Inspiration – Page 5

It’s Time To Break Out Of That Shell

Spring is here. It is a time of rebirth, rejuvenation and transformation. The snow is almost gone and there are green tips in the garden waiting for the warmth of the sun. What can you do to break away from old patterns and start a fresh beginning this spring?

When we have the courage to step up and the desire to play a bigger game, the world can become a very different looking place. No need to hide behind the false images from yesterday that may feel comfortable. Break out and get uncomfortable while you feel the true potential that awaits you. Personal growth requires that we may feel un-easy. The fact is to move forward and transform your life is not easy. It takes intention, commitment and a level of personal discipline you may not have employed before.

So what can you do to crack that old shell and start creating the life you deserve?

Make a list of the things that are holding you back from your dreams.
Which ones are real? Many of our hurdles exist only in our own minds.
Identify the action steps necessary to realize your dreams.
Start implementing one step at a time. Have an accountable timetable to do so. This means a deadline. TIP: Best way to do this is to schedule dates into your phone or on a calendar. Your subconscious now knows that to be in integrity with yourself and others – you HAVE to meet that deadline.
Start to feel the energy in your body as if your dreams have happened. BELIEVE they are coming. Connect to that feeling daily. Feel the gratitude for everything that is coming your way.

The biggest problem we have when we start trying to create something in our lives is that we don’t feel we deserve it or we don’t believe it will happen. Well, dump those thoughts and replace them with positive affirming thoughts.

Your life will be a reflection of your thoughts. Now that you have stepped out of that shell, it’s time to be the Alpha Chick you were meant to be.

Live Faithfully,
Mal

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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.

Age Is Just An Excuse

If you are stuck and complaining that you can’t get anywhere in life because you are too old…guess what?

{It’s just an excuse.}

Sorry, I know you probably wanted me to coddle you somehow right? And explain that it’s a challenge that can be overcome by doing x,y,z?

But “AGE” is just a mask that FEAR likes to wear a lot. Especially to women because it can tell us we can’t accomplish something AND sneak in an extra whisper that we are losing our looks and that we aren’t attractive or relevant.

But the evidence for this declaration being real will NEVER appear IF, IF, IF…

we are meditating, going within to find self-worth and value and asking to be shown our true beauty and gifts.

Otherwise, operating in the EGO and the WORLD all we will see is younger models in jean commercials. Oh, and a highlights reel of all of the mistakes we made in our youth.

You might have heard the recent story of a woman named Marguerite Joseph who is 104 and a registered Facebook user. Due to a glitch in FB registering process, she has been listed as 99 years old for the past 2 years and reached out to Mark Zuckerberg for help with the glitch. Now Facebook is going to address the problem.

And get this…Marguerite is legally blind and can’t hear well so her granddaughter helps her with her FB page.

It all comes down to acceptance. We simply aren’t going to get younger.

AND… we’re living longer. If you feel you are too old at 27 or 41 or 63 imagine saying that to Marguerite.

I have a feeling she might start laughing with you. So work on finding out your true fear instead of using age as an excuse.

Afraid you are too old to learn social networking? Research a few classes or go look for a book. Ask someone for help, summon up the courage to ask a question and you’ll be amazed at how willing people are to help. Entire new journeys can start with simply having the courage to ask a question – and risk looking foolish. I’m not saying it’s easy.

The antidote to the fear of aging is to build up the spirit of curiosity, of joy and of fearlessness. This is what determines the wisdom and beauty of an individual, not the number of years they have been alive.

Live Faithfully,
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.

Love or Fear

All of life comes down to one thing. Choosing love or choosing fear.

So how do we learn how to deal with fear and choose love? Here are three ways to do this.

Recognize its voice

To know if you are in love or in fear, listen to how you are talking to yourself. The voice of fear is always rushed, fast paced. The thoughts come quickly, and the questions are never followed up with possible solutions, just more questions. For example,

You are working on starting a blog. Fear will start talking down to you as such,

You are never going to finish that piece. You do this every time. Why don’t you just give up, you are going to fail. You are going to amount to nothing. (Laughter)

Fear blows things way out of proportion and speaks in absolutes like always and never. You’ll notice your stomach start to tighten. Fear demands big, overnight success type progress. It’s all or nothing.

Love speaks more slowly. It will give you a glimpse of joy so pure it’s scary, like a flash of your book on the shelf at Barnes and Noble. Your stomach tenses but in an excited/nervous way. Love will try to charm you and say,

Look, you aren’t writing because you are scared and that’s okay. You always get scared but you always manage to do a little bit. Maybe you should go outside for a walk and come back to it.

Love doesn’t badger you, it offers suggestions and yet, it is firm and will not let you off the hook. Love points to other people who started small and had huge success.

Stop Blame and Criticism

One of fear’s favorite aliases is blame. It works like this. You’ve got a deadline to meet or a great new opportunity presents itself to you. You are scared you might not be able to pull it off. The fear will lurk silently until your significant other innocently comes home from the office and you read them the riot act about embellished offenses such as:

We never do anything together anymore
Your mother/brother/boss has an attitude towards me
You never help me

Fear wants to take away our biggest supporters and waste our time and creativity on arguing.

We have to praise our allies and commit to ourselves that we will not blame them. This can be extremely challenging at first, sort of like cutting off a drink from a drunk. Take this option off the table though, and you are back in your personal power.

Take action – any action

Linda Joy spoke yesterday on Positive Mental Shift about being invited to an author conference in New York City. It was celebrating one of her spiritual mentors, Louise Hay, and was a dream come true for her. However, her fear stepped right in to try to mess it up for her. It tried to tell her she couldn’t get there because she wasn’t a big city girl.

But Linda took a baby step and booked her Amtrak ticket. And guess what? She “suddenly” remembered a close friend who lived there who said Linda could stay with her. And, the friend drove her to the event! So, as Linda said, she took a baby step (buying the train ticket) and the universe lined up all of the other support.

This works even if you are not being invited to author parties in NYC {yet}. If you are very depressed, than your action step might be taking a shower or throwing on sweats and going out for a coffee.

It might be crying yourself to sleep tonight but deciding not to drink for 24 hours.

Sometimes, our only next step is to set an intention or to pray for help.

But we always have a next move.

Take it and step into Love!

Live Faithfully,
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.

Let’s All Live By The Golden Rule

Let’s all live by the golden rule!

“The wound is the place where the Light enters you”

Rumi

If we paid more attention to the people in our lives, how many suicides or over doses do you think we could prevent? Sadly after the event has occurred and the families start a forensic psychiatric investigation, they always find the clues. Cell phone records and computer files are usually very helpful in creating a timeline of a downward spiral. Instead of constantly checking our own emails and text messages, maybe we should monitor our children’s more closely.

In Massachusetts there was a landmark case when six teenagers cyber bullied a beautiful young girl, Phoebe Prince. Phoebe started dating the ex-boyfriend of a malicious young woman who organized a group of classmates to torment her for several months. The outcome was that Phoebe ended up hanging herself. The cyber bullies were tried in court and found guilty. So many lives ruined for nothing. I am hoping to connect with Phoebe’s mother this month for an interview to discuss what we can do in our schools to prevent tragedies like this.

Although October is Stop Cyber-Bullying Month, I am sharing these resources now so we can all make a conscience effort to make a difference. School is back in session and it is a perfect time to teach kids the rules of social media and online engagement. These are my suggestions and I hope you find them helpful, I have also gathered some resources which are listed below.

Don’t post anything on the web that is detrimental to ones character or their appearance.
Understand that you are legally responsible for all content you put on the Internet.
Monitor incoming and outgoing communications on all social networks that your children have a presence on. You may identify someone else being abusive to others.
Encourage your children to report anyone to you that is posting negative comments about others. It is your responsibility to do something about it.

If we all pay attention we can eliminate tremendous heart ache globally for kids that are being attacked by their peers. Too many children lost their lives this year due to the severe bullying and character assassinations that were written by thoughtless, unconscious and unmonitored kids.

This is not just for kids, cyber-bullying often happens with adults and in the workplace.

I truly believe that if we collectively shine a light in the wound that is bullying, we can make a significant difference!

I would love to hear your experiences, thoughts and questions, please share them with the Alpha Chick community on our Facebook page; or if they are of a more personal nature please email me at malduane [at] alphachick [dot] com.

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.

Never Let Obstacles Get In Your Way

“Stand up to your obstacles and do something about them.

You will find that they haven’t half the strength you think they have”

-Norman Vincent Peale

In life, you will need to overcome many obstacles to be successful. This is true no matter what goal or accomplishment you are pursuing. If you are reaching toward a large objective, rest assured there will be some problems and roadblocks along the way.

Remember when a challenge appears, there is usually a lesson to be learned from it. Look for the seed of wisdom in the situation even if it is uncomfortable. Don’t allow others to sway you from your purpose. When you seek approval from others, you live by their standards, not your own. Learn to trust your own judgment. With practice you will recognize that your gut feeling is the right one. When you feel the vibration within, you will know that you are walking the right path.

With focus, preparation, training and commitment anything can be accomplished.

Here are my 4 steps to reaching any goal

Focus on your target. Write down in full, brilliant detail the thing you’d like to achieve. Then imagine yourself achieving it. What will reaching your goal feel like?
Gather your thoughts. Use your journal to write down all of the steps it will take to achieve your goal, from beginning to end.
Train properly to reach your goal. Whether it’s a degree, a certificate, or performing more research to gain a better understanding of how to achieve it.
Commit to your goal. Do at least one thing (large or small) to help you get closer to reaching it every day.

Stick to this plan, and before you know it, you will have reached your target

I congratulate you on making the commitment to begin your personal transformation and embarking upon an amazing journey toward self-empowerment.

If you feel that you need some personal guidance along the way, please check out my Empowerment Coaching services and packages.

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.