Zeenat Merchant-Syal is the founder of the amazing blog Positive Provocations, which is dedicated to healing, motivating and inspiring people to be their best. Zeenat by profession, is a first class Practicing Counseling Psychologist, Spiritual Counselor, Motivational Speaker, Naturopath, Holistic Healer and Writer.

Her blog was also listed in the top 50 personal development blogs for 2011 by Steve Aitchison. It is a place full of positivity and happiness, and radiates an abundance of peace, compassion and lots of love.

I’ve written a guest post at Zeenat’s blog entitled Meditating yourself to transformation, in which I explain the technique of mindfulness meditation, and how it can help you to deal with unhelpful thoughts and emotions, in order to develop a more calm and balanced approach to your life.

If you find the post helpful, please feel free to leave a comment at Zeenat’s site and/or share the post with your followers on Twitter, Facebook, Google+ or your favourite social network.

This is a guest post by Farouk Radwan, founder of http://www.2knowmyself.com.

We all know the famous story of Thomas Edison who kept trying and trying to invent the lamp even though everybody was against him until he succeeded.

The story of Thomas Edison is no different than the story of any other successful person. In the beginning he finds something that he believes in then he starts doing his best to make it true.

As soon as this happens, jealous people, negative people and others who put him down appear in the picture.

At this point If the person believed any of them, he is very likely to stop trying and give up his dream while if he kept going forward then certainly he will reach his goal and prove them all wrong.

I was telling a friend of mine about such facts then she replied saying “people criticize me and tell me I am wrong because they are different not because they are wrong”.

At this point I replied saying, if you believed that people are right then you are giving up on your dream while if you believed that people are wrong then certainly you will prove them wrong one day just like Thomas Edison did.

Limiting beliefs and success in life

If I was asked to point out the most common factor that prevents people from succeeding I would say that it’s the presence of false beliefs.

My friend confused a real fact that people are different, with another false idea which states that people are always right while usually most people who try to put you down are wrong.

When people put you down ask yourself the following questions:

1)      Are they very successful?

2)      Are they very wealthy?

3)      Are they really happy?

4)      Are they satisfied with their lives completely?

Usually you will find that all the answers are no.

Most people are not successful, unhappy and not satisfied with their lives. Does it make any sense to follow them or even to believe in them?

Believe in yourself in order to succeed

You will never be able to succeed before you believe in yourself.

And you will never be able to believe in yourself before you:

1)      Get rid of all the false beliefs you have about success

2)      Understand that most people who reject you are not Gods but they are normal human beings who might be jealous, uneducated or even scared to take the path you took.

Success in life can only happen when you truly believe that you will succeed one day.

Believe those who reject you and you will end up being like them, Go against them and you will prove them all wrong one day.

Just remember how Thomas Edison had the last laugh because he believed in himself.

If you have liked this post, then please leave a comment in the box below and/or share it with your followers on Twitter, Facebook, Google+ or your favourite social network.

I’ve known Keith Davis for a few years now and he has become a very good friend. Keith also happens to be an expert in the art of public speaking, and runs the popular Easy Public Speaking website. I’ve written a guest post at his blog on how
public speaking can help you with stuttering/stammering.

Even if you don’t stutter/stammer, I still recommend checking out the post. Public speaking is a brilliant way of increasing your self-confidence and your ability to speak in front of unfamiliar people.

If you find the post helpful, please feel free to leave a comment at Keith’s site and/or share the post with your followers on Twitter, Facebook, Google+ or your favourite social network.

I was inspired to write this post by my friend Ken Wert of the Meant to be Happy blog.

We are all on the journey to freedom

I believe we all want to be free. I believe there is an innate human need to be free.

This freedom comes in many forms. It can be financial freedom and the ceasing of worrying about money to pay the bills. It can be the freedom to do what you want, when you want.

Then there is an important freedom, which supersedes all the ‘other types of freedom’ namely the freedom from our own suffering, and the emotional pain, which we create for ourselves willingly or unwillingly.

Our pain continues like endless cycles, or at least they seem endless if we have not woken up yet, to the wisdom of what is going on inside us and inside others.

I’m talking about this type of freedom, and let me ask you, who would deny not wanting it?

We are all on the journey to reach this state. Some know it. Others don’t yet. But it is the unstoppable forces of nature, which will drive us to this position.

Then there is the conscious will to help ourselves get there. There are a number of ‘real’ ways to reach this position. Neither one is right. Neither one is wrong. They are all means to an end. But when used in healthy combinations, they can help to reach ‘that end’.

The hurts from previous times

Let me ask you something. How much hurt are you carrying from your childhood, perhaps from when you were in school? Let’s face it kids are kids. They say things to other kids; sometimes mean things. Perhaps you were bullied at school and you’re still hurting from this now in your adulthood.

Maybe your parents expected a lot of you and you felt you weren’t able to live up to their expectations. And having the need to always to a perfect has been carried over into your adult life.

Or maybe teachers just didn’t understand you properly, and when you wanted support for learning, they weren’t there the way you needed.

Hurting doesn’t always have to be from childhood though.

It can be happening now.

You might be arguing with loved ones at home. You may be angry about a colleague not giving you credit for the work you did. You might not have been invited to the party of a person who you thought was a ‘friend’.

A key ingredient

One key ingredient which is essential for freedom is forgiveness of others of the pain they caused us either knowingly or unknowingly.

The truth is the children from your childhood are just that – kids. They don’t always know what they’re doing, when they speak mean words or pick on other kids. Such kids need appropriate discipline, but they are still immature.

The pain you carry now from what they said and did to you years ago. How is it helping you move forward? It’s not is it? Then release the pain. Let it go right away into the distance so you no longer see it.

And as it disappears, forgive those young kids as you’re a mature adult now, and understand that kids do things they don’t understand, and they do so because they themselves are hurting somehow.

As for the adults who hurt you when you were a kid; the truth is unfortunately, parents don’t usually go to ‘parenting 101 clubs’ . Some parents are bringing children up with their own deep insecurities governing their lives. This then causes them to treat their kids in ways where there is the potential to cause emotional harm to them. However, the parents are pretty clueless about what they are doing.

Also, our parents did the best they could with the resources they had; even though what they did was in a warped way.

Now as an adult you can see this, right? Therefore you can forgive them and make your peace with them.

Perhaps you were experiencing a learning disability when you were kid. And your teacher wasn’t mature or sensitive enough. However, as an adult you know what it means and is like to be sensitive.

So with your adult mind and body you have the ability to go back into the past and give that teacher who needed more maturity and sensitivity, these very same resources. If you need to do this, then go ahead and do it.

As for what happened last week and last month, or even yesterday; and what that person said that made you so mad. Instead of being mad, you can show this person compassion and forgive them.

Remember, this isn’t about condoning such actions of others. It’s about forgiving them so you can create the space needed to heal yourself, and provide opportunity for those who hurt you to heal themselves too, should they wish to.

It’s as simple as this:

We hold onto our grudges against people, and we move away from freedom, because we continue to hold onto pain.

On the other hand, if we to forgive, we open up the doors to freedom from more suffering.

Why forgiveness really is that important

I once met a person who had been raped and she was able to forgive the person who hurt her. And rape in most people’s books, including mine, counts as one of the worst crimes one can inflict on another.

“How can someone forgive people like this?” you might be thinking.

I used to ask myself the same question. Until I realised, that in order for people to really move on towards their own freedom, even after having such hurt put upon them, forgiveness is a key ingredient.

If you have liked this post, then please leave a comment in the box below and/or share it with your followers on Twitter, Facebook, Google+ or your favourite social network.

With any emotional problems whether it’s lack of confidence, anxiety, frustration or helplessness we humans love to know why we are like the way we are.

Why do we want to know why?

We want to know why it started. We want to know what caused our problems. I was the same with shyness when I was younger. I always wanted to know why I was ‘shy’. Maybe I was just always quiet. Perhaps it was because adults used to call me “shy”, or ignored me when I wanted to speak, and because of this I became shy.

Just have a think from your life for a moment, about a challenge you are facing now. How much are you interested in why it all started? Keep this challenge in mind. You will need it later on this post…

Going back to ‘why’ has the potential to bring back painful stories and theorising about events and situations.

Don’t get me wrong, I do believe there is some merit in knowing ‘why’, as long as it is used to go back into the past and do some healing work. Time Line Therapy is an example of a set of techniques that can be used to do this.

However, it’s useful to keep in mind that if this doesn’t work, it might be worth looking into ‘how’.

And now it’s time for the how

What I’ve learnt over the years, and this probably has a lot of do with my NLP background, is that there is real opportunity to make improvements in your life, by making changes to how you are creating your experiences – change the experience and change how you feel!

Some ideas and questions to help you use the ‘how’ to make changes

Below are some tips to help you use the ‘how’ to get over your problems:

1. Using that challenge you thought about earlier, what exactly are you thinking about this problem? Get a picture of it in your mind. Is the picture about it in colour? If this is the case, then this is how you are representing the thought at the moment.

Now, change the thought. Play around with its features. If it’s in colour, change it to black and white and vice versa. If there is someone with a hurtful voice in the picture, turn his/her volume down.

Does that make difference? Perhaps pushing the thought way in the distance makes you feel better? If so, you have just changed how you think about this challenge!

2. In you are feeling inadequate in a particular situation; try on the opposite frame of mind for a moment. What would it be like if you felt totally adequate? What would you be doing differently in the situation? How would you be behaving?

What would you be seeing, hearing and feeling?

If doing this doesn’t feel quite right, just give yourself permission to change your attitude to this situation. You’re experimenting and trying something different.

3. If someone has been ‘making’ you frustrated or angry or hurt, then notice how this works. Someone says something and you respond the same way every time. Don’t you have a say in how you can respond? Or course you do. It’s your mind. It’s your body. You can choose to react in any way you like.

Let’s say a particular individual is always mouthing off and this gets on ‘your nerves’. Next time you speak to the person, make a conscious decision to react differently. The other person can say all they want. You can react by keeping a balanced state of mind. Hey, you can even respond by staying cool and telling yourself “how this poor person is having so many bad days lately”.

Remember, we humans love to know ‘why’. It’s interesting. It’s about content and stories. But if ‘why’ is getting you down and you find yourself staying down, don’t forget the ‘how’.

There is real opportunity for you to make changes with the ‘how’.

If you have liked this post, then please leave a comment in the box below and/or share it with your followers on Twitter, Facebook, Google+ or your favourite social network.

I had the pleasure to connect with the highly respected personal development coach Justin Mazza towards the end of last year. Since then I have become a big fan of his. His website is called Mazzastick and he assists people who need help with personal development, spiritual development,  business, working and jobs, relationships, health and nutrition, and metaphysics. He recently won the position of Best Personal Development Newcomer of 2011 in Steve Aitchison’s recent list of 50 Best Personal Development Blogs for 2011.

Justin has written a review of a recent EmpowerHour coaching session I had with him on his blog. I hope you find the review interesting.

If you like Justin’s review, please feel free to leave a comment at his site and/or share the review with your followers on Twitter, Facebook, Google+ or your favourite social network.

Dia Thabet is a renowned personal development coach, author and consultant; having been involved in the area of self-development since 1998.

He is the owner of the site 2achieveyourgoals.com, and his particular areas of expertise include setting and implementing goals to achieve what you want in life, having successful relationships, overcoming worry, anxiety and managing anger. Dia was recently listed in the Top 50 list of Personal Development Blogs for 2011 by life coach Steve Aitchison.

I’ve written a guest post for Dia’s blog entitled: The right states for social events. It is about using the technique of meta-stating to help you overcome the nervousness of going into social situations. If you find the guest post helpful, feel free to leave a comment and/or share the post on Facebook, Twitter, Google+ or your favourite social network.

With the current economic climate, jobs are difficult to get. As a person who stutters you may be finding it even harder to get a job.

One of the main challenges, which I know from personal experience, is the interview process. Actually answering questions during an interview is one thing, the worry and anxiety before you’ve even entered the interview room is another! You may also be living in a nation where you were rejected for a job because of your stuttering.

However, there a number of things you can do next time, as a part of your interview preparation process to help maximise your chances of landing the job you want. Below are some things you can do to help you.

Know your stuff

This is standard preparation for all interviews for everyone, not just if you stutter. Find out about the organisation. Pick out all the job requirements and make a note of examples where you can demonstrate you have the competencies required for the job. Simple as this seems, it’s a great way to start your preparation.

1. Use your creative imagination

Instead of imagining how badly the interview will go, imagine the way you would like it to go instead.

Imagine really vividly, what you would do, if the interview went just like you want it to. Imagine you being confident and assertive, looking at the interviewers in the eyes and answering their questions.

Imagine the interviewers responding to your answers with interest and curiosity.

Use a couple of different perspectives. Imagine your perfect interview as if you are seeing out of your own eyes, and allow yourself to feel confident and assertive as you imagine, so that you program your mind-body to remember what being in this ‘powerful interview’ state feels like.

Also imagine it so you can see yourself in the “movie”, again to reinforce how you want to perform during the interview.

Do this type of creative imagining for 10 minutes a day for 7 days before the interview.

2. Use other times when you were successful at things to help you

So at the moment you believe you’re not going to be able to do the interview well because you stutter?

Well ask yourself if you have ever completed something else successfully? There must be something you did well. It doesn’t matter even if it was years ago. Let’s say you organised a 90^th birthday party for your Nan 5 years ago. Remember, what that was like vividly.

Remember what it felt like and how you acted. Really get into the state you were in at that time, and when you feel this state strongly, apply it to your worry that you won’t be able to take an interview. Allow your concerns to transform into confidence as you now see yourself taking the interview from a position of success.

3. Reframe any negative beliefs you have about succeeding in an interview

If unhelpful beliefs about interviews continue to hold you back, it’s time to loosen up those beliefs and start to believe something else. You can do this by looking ‘outside the box’.

How long have you been trying at interviews and allowing just the thought of them to scare you to death? Have you decided this is the way you are going to live your life? Is this your final say on the matter, or can you decide to do something else?

Is going for an interview really worth worrying that much about? Surely there are worse things? What if you found out you might not be able to speak at all tomorrow, let along speak and stutter. Wouldn’t that be something worth worrying about?

If you just can’t do well in the interview, would you just be willing to consider for a moment that you can? What would you be doing differently?

Yes, talking during an interview is very important, but is this the only thing you do? Surely other factors come into play such as how clearly you are expressing yourself, the volume you are speaking at, what you’re wearing?

4. Rehearse your answers

If you stutter you can help yourself by writing out specific answers to typical questions asked and then practice rehearsing your answers. Get a friend to ask you the questions and you answer them out aloud.

There are many things such as the above, which you do to help you succeed in interviews. Once you have done all your preparation, forget about it. You have programmed your mind to do what needs to done. Go into the interview, allow your unconscious to take over, and give it your best.

Let 2012 be the year you demolish the fear that stuttering will hold you back from succeeding in interviews, and get the job you want.

Happy New Year.

I was inspired to write this post after a thread started by a friend on the Stuttering Arena Group on Facebook. The  thread is entitled ‘Do you think perception of attractive stutterers is different than less attractive stutterers?‘

I found this quite interesting as it involves discussions related to dating and mating, and it reminded me of some of my own experiences. I want to share some of my views on this…

Firstly it is true that people who in general have striking looks, will get more attention from people. People like things that look good and this includes other people!

Now this is obviously the same for people who stutter. If you’re a good looking guy who stutters, then you probably get a lot of attention from the ladies in terms of them glancing at you and being around you. It’s basic laws of attraction.

On the otherhand, you may be an average looking guy who stutters who is struggling to get a date. You may have all kinds of confidence issues holding you back from asking that cute girl you know on a date.

However, do not despair my friends!

There are many things you can do both internally in terms of your confidence and externally to your appearance to help yourself. Below are some things I’ve done in my own life to transform the way I see myself and to increase my attractiveness:

1. Change how you think about yourself and the beliefs you hold about your ability to be attractive to members of the opposite sex. Doing so will very soon change the way women view you. Your confident thoughts and beliefs will manifest in the way you behave around women.

2. Take up activities where you can speak so your ability to talk increases. Public speaking groups and debating groups are very good and safe ways to do this. Being able to to speak up will enable you to go up to a girl you want to talk with. It also makes you more interesting. A guy who has a life and does things is interesting.

3. Have you looked at yourself in the mirror recently? Do you know deep down you could do with a little makeover, but have been avoiding it? Well follow your instinct and make some changes. If that beard is getting too long, shave it off and let the girls see your face! If you are overweight, then start running to help lose some weight.

If you haven’t been shopping for the past few years, get some new threads. Have a look at some of the online men’s magazines, pick out some models wearing the season’s outfits and hit the shops! Try on some stuff. Ask the sales assistants in the shops to give you their views on what looks good.

4. If you’re walking around with a hunchback, and your head down all the time, straighten your back and hold your head up high. Use the mirror to help you with this. Now smile! Put those shoulders back. After this practice walking with this posture. Also, if you walk to fast, slow down a little. All this might seem strange at first. Keep doing it and pretty soon it will become the way you walk! You won’t have to think about it.

There are many more things you can do to increase your initial attract ability! What you do after this, is a topic for another post…

If one of your goals for 2012 is to get a girlfriend, use the points in this post as a guide to get you started.

The importance of language

We use language all the time.

Be it spoken or written, language could literally be considered one of those things that make the world go around. We talk with each other in order to get jobs done. We discuss where we’re going to take that holiday next year. We have a gossip about what other people we know have been up to.

Language and anxiety

If you’re anxious about something, chances are you are having thoughts about some future situation or a past memory that is making you feel uncomfortable in the present. Believe it or not, a big factor that plays in the anxiety you experience is language, particularly self-talk, and the things you say to yourself. For instance you may have an upcoming presentation at work and you begin to worry about it. “There’s just no way I can give that talk in front of all those customers”, you tell yourself.

A lot of people don’t realise the unhelpful things they say to themselves unless they bring these to conscious awareness and monitor what they say. However, once you do, you will uncover a lot of deep self-talk that goes on in your mind.

For example “I really screwed up last time I cooked for the in-laws, I know I’ll mess up again”, you may say. Or you may have been invited to the Christmas party and you tell yourself “I stuttered really badly at the party last year”, and then you avoid going altogether.

Saying such things doesn’t just stop here. It can powerfully impact how you feel in your body and determine if you’re going to end up having a bad day or week.

“You can never solve a problem on the level on which it was created”, is what the great Einstein said.

In this particular case I dare   (yes I do!) to beg to differ with the ‘Great One’ because the problem of using language unwisely can be solved at the level of language.

How?

Well language was a big part of what got you anxious in the first place. Another way of looking at it is a box. If what you say to yourself makes you feel stuck, it is usually because you have boxed yourself in. For instance “I hate going to the dentist” you say and continue living by this statement, avoiding your annual checkups. This sentence seems so concrete to your current situation, it’s all you see.

Talking about your anxiety with a therapist

“A problem shared is a problem halved”, is a well known English proverb. Most of us have probably experienced this statement to be true at some point in our lives.

But what does it exactly mean when you talk through your anxiety with a therapist? The same thing, but the therapist will ask you questions that will help expand your current perspectives on the way you are seeing your life and the world.

This is what therapists expert are in. Asking the right questions, at the right time to help you open your ‘box’, see what is there, keep what’s worth keeping and give away the rest which doesn’t serve you anymore.

The questions which a therapist can ask you will facilitate you in going to the root causes of the anxiety you are experiencing, uncover the underlying beliefs that may be holding the problem in place, and then at this point you will be in a position to use new language to replace the ‘old stuff’.

Another way of looking at it, is using different language to change unhelpful meanings you may have given about yourself, others and the world, and create new ones. A simple example is changing the statement “I can’t give that interview.” You may have this statement so locked in; you’re completely terrified at the prospect of being asked questions at an interview.

A therapist can help you explore alternatives such as asking you “If there was ever a time when you had an interview and felt good about it after you did it?” If you did, then the sentence you’ve been telling yourself doesn’t hold true anymore! You could then change the way you talk to yourself and say “I will go to the interview!” What a shift in perspective that might make!?

Sometimes talking through anxiety with a therapist who asks you the right questions can create subtle shifts in your attitudes. Other times they may be drastic and blow your anxiety right out the window. Either way you are working on empowering yourself, so that you are able to take charge of your life, and allow your own self-talk to serve you rather than you being a slave to what you tell yourself.

A therapist can facilitate in making these discoveries.