Archive for August, 2011

Self-esteem. Lesson #4. Learn

Posted: August 14, 2011 in Self-esteem, self-respect, Uncategorized
Tags: , , ,

Start learning now and never stop. This doesn’t mean you have to go to school if you don’t want to or can’t afford it. It means to find things out for yourself and keep practicing at what you do and get better and better at it.

Do you have any idea how hard it is to feel good about yourself when you are being or acting stupid? No, really, have you ever felt good about yourself in moments like that? I sure haven’t but that is a good way to learn. You do or say something stupid, see that you did and then go find a better way to deal with it in the future.

You don’t learn about things from reading. I wish we did because then we would all be much happier. No, we learn by experience and our own observations. You know the sun rises every day, right? Well, did you learn that from reading it in a book or from observing it for yourself?

We learn by smacking into a brick wall, pulling back and rubbing our head and finding out that when we do that, it hurts. Some of us have to smack our heads against the wall a few times before we get it. I have survived many bruises on my forehead (and my butt from getting knocked down on it) before I thought “Hey, maybe I shouldn’t do that,” and figuring out another way around something.

I am also the person that if the sign says “Wet Paint,” I’m fine with that. But if it says “Wet Paint Do No Touch,” well, I have to go touch it to see for myself. I have to learn on my own and not because someone told me what was right to do and what was wrong to do. If it’s really wet, then I know it. If it’s no longer wet, then I know that too.

There are also the people who just keep banging their heads against the brick wall and blame others for it. We call these people “victims” and I wouldn’t give them too much attention. They like it.

You are responsible for your own knowledge. No one else is. You know what you know because you said so. It doesn’t have to agree with anyone else. In fact, if you look at the title of this blog again, you’ll probably get a good idea of my opinion of anyone who tries to tell me or others how things are or how to think and behave.

I will only agree to the things that I know for myself to be true and I think we all need to find our own truths no matter what anyone says. You need to find your own truth, whatever it is and then say that it is.

If you don’t understand what someone is telling you, tell them that and have them explain it to you until you understand. It doesn’t matter who it is, a boss, a teacher, a co-worker or a friend. Don’t go along with things that don’t make sense to you. Question and learn. Those that care about you will help you. Those that don’t, try to push their agenda on you. That usually indicates it’s a hidden agenda. Find out and if they won’t tell you, then walk away.

Read and then read some more. Evaluate everything you read and decided if you agree or not. You can accept or reject anything you want. Then go see if what you just read is true for you. If someone tells you a certain race or culture is bad, go find out for yourself. Go look and talk to the people and see what you see. Make your own decisions because those are the things that will give you knowledge. Your own observation is the only thing that is of value in learning.

Do you really want to look and act like everyone else? Since when did someone else’s opinion have more importance than your own? It has as much importance as you give it. Ignore it. Don’t try to learn from anyone that you don’t respect even if someone tells you that you should respect them. So what if they are a relative or rich or famous? That doesn’t mean you have to like or respect them. Be with people who you admire and learn from them.

List out all the things you would like to know more about. It doesn’t matter what they are as long as they are things you want to learn about. Then go find out more about those things.

List out all of the things you need to improve upon and start increasing your competency. If you are having trouble with something at work, get someone to help you be better at it. Know that you can be better.

List out some of the stupidest things you’ve ever done and then write down what you learned from them.  I have a long list and it makes me laugh now. At the time I did some of these things, it wasn’t so funny.

Find someone who could use your help in becoming more capable in an area and help them do that. It doesn’t matter what it is as long as you are teaching someone to be better at what they do.

You are as valuable as you want to be. You are as smart as you want to be.

Let me know everything you learned this week.

Email from a polygamist

Posted: August 7, 2011 in Dating, Uncategorized
Tags: , , ,

This email wins my award for the week of the best one I received from a dating website. Drum roll please….

“U R very pretty. I like ur smile. I am a poly man and am looking for another wife. I am honest, truthful and caring. My cell is ###-####. I tink I have a lot to offer u. I hope to here from u soon.”

I had to read this three times before I could understand what the hell he was talking about. I then quickly checked his profile and yes indeedy,  he’s a polygamist.

I will give him brownie points for being honest.

His email surprised me so much that I jumped back a bit in my chair which caused the chair to catch on the carpet, stick and the next thing I knew I smacked my head against the wall behind me.

I was glad no one was around to see that.

I went to flag the email but then there was a thought in the back of my mind to check my settings on my profile.  Sure enough, I had the setting defaulted to “Interested in anything” which I quickly changed to “Single men only.”

Maybe they need settings to be more direct because I want the one that says “Must have been born a male as I only want the original packaging, single, no criminal record of any kind, likes women most of the time, can and will carry on a conversation when necessary, won’t  text/call me 50 times a day, has original thoughts  sometimes, can and does read actual books and NEVER mentions the word ‘cuddling’ in their profile because that’s male talk for copping a feel.”

Pictures of whom or what would be contacting me if I didn’t change it went through my mind. The “Craig’s List Killer,” Scott Peterson, the smelly guy that hangs out at my local 7-11, Bill Paxton from “Big Love” (which wouldn’t be bad because he’s hot) and Warren Jeffs. OK, I’m stretching it a bit on Warren Jeffs but then again, prisoners do have access to the internet.

Fortunately for me, his was the first email I got when I put up my profile so future disasters were avoided.

Why do the strange people always find me? I took another look at my profile. It was short and sweet with a couple of pictures of me that I don’t completely hate. Why would a poly male want to meet and marry me off of my bio?

Now the question arose on how to respond? Sure, I could just delete it and not say anything. I could write him back and thank him for his email and decline his kind offer or I could blast him back and tell him what I thought of his email.

I took the brave route – I deleted the email without responding and then blocked him. I blocked him so fast that I wasn’t sure I had done it at first. Suddenly before I could figure out what I wanted to do, I hit that block key, sat back and stared at my monitor and rubbed the back of my head.

Tired of fighting

Posted: August 7, 2011 in Self-esteem, self-respect
Tags: , , , , ,

You ever have one of those days, or weeks, when you just want to throw down your weapons and quit or at least take a break for a while?

Yeah, that’s how I’ve been feeling a bit lately. It’s not one particular thing. That would be easier. That moment during your life when it all just seems to be too much and you want to sit down, cry and give up.

That’s not always such a bad thing to do. Maybe every once in a while we need to do that. Just sit down, cry and whine and close out the world for a bit. I think the only mistake we can make is to not get back up and have at it again.

I have been stretched just a bit too thin for too long. I knew I could handle it and would keep going but exhaustion was starting to creep back in. I get plenty of sleep and exercise but there was just a lot on my plate and now I was at the tipping point with no end in sight.

A new client was arriving on Friday and would begin his training with me for two days. I had agreed to work Saturday and what I wanted to do was call up my ex-boyfriend and go see him and hide out for the weekend and have a warm body next to mine. I didn’t care what happened after Sunday night. I just wanted to walk away from everyone and everything for a few days. I knew I wouldn’t call him and I knew if I did, he would be happy to have me come over and stay.

But I didn’t, of course. I knew I wouldn’t but I did like entertaining that thought for a while.

Friday morning came and in walked Dennis. He is in his late 60’s. I heard him walk in and my receptionist greeted him. I was tied up with another student and couldn’t break away, but the consultant was already shaking his hand, so I knew he was being taken care of and that I would meet him later that day.

I wrapped it up with my student and broke for lunch. I quickly ate my lunch standing over the sink in our small kitchen. I had no time to eat but had to. I had a new client to meet and start his training. I needed to run down to the bathroom plus I had about two hours of phone calls to make along with a backlog of emails that needed my immediate attention and I had less than three minutes to get four hours of work done.

I could feel myself get pulled further and further away from myself. I took another large bite of my lunch, chewed as fast as I could while I drank from my coffee mug. I went down the hall to use the lady’s room and couldn’t stop and chat with people I knew in the office building. I gave them all a quick hello and smile as I raced back to my office.

Dennis was waiting for me. I greeted him. He now had a face to go with my voice that he had heard so many times on the phone before his arrival. He is in his 60’s and is very pleasant. His consultant had been working with him for some time before his arrival for training, so he was relaxed and anxious to start.

We get started and let my assistant know I was “going dark” which means I am officially under the radar while training and cannot be interrupted unless there is a fire and we need to jump off the balcony or we will all die. Anything other than that is not important.

We started and the hard work begins. During the next two days, I learned quite a bit about Dennis. It’s my job and I dig in with each client. They have paid me and my company to help them and they have entrusted their lives to us so no matter what I have going on, it’s left behind the closed door once they arrive.

I learned that Dennis is dealing with his third bout of liver cancer and had just completed another round of chemo. I knew of the difficulties he was having with his business but sitting across from him, I did not see a man who was ill.

Instead I saw a man who was full of hope. He had recently married a beautiful young woman. He told me about surfing every morning and asked if we could start our training earlier the next morning as he was so excited about being here with us that he didn’t want to waste one moment of it. He looked healthy and told me all about the things he was grateful for as the day progressed.

Throughout the day, every point I made on his training was met with a smile, a nod and him thanking me for spending time with him. He made me feel important, valuable and worth every moment of his attention. He had paid ME to help him and yet he was thanking me.

Thanking me for doing my job.

Thanking me for spending two days with him. That he paid for. I mentioned that before, didn’t I? Yes, I did.

Smiling at me and hanging on my every word for two days. Two long days for him as he fought his body that was demanding that he slow down and take it easy and roll over and die.

My exhaustion began to dissipate. The horrible PMS I had been suffering with for three weeks lessened and became a distant memory. My headache left and I picked up my sword and decided to start fighting again.

He fought for two days and I fought right along side of him. I picked up every tool I could think of. I mustered every bit of information I could find and we slugged it out together. Together we fought to save his business and improve his life and the lives of his staff and customers.

I had made a mistake and that was I had been looking around and just focusing on the things that were wrong in my life and had forgotten to focus on what was right.

I had failed to take and practice my own advice. It’s perfectly fine to notice the things that need to be corrected and then correcting them.

It’s a whole other thing to only pay attention to them and become worried and doubtful of one’s own ability to deal with it. All I had been doing these last few weeks was looking at how everything I needed to do could not be done.

I was wrong. Oh so wrong.

By the end of the second day, both Dennis and I were smiling and I thanked him for teaching me so much. He gave me a funny look and asked what the hell I was talking about.

I hugged him and told him that I loved his wonderful and positive attitude and that it had rubbed off on me when I really needed it. He didn’t say anything but hugged me back.

I might still have too much to do but somehow after today it doesn’t seem like such a big deal. Somehow it feels like everything will be OK soon.

It was time for me to follow my own damn advice – just disagree with how things “have to be” and agree to all the good shit in life.

Self-esteem. Lesson #3. Be Healthy

Posted: August 1, 2011 in Self-esteem, self-respect
Tags: , , ,

Self-esteem. Lesson #3

First of all, thanks again for all your emails and correspondence. It’s nice to know that this is helping some of you and I appreciate the feedback.

So now you’ve decided to have self-esteem and should be taking responsibility for it.

Most excellent!

Now the next step is to be well and healthy.

I’ll wait while you stop screaming because that’s pretty much the reaction I have when I hear anyone talk about health. Then they start babbling  on about weight loss and exercise and right around that point I start looking for some cake or cookies to eat.

I find them and I eat them as I sneer. Childish, yes, but it makes me feel better, damn it!

As far as I’m concerned, all of us have been heavily betrayed by the medical and health fields because if they were doing their job, more of us would be healthier and taking less drugs.

But that’s not the case. We as a nation diet more than any other country and we are also the most overweight people in the world. You can research it yourself, but here’s a start: http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/overwt.htm

What does this have to do with self-esteem? It has a lot to do with it because it is very hard to feel good about yourself if you aren’t taking care of yourself and don’t feel well. I personally have a much better attitude about myself and life in general when I physically feel well and energetic.

There’s no need to buy another book on dieting; we have too many as it is. We know we shouldn’t eat sugar and carbs and we need to exercise. The human body was not made to sit for long periods of time watching TV (which hopefully you are no longer doing or have cut it way down) or sitting in front of a monitor all day long.

The human body was designed to procreate and burn energy. It’s meant to move, run, jump and basically keep moving until its exhausted and then it’s designed to sleep.

All you need to do is keep moving. Cut out the junk food as best as you can. If you are sick, seek medical care and keep moving. Put better food in you and throw away your scale. You know when you feel good and when you don’t.

I took me many years to find a sane way of eating and it’s simple. Protein and good carbs. No sugar but I do break this rule on the weekends. I’m against being a slave to my body and how it looks but if it doesn’t feel well, then I don’t feel so good about myself. Sort of a no brainer, but some things just need to be said.

I’ve had some success with clients on just making the changes above. It’s not a big deal and nor should you make it into one. Just watch what you eat as best as you can. I want you to try this for the coming week and if it works for you, keep doing it:

1)      Cut out all sugar and bad carbs but this comes with a warning: You might go through some withdrawal such as getting a headache, feeling achy and tired. You might also find yourself with some intense cravings for them. That’s OK. Just keep telling yourself you are healing.

2)      Throw away the damn scale. Pick it up and run to the trash can and toss it. Have a farewell party for it if you need to, but dump it and dump it now.

3)      Remember that all the self-esteem you want is already there inside you. It may be buried deep or it may be right on the surface, but it’s there. We are just slowly removing the layers of what gets in the way of it, step-by-step.

4)      Be more physically active. This can be as simple as walking around the block or going to the gym. It doesn’t matter as long as your increase your activity level and decrease the times you are sitting.

5)      Go help someone. Find someone who needs help and give it to them. This could be helping someone carry groceries to checking in on a neighbor who is lonely. Whenever I start to feel a bit sorry for myself, I do this and it makes me feel better about myself.

6)      Stop complaining and whining if you’ve gotten into this bad habit. Keep a smile on your face and sit down and write down all the things that are right about you. Some people call it counting your blessings and it’s a good thing to do once in awhile. Email them to me if you’d like or leave them as a comment on my blog.

7)      For the next week, I want you to practice something. I want you to be as kind to people as you can. Every day when you wake up, tell yourself that you will be as kind as possible and do it. Then at the end of the day, write down how your day went. Do this every day for a week along with everything else you are working on and let me know how you feel after that.

I’ll tell you a little secret and that is, self-esteem and self-respect has nothing to do with the way people treat you. People will treat exactly as you want them to. If you don’t feel you are worth the effort, then so be it. If you are unkind to people, it’s only because you aren’t BEING kind to yourself and others. So what if someone is rude to you? Maybe they are dealing with too much that day or maybe they just lost a child or maybe they’re just mean. Whatever the reason, cut them some slack and try to be kind to them.

When you are unkind to people, if comes right back at you. This doesn’t mean you allow people to take advantage of you or allow them to harm you. It means that you grant them the right to be who they are and continue on. Take the high road as often as possible and treat others the way you want to be treated.

Try this as best as you can and keep a log.

What have you got to lose? Maybe a bad attitude is all, right?