Blog – Page 11

Happy You Year!

That’s right. 2013 is all about YOU. Your success and your dreams coming true.

I am so grateful and excited to welcome a brand new year. A chance for new opportunities and desires to be fulfilled. We want to play big and bold and make changes. We want to feel alive and content and excited.

So how are we going to do it?

First we have to sweep 2012 out the door! She won’t go quietly if we don’t give her a fond farewell. Take out a notebook and write down the lessons learned and let them go. For example, you got yourself into debt but you recognized it, and have now learned want vs. need. Acknowledge that everyone makes mistakes, this is mine, I am grateful I learned this lesson and it will serve me as I move forward. Close the notebook.

Meditate daily. On your goodness. Get comfy, pull your blanket around you and close your eyes. Think about yourself. How awesome you are. Your gifts, the things you’ve overcome. How you will not allow anyone to mistreat you or minimize you, no matter what you have to do. Our first ever 2013 intention should be to love ourselves. And from that everything will bloom. Our relationships. Our businesses. Our health. Add on goals and desires to this only after you have made it a habit.

YOU + HIGH SELF-WORTH – NEGATIVE PEOPLE AND BELIEFS = POWER

Next step, vision board time. Get yourself a piece of poster board and some magazines to cut out images and words that represent your desires or just draw what you want with markers. Be sure to write down the thing that you think people would laugh at you for attempting. The thing you really want but tell yourself it’s impossible. Yeah, that one. Keep your vision board out where you can see it. When a goal is manifested, give it a sticker or a check mark to say thank you to the Universe.

Visualize. If you want to publish a book, picture what the cover will look like and how it feels in your hands. Want to win a Grammy? Pick out your outfit you’ll wear to the awards show. Replay the scene every day.

Work. Check out designers on 99designs.com and get going on your book cover. Commit to 20 minutes of writing a day. Take steps each day toward your goal.

Act as if. If your book were published, how would you feel? You would probably be more prone to smiling and positive thinking. So act that way now.

Invest In Yourself. Commit to buying one book or attending a coaching class. Everything comes from the way you see yourself and your self-worth and value.

Little things. These small changes remind us that we’re on our path.

Change your screensaver to something motivating and/or peaceful.

Choose a theme song that is your own private victory anthem. Play it when you feel defeated (there will be tears and setbacks this year) or to celebrate a small or big win. I love Alicia Keys Brand New Me. “I’ll never be perfect, but at least now I’m brave.” //www.youtube.com/watch?v=wOSv1TIa58M

Pick 3 days randomly in your calendar this year that you will get yourself a latte, buy flowers or a candle or get a massage. Put it in your phone and set the reminder.

Give someone a free pass. Choose an annoying habit of someone close to you, your husband, your mother, a co-worker and give them a free pass. Crazy, right? Give it a try as a part of your spiritual practice to be a calm, centered person. Building this muscle will both strengthen your spirit of patience, AND you’ll be prepaying for a free pass for yourself. I know, this one is a killer.

Help someone else. This year, we will no longer allow violence against women in any form. Go to //www.vday.org/home and participate in One Billion Rising on Feb. 14, 2013 or donate to watchherthrive.com. WE have to stand up for ourselves, not someone else. Add to your morning meditation a prayer for all violence against women to end and recovery for survivors. Contributing to something larger than yourself yields unmerited gifts and rewards. And if you can’t figure out your passion, think of what you have to give, and you might find your talent there.

Fare thee well 2012. I’m blowing you a kiss with my new lipstick. It’s a new year, full of new opportunities and promise.

So with a handful of glitter in the air, Welcome 2013! I have a good feeling about you…

Live Faithfully,
Mal

Mal Duane is a Best Selling Author and Personal Life and Recovery Coach who has overcome life challenges using the steps in the Alpha Chick Process. Her personal mission is to help women excel in all areas of their lives from business to personal relationships. Mal has been featured with Fox 25 Boston Morning Show, Aspire Magazine, Healthy Living and Metrowest Daily News. She has also been a featured guest on over thirty Blogtalk Radio shows discussing recovery and personal transformation.

Mal’s book, Alpha Chick, Five Steps for Moving from Pain to Power, is a best selling book and is available on Amazon.com.

Trying To Recover From Newtown, CT

It is Christmas, a time of year when lights are twinkling, music is playing and people are celebrating all over the world. This Christmas is going to be different for many whose lives have been touched by the tragedy in Connecticut. The twenty six families involved will probably never experience Christmas the same way they once did. All of us will be thinking about these children and their heroic teachers who sacrificed their lives to save their students. I am still tearing up daily from different news clips releasing more of the details.

You ask how does something like this happen? What possessed a young twenty year old man to want to massacre twenty small innocent children in a school. There are no clear answers. Obviously he was very troubled. Sadly, there have been other similar senseless killings this year involving troubled young men. How do we work together to eliminate future disasters? A partial solution is spreading more love and compassion to those we personally interact with. Instead of coming from a place of judgment, what if you offer acceptance and unconditional love. A cooperative spirit supports the growth of us and our loved ones.

Collectively as human beings we have the ability to raise the consciousness of mankind and the connection to core and social values. The internet has brought on a decline in our thinking and our values. We now have more exposure to violence and bad behavior. We are responsible for the exposure our children receive from the various sources they engage with.

This is a time of year for Peace on Earth so why not start to take steps today to monitor what your family is exposed to.

Stop buying violent video games that show children total lack of regard for human life. If no one buys them they will stop making them.
Put restrictions on the content they are allowed to watch on TV.
Monitor what websites they are going to and their Facebook posts.
If you sense you have a child that is struggling socially to fit in, pay attention.
Change starts with us and ripples out into the world, not the other way around.

My Christmas wish for you and your family is to live in peace, not in fear. I am praying that you all will be willing to become catalysts for creating a more loving and peaceful world. Remember you grow from your challenges. There is a seed of wisdom in every single one of them and they teach you lessons. Reflect on the past experiences of this year and what they can teach you to make the world a better place for your family.

Holiday Blessings,

Mal

Mal’s book, Alpha Chick, Five Steps for Moving from Pain to Power, is a best selling book and is available on Amazon.com.

Gratitude in Recovery

Giving thanks to those who reached out to help us – when we didn’t know we needed it

I hope you all enjoyed the Thanksgiving holiday. As I sat with family and counted all of the blessings in my life, I reflected on the fact that there were lots of people who tried (in vain) to get me to stop drinking before I decided to give it up for good.

I just didn’t listen. It wasn’t that they were wrong or that their motives were anything other than wanting to help me…I just didn’t know I needed help.

For me, it took going to the depths of despair, to the darkest possible pit emotionally before I realized that I had a problem and I needed help.

When we are in the throes of addiction we don’t notice the kindness of the person who moves that last drink out of our reach when we aren’t looking, or who listens to us cry about the guy who isn’t treating us nicely…for the MILLIONTH time.

If someone made a comment to us about our drinking, we got miffed and thought, they should worry about themselves!

When we sober up, we realize the value of other people, of friendship. It is a GIFT. We can see that it took real courage to confront us with the truth and that they cared. We realize that God may have been trying to get our attention through other people.

Unfortunately, if we don’t listen we will keep getting more and more “help”, but we might not like where it leads us! In the AA program of recovery, untreated alcoholism has three outcomes: jails, institutions or death.

Sometimes God puts these things into our lives because He can’t get our attention.

The good news is you can choose to get better TODAY. You can make a decision RIGHT NOW that you are not going to live like this anymore. It will be the beginning of healing the horrible emotional turmoil inside of you that the alcohol/drugs/relationships are just trying to soothe. It is the first step in turning pain and suffering into a powerful, transformed life full of joy and peace.

Just ask God to be willing to be open to the possibility that you may need to change. Nothing fancy, just say, God, do you think I need to stop drinking? What should I do? And He will answer you. He may already be helping you by bringing you to this blog.

Most likely your circumstances will change. We don’t need all of things we think we do. Most of our problems can be reversed and or eliminated when we have self-honor. You might have trouble with boundaries, with people abusing you and feel a bottomless sense of loneliness or abandonment. You might think there is something wrong with you. But there is absolutely nothing wrong with you. You are divine greatness.

This is our focus – to learn self-honor. To look within for everything we are looking for outside of ourselves. Alpha Chicks don’t need meaningless relationships, fancy material items or dependency on substances. We don’t need to run ourselves ragged trying to please parents, friends or siblings who don’t reflect back to us our value and with whom interaction leaves us feeling fearful, tired or angry.

In recovery, we can ask God to weed out the people and relationships that are not honoring us and to replace them with people who love and support us.

And if you are feeling absolutely gutted and can’t even imagine a better day or even entertain the possibility that your life will EVER get any better, I promise you, you CAN turn your life around.

Live faithfully,
Mal

Please download my FREE workbook at www.alphachick.com and get started on your recovery today.

Mal’s book, Alpha Chick, Five Steps for Moving from Pain to Power, is a best selling book and is available on Amazon.com.

Recovery and Relationships: The Guy is just the Frosting on the Cake!

The Guy is just the Frosting on the Cake!!!

I had an insight once that I shared with my husband. I told him that women have it backwards. Our lives (our interests, our goals, our businesses and our spirituality) – that is the cake.

The guy is just the frosting!

For many years I didn’t know this and therefore, I experienced a few relationships where I was hurt badly. When a relationship ended, I would obsess over why I wasn’t good enough and beat myself up, over and over.

I was constantly looking for someone to fill up the emptiness inside me and to love me. If I had been honored and celebrated and approved of as young girl I would not have done this. I would have known that I was amazing and wonderful. Instead I was full of fear, doubt and insecurity.

And so when I first began drinking it was a relief. It takes a lot of effort to be out in the world constantly worrying if people like you, if you made any mistakes, what someone thinks about you. Alcohol solved a lot of those problems temporarily. I could take on a different persona. I could blend in, be more outgoing or more confident.

But those fears never got addressed. The alcohol just buried them deeper.

Those insidious feelings of unworthiness, or loneliness lead us to look for a man to solve our issues. If I have him, we think, these feelings/responsibilities/my past will all disappear.

Even worse, the guys we are attracted to are especially inept or downright incapable of validating us. Without change, we attract what we have already experienced. Just as our parents may have treated us poorly or didn’t communicate to us our innate value and beauty, the guys we like will have the same deficiencies.

Of course we have to take some responsibility. We may present ourselves as people pleasers and excuse them for cancelling plans at the last minute. We don’t mind! It’s okay! We present ourselves as carefree drinkers when we really want sobriety and to be at home.

It’s like lying on your resume and saying you have great Excel skills. You get the job at and then are surprised when they give you spreadsheets to do. How dare they!

Men aren’t the enemy either. Many of them are looking for love just like we are.

Getting God involved is a great idea. Ask Him to bring you the person He thinks would be best. Looking at the truth and no longer allowing someone to mistreat you is the only way to regain self-respect.

When we look at a picture of a cake, all we can see is the pretty frosting on the outside. When we cut into it, we can see the structure and beauty of all of the layers.

What is inside is up to you to decide. And it can be whatever you want it to be.

Live faithfully,
Mal

If you are struggling with a relationship and need support sorting it out please download my FREE action guide for Personal Transformation at www.alphachick.com

Mal’s book, Alpha Chick, Five Steps for Moving from Pain to Power, is a best selling book and is available on Amazon.com.

FOUND: Crown Jewel

Portia de Rossi writes in her memoir on food addiction, Unbearable Lightness: A Story of Loss and Gain, “True nobility isn’t about you being better than someone else; it is about being better than you used to be.”

Being in recovery means exactly this. Taking a tiny step each day toward healing, focusing on yourself. And part of that means developing gratitude. Why is this so essential? What does it do for us?

Many of us grew up without someone telling us we were appreciated or loved. We didn’t witness gratitude or appreciation in our homes. Even more confusing was that sometimes we were neglected or abused and then told, “You should be grateful I had you!” Or when sitting at a dinner table we would be teased about our weight and if we cried we were told to be grateful for our food. This actually sends us a message that we should be grateful for abuse! Grateful for insults, hitting and an atmosphere of fear.

A pattern is established where we internalize that we are worth nothing and that therefore, anything we do, or accomplish or acquire is second rate. We look to outside things (food, men, status) to undo the damage but those things cannot give us what we are looking for. Or, conversely, we get a big head and become self-important, thinking we are better than others. That our worth is contingent upon our weight or the guy we date. The media then boxes us in with airbrushed, unrealistic images. And we suffer.

For some, this could mean locking themselves in a bathroom with a box full of chocolates. For Portia de Rossi, it meant an absolutely torturous diet and exercise regimen, wasting away to 82 pounds, finally collapsing on the set of a movie where she was playing her first leading role.

When we first practice being grateful for small things such as nature, a hot cup of tea or a recovery blog that understands us, we are opening a door to being grateful for ourselves, just the way we are. And the judgments and abuse we were using as a measuring stick start to fall outside of our new boundaries. We chase peace of mind, not big accomplishments or quick fixes. We no longer have to earn love or approval. This is scary; it feels like we are being lazy or settling. But it is the opposite. We are coming into who we truly are, who we always wanted to be. Opportunities will seem to appear out of nowhere if we stay on the path.

We can begin to ADD in things we are grateful for and TAKE OUT those things that make us feel negative, downtrodden and not good enough. We can ADD in a smoothie to our day or a vitamin or a yoga pose and TAKE OUT speaking unkindly to ourselves and self-sabotage. We can help someone else.

One useful tool is to just touch 2 fingers to the side of your head and say, “Nope, I reject that thought.” Many of us did not learn to reassure ourselves, where we could accept weight loss or gain with an easy come easy go attitude.

You don’t need to be fixed. You are absolutely perfect just the way you are. And you have everything you need to succeed inside of you right now. God loves us all unconditionally. Ask Him to help you. He knows what you should be, what you should weigh and how you should look.

Things are changing in the world. Women are changing the definition of power. We want to be wise, benevolent queens. Women are graduating from college in record numbers. We start small businesses. We are taking top jobs like Marissa Mayer at Yahoo. And we are turning to blogs to find women we admire, not airbrushed images. We have goals besides being the best. Our compassion will be honored and not seen as weakness.

The Dalai Lama said that the world will be saved by the Western Woman. And every one of us, with our pain and our struggles and our unique talents, is needed for this to happen. You are perfect as you are. Noble and indispensable.

Live Faithfully,
Mal

PS. If you like the message then sign up for my newsletter.

Live Faithfully,
Mal Duane

Mal’s book, Alpha Chick, Five Steps for Moving from Pain to Power, is a best selling book and is available on Amazon.com.