In honor of my upcoming interview with Joan Borysenko on Conversations with the Masters next week, I wanted to share this article, excerpted from Joan’s Inner Peace of Busy People, September, 2003.
Beating Stress and Burn Out by Joan Borysenko
“Remember-your to-do list is immortal. It will live on long after you’re dead.” -Joan Borysenko
A Stressed Society
Comedian George Carlin quipped that he went into a bookstore and asked the clerk where the self-help section was. She refused to tell him since that would defeat the purpose. He could probably have followed the scuffs on the floor. In the year 2000, Americans spent $563 million on self-help books. It’s little wonder. Approximately one in three people are sleep deprived, complaining of exhaustion and trouble holding things together. We are an anxious and worried culture. Between 1990 and 1997, the number of doctors’ office visits for anxiety increased by 31 percent. The visits for panic disorder more than doubled (ibid). Approximately 12 percent of Americans are depressed, and another 10.2 percent have chronic “low mood.” Seventy to 90 percent of visits to primary-care physicians are attributed to stress. And many more people suffer outside doctors’ offices where the statistics are gathered.
Burnout in Health and Helping Professionals
Unfortunately, many of the people who suffer in doctor’s offices are the health-care providers themselves. Some are so stressed that they have proceeded to the advanced state of exhaustion called burnout, which is a condition of mind, body and spirit that is distinctly different from stress. Continue reading »
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Yes, the holidays are around the corner! Your life is going reasonably well. You’re focused, “on track” and feeling centered…yet all of a sudden your workload triples, an employee leaves, or a significant person in your life becomes emotionally distraught, or perhaps a death or illness surprises the family. And, children offer unpredictable challenges too.
And then it’s the holidays! One of my strengths as a coach, is guiding my clients in living and working from greater states of peace, centeredness and balance. This is the essential ingredient for magnetizing success and fulfillment, whether you are developing a relationship, own a business, manage a team, raise children, trade in the stock market, or are losing weight. Your outside world doesn’t have to equal your inside world. Life is always presenting new challenges to strengthen our spirit, expand our consciousness, and foster growth. Learning how to master accessing the “calm” in any storm is a worthy goal, but it IS obtainable. What is your current “storm”? I challenge you to find your center in the eye of it all.
6 Keys to Mastering “Being Calm” in the Eye of the Storm.
1. Be grounded and connected to yourself. When external chaos arises in our environment, there is a natural human tendency to focus outward on “solving the problem”. When too much of our energy gets tied up “over there”, we can lose our center and our power. This is the most essential ingredient in “successfully dancing” with ANY challenge or difficult situation. Get reconnected to your power immediately. When we aren’t grounded, we lose access to our intuition, best thinking and resources to handle the situation.
Being grounded means being connected to your body, and your power. Breathe. Stand up. Feel your legs under you, connected solidly to the ground. Imagine a steel rod extending down through the back of your spine into the core of the earth, while simultaneously extending up through the crown of your head into the sky. Breathe. You may also recall a time in your life when you were exceptionally grounded. Performing well in sports or business. The more you become conscious of accessing your power and sense of grounded-ness, the more you will naturally live from this space.
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As human beings, our lives are shaped and influenced by a myriad of factors, and relationships is at the top of the list. Think about how much of “who you are today” was influenced by a specific parent, sibling, relative, teacher, coach, neighbor, author, speaker, boss, co-worker, spouse or friend. Values, habits, behavior, knowledge, skills, passions, hobbies, tastes and attitudes are typically learned through association with others.
Yet, as influential as relationships are, most people haven’t consciously chosen their greatest “circle of influence”. Fortunately or unfortunately, some people are born automatically in our lives. Some come through marriages. Geography plays a role. Where you work and what you do for a living is a factor. Even friendships develop through circumstances. Through this consortium is a variety of individuals that make up our “circle of influence”. Some are negative; others simply neutral by-standers, and often we are blessed with enriching associations that positively impact our lives.
Years ago at a Jim Rohn seminar, I heard this statement.
“We become the combined
average of the FIVE people
we associate with most.”
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I met a very special lady in the ”healing profession”, and her words branded me for life. “If everyone could just learn to love themselves to pieces“. They say love is one of life’s greatest medicines. And it is a medicine we need to administer to ourselves – generously.
I believe that loving ourselves is foundational to living life. When we love ourselves, we take greater care of ourselves, and make clearer decisions that propel our highest good. Some people don’t feel worthy of love and goodness, and consistently sabotage themselves. If you’re like most people you haven’t practiced giving yourself “unconditional love”.
Try this. Clear your mind and relax, you may even lie on the floor. Imagine yourself being bathed in unconditional love. Let those feelings penetrate every cell in your body, from your head to your toes. Let the feeling expand and grow with every breath, until you are surrounded by ten inches of unconditional love. Let it all in. It feels good, doesn’t it?
I used to think, ”of course I love myself”. Then I did this exercise, it changed my life. I didn’t realize I could give myself that ”warm, wonderful feeling” anytime I chose to focus on it. And loving ourselves is a powerful energy with enormous benefits!!! The more YOU give LOVE to yourself, the more you will attract it in your life.
Take 5 minutes each day to connect with this feeling of ”unconditional loving”. For most of us, it’s an unused muscle that will need conditioning. It may feel uncomfortable at first, and I challenge you to stick with it. It’ll impact your self-esteem, you’ll feel more loving and generous, and you’ll begin to attract more wonderful things into your life. Because, after all – YOU do deserve it. Go for it!
Filed under Fulfilling Lives, Inner Peace 101, Inner Peace Practices, Inner Peace Strategies | Comment (0)“Conversations with the Masters”
Hosted By Mary Allen
Joan Borysenko
New York Times Best-Selling Author of Minding the Body,
Mending the Mind, Inner Peace for Busy People, 7 Paths to God
and It’s not the End of the World
Joan Borysenko
CONVERSATIONS with the MASTERS
Tuesday, November 17th
11:00 AM – 12:00 PM Pacific
(2-3 pm Eastern)
Cost: No Charge
Register Now by Visiting:
www.lifecoachmary.com/joanborysenko.htm
During This Interview We’ll Explore:
The world is in crisis, but you don’t have to be. We all know resilient people who bounce back from hardship to create a more fulfilling life. That’s the promise of change. Other people stress out and melt down, losing hope and health. That’s the danger of change. The good news is that resilience isn’t a genetic gift for the lucky few. It’s an easily understood skill that anyone can practice and master. Resilient people and companies face facts head-on, look for deeper meaning, are great improvisers, laugh often, and know how to manage stress.
Filed under Conversations with the Masters | Comment (0)“Seekers are offered clues all the time from the world of spirit.
Ordinary people call these clues coincidences.”
- Deepak Chopra
5 Minutes of “Doing” Nothing – As a coach, I work with numerous over-achieving clients, who are super “doers”. Yet, amidst all the success, they desire more balance in their lives and are intrigued with the idea of “being” more. BEING meaning… connecting more to yourself…or your soul. Perhaps you, too, desire more balance and more of that divine connection to YOU. The good news is, it’s easy to begin integrating “beingness” into your life. And, every client who has embarked on this exercise has experienced an immediate positive impact.
SOULFUL CHALLENGE: Take 5 Minutes each day for the next week, and do “nothing”. Just spend time BEING. That means, clear away the thoughts, clear away the action and just be. No books, no journaling, no sleeping, NO THINKING. Nothing. Just BE. That’s it. Too simple? Well, yes and no.
Yes, it’s relatively simple to find 5 minutes out of your 24 hours a day to set aside for yourself. Can you do it? Absolutely. The real question is WILL you actually take those 5 minutes for yourself – each day – for a whole week? Deciding to go for it is the easy part. The clients that have taken on this seemingly innocent task, tap into a new sense of awareness. At first, clients realize how much “chitter-chatter” is going on inside their brains, and how challenging it is to turn OFF the chatter. Clients also realize how ‘programmed’ they are to do, do, do, and go, go, go. Doing “nothing” may seem more challenging than doing “doing”. You may feel this also.
Yet, as you stay with the process, and let go of the “doingness” and just BE, you will begin to experience an array of benefits, including a greater sense of peace, expanded sense of time and personal insight. Taking control of these 5 minutes is the first step in taking control of your life. Soon “beingness” will begin to play a larger role in your life. I don’t want to spoil all the surprises for you.
Experience 5 Minutes of BEINGNESS for yourself. And, feel free to email me about your experience.
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Everyday Inner Peace is about maximizing YOUR inner peace. Whatever is interfering with your inner peace is temporary, unnecessary suffering. Here you’ll find tips, strategies and inspiration to return to relaxed bliss … in minutes. Everything is better in life with an abundance of "inner peace."