<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/html4/strict.dtd"> <html> <head> <title>Inspiration, Imagination, and Gratitude &ndash; Inner guide for Success</title> <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;charset=utf16"> <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="style.css"> </head> <body> <div id="content"> <h1>Inspiration, Imagination, and Gratitude &ndash; Inner guide for Success </h1> <p class="large"> A provocative interactive workshop to examine the dynamic laws of prosperity. Explore the impact of the spiritual and emotional connection to wealth and inner well-being. Learn powerful tools &amp; techniques for manifesting and creating abundance in all areas of your lives. Harness the power of creativity, imagination, and inspiration in this engaging seminar. </p> <p> To experience personal and professional success, and to function at peak performance, we must first take good care of ourselves. We must take care of ourselves by attending to and taking good care of our personal life. Our personal life supports our professional life. If our personal life is satisfying, then our professional life is more productive and fulfilling. </p> <p> Let&rsquo;s explore three tools we can use to strengthen the foundation supporting our well-being and success. They are: inspiration, imagination and gratitude. </p> <p> First: Inspiration<br> Are we taking time out each day for some inspiration? What are we feeding our minds with? Are we giving our minds a heavy load of negative junk food or are we giving it inspirational and uplifting food to dwell on? What we think, affects how we feel. How we feel, affects how we think. <i>&ldquo;As a man thinketh, so is he, and as a man chooseth, so is he and so his nature.&rdquo;</i> Ralph Waldo Emerson </p> <p> Give yourself permission for a few minutes a day, or once a week or once a month&hellip;on a regular basis, to participate in something that is personally inspiring and uplifting. Before saying &ldquo;yes&rdquo; to requests and activities to which you are invited, do self inquiry. Ask yourself if your heart is in it. We must learn to say &ldquo;no&rdquo; to what is not uplifting or valuable to us. During a T.V. show, Bill Cosby once said, <i>&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know the key to success, but the key to failure is trying to please everybody.&rdquo;</i> </p> <p> Honor yourself first. Carving a little time out just for you. It doesn&rsquo;t have to be a large block of time; just some time out you take regularly. If we only put others first, without any time for ourselves, we become angry, and resentful. Anything we touch will carry a subtle flavor of resentment in it. Taking time for ourselves is not a selfish activity; this time allows us to give more to others, to our dear ones. In fact, to nourish us so we have more to give is the purpose of this time. </p> <p> Find the activities that you love to do and make some time for it. Maybe it is oil painting, flying a kite, or planting some daffodils. Taking time for ourselves affirms that we are of value, of value to ourselves and to others. Only by recognizing and affirming our intrinsic value to ourselves can we be of value to another. We must first give to ourselves before we can truly give to anyone else. We must take charge of replenishing ourselves. The responsibility of our well-being is ours, not someone else&rsquo;s. If you don&rsquo;t take time-out for you, then you become a resentful, empty, &ldquo;doing&rdquo; machine! </p> <p> By giving yourself permission each day to participate in what inspires your mind and your heart, then slowly, you will begin to shift over a period of time to doing more of that which is in line with what you deeply value. One step at a time, First things First. Start by dedicating small chunks of time exploring what expands our Spirit and frees us. When we start to consciously choose, we experience joy and aliveness which carries over to the many things we still have to do: &ldquo;The Have to&rsquo;s&rdquo;! </p> <p> When we&rsquo;re not clear about whether or not to engage in a particular activity, even the activity of selecting a new friend, a good question to ask is: &ldquo;Will this experience be inspirational and uplifting for me?&rdquo; Then you will make a conscious choice that will support the infusion of positive energy into your work and your life. Surround yourself with supportive influences and encouraging friends. Negative habits and consistently negative people are energy drainers. If anything drags you down and depletes you, let it go. </p> <p> Our second tool for cultivating well-being and success is: our imagination. How are we using our imagination to create successful endeavors for ourselves? </p> <p> Notice all the thoughts that arise in the mind. Let me ask you a question, Do you talk to yourself? You may be saying &ldquo;Yes&rdquo; or you may be asking yourself, &ldquo;Do I talk to my self?&rdquo; &ldquo;No, I don&rsquo;t talk to myself.&rdquo; &ldquo;Do I talk to myself?&rdquo; Well, just that little dialogue with yourself is what I call having a conversation with yourself. So... the next question is: &ldquo;Do the thoughts you think support you, or do your thoughts put you down or debase you?&rdquo; </p> <p> Thoughts we have that put us down may be ongoing commentary like, &ldquo;I&rsquo;m too tall.&rdquo; &ldquo;I&rsquo;m too thin.&rdquo; &ldquo;My hair is too red.&rdquo; This negative self-talk sometimes has a life of its own inside our own heads. Negative chatter and negative self put-downs are energy burners and decrease our effectiveness. For example, let&rsquo;s say you have a big test coming up. Each day you say to yourself, &ldquo;I&rsquo;m a failure and I don&rsquo;t have a chance to pass this test.&rdquo; Repeat this enough and it becomes a self- fulfilling prophecy. You won&rsquo;t do well on the test! You actually begin to believe it!! The subconscious mind pays attention to the thoughts you think repeatedly. It is these thoughts that turn into beliefs. Our lives manifest our dominant thoughts. What influences we bring to our lives, positive or negative, are indications of what we are thinking, what we are focusing on. Just as what we plant grows, that which we focus our attention on multiplies. </p> <p> So think about it! Are your thoughts supporting you or are they trashing you? A loser is someone that keeps a mental picture of himself or herself as a failure. A winner is someone that has learned the power of imagining, in detail, a good outcome for himself and follows up that picture with the appropriate actions to support that positive outcome. William James, the father of American psychology, stressed the fact that the subconscious mind will bring to pass any picture held in the mind and backed by faith and belief. </p> <p> Now, what do we do with negative self-talk? The first step is to become aware of what we tell ourselves and believe about ourselves. Fear can cripple us when we don&rsquo;t acknowledge it. Having repeated thoughts of self-doubting and fear becomes a pathway to failure. Dwelling on anxieties and lack depletes us; steals our energy and creativity. Sometimes we have nebulous fears that cloud our thinking and cloud our vision. We ask ourselves what is the worst thing that can happen?... and can we live with it?.... If we can mentally accept and mentally prepare for that worst thing... then we can experience freedom from the fear and we can engage fully in the action required of us. We must get clear and specific as to what the fear is. Once we have isolated it, we gain power over it. When we conquer negative attitudes within ourselves, we conquer failure. Successful thinking is freed from worry by focusing on solutions to problems; problems are challenges and solvable. Albert Einstein once said, <i>&ldquo;Imagination is far more important than knowledge.&rdquo;</i> </p> <p> How many of you wake up and the first thought you start your day with is frantic worry about all the things that could go wrong? Guess what... If this is what you are doing, then you are programming yourself for a Failure Day! I would like to invite you to make a conscious choice, from the moment you open your eyes, to start your day with 10 minutes of inspirational music and using your imagination to create the kind of day that would bring out the best in you. Use your imagination to program the day for success. Focus your mind to help, instead of thinking only of worries. Don&rsquo;t use a negative picture that will sabotage your day. </p> <p> An example of this is...Let&rsquo;s say we have a job interview in two weeks and in our imagination we go over and over all the things that can go wrong. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m not the right person for this job.&rdquo; &ldquo;They won&rsquo;t pick me.&rdquo; &ldquo;I can&rsquo;t do this.&rdquo; &ldquo;I&rsquo;m under or over qualified.&rdquo; All of these thoughts are &ldquo;focusing on failure&rdquo;, programming for less than we can do, programming our minds to deserve less. On the other hand, let&rsquo;s say we use our imagination to create in detail how we would really like to see the interview go. &ldquo;I have prepared for this.&rdquo; &ldquo;My resume is in order and it&rsquo;s good.&rdquo; &ldquo;I&rsquo;m qualified for this.&rdquo; &ldquo;They&rsquo;ll like my suit.&rdquo; &ldquo;I&rsquo;ll be good at this job.&rdquo; These thoughts are &ldquo;focusing on success&rdquo;. This type of thinking is energizing and programs our minds to achieve our maximum. Our thoughts affect our performance. The inventor of the modern automobile and the assembly line, Henry Ford, said, <i>&ldquo;If you think you can or if you think can&rsquo;t-you&rsquo;re right!&rdquo;</i> </p> <p> What we focus on, we empower and create. If there is a dream that we would like to manifest (make the dream about ourselves, not about changing someone else), spend a few minutes each day seeing it come true in detail with our imagination. We can use our imagination to program for success by taking time out each day to work with our imagination. </p> <p> What would you really in your heart love to do? If you can imagine it, then it is attainable. Create the picture in the present moment with yourself in it. Believe in the possibility while holding the longing of the desire. The longing is what carries you from the present situation to your imagined outcome. Hold the longing without judgement; don&rsquo;t make it wrong or try to block it out. Kahlil Gibran wrote: <i>&ldquo;There is a space between man&rsquo;s imagination and man&rsquo;s attainment that may only be traversed by longing.&rdquo;</i> </p> <p> When we go for our dreams, burnout and dullness will drop from us. Following our interests will lead us to following our bliss... then we are on a home run with an enormous abundance of energy. <i>&ldquo;Shoot for the moon. Even if you miss you will land among the stars.&rdquo;</i> Les Brown </p> <p> Positive thinking and cultivating a positive frame of mind does not mean pretense. We can&rsquo;t become Pollyanna&rsquo;s and go around pretending we are happy all the time. For those days when we are tired and need an outlet for a negative or angry mood, it can be helpful to keep a black notebook to write in. When we feel oppressed and discouraged we can write. That&rsquo;s when we can give ourselves 10 minutes to be as negative as we wish in our black book. When we have acknowledged our feelings, we will feel freer to go on with our day in a positive mood. Periodically, buy a new black book, or put new paper in a black notebook! The previous writing makes excellent fire-starter under the kindling in the fireplace! </p> <p> When we become fearful and stressed out, find a mirror and make a terrible grimacing face. With this face on, start by whining out loud, dramatically, about all our concerns and burdens. If we do this really well, not only will we feel better, but we may even discover our sense of humor, in spite of ourselves!! By acknowledging our fears and concerns, we are freed up to focus more fully on a positive outcome. <i>&ldquo;It&rsquo;s a funny thing about life; if you refuse to accept anything but the best, you very often get it.&rdquo;</i> Somerset Maugham </p> <p> The third tool for cultivating well-being is gratitude. <br> Let&rsquo;s say we are looking at a half a glass of water in front of us. Which half are we focusing on? We can choose to focus on the empty half or we can choose to focus on the full half. What happens in our body when we focus on the empty half for a long period of time? This is the equivalent of putting our attention on lack and impoverishment. We can experience a shrinking, a contracted depletion inside ourselves which cripples our energy and action. </p> <p> If instead we focus on the fullness, the full half, of the glass of water, we start to experience abundance and expanded possibilities. Focusing on fullness rather than emptiness opens us to possibilities and opportunities. Even during the most painful of life&rsquo;s occurrences, we can, over time, look for how these circumstances can make us a stronger or better person. &ldquo;What is this situation teaching me?&rdquo; &ldquo;How is this experience making me a stronger and freer person?&rdquo; Asking the question, having the thought enables us patiently to extract the pearl from that experience. Gaining the pearl through self-inquiry leads, in that moment of awareness and honesty to a sense of inner peace. With inner peace naturally we feel a sweet gratitude. If we stay locked in anger and blame, the pearl is locked up and out of reach. We cannot gain the wisdom that the event holds. You become free and have learned from your experience, when you can hold and experience gratitude for it. </p> <p> Remember the power of what we focus our attention on. If we want to be successful that is where we put our focus. Before you go to bed at night, examine the day for the things you can feel gratitude for. Sometimes we don&rsquo;t feel like doing that because we didn&rsquo;t do everything we had planned or wanted to do, and we didn&rsquo;t do it perfectly; thus, we feel incomplete. Holding on to resentment, disappointment and sour pessimism blocks and chokes joy and gratitude. We must acknowledge ourselves for what we did well, be good to ourselves and be our own best friend. </p> <p> To help us extract wisdom from our experiences, it&rsquo;s a good idea to have a notebook to record and acknowledge daily the things we are grateful for and our successes. Our success may be inner success as well as outer success. Maybe we finally stopped feeling less worthy than our older brother, or changed that bad habit; or maybe we gained the grade we were striving for, or met that &lsquo;significant other&rsquo;. Outer success is often easier to identify, but is no more important than inner success. Inner success can be more challenging and over time, we may find we value it even more highly. Writing down the things we have to be grateful for allows us to take note of these occurrences in our lives; some we may have missed if we weren&rsquo;t paying attention! When we experience gratitude, feelings of abundance come with it. The more gratitude we hold, the more abundance comes our way. When we sincerely wish others success, we&nbsp;create our own. </p> <p> Cultivating gratitude and joy is a choice. When we focus on gratitude, it feeds our soul. When we are grateful for what we receive, we have received it fully and this increases our capacity to receive even more abundance in our lives. If gratitude is a quality we are in short supply of, then spend time with people who live it and you will in turn imbibe this quality. <i>&ldquo;Inside yourself or outside, you never have to change what you see, only the way you see it.&rdquo;</i> Thaddeus Gola </p> <p> Inspiration, imagination and gratitude are the heart of our growth as individuals and are pivotal instruments in our success in life. By nourishing ourselves at this hub of our existence, we support and honor our minds, our bodies, and our Spirits. Encouraging our personal growth by enlivening inspiration, imagination and gratitude in our daily lives stimulates and provides strength to all areas of our existence. Honoring our minds, honoring our bodies, honoring the Spirit of who we are&hellip;these are the cardinal rules for our success, standing on the pillars of our happiness: inspiration, imagination, and gratitude. </p> <p class="footnote"> This material is a basis for workshop/seminar program tailored to meet your specific needs and time constraints. This can be presented effectively in a few hours or as a retreat or, to cover additional topics, as a multiple day conference. </p> </div> </body> </html>