I spent many years of my life re-living my past–remembering all the people that caused me hurt and embarressment and regreting my weakness in putting up with it. I wasted so much time and energy re-living the events and telling people off on the stage of my mind…standing up for myself in my dreams. Oh, how I wished I could go back…

I always hated re-living past events and even though I made a conscious effort to put my past behind me and move beyond it, I was never able to. It was always waiting in the wings to overwhelm me when least expected, triggered by some unsuspecting person or event. I would have to re-live my past hurt all over again.

I really wished I could go back into the past and change it. You know…a "do-over". If I could just go back and do it differently, go back and fix it. Knowing what I know now, I could go back and re-do it the way I should have then.

But what I know now, is just as good as going back. What I know now is that I can let go of my past hurts, not by burying them but by releasing them. I end the cycle of re-living my past by releasing my past. God has given us the ability to forget our past. The scriptures call it "putting off."

It doesn’t mean that I forget what happened because my brain has recorded everything. I don’t forget the events or people but I do release the negative emotional energy connected to them. I no longer feel them, even though my brain still carries their photo. The photo now can begin to fade because it no longer feels important enough to keep in focus. I now feel comfortable to remove this photo from "My Life’s Active Photo Album" and put it in the shredder.

You see, if we could go back and change our past, our lives today would probably be different. We can’t go back and un-do what was done. But we change it’s influence on today by letting it go.

What I choose to think and do today is all up to me. By choosing to put off my past, I have altered my present because I am letting go of my need to re-live it. I have the freedom to choose a new course, a new beginning…a "start-over" rather than a "do-over."

The dawning of a brand new day in my life…

Warmest regards,
Cathi

I was having a chat with my daughter this morning and we were talking about the different ways to express ideas. We talked about how some words give you a negative feeling even though they are not negative words. Simple, everyday words have specific energy attached to them and when you hear them, you feel their energy.

For instance, think about the feeling of these two similar phrases…"Someday we will take a wonderful vacation on a beautiful island in the Caribbean…someday."

Now, this phrase…"Let’s plan on a wonderful vacation on a beautiful island in the Caribbean…let’s plan on it."

Do you feel the difference between "someday…" and "let’s plan on it…?"

The word "someday" has a feeling of "Yes, I would really like to take that vacation but it is not in my control to do it…I hope it will be in the future…I want to go and someday, way out in the future, I hope that I do."

It doesn’t feel like I have the choice or that I can make the decision.

The next phrase has a very different energy–"Let’s plan on that vacation."

The words, "let’s plan on it" feels like you are in control. If you are going to plan on it, then you must have the ability to go. Even if you are not able to fork out the money next week or next month, "let’s plan on it" does make you feel that with some preparation and planning it is within your ability to get there. It is in your control because you are going to make a plan to go. Do you feel the difference?

That is the energy of words. Simple words like, "someday" or "let’s plan on it" added to a thought carry with them a feeling. This is why we pay attention to the words and phrases we are saying to ourselves because the energy of words is communicating to our mind and body. We feel the energy of our words, or the words of someone else.

We have an in-born design to recognize the energy of words and determine what is hurtful or helpful to us. If hurtful, we can release and put off the hurt, and replace it with words and thoughts that make us feel whole and strong…confident and happy.

Pay attention to the feeling of your words and thoughts. If they are not good enough to be embraced, then erase them and replace them with words you can embrace.

Warmest regards,
Cathi

We left off yesterday asking if there was a better way to express ourselves without getting angry. We know that suppressing anger is detrimental to our health, but is there a better way to release it than ranting, raving and fighting?

The first thing to understand about anger is that it is a byproduct of a deeper emotional issue. It is a response to something we see, hear or experience. Anger is provoked by an event or memory whether past or present. Whether your hearing words of criticism from a loved one or co-worker or witnessing  the injustice of one group of people upon another. You hear, see or experience something that provokes the emotion of anger.

Now, when a couple gets angry and starts fighting, tempers flare, emotions are running high and this all adds fuel to the fire. The anger is ignited and they say things they many times regret. Words that are spoken can’t be retracted. Each one has to fire back more words in retaliation. Before long, things are out of control all because negative emotional buttons get pushed.

But if there would be a way to release the negative emotional button so there is nothing to get pushed, there would be no reason to rant, rave and fight to release anger.

If we could separate and release the negative emotional triggers so that we eliminate the "buttons", there would be no buttons for anyone to push. I would not need to lose my temper and vent on someone else to release my anger. I would simply need an open, honest discussion without a need for revenge.

Sound unrealistic? Have you ever tried to not get angry at someone for what they said to you? "I’m not going to get angry, I won’t get angry, I am going to stay calm." Yeah, sure…I tried this for years and  was never successful even though I worked hard trying to control my anger. I was one of those who suppressed it but would carry on the fight in my mind, over and over again.

With our God-given ability to "put off" one thought and "put on" another in it’s place, we can lay aside the issue that results in anger instead of trying to put a lid on it. Using the Embrace or Erace process enables us to release these emotional buttons.

Warmest regards,
Cathi

I read an article the other day from Scientific American on a subject that is near and dear to my heart—anger.

The title was "Pouting kills. Angry, fighting couples live longer."  Ahh, finally a good excuse to get angry! The article’s point was that after following 192 couples for 17 years they found that couples who supressed their anger when verbally attacked unfarily were twice as likely to die earlier than couples who let their anger out by fighting and then making up.

So here they are identifying an important fact, that emotions have an effect on the physical body. This is true with both good and bad emotions. In this study regarding suppressed anger, it is a very negative effect namely, it shortens your life span.

There is a terrific scripture in Proverbs 17:22 that states this very thing. "A merry heart doeth good like a medicine but a broken spirit drieth the bones." A happy emotional state is life-giving and emotional hurt is life-damaging. So then why does anger seem to serve some good purpose in all of this?

The answer is in the criteria of the two types of couples. Those couples who supress their anger as opposed to those couples who express their anger and thus release it.

Their theory is that when one spouse verbally attacks the other, unfairly, and the one attacked doesn’t speak up for themselves and supresses their hurt and anger, they grow to resent the other. And if you have experienced suppressed anger, you know it is true. You hold it all in and you can feel the knot in your stomach everytime you think about it even though the event took place years ago.

This suppressed anger leads to resentment and a host of other issues…all destructive.
The lead author of this article, Ernest Harburg calls it, "Stewing in your own juices." That is a good description. I cooked on simmer for many years.

This is in opposite to the other type of couple. One verbally attacks the other, and that other attacks back rather than hold it in. They have a good fight about it, saying everything they want to say to each other, yelling, ranting and raving till they get it all out, and then they make up and move on.

Now, we would probably all agree that holding in anger, resentment, hurt and criticism is damaging to the human body and soul. But is the opposite the best way? Couldn’t there be a better way than fighting and making up, to promote long life amoung couples?

Isn’t there a better way to lay our emotional cards on the table? Do we really have to fight before we can make up? Is there a way to express ourselves without getting all our buttons pushed?

Yes, there is a better way and that process is Embrace or Erase^TM

More tomorrow…

Okay, let’s continue…yesterday I said that God had given me the ability to make another choice, I just didn’t realize it. 

By me not making the choice to think something different about who I was, that choice became a choice by default. Not making the choice when I really could, was a mistake.

The way to correct that mistake is to learn that God has given me free-will choice to believe whatever I will about myself. I can have negative self-limiting beliefs or believe that my life has importance, value and worth.

The most important thing to know is that it is all my choice. All I need to do is make the right choice.

All the best,
Cathi

Choice is an important part of life. The only reason I can come up with as to why God gave us free will choice is that He wanted to. He must have thought it would be the best way to go.

Now, we know there are alot of people in the world who make very bad choices but there’s also alot of people who make very good ones. We wish those making the good ones, could just take over the process for all those making the bad ones. The world would probably be a much nicer place. Even better, that a loving God would make all happy choices for everyone, but the Creator did not set it up that way.

So there are some making good choices and others making bad choices but there are also some who make no choices. They let other people choose for them. Now, if I am buying a car, this is a good thing, especially when I don’t know much about the process. But when it comes to choosing what I am going to believe about myself and the world around me, making my own free will choice about who I am, is very important.

For most of my adult life, I didn’t make my own choice as to who I was. I allowed circumstances and the opinions of others, define who I was, not that I meant to. Even though I hated my defination I didn’t make a decision to think differently mainly because I didn’t know I could.

I call this choice by default. This means I allow something or someone to tell me I don’t have what it takes to live the life I desire. Deep down I never made my own choice. God gave me the ability to make another choice, I just didn’t realize it.

More tomorrow….

I am always amazed at our ability to remember things. We are equipped with the ability to remember mind boggling amounts of information. The details of experiences that happened 50 years ago, good and bad. The scriptures tell us that God asks us to remember some things and forget other things. It is the forgetting part that seems hard to do, even when it’s something we really want to forget, like our mistakes.  

In life, it’s those mistakes that seem to stick out the most in our memory. We remember them very well and may even rehearse them in our minds for years. And even when we try so hard to forget them, we don’t. They still seem to influence our decisions and the beliefs we carry about ourselves, many decades later.

Instead of learning from a mistake and making a correction, we seem to repeat it over and over and that failure becomes some sort of defination about us. Instead of defining ourselves by our mistakes, God intended that we would learn from them so we would not repeat them. It is within our God-given ability to excercise this process. We can remember and we can also forget. We can apply this natural process so that we expand our life rather than limit it.

Warmest regards,
Cathi

When we think about what it means to reclaim our lives, we have to understand we didn’t lose it all at once. We didn’t just wake up one morning having lost all control. We have to understand that it happened little by little a small chunk at a time.

I really didn’t realize that I was the one giving away a piece here and a piece there. I made comprimises based on a self-limiting core belief. It was so subtle that I never really saw myself handing over that piece of self-esteem, a small piece of confidence here, a piece of self-worth there.

"Reclaiming Your Life" has to start with recognizing and identifying your own give away program.

I do that by asking myself a question everytime I give some away, "Why do I feel like I need to give this away even though I hate the way it feels. Why can’t I just say no!"

Discovering the core belief is where you start.

Warmest regards,
Cathi Clarke

In life, we go along believing that we are who we are, based on how we live and respond to what life presents to us-good or bad. I avoided new social situations because they felt threatening to me emotionally. I would rather be home alone or if I did socialize, it would be with family or people that I had close relationships with. It was familiar emotional ground that felt "safe".

When we begin the process of becoming aware of our learned responses to life and their corresponding thoughts and beliefs, we start to identify our programming-our learned behavior.