It is hard not to be negative when things in the world aren’t looking so positive.  What I have noticed is that negativity breed’s negativity. It is also hard to be negative when you are around people that are always looking at the bright side of everything, now it might also be annoying to be in a negative space and have someone disregard your feelings and say something positive.

Negativity is our mind or thoughts controlling us.  One thought leads to another, and then another and before you know it, you might find yourself homeless, and sick (In your mind).  When my mind starts going to those dark places, I realize that it is my mind and if I let it, it will take me down a path that is going to make me feel crummy.  So with this in mind, as soon as it starts to go there, I look at it and laugh and say “there it goes” and then immediately I take it to a positive place.

Now, if you have had a truly terrible day, it’s okay to acknowledge it, just don’t let yourself become that bad day.  Don’t call all of your friends and keep talking about how bad it was. The more you talk about it, the more it keeps being a bad day. Okay, so you had a bad day, say to yourself, “good, that day is over, and tomorrow will be a better day” Call a friend a go have some fun, go to a movie, let the bad day go.

If things have happened in your day that seem unreasonable or bad, look at it, and see how you participated.  If something happens that doesn’t feel good in your day, look at it, and see how you can shift it, don’t take what happened and keep talking about how it happened and how bad it is. Let it go. When one bad thing happens and you make big deal about it, have you noticed that another bad thing will happen, and then another bad thing, it snowballs. That’s how bad days happen.  Sometimes just doing the same thing with the day that and you did with your mind, if something bad happens, laugh and take notice, and don’t let it snowball.

So, with our teens we teach them by example. If they see us constantly getting upset over things happening in our day, they will learn to behave the same way.  Teach them by example and also teach them how powerful the mind is and where it can take us. If our teens are having a bad day, talk to them about it, ask them why, and show them how easy it is to shift their bad day to a good day. Try not to discount their feelings, allow they to have them and have the space to explore why they are having them. Then move them into looking at letting it go and shifting their attitude to a more positive place.

Being positive feels better to us and helps our days play out differently, Things that we view as bad things happening are just an opportunity to look at who we are and how to evolve and become better people.

Through out my life I have worn everything from “ooh look at me”, designer clothes to someone else’s use to be “ooh look at me” clothing.  I have known people and still do that would never wear someone else’s old clothes, and that’s okay.  I used to always have a belief that if I didn’t pay a lot for my clothing that they were made poorly and would fall apart. This may be true in some cases, for instance if they are made really cheaply in another country to be marketed in the states for a low price. To understand this check out this web site The story of Stuff it will explain about getting products cheap that are made in other countries.

My beliefs about having to pay a lot for clothing or they will fall apart has changed.  in today’s economy, can we afford to pay $180.00 for a pair of jeans?  I certainly can’t!

The question of the hour here is are we being judged for not wearing designer clothes, and if so do we care?  I am shocked at the importance of clothing with today’s young and how much money they are spending to look In style.

I believe that teenagers feel judged if they don’t have clothing style.  The media plays a huge part in affecting our teen’s self-esteem if they don’t look like they have step out of a fashion magazine.  So, what can we do to not be so affected by what others think of us, while we are trying desperately to hang on to our sense of self and be unique?

1) First realize that if you dress with confidence, it’s not going to matter what you wear, your confidence will override your clothing.

2) Then realize that it is our own unique style, no matter what it is, that make you who you are, so let it rip.

3) Your style is an expression of who you are, if you are dressing like someone else, who are you?

4) Clothing style doesn’t have to cost an arm and a leg to look cool, make sure you hit all of the sales, look for designer thrift stores, and have clothing exchanges with your friends and their friends.  I love clothing exchanges, I have walked away with great cloths and they were a blast.

5) Stop buying into what the media says, you don’t have to be like everyone else to have style.

6) Wear clothes that compliment your body, don’t just wear styles, because they are in.

So, go out there and express yourself, wear the clothes you love and that look good on you. Start enjoying being you and your sense of style.

If you have any comments, I would love to hear from you.

Stand up for yourself, set boundaries, don’t let your friends take advantage of you.  Wow, that’s a lot to ask of a teen!

It seems like it’s a lot to ask of an adult. Look around you, how many adults tell their friends, their bosses or anyone that is acting inappropriately, “that’s not acceptable”!  I am in a circle of pretty conscious people and most of them have difficulties setting boundaries. When most adults have to make a decision to confront someone who has done something to them that they don’t appreciate, it takes a lot for them to talk to the person. Some people actually get sick to their stomach, and have extreme anxiety about it.

So why do we act like our teen should be able to handle this easier.  It is most often harder for a teen to confront another teen or worse yet an adult about something they have done that he or she is not good with.  It is tougher for a teen to make sense of what has happened and why it feels off.  This happens to adults also, but with teens they can’t usually figure out how to confront without being ousted by their peers or not respected by an adult.

So how can we help or teens and our self to confront with ease?  For me it is easier just knowing that if I confront I am taking care of myself, and usually if it’s good for me it’s always a gift for the other person in learning more about themselves, if they are willing. Also if I look at what it is they are doing and why it is triggering me, that helps me learn about myself. It helps me take the blame off of them and realize it’s just another lesson to learn.

For teens it’s important for the parent to have compassion for what they are feeling around it, understand their feelings, and their hurt, step into their reality.

Help your teenager get in touch with their feelings around the situation, ask them questions like “how did you feel when she did that to you” or “why do you think she is acting like that”, also ask her if she feels the hurt anywhere in her body. Sometimes there will be physical symptoms. Asking questions helps them get in touch with how they are feeling, and why and make sense of the situation.

Help your teen put together a plan of what they might say to the person acting inappropriate.  Also help them understand why the other person might be acting this way; so that your teen can have compassion for them, this really helps with easing the anger.

These are also good tips for adults to use when they are having difficulties with confronting.  I have become really good at confronting people in a loving way because what I noticed was, when I didn’t confront I got sick to my stomach and would lose sleep over it. I bet if you thought about it, you would realize that it is more painful not to confront than to confront. So stand up for yourself, start setting healthy boundaries, and confront in a loving way.  Let me how you feel when you do or don’t confront.

My body is always trying to teach me lessons, that honestly sometimes I just don’t want to hear.  It seems that I am constantly hearing from my body. “I have an ache here, my allergies are up, I have an ache there”.

I am usually trying to escape the feeling of pain or discomfort. The key word in that sentence is escape. I was taught a while back that escaping the pain  was not the answer, that going into the pain was. WOW! Who wants to move into something that feels so bad?

Well, I have done it in my past and what I have found out about myself is that I will do almost anything to avoid the pain.  So, when I feel the pain instead of trying to get away from it, like taking an aspirin, it’s best for me to close my eyes, feel the pain and ask myself what is my body trying to tell me.

With this last episode in the hospital, what was my Colon trying to tell me? I get it, to slow down, relax, stop worrying, and that everything is going to be alright. That Colon of mine is one smart cookie.

So, instead of running from our pain, try moving into it and asking it “what is it you are trying to tell me”?  The lessons are big and pretty loud for us to hear.

If we choose to listen!

I just spent the weekend in Newport Beach with my boyfriend and his 2 twin Fourteen-year-old boys. Boys sure are fun, and what I realized is that they are not too different from girls, at least not at 14. They care what they look like, their hair, their cloths and they don’t want their Dad or their Dad’s girlfriend touching them in public.
So image is important and it starts at a young age, probably around 12 years-old, and goes on until we are; well, until we figure out that what’s on the outside isn’t the most important thing in the world.

So what can we do to encourage our teens to have more self-confidence? First and foremost is set a good example. If we are walking around talking about how we don’t like our bodies, or our hair looks like crap, and our cloths are out of style, you can bet that our teens will notice and follow suit.

If you do anything to help your teen, it’s don’t talk negatively about yourself and also don’t talk negatively about them. If you are slamming them they will get good at slamming themselves. Also, talk to them about why they don’t like certain things about themselves and help them understand how they might be able to change their perception or attitudes about the those things. We all want to feel good about ourselves; the best gift we can give our teenager is positive reinforcement.

The best thing we can do for ourselves is also positive reinforcement.

Do you feel like you get the encouragement you would like in your daily life? How many of us do? I sure don’t, so I had to go to the drawing board and figure out why? Yes encouragement feels good and everyone needs it, but from whom? It doesn’t feel good to be trying your hardest and be treated like your not trying.

Why is it so hard for friends, family, partners or bosses to give encouragement? One thing I realized was that it might not be about me. If a boss isn’t giving me encouragement and I know I am doing a good job and doing my best, it might be because they have insecurities. Maybe they have a hard time telling you your great at your job because it makes them feel insufficient somehow. If this is the case, for me it’s important just not to take it personally. To know that I am doing the best I can and that I am okay. It goes back to the self confidence thing. If I am self confident then it would matter if others think I’m not adequate.

For me when someone is acting like I’m not good enough, my mantra is the reverse, to tell myself that I am good enough. For them, it is to see a wounded person inside of them that can’t see the good in themselves, therefore they have to act like others aren’t good enough. Send them love because they are feeling very insecure about themselves, the more encouragement you give them, the easier it will be to reciprocate.

I have been involved in a 8 year experience that has validated my truth. amazing that is has taken so long to come full circle.

To make a long story short, there was 3 of us involved and each of us was being told different things about each other, and saying different things to each other and reacting to those things, based on the information we thought we were seeing. Today the real picture has appeared and it all makes sense. Because of a clearing I had done with one person, and then another person’s clearing 2 years later with us, we now have the truth.

The funny thing about it is that my gut knew the truth all along. For me this 8 year experience has taught me a few things :

1. Clearing up the stuff, meaning if you have an issue with someone it’s a good idea to get together with them and try to get things straighten out.
2. Your gut knows everything, if we sink out of our heads and into our gut, our intuition, we will always have all of the answers.
3. Not having the truth and living through what you think is the truth, creates more stuff to have to clear, and more confusion.
4. It’s just not healthy to not clear and to not listen to your gut.

Life/our experiences is amazing and it is the best teacher we will ever have. I enjoy being a student of life and participating on the level that I do. I encourage you to look at the stuff you haven’t cleared and see if you can clean it up. You will be shocked at how different you feel. Let me know if you have any experiences you want to share.

“The only real valuable thing is intuition” by Albert Einstein

It feels as though I have been pushing up against everything lately, and feeling not very supported. This gives me the opportunity to look at why? Why not relax into it and go with the flow?

To look at the movement of water, how it just moves with ease, over rocks, and under logs. How can I emulate this free flowing water? For me, I need to realize that life is a journey, that I get to go on to learn how to love myself and show up in the world for me and others. That everything else is an illusion. My house, my car, my cloths, even how I look!

The only thing that is real is my relationship with myself, others and a higher power if you believe in one. And then this leads me back to how to have a relationship with myself? This is something I have to be conscious of every minute of the day. When I am feeling contracted or trigger with something or someone, to explore my feelings around it, not to blame the person who might have triggered me but to connect to those feelings and grow from them.

It’s just like realizing that I am pushing up against everything and life seems harder. To realize that these are feelings that I had when I was a child. To have a little conversation with my child within, listen to the feelings wrapped around those feelings and then step up and be a good mother and father to that child within. This might look like, just shifting how I am doing something…Stop pushing and relax and go with the flow.

Throughout the day, pay attention to your body, and how you feel. Are you contracted or upset? If so, don’t ignore those feelings. It’s like if you had a child of your own, and he or she was feeling badly, maybe really sad, would you ignore her feelings? I don’t think so! So show up for that little child inside of you, and be a good mother and father. Every time I feel unsupported in this world, it’s because I am not being supportive to myself. Experiment with really paying attention to your feelings for one day and attending to those feelings and see how you feel. Let me know how the day lays out for you.

What a story… about the 18, teenage girls creating a pregnancy pact in Gloucester, Massachusetts, and on the same day that Jamie Lynn Spears gives birth to her baby.

For the first time since 1991, birth rates have risen 3 percent in 2006, according to preliminary data released in December by the National Center for Health Statistics.

It seems that this is another opportunity for parents to get close and personal with their teenagers. Instead of freaking out, ask your teenager what they think about all of this. Ask them what they think it would be like to raise a baby at there age. Communicate with your teen about issues that could affect them. Pretending like these issue don’t exist, doesn’t make it so.

Many parents are thinking how will this affect my teenager, will she think it’s cool to get pregnant? Maybe so, so you better find out and start the communication now! The only way to help your teen today is to talk to them about everything that is out there that the media is bringing to light. It’s a great opportunity to find out what they are thinking and to educate them on the real facts of a situation.

When my oldest daughter was 13 years old, I was sitting outside with her and 2 of her friends and I said to them, “Your pregnant, what are you going to do?” Hypothetically. Each one of them had a different answer. One said have the baby and keep it, one said have the baby and give it away, and the other said abort.

So, you don’t know what your teen is thinking until you ask. Start talking to your teens about everything, bring all of the issues to the light and discuss them, pregnancy, sex, drug use, eating disorders, everything. It’s up to us as parents to go to our teens and talk about things. Research the information together on the favorite tool, the Internet, and find out the facts.

We live in a different world today, compared to when I was a teenager or even my girls where teens. We have to pay attention to our kids and what’s going on with them and other teens.

Good luck parents, and let me know how it goes.

I love music and I have a varied taste, from old rock, techno, rap, some country, classical, jazz, and blues. You name it and I probably listen to it.

The question is, does it affect us? I know for me music absolutely affects me, my mood, and even my behavior. I have all of my music in my computer on iTunes and I have it on shuffle. So I get to listen to a variety of music through out the day. Sometimes I notice that I am feeling anxious and tense. When my attention goes to what could be making me feel this way, I notice it always goes back to the selected song on my i Tunes. I will change the song in my playlist and start to calm down again.

I have read a bit about the affects music has on our teens and our selves, but I invite you to test it out yourself. If you have access to shuffling your music, put together a playlist of different music. Make sure you put a variety in the list and put some very soft easy music on and some heavy hard music with disturbing lyrics on. Sit back and relax as the music carries you away, pay attention to how your body is feeling with every song. Tune into your thoughts with the different songs. You might even journal about how each song affected you.

I think this is a great exercise to do with your teens some day. Have them lay on the floor and relax, ask them to pay attention to their thoughts and how their bodies feel with the different music. Maybe only pick 6 different songs, when the play list is done, ask them to journal on how they felt and their thoughts, and then talk about it as a family. The only way they are going to understand how music really affects them is if you show them. If they are more attracted to the disturbing music, ask them what they like about it, maybe they just like the beat and they really don’t even listen to the lyrics.

I suggest doing research on the internet with them to help them understand what certain music does to your being. Try not to judge them in this process, just research and talk about it. Let me know how it goes.