Tag: being happy

STAYING COOL IN CRAZYTOWN- My new advice column to be happy and peaceful, even when life is insane

 

Hey there!  I’ve got a new blog series that’s right up your alley:  

“STAYING COOL IN CRAZYTOWN” is an advice column about how to be sane and happy despite all the insane stressors in your life.   I mean-let’s face it- the stuff that comes at you all day is bananas! It’s hard to stay centered when life- and fruit- threaten to knock you off your peaceful game.

But I know you- you’re just like me- and you want to be your best no matter what’s going on in your day.  You want to handle your kids with humor and patience, even when they are screaming or throwing food or ignoring you. You want to be optimistic and creative at work, even if you have impossible deadlines and a meany for a boss.  You want to be loving and fun with your partner, even when the grind or monotony of daily life threatens your satisfaction . You want to feel abundant and safe and awesome, even if it feels like the odds are sometimes  against you.

In a nutshell, you want to find ways to not trigger the worst autopilot reactions in you.

That’s right.  You’re goal is to be a shining beacon of love right in the middle of Your Own Crazytown…because you know that feeling good about your life is the only thing that matters.


Well, great news! There are some pretty cool tools and techniques to connect with your best self even when stuff gets tough, and STAYING COOL IN CRAZYTOWN is going to share them with you.


So here’s the deal: this blog series will be written by you and me together. You guys are going to keep telling me what drives you crazy, what keeps you from being your best, and I will give you some awesome tools to get you back to center and restore your “happy”.  Many of you already tell me your challenges in blog comments, emails, and in private sessions with me. For the rest of you, send me your comments!


Recently, a reader named “Ann” emailed me a question and because a lot of my clients have the same problem as her, I made it my first STAYING COOL IN CRAZYTOWN article.  She asked:

“Dear Beth, How can I stay centered and happy when my husband is being a jerk?


Maybe you can relate…..
It will be my next post, so be sure to check out the advice I gave her!

Beth Miller, LCSW-R, CEC, CAHC is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker, Certified Life Coach, energy healer, meditation teacher, and spiritual counselor in private practice in Bayport, Long Island, New York, USA. She is the owner of the group practice POSITIVE ENERGY Holistic Counseling & Institute where she and her fabulous team of therapists use the breakthrough model Advanced Holistic Counseling & Coaching™ to create transformational change in their clients. Beth is the creator of the trademarked Advanced Holistic Counseling & Coaching™: Modern therapy that combines the very best of traditional psychotherapy with life coaching, energy healing, science, and spirituality. Now, Licensed Therapists, Healers, and Coaches can learn how to experience huge transformation in themselves, their clients, and their careers by becoming Certified in Advanced Holistic Counseling & Coaching™.  For free holistic and psychotherapy tools, visit the POSITIVE ENERGY Holistic Counseling & Institute YouTube channel, or contact us directly via phone at 631-533-0708 or email at info@positivecounselingli.com.

The Last Self Help Book You Will Ever Have To Read

Most of my clients and friends are seekers. 

They like new ideas, get turned on by the latest innovations, and search for the best ways to be happier, healthier, wealthier, skinnier, savvier. You get the idea  if it ends in -er, if it might make them better in ways that matter, they are going to look into it.

The chronic search for the best ways to attract abundance, balance checkbooks, heal from illness, flush fat, clean up sugar addictions, be positive, attain inner peace, parent wisely, love deeper In relationships, respond positively to infidelity, become more intuitive, or find passionate careers means one thing:  buying a whole lotta self-help books and perusing the internet for new ways to get more of the er they are after.

Most us will research the changes we want to make, find the latest and greatest approach to help us, and probably even buy the book or product that will guide us along the yellow brick road to the Oz of our desired outcomes.


Did you notice that I said buy, but not read or use?
YEAH…That wasn’t an accident.

Because  here’s the thing about  seekers, all of whom are  driven to grow and deeply desire to be their best:  most of those self help books are half-read and piling up on their night stands.  Maybe some of these partially consumed books are dog-eared and have a few notes written in them, but they are otherwise forgotten- having been replaced by a newer book with the cure-du jour.

That’s right seekers I’ve got your number.  I know you! And I’ve even been you- excitedly researching and launching into your latest purchase that promises to provide the answers, the path, to the happier or better self.  Go take a stroll through your self-help graveyard and notice the tombstones about mindfulness, thinking and growing rich, manifesting with intention, realizing your own power, healing your life, cleaning up your body, finding true love.  These  books and articles- the ones you already bought, the ones that promised to provide the changes you’ve wanted, but lay untapped and under committed to.  And it’s not that they can’t get you there-many or most of them are excellent guides. It’s that  you haven’t done the work in them.


Which leads me to the ultimate take-away of this post, the one action step that will change your life as a  seeker and your relationship with all the information you collect about how to truly be your best self: 


Actually do the work in one of those self help books.  That’s right. I’m asking you to pick ONE of those books you already own- and WORK it.  Don’t just read a few paragraphs when you are in the mood, don’t get half way through and move on to something else, don’t just leaf through the ideas without doing the action steps the book suggests.  No, do something different this time: make a commitment to yourself and to that book.

Though I’m not affiliated with one, I know that Twelve Step programs have a wise expression called “working the program” which means “don’t just understand your addiction intellectually, do the actual steps everyday to create huge and everlasting transformation.”   Recently, in a session with one of my clients who is very ill, I was guided to tell her that she needed to actually “work the program” , meaning USE all of the many spectacular tools and spiritual practices she is already knowledgable about.  In other words, stop hoarding more information and start using it in a deliberate, intentional, committed way if you truly want to heal and change.


I’ve never seen half-hearted effort create huge transformation.  Have you? 

So pick ONE self growth book- one that’s currently trending or is an old classic- and dive into it like it’s the last self help book you will every buy or need to read, like it’s got all the jewels of wisdom and answers embedded within it.  This time, don’t just skim the surface of a book you might learn from.  After all, when has treading water in the shallow-end ever gotten anyone olympic-size results?

If you take me up on this challenge, my guess is that you will experience enormous, magnificent shifts in your life just by buckling down and finally doing what you keep seeking.  Because I know you want more than to just chronically search for answers, you want to live and breathe the solutions.  And that’s why the best and last self help books you will ever have to read will be the ones you actually put into practice.

Share with me your comments and experiences along the way!

Beth Miller, LCSW-R, CEC, CAHC is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker, Certified Life Coach, energy healer, meditation teacher, and spiritual counselor in private practice in Bayport, Long Island, New York, USA. She is the owner of the group practice POSITIVE ENERGY Holistic Counseling & Institute where she and her fabulous team of therapists use the breakthrough model Advanced Holistic Counseling & Coaching™ to create transformational change in their clients. Beth is the creator of the trademarked Advanced Holistic Counseling & Coaching™: Modern therapy that combines the very best of traditional psychotherapy with life coaching, energy healing, science, and spirituality. Now, Licensed Therapists, Healers, and Coaches can learn how to experience huge transformation in themselves, their clients, and their careers by becoming Certified in Advanced Holistic Counseling & Coaching™.  For free holistic and psychotherapy tools, visit the POSITIVE ENERGY Holistic Counseling & Institute YouTube channel, or contact us directly via phone at 631-533-0708 or email at info@positivecounselingli.com.

GOT JUDGMENT OR ANGER? 2-Minute Tool To Get Zen In A Jiffy


Recently one of my clients came to session with a lot of anger.

She said he has been trying really hard to be more positive, but noticed she was just “repressing” a lot of her judgments and frustrations about other people. In other words, it’s not that she had stopped feeling negative emotions, she was just expressing it less.

I had to applaud her.  Not only was she trying to be more positive, but she also recognized that talking about her judgments and resents actually makes them grow bigger. Have you noticed how focusing on them feeds them just like logs on a fire?

Judgment and anger about others is a super-common issue for us humans.  Not everyone wants to learn how to rise above it, but those that do notice how depleted and exhausted these auto-pilot reactions make them.  As you probably know, the reactions we have to others is always an opportunity for us to grow.  In a weird twist, it’s almost like people are doing things specifically to activate the parts of us that need to develop emotionally and spiritually.  On a more cosmic level, it’s like they are sacrificing for us to grow. This is what makes  triggering people  our “calling” rise up and become more enlightened.

I’m not a practicing Buddhist, but I love many of their teachings and psychology. The Tibetan Buddhist tradition actually instructs all beginning students in a practice called Making Difficulties into a Path.  In other words, the teachers intentionally give the students tasks that will trigger their “stuff” so that they can work on it. In Jack Kornfield’s A Path With Heart, he quotes a Tibetan prayer that begins “Grant that I may be given appropriate difficulties and sufferings on this journey so that my heart may be truly awakened and my practice of liberation and universal compassion may be truly fulfilled.”


Now, you may be like:
“Hey, Beth, I’m not really psyched about the idea of wishing and hoping for suffering
so that I can practice having more compassion!”

And I get it- that might seem a little extreme for your taste. No problem. So let’s scratch the actual wishing for annoying colleagues  and frustrating relatives.  But if you do experience undesired judgment and anger toward someone, like my client, we might as well learn how to enlighten it.

Here’s a great tool I came up with to transcend judgment, anger, and frustration with others. It’s simple, fast, and effective. All you need is a bit of practice.

2-MINUTE TOOL TO TRANSCEND JUDGMENT AND ANGER

  • NAME IT:   Become the observer of your feelings by naming them as they occur. Make the focus of your attention what is happening within you, instead of about them.  For example, when your friend starts to irritate you, take a breath and notice your insides.  In your mind, notice your physical sensations and feelings like this “I  notice that I am frustrated. I notice that my chest is tightening. I notice that I am thinking of his faults.”

  • RADICALLY ACCEPT IT:               We can’t change what we don’t genuinely accept about ourselves. This is the problem with repression- it isn’t authentic.  Tell  yourself “I radically accept that I am frustrated, judging,  having a hard time.  I love and accept myself.” This will prevent you from judging yourself when you judge others, doubling the problem.

  • ENLIGHTEN IT    :     It’s time to bring light to the situation by doing one of many things: begin to think of the other’s person’s strengths, pray for them, fill your heart with compassion for them, think of them as they were as a child, send the word “love” to them, fill your heart up with light, or breath 10 deep inhales.

  • EXPEL IT:         Now you can let it go with a deep breath that deflates your chest. Do this by taking in a deep breath and then exhaling forcefully, exhausting your solar plexus.  Empty your sternum area entirely of breath and the energy of this issue.  Say “I release this.”

Try it!- it’s really simple and it works.  Sure you may have to do it many times over- after all, you are building a weak muscle into a strong one.  But do this one time and you will feel so much better immediately, releasing the judgment and anger. Do this many times and you will notice that your anger and judgment actually happens less and less and less…..

PS If you want to share the content of my blog, please cite me and create a link to my website and blog.  It’s great to re-post me, but please link it to my site.  The internet- and your own manifesting- works best on a honor system, where we all have integrity.  Thanks a million!

Beth Miller, LCSW-R, CEC, CAHC is a Licensed Clinical Social Worker, Certified Life Coach, energy healer, meditation teacher, and spiritual counselor in private practice in Bayport, Long Island, New York, USA. She is the owner of the group practice POSITIVE ENERGY Holistic Counseling & Institute where she and her fabulous team of therapists use the breakthrough model Advanced Holistic Counseling & Coaching™ to create transformational change in their clients. Beth is the creator of the trademarked Advanced Holistic Counseling & Coaching™: Modern therapy that combines the very best of traditional psychotherapy with life coaching, energy healing, science, and spirituality. Now, Licensed Therapists, Healers, and Coaches can learn how to experience huge transformation in themselves, their clients, and their careers by becoming Certified in Advanced Holistic Counseling & Coaching™.  For free holistic and psychotherapy tools, visit the POSITIVE ENERGY Holistic Counseling & Institute YouTube channel, or contact us directly via phone at 631-533-0708 or email at info@positivecounselingli.com.