.

There is an inherent reality in each now that is missed and lost if we aren’t radically accepting what is in each unfolding present moment. Ekhart Tolle, in his book, The Power of Now says, “Instead of ‘watching the thinker’ you can also create a gap in the mind stream simply by directing the focus of your attention into the Now. Just become intensely conscious of the present moment. This is a deeply satisfying thing to do. In this way, you draw consciousness away from mind activity and create a gap of no-mind in which you are highly alert and aware but not thinking. This is the essence of meditation…The single most vital step on your journey toward enlightenment is this: learn to disidentify from your mind. Every time you create a gap in the stream of the mind, the light of your consciousness grows stronger.”

It is important to not have your sense of self dependant upon the content of your mind. Living merely at the whim of each and every thought denies your soul room to be and to breathe. We are much more than our minds. In fact, as Tolle points out in his book, The Power of Now our minds our tools that we have at our disposal for specific tasks. Like any tool, a drill or a screwdriver, which we put away after we are finished using it for a specific task, we also need to lay down our minds from time to time. We no longer merely think, in this day and age, but we are actually more often than not, addicted to thinking and to processing information. We are addicted to thinking as a means of escape and also because we have identified ourselves with our thinking. We are much more than we think. This ghost-self that is addicted to thinking is the ego. To the ego, of which the false self is king, the present moment rarely exists.

The more you practice Radical Acceptance and allow the space of observation to permeate your experience the more you will learn to lay down your mind. This makes room for you to get in touch with a much more profound aspect of self – your true self, in all its authenticity which is the spiritual aspect of who you are — your soul.



If we are able to be fully present through radically accepting what is observing things such as our inner-body, our thoughts and feelings, events around us, surrender from a place of loving kindness and forgiveness and understanding and be a witness to the unmanifested of each moment we will be open to the ever-transforming reality of the power of now.

Radical acceptance means that we have to consciously choose to be aware in and of each and every moment. We need to be willing to choose to accept what is. Willing to surrender our wilfullness. Wilfullness is what often leads us to choose to deny what is and fight it with illogical thoughts, worry, anxiety and the like. It is not a fight that we often win really. Not accepting what is causes a tremendous amount of anxiety and worry and traps you in your suffering. Even if we have pain, accepting it and not fighting it can keep our pain from turning into suffering. There is a difference between pain and suffering.

Most of us don’t realize how much of our thinking is narrow, black and white, at times, and also very repetitive. Not to mention, often, negative and protective, often without cause. These kinds of thought patterns are always destined to give us similar feelings. Feelings that create anxiety and worry and leave us fearful and even angry. Feelings that, if acted upon, often produce very unwanted impulsive self-defeating and regrettable behaviour.

So much of what can be ruminated about and dwelt upon is what produces most of the anxiety and worry that many are suffering with and from. You can choose to stop it. You really can. By staying in the moment, being mindful, and radically accepting whatever is you can eliminate the ruminating and the need to worry and react in anxiety-producing ways. So much worry and anxiety originates with “what-if” thoughts or thoughts that build each feeling into a catastrophe of sorts usually with very dramatic reaction. If you make a choice to accept what is in the unfolding moment, mindfully, one moment at a time you can spare yourself the suffering from these cognitively-distorted anxiety-producing thoughts.

Radical acceptance does provide emotional freedom. It does this by freeing up our minds long enough with new information and possibility that we see that ruminating, dwelling on thoughts and worrying about things past or future robs us totally of every here and now unfolding present moment.

Life lived mindfully, with radical acceptance of all that is in each and every unfolding here and now moment, is manageable and transforms endless suffering into manageable pain and in time, into a greater more stable and consistent peace of mind.

When you radically accept something as being just as it is, no matter how initially undesirable the thought, emotion, or reality might be, you are freeing yourself to be able to, over time, cope much more effectively because you will be at the root of what actually is and not responding to how things appear to be or how you wish things were.



It is very important to work at tolerating the thoughts and feelings that you may have, for so long, felt very adverse to. Radically accepting them gives you an opportunity to get to know them in a new and more productive and manageable way. You will come to gain more insight into how you think and how that leaves you feeling by accepting what is and allowing yourself to equally accept how what is really feels without trying to deny it, push it away, mask it and/or escape from it.

Radical Acceptance unleashes our potential to experience the power of each and every now. It gives us an wonderful opportunity to experience more of what is, as it is and to learn to not react to anything and everything out of faulty thinking or faulty interpretations.

Whether you have a mental illness, personality disorder, Borderline Personality Disorder, love and care about someone who does, are a Loved One of BPD or whether you are stressed out, often anxious, or if you have been sexually abused or had a traumatic or even a merely difficult up-bringing (most have some wounds from childhood) or consider yourself to be healthy and just fine Radical Acceptance can and will enhance your overall quality of life and your spiritual experience in and of everyday life.

 
© Ms. A.J. Mahari January 16, 2006 – All rights reserved.

 

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Acceptance

 

Acceptance is a very  significant measure of your experience in life. If you can radically accept what is, you will find less resistence to the flow of who you really are, from the inside out.

The degree to which you resist practicing acceptance, letting go of judgment, thinking negative thoughts or taking action on negative feelings, will be the mesaure of your unhappiness.

 Acceptance of what is right now, as it is, and simply because it is what is, is authentically empowering.

Radically accepting and surrendering to that which you do not have control over, awakening to that awareness, is the middle-way to the power of now.

 

© A.J. Mahari, July 13, 2010 – All rights reserved.

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Are You In The Now? – Life Coach Zen

 

Are you in the now of the flow of your life? Are you mindfully and actively engaged in being fully present and aware to the moment? Being is very different from thinking about being. Being is very different from being trapped and wrapped up in thought. Thought takes you away from who you authentically are in the sense of just being in the flow that is being in the now.

 

 

 

© AJ Mahari, July 11, 2010 – All rights reserved.

 

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Why Life Coaching?

Many people might be wondering what life coaching is all about. You may be wondering, why would I want to work with a life coach? What would actually be the point of life coaching? Life coach A.J. Mahari talks about how life coaching can play a central role in many facets of people’s lives, self help, personal growth, self improvement, mental health and wellness. Life coaching helps people to gain more awareness about what they need and/or want to change in their lives to have more peace, balance, and happiness. Life coaching with A.J. Mahari is client-centered and based in humanistic positive psychology. It is a sacred process between coach and client.

A.J. stresses the importance of her role as a compassionate, supportive, and non-judgmental listener. Life coaching supports the client and validates the client’s experience and concerns. A.J. sees her role as being a touchstone for her client’s personal growth. She reflects back to each clients what she hears them saying. She gives feedback and is also an educator. Life coaching is about living an examined life and learning new tools and skills to help you live a more authentic life. Life coaching also supports the client’s quest to identify goals, map out strategy to achieve those goals.

If you are asking yourself, what is life coaching, and or why life coaching? This just might mean you are interested. That you see potential to gain valuable insight and awareness into the kind of change you need and want to introduce into your life to achieve your goals and dreams. Asking about what life coaching is and why life coaching is a great beginning to taking the next step. An action step. Booking a session and finding out how A.J.’s life coaching can be helpful to you.

 

 

 


Coaching Sessions

© A.J. Mahari and Touchstone Life Coaching, June 11, 2010 – All rights reserved.

 

 

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Awaken From Your Illusions

Life Coach A.J. Mahari invites you to think about any illusions you may be operating from in your life and to awaken from them. Do you have doubts about choices or decisions that you’ve made? Are you feeling stuck and trapped in situations, circumstances, or relationships, feeling victimized because perhaps you aren’t as aware as you will benefit from being about the fact that you have indeed made choices. Choices that maybe aren’t serving you well. Are you stuck with these choices? Do you want to remain attached to that illusion? Or do you want to awaken to a more authentic way of living your life?

You can set yourself free from illusions about love, illusions about your past, illusions based upon how others may have defined you. Illusions are the inauthentic stories that we tell ourselves based upon negative experience or negative perception of ourselves through the ideas, statements, and opinions of others. Are you aware of your illusions? Are you kidding yourself about something? Are you choosing to remain trapped in painful denial of something? Your authentic self awaits your setting it free from any and all of your illusions.

 

 

 

 


Coaching Sessions

 

 

© A.J. Mahari, June 10, 2010 – All rights reserved.

 

 

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Radical Acceptance – Your Zen to Change

Everyone, really, whether they want to admit it and think about it or not, has goals and dreams – has desires, wants and needs. Most people understand what it will take to realize  their goals and dreams – to fulfill their desires, wants and needs. Many people, at some point, tend to become resigned to a way of thinking wherein they start believing and reinforcing that they probably won’t ever get to achieving their goals and dreams. Many give up hope. Thinking that was once hopeful becomes pessimistic and negative. Why? Because all-too-often people don’t realize just how much the ways that they think create a self-imposed reality that they are actually choosing, often unconsciously – without awareness, to live from. The pain of uncovering these negative thoughts, negative core beliefs, and obstacles to change seems impossible. It is not impossible, however, to uncover, become more consciously aware of obstacles that are keeping you stuck and blocking you from realizing your desires, needs, wants, goals, and dreams. It is actually very possible. You can choose to embrace, one moment a time, a Zen philosophy of change that isn’t just a philosophy to be contemplated intellectually or spriritually.

Life Coaching Supports You

Your Zen to change is active practice that motivates, inspires, and promotes moving forward and finding the pathway to your goals and dreams.

Throughout our lives we are nudged by experiences that we begin to notice contradict or challenge many of the ways that we are thinking. Self-defeating ways of thinking. There are opportunities all around you to become more aware of what you are investing in – what you are focusing on. What are you resisting so strongly and why?

 

 

“What you resist will persist” – Carl Jung

Negative thoughts and negative patterns of behavior tend to repeat themselves. Unhealthy and/or self-destructive choices in relationships, reactive and defensive behavior to constructive criticizism, lack of  friendships, disinterest in things that should matter are ways of resisting that only reinforce the persisting of that which you seek to escape or avoid. You may be becoming more aware of a pattern in the ways that people give you feedback or describe you. You may hear from others that they experience you as  cold, controlling, difficult, inconsiderate, self-absorbed, or irresponsible. You may lose friends and relationships and not be aware of your responsibility in those losses. Negative and painful experience will continue to be the result of negative thinking and negative forms of relating or behaving.

No one grows up wanting to be described or experienced in these ways. No one wants to lose friends and relationships. It can be difficult and painful to take an honest look at what your experience, and/or other people’s feedback is trying to bring to your conscious awareness about you. You may want to just avoid or deny what is painful or not well understood. You may want to  justify your behavior as having more to do with other people’s misinterpretations, insensitivity, judgment, or jealousy. The truth is that when enough people repeatedly give you the same feedback, directly or indirectly, you are being presented with a wonderful growth opportunity.

Your Zen to change involves a paradox. First, you will benefit from radically accepting yourself, as you are, right now in this moment, one moment at a time. If you feel hopeless, just radically accept that. Don’t judge that. Don’t judge yourself for that. Be with that. If you are a lot heavier than you want to be, stop resisting that. Radically accept yourself at the weight/size that you are. Be with that. If you feel lost or totally stuck and are thinking negatively, that’s okay, that’s what is. Radically accept that and be with that. No matter what you think or feel, radically accept it. Stop resisting it. Detach from the thoughts and/or the feelings. Observe them. One moment at a time just let them be what they are – what is – without reacting to them. Resisting what is in your life right now will reinforce it persisting.

The Zen dialectic or paradox that is the first step to moving forward is one that involves shifting your thinking from judging, over-focusing, ruminating,and negativity, to simply accepting what is – being neutral with what is because it is what is. Not attaching positive or negative meaning or interpretation to what is but instead  just radically accepting it because it is. Embracing the moment in the here-and-now and letting the moment contain whatever it contains in a non-engaging way is the first step in your Zen to change.

The way to begin to free yourself up in ways that can get you on the road to achieving your goals and dreams and creating desired change in your life is to radically accept what is first. Stop resisting what is. Resisting what is, is how you keep yourself  blocked or imprisoned in what blocks you from moving forward. Stop trying to be free in self-defeating ways that only pull you back to your emotional ground zero eventually. Your Zen first step to change is to just notice how you are imprisoning yourself in this very moment, right now, without judgment. Just observing that is the beginning of the freedom you want.

Then, radically accept that you are imprisoning yourself safe in the knowledge that as soon as you understand more about why and truly let go of resisting what is – the more you radically accept that you have imprisoned yourself in, for example: 

  • your pain
  • in being obese
  • in being self-critical
  • in being alone
  • in feeling shame
  • in feeling unworthy
  • in low self-esteem and a lack of self-worth
  • in acting-out
  • in settling
  • in living up to a label, a diagnosis, or fear of abandonment, fear of being known
  • in fear of being loved and fear of loving
  • in old negative tapes from your past kept alive in your self-defeating patterns of negative thinking
  • in fear of not being liked
  • in not knowing who you are
  • in trying to avoid loss

Radically accepting that you have continued to resist the very change, growth, and/or healing you really do want will provide you with new questions, the answers, as you live your way into them will provide you with the awareness that will invite you to stop resisting all that you have resisted for so long. This will make it possible for you to begin to work toward identifying and achieving your goals and dreams.

Radical acceptance is the beginning of your moment of Zen to change because the moment you let go of trying to be free – resisting all that isn’t – by radically accepting and surrendering to all that is – to what is – you will realize that just as you have had the power to imprison yourself so too do you have to power to empower yourself to the freedom from ___________ that you so long for, and that you so deserve.

Your Zen to change awaits your becoming aware of your role in what is right now in your life. What is, is just what is. It is okay, simply because it is. Let this moment of realization and newly-found acceptance and surrender sustain you just as you are, because you are. You are enough, right now, just the way you are.

© A.J. Mahari, June 6, 2010 – All rights reserved.

 

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Looking For Love In All The Wrong Places?

How You Relate To Yourself Affects How You Relate To Others

Relationships are complicated. Relationships are often thought of as being vehicles to meet needs, share things with others, and more importantly for so many people, to not be alone. Relationships are often thought of by many as being central to what defines them. What happens if your relationship is defining you, whether you have been aware of that or not, and then your relationships is chaotic or troubled and/or fails or ruptures? The answer to that question will hinge upon how well you know yourself – who  you are really are. It will also hinge upon the degree to which you know how to be there for yourself – to soothe yourself, be kind to yourself, and to nurture yourself.

How can you know and experience healthy love with and from someone else if it isn’t a part of how you relate to yourself first?

Before you can really successfully address relationships difficulties with others you will first benefit from understanding much more about yourself. What is the state of your relationship with and to yourself? This is an essential question to pose that many benefit from exploring in the life coaching process. Seeking to answer this question can help you to identify and clarify your goals. In life coaching, I help people to not only identify and clarify their goals but also to then do the work necessary in how they feel and think about themselves that will help them to not be trying to relate to others as a means of avoiding Self.


Coaching Sessions

The understanding of love so many live with can be more of an illusion than it is reality. This creates toxicity in many relationships. Fighting harder through discord and distress and often even abuse will not make healthy love become reality. Life coaching can help you to understand how to unravel the nature of the patterns of relating you have become involved with that leave you looking for love in all the wrong places.

Relating to others as a means of avoiding who you really are, or as a way of trying to have someone else meet you needs for you, or you meet needs for someone else, is at the heart of so much codependence. Codependence is a not a healthy relationship model. It is not a recipe for happiness or contentment. It is a breeding ground for anger, hurt, frustratation, pain, chaos and turmoil – not to mention distrust, alientation and getting stuck. Unhealthy relating that can become toxic tears away at the fibre or who you really are. People lose themselves more and more to these relational dynamics.

 

 

I life coach many people who, in the process of our work together, find their way out of this maze of trying to be filled up, understood, and/or validated by other people. I also work with many who are the person trying to fill up, validate, or understand the illogical in trying to meet needs for others that they need to meet for themselves.

This relational dynamic - this way of relating does not make room for healthy love. The fact that the struggle and the issues may feel familiar often gives people an illusion of being loved or of loving.

Can you relate to this? If so, do you want to free yourself from this painful way of  relating and having relationships? Do you want to be able to love yourself and meet your own needs? If you can relate to this and you are answering yes to these questions I hope you will purchase life coaching sessions with me so that I can support you in learning more about the lessons that relationships are trying to teach you and the many reasons why you haven’t been able, thus far, to find the relational peace and happiness you really want.

© A.J. Mahari, June 5, 2010 – All rights reserved.

 

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Be The Change

Life Coach A.J. Mahari, on video, talking about being the change that you want to see in the world, and the need that each and every one of us needs to know who he or she authentically is and how to feel empathy, compassion, and tolerance for self and for others. Respect, and understanding difference is what each person in this world needs more of and it is what each one of us can individually add to the collective in a world that requires much positive change and healing.

It is important to embrace the paradox. It is important to be aware. Important to know that you will benefit greatly from becoming more consciously aware of who you authentically really are, what that means, and how you embrace and accept yourself or how you don’t and what that means for you in your life. Life coaching with A.J. Mahari can help you to begin living an examined life. An examined life that will help you to create the change and healing to set goals and reach goals in your life – to find emotional peace, contentment, and happiness.

Compassion is being eroded for all-too-many people by polarized thinking. Polarized thinking that is a cognitively distorted way to think and that breeds negative thought patterns that leave people with negative and painful experience in relationships and in life. Life coaching with me can help you to change how and what you think in ways that can help you to create a more balanced and positive way of thinking, feeling, and experiencing your relationships and your life.

 

Life Coach A.J. Mahari on Compassion Part 2

Click Here To see Parts 1 and 2 in order

 

© A.J. Mahari – All rights reserved.

 

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A.J. Mahari's Daily Meditations and Thoughts Audio Podcast

Author and Life Coach, A.J. Mahari, has a new Daily Meditations and Thoughts Audio Podcast available now. Mahari offers her thoughts and motivating insights on a wide variety of topics including, but not limited to, self help, personal growth, self-improvement. She also talks about the various challenges of change and on-going self enlightenment that her coaching clients often present to her in their sessions.

Born out of my past experience in my own life, my experience as a life coach, and my writing background from years of writing my Soul’s Thought of The Day, I hope you will find my newest audio podcast gives you food for thought.

If you like to think and reflect about various aspect of life, spirituality, faith, and hope I have an ebook available that offers my top 80 Thoughts of the Day entitled, Phoenix Rising Reflections

This audio podcast will be up-dated daily (most days) Monday – Friday with the exception of holidays. I have had many emails over the last while asking for more of the type of thing I was offering in my Soul’s Thought of the Day and I hope that this audio podcast will provide that.

© A.J. Mahari, December 6, 2009 – All rights reserved.

 

Grief – A Process of Gaining Perspective

Grief is what it is. Grief is a part of life. Grief is a process that unfolds whenever we suffer, experience, or feel loss. Some reasons for grief are obvious ? the death of a loved one, loss of a job or relationship, for example. Reasons for grief can be subtle ? unfinished emotional baggage from childhood interfering with goal identification and achievement in the here and now, for example. Life Coach, A.J. Mahari outlines 7 keys that help the grief process and 7 keys that hinder the process of grieving.

It is a paradox, but what we so ache at the loss of we also long to hold on to in ways that can prolong the pain and suffering of grief. Grief is a process that we must fully engage through radical acceptance from a thoughtful mindfulness that can sustain us through the pain that we need to feel in order to heal.

Grief is the process and expression of the pain of loss and sadness. It is a process that needs to be honored, sooner or later. Everyone does grieve in their own time and in their own ways. It is important to understand that grief, is natural, and necessary when you experience loss of any kind and that even though it may feel like it will last forever, it won?t.

Often when we?ve lost someone we?ve loved, person or pet, grief, as profound and distressing as it can feel, can be clung to at a point to avoid what will feel like an even greater loss. When we are actively grieving for someone or for a pet or a lost relationship the grief, while it hurts, is company. The grief keeps us connected to the person, pet, or relationship (or whatever the loss was) longer. It keeps us feeling close. It hurts, but it reminds us also of happier times, of what we?d hoped for rather than what we have come to have to feel, face, and live with.

To read the rest of this article please visit Dialectic Magazine

Change Your Mood in 70 Seconds!

By Carole Lynne,
Author of Cosmic Connection: Messages for a Better World

Learn this quick exercise, and when your mood falls down, pick it up fast. This whimsical yet spiritual exercise really works! Whatever problems you have on your mind be they personal or world problems: they can be more easily solved when you are in a better mood.

The HappyU Exercise

Get ready to improve your mood quickly. Hold a watch with a second hand and time yourself. You will have ten seconds for each of the seven parts of this exercise. Within seventy seconds you should be feeling better. My mood is my responsibility, and your mood is also up to you. I tend to be negative and depressed sometimes. The HappyU exercise helps me to change my mood from sour to sweet!

Read through this exercise once, and then take seventy seconds to try it. Repeat as often as needed.

H = Hope for Happiness (repeat words for 10 seconds)

Without hope we have nothing. Everyone who has ever struggled has had hope in order to get through life’s difficulties. As you repeat the words “Hope for Happiness” in your mind for ten seconds, remember that there are those whose problems are far worse than yours, and even if your problems are the worst of the worst, you have to have hope in order to find solutions.

A= Accept Life (repeat words for 10 seconds)

As you repeat the words “Accept Life” for ten seconds, focus on the way life’s experiences take us up and down all the time. Sometimes we are in a cycle that feels wonderful and at other times we do not know how we will make it through the day. A lot can be learned from those who have physical disabilities, and yet with acceptance lead productive and happy lives. In this moment, accept life with all its many colors and situations. Accept, accept, and accept! Take a deep breath now and know how alive you are. Know that as you accept life and its challenges, you will have the energy to help yourself and others.

P= Picture of Happiness (visualize image for 10 seconds)

Visualize a color, a flower, a person, a beach, a spiritual symbol or any other image that can quickly change your mood. It has been said that a picture is worth a thousand words, and in ten seconds you will prove that to yourself. You are replacing your images of catastrophe with an image that brings happiness.

P= Play a Song (hear a song in your mind for 10 seconds)

In your mind, play a song or any sound that makes you happy. Listen to the birds, or the sound of a waterfall. Listen to the laughter of a child, the sound of a harp, or play your favorite song in your mind. Music is always a mood lifter.

Y=Yearn for Happiness (feel your need for happiness for 10 seconds)

Feel within your soul a yearning for the happiness that life offers. Do not demand happiness or beg for happiness. Yearning and aspiring for a quality sends your intentions out into the universe. As you allow yourself to yearn for happiness, you are creating the space within the soul to receive true bliss. With this bliss you will be inspired to make good choices for yourself and for your world.

U= Unite with Life (repeat words for 10 seconds)

Okay, it is true that life has its ups and downs, backwards and forwards actions, and its depressions and elations. We are human beings with human challenges. Our difficulties are all part of the yin and yang of material life. As you repeat the words “Unite with Life” in your mind for ten seconds, know that you are part of the whole of existence. Each one of us is a spark of the Divine Consciousness. We have access to the psychic inner voice that connects us to the God of our understanding. Remember that the word “psychic” in ancient times meant “soul.” You are born with a cosmic connection to your soul energy. You are born with a cosmic connection to the Divine. As you allow yourself to open up spiritually, you will be able to give more to yourself, your family, your community and your world.
What to do with the last 10 seconds?

Yes, yes, I realize that my instructions for the HappyU exercise only used up sixty of the seventy seconds. What should you do for the last ten seconds? How should I know? You are your own person and can use this ten seconds as you like. In fact you can make changes in this exercise and customize it to your liking. The important thing is to find a way to change your mood in seventy seconds so that you can have more fun. And believe me, if you are having more fun, the people around you will also. Fun is contagious.

A HappyU Helps the World

U become happy,U become a valuable asset to yourself and others. A HappyU will be inspired and motivated. A HappyU will love each day of summer fun that comes your way, whether you are taking care of your kids, finding romance with a new love, working with a community group to help others, or just drinking lemonade in the backyard. Is this exercise fun? You bet. As much fun as eating corn on the cob on a hot summer night, AND it works!

©2009 Carole Lynne, author of Cosmic Connection: Messages for a Better World

Author Bio
Carole Lynne is the author of Cosmic Connection: Messages for a Better World. She is also the author of the award winning book Consult Your Inner Psychic, and How to Get a Good Reading From a Psychic Medium. To learn more about Carole Lynne visit carolelynnecosmicconnection.com or www.carolelynne.com

This excerpt re-printed here with the publisher’s permission.

7 Great Affirmations for the Unemployed

7 Great Affirmations for the Unemployed
With Practical Tips You Can Apply Today
By Paul & Tracey McManus,
Authors of The 7 Great Prayers: For a Lifetime of Hope and Blessings

Lost jobs. Lost homes. Lost hope.

It’s in the headlines, it’s on the news, and it’s in our day-to-day conversations with people we care about: family, friends, co-workers, neighbors and people within our spiritual circles. When you’re out of work, where do you turn when it seems nobody can help you or those you love?

For Tracey and I, and the thousands of people who visit our website everyday, we turn to a power greater than ourselves and we use affirmative prayers.

But what are affirmative prayers? How do you use them? And do they work?

The 7 Great Affirmations for the Unemployed

The following is our suggestion of how to use our 7 Great Affirmations to overcome job loss. We use the term God to mean the higher power of your understanding. These seven affirmations are the ones we and thousands of others have used to overcome unemployment and the negative emotions surrounding it.

1. Change Your Focus Give praise. Take your mind off your life’s challenges and shift your focus toward good thoughts and attaining a new job.

Affirmation: I love you God and welcome you into my heart. Thank you for blessing me with a new job.

Tip: For many of your affirmations, affirm as though you have already been blessed with what you are asking for.

2. Put Yourself in a State of Gratitude

Take a moment and reflect on all the good things in your life and give thanks. Change your thinking from lack to thanks.

Affirmation: Thank you God, you give me power, comfort and strength while I find a new job.

Tip: Affirmations without taking action are just wishes. Take steps forward every day to find a new job and give thanks for everything during the day. There is nothing too small to give thanks for. For example, thank God for the beautiful day, a smile, a kind word, not to mention your health, family, etc.

3. Connect with Your Higher Power — From Whom all Blessings Flow

Feel God’s presence and know that God is within you right now, and that you are connected with God.

Affirmation: God, you are within me right now and you are helping me through my job search and helping me find the perfect job for me.

Tip: When using affirmations, don’t beg. Instead, talk as though you are talking with your best friend. Talk and affirm positively, and know that you are loved.

4. It’s Okay to Ask to Be Blessed with a New Job

God wants the very best for you . . . “whatever you shall ask in prayer, believing, you shall receive”.

Affirmation: I am being led on the right path for me today for finding a new job, leaving all the details to God?I am blessed.

Tip: Some people believe for some reason they don’t deserve blessings — throw this idea out once and for all! You are a good person. You are loved. You deserve to be blessed, so ask to be blessed in prayer, believe you’ll be blessed, and you will receive blessings!

5. Be on the Lookout for “Messengers” and Blessings

Be alert to messengers and events that have been sent your way to help you receive the blessings you desire, which includes helping you through the entire process of your re-employment.

Affirmation: God, because I see you everywhere, I easily recognize it when you are reaching out to bless me. I take continuous action and leave no stone unturned.


Tip:
Set a goal. Have a clear picture of the job you want. Put your re-employment goals in writing. There are studies that report that those who put their goals in writing achieve dramatically better results than those who don’t. So write down your re-employment affirmations in a journal along with your re-employment goals, and then take ACTION!

6. Bless and Love Others

“Love your neighbor as you would love yourself”. When you are out of a job it’s easy to feel very alone and isolated in your negative situation. Again, it’s crucial that you maintain a positive mental attitude, and an easy way to do this is to say short, loving affirmations, blessing others.

Affirmation: I love and bless my family and friends. I love and bless all those who are in need of love, comfort and strength.

Tip: Decide to live in the now. Don’t fret about the past, don’t worry about the future. Don’t go through your re-employment alone. Connect with family, friends, people you’ve worked with in the past, community services and your spiritual circle.

7. Use Your Talents

Whatever you put into the universe will come back to you ten-fold. You have special gifts. Reflect on these gifts and how they can help others. Be open to a completely different career; maybe a move to a new location. With every adversity there is the seed of an equal or greater benefit.

Affirmation: God, work through me now and help me do your good works. The more I help others, and do your good work, the more blessings I attract into my life.

Tip: While looking for a new job, stay active. Volunteer. Help others. It’s the right thing to do and your volunteer work may very well connect you to a person or event that will help you become re-employed.

Tracey and I want to help you with your re-employment. To download a free pocket-size prayer card designed to help you stay positive, take action and get a new job, please visit www.the7greatprayers.com/unemployed. And please consider committing to the 21-day Prayer Challenge found on our website.

© 2009 Paul & Tracey McManus, author of The 7 Great Prayers: For a Lifetime of Hope and Blessings

Author Bio

Paul and Tracey McManus authors of The 7 Great Prayers: For a Lifetime of Hope and Blessings, originally created The 7 Great Prayers in response to their own financial and personal challenges. They have made it their mission to teach others how to live abundant and blessed lives by tapping into the power of God and the power of the mind through The 7 Great Prayers. They live in Connecticut with their three children.

To learn more about The 7 Great Prayers: For a Lifetime of Hope and Blessings please visit www.the7greatprayers.com

Re-printed here with permission.

A.J. Mahari's "Soul Philosophy" Audio Podcast

Author, life coach and strategist, A.J. Mahari has a new audio podcast called Soul Philosophy. This audio podcast is designed to be a motivating, inspirational, and contemplative supplement of self help for those seeking personal improvement, balance, wellness, emotional peace, a greater understanding of self and authentic consciousness in their everyday lives.

Soul Philosophy is an eclectic, affirming, and thought-provoking podcast that includes A.J. Mahari’s presentation of thoughts and themes to both educate and enhance your cultivating a more radically accepting and mindful way of being and way of experiencing your life.

A.J. will be reading and incorporating many of her past Soul’s Thought of The Day collection along with many new thoughts of the day to come. A.J. has one Ebook out so far, her first, Phoenix Rising ReflectionsThoughts to inspire you and motivate your thinking and feed your soul.

Join A.J. by listening to her audio podcast Soul Philosophy and begin or continue your self-affirming journey toward the cultivating and/or nurturing of an attitude of gratitude in your life.

© A.J. Mahari, January 1, 2009


A.J. Mahari is a Life Coach who specializes in working with people who are searching for ways to improve themselves, the quality of their lives, and the balance they need in their lives and who are working to create positive change. Change requires tapping into a greater awareness of what it is that you need and then finding ways to identify your goals and achieve them. A.J. has 5 years experience as a Life Coach A.J. has worked with hundreds of clients from all over the world.


Running From Authentic Self and Truth

Are you running from your authentic self? Are you denying or avoiding truth about yourself that you have a sense of but haven't yet been willing to face and embrace? Running from authentic self and truth is what leaves so many out of balance and suffering in life.

In her latest audio podcast, Author, Life Coach and Strategist, A.J. Mahari talks about this running from authentic self and truth and the fact that it can, among other things, present obstacles to the very change that you may want and/or need in your life. Obstacles to the identification of goals that would support your self improvement and personal growth. A self development that could enhance emotional, psychological, and spiritual balance in your life.

Click Here To Listen

© Touchstone Life Coaching Services and A.J. Mahari December 24, 2008 – All rights reserved.

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