How to Deal with Energy Vampires

Ever find yourself drained of all your vital energy when a certain someone is around? An Energy Vampire is a particular type of toxic person, probably somewhat narcissistic, who may have no malicious intent but still sucks the life out of you when he or she is around, leaving you wondering how to deal with energy vampires?

Try to keep in mind that while they are self-absorbed and unconcerned about you, these energy vampires need energy the derive from others to live. Just like you cannot keep an ordinary bloodsucker from parasitically draining the blood from other living beings, there is no way you can rescue, save, cure, or heal an energy vampire. Nonetheless, unless you’re dealing with a sociopath or psychopathic predator, energy vampires are not evil.

Regardless, a person can only take so much, and someone has to take care of you. If no one else is going to look after you, the responsibility lies solely with you. If you intrinsically a very nice person, and you’ve developed a relationship with (albeit somewhat dysfunctional and toxic), you might have second thoughts about abandoning someone that you care about.

How to Deal with Energy Vampires

You can start protecting yourself by limiting your exposure to the energy vampire. Limit the time you spend in his or her presence, fill your life with other pursuits that build your energy rather than draining it, making you less available for exploitation or allowing the energy vampire to continue to suck the life out of you.

Avoid letting the energy vampire draw you into his or her drama. They will tell their tales of always being the victim, they will weave fantastic stories of woe, pain and suffering. And anytime you try to reach out to them, they spin anything you have to say back to their own drama, as you feel the energy drain.

When you are exposed to them, do what you can to remain unemotionally attached to their stories. Don’t let them see you react, as you remain stoic. Any reaction (positive or negative) will supply them with the energy they crave.

If being in the presence of the energy vampire is unavoidable, like at work, or a family affair, if it is a family member, then invite others to participate in the exposure who are not emotional parasites. This will help to stave off the effects of the vampiric influence.

Another effective tactic is to interrupt any negative assertion of the energy vampire with a hugely positive or funny interruption and laugh at your own punchlines. Be strong and do everything you can to keep the energy vibration high. Happiness is the anti-venom of the energy vampire and disarms them every time.

After a while, they will realize that you’ve become bulletproof.

If you’re still unable to mitigate the damages due to the drain of an energy vampire, then it may be time to sever your ties altogether.

Occasionally, in life, we have to make difficult and hard decisions to affect our self-preservation. You might have to cut off any further contact with the energy vampire and make better choices about what people you will surround yourself with.

Cutting off contact with your emotional vampire could be more problematic than you might think. It’s common to develop an empathetic or psychic connection and severing these cords can be uncomfortable and painful. Expect there to be some potential symptoms of Stockholm Syndrome, or Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD).

Sometimes you gotta cut the cords and do what you gotta do to live a better life.

Visualization

When it comes to changing your life, there is no greater tool to utilize when you’re contemplating a major shift in life than visualization.

Julie Valenti

In case you’re wondering what topic(s) I will write about each day, there really is no preconceived or premeditated program. Whatever comes up that day, either in my life, the life of a client, friend, or family member determines the subject I write about. Like today, I was studying childhood PTSD, reading Julie Valenti’s Knowing How, then followed up with a client who needed some coaching in visualization. So, there you have it.

Visualization is powerful because it helps to “rewire the brain,” as Valenti says. In my practice, visualization followed training in Christian ministry and prayer, Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP), and Hypnotherapy (in that order) and ended up as a progression of these techniques culminating in guided visualization or meditation with concepts of the Law of Attraction thrown in for flavor.

If you have seen Rhonda Byrne’s The Secret, you can get the idea about how to approach the idea of visualization and how it can change life all around you, based on where you focus your attention and practice the feeling of having whatever it is you desire, and it works.

The truth is, my mother told me that I could be whatever I wanted to be, even though very early in life I was non-verbal. I didn’t talk much as a young child, but I could mimic comedy recordings word-for-word and with some degree of enthusiasm. When company would come over, my mother would call me out of my room to put on a performance for the guests. Everyone would laugh, and then I would slink back to hide in my room following my delivery.

This was me exercising visualization by mimicry and pretending, and after a while, I learned communication skills and began to interact verbally with other people. A powerful skill that would come in handy throughout my entire life’s journey, and my mother was right, I could be or do anything. Likewise, you can be or do anything you want.

All it takes is a little visualization, practice, using something we all have been programmed to disregard in adulthood: Imagination. The more powerfully you exercise your imagination muscles and engage your actions, the more powerful your results.

It’s up to you to decide to do the work of using all your powers of imagination to visualize your life, the way you want it to be, bask in the feeling of it being your reality, and act as if it’s the real deal.

The doing of anything is a key component. What you do today determines who you will be.

In the beginning, once you start this effort, it feels ridiculous. You’re thinking this is fakery, and you start to second-guess your efforts with thoughts like, “Who would do such a thing?” followed by a flood of negative self-talk, like, “I’m not good enough,” talented enough, or the other dissuading themes reinforcing your lack of education, resources, finances, abilities, standing in the community, or an endless number of “reasons” justifying your unworthiness.

Norman Vincent Peale

To combat this onslaught of self-doubt and negativity, you kind’a have to go a little overboard in an attempt to rewire your brain. As a young man, books like Norman Vincent Peale’s Power of Positive Thinking and Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill were resources that helped to encourage my growth and expansion using my imagination to bridge the gap between here and there.

Napoleon Hill

So, you might have to look in the mirror and practice positive affirmations, study the lives of others who have overcome obstacles to achieve the results you are looking for, create vision boards, and remove yourself from any negative influences during your reprogramming phase. Whatever it takes, do that, don’t let anything prevent you for going for it, and when it doesn’t feel real, allow yourself to pretend and fake it until it becomes true for you.

Thanks to my seizing every opportunity to turn every challenge into an opportunity allowed me to have the most tremendous experiences one could ever imagine in this life. In most cases, when facing insurmountable odds, all I had to do was to use my imagination and pretend that I was fully competent to survive and thrive through the adversity, and the Creator of the universe would support me in kind.

Even when it doesn’t make any sense, and it seems impossible, if you go forward in faith, putting yourself in the proper mindset and acting as if you are fully capable and trust that everything you need will appear in just the right time, your brazenness is rewarded by everything falling into place perfectly.

“Perfectly,” is not always the way you imagined it. Sometimes God knows there is something better He has in store for you, so try to be flexible enough to allow the power of love to override your expectations in your best interest.

You got this.

February 2018 Image Directory

Wrapping up the month of February, here’s a quick screenshot review of the month’s news. Let me know which ones you like the most. Thanks for your input, -David M Masters

Unintentional Jerks Everything Happens at the Right Time Helping the Socially Inept
Need someone to blame?Need Someone to Blame? Let Go or Be Dragged i love you butI Love You, But
Suppressed Emotions Kill Touch Me Love Being a Hater
Twin Flames vs Soul Mates Why Do I Keep Attracting Jerks? Thin Line Between Love and Hate
Hanging Out with Drunks 7 Phases of Love What Is Accepting What Is?
The Love Talk You Know I Love You No Matter What You Do Getting Together in Love with Technology
Disingenuous Lovers I Just Got Dumped! Forced Retirement = New Life
You Are the Game Changer Awkward Desire to Help How to Get Over Betrayal by Family
Want to Have an Affair? Emotional Release Method Show Appreciation

 

 

 

 

Unintentional Jerks

Sometimes you run into people that rub you the wrong way, get under your skin, or you get upset when they’re around, or you just assume that they’re mean, when you could be quite mistaken. They could be unintentional jerks. Someone can come off as mean when the person in question has no intent of malice and idea that you (or others) are perceiving him or her as someone who is a jerk.

People only know what they know, and if you are able to take a look at what might be going on inside the jerk who is upsetting you, you might be able to reconsider your opinion of him or her, re-evaluate your judgment, cut him or her a little slack, and not take their words or actions so personally.

I know when I get intensely focused on a particular thought process or project, I can be less attentive to the real world going on around me. On more than one occasion, I have had an upset, potentially angry person interrupt my train of thought, expressing their dissatisfaction about trying to get my attention “X” number of times to no avail.

They were clearly on the verge of rage, but due to my attention being so focused on what I was working on, I wasn’t as aware as I might have been and missed the series of attention-getting activities escalating to break my trance, until it became an emotional outburst. And I look like an insensitive jerk.

I realize that I might feel the same way if the situation was reversed, and I was desperately trying to get someone’s attention, while they were distracted.

Like when unintentional jerks cut you off in traffic. You get all bent out of shape, but the driver who cut you off didn’t do so to make you mad or cause you to be the victim of any abusive road rage. The offending driver might have just had something else on his or her mind as they were changing lanes, and you might have been in the driver’s blind spot. (I know I have unintentionally frightened or made a few drivers angry in my lengthy driving career.)

Differences in personality or other character qualities might seem offensive because they are incompatible with your personality or style of communication. For instance, using cat personality types, if you were a Cool Cat and an enthusiastic Battle Cat was trying to explain something to you, you might be offended or angry at this jerk’s delivery method. You might feel slighted, insulted, disrespected, or condescended to, even though there is no malice intended, it’s just a difference in personality types.

Another issue might be that of jerks invading your “personal space.” You might feel safe with keeping a distance of arms-length-and-a-beer-bottle from a person you are communicating with, yet the person who’s trying to communicate with you is comfortable with about six inches. You feel like their being so close to you is offensive, and you would otherwise let no one encroach on your personal space, like that unless you were romantically intimate with them. So, you get upset, and you classify this person as obviously a jerk, even though it’s just a cultural difference.

Depending on your personality, someone else’s enthusiasm, or boisterousness might seem over-the-top or offensive (I’ve been accused of this periodically).

Even in conversation, someone might inadvertently become an unintentional jerk by striking a nerve by just making small talk. A simple question about your past might trigger a buried emotional wound and find you getting ready to post up for fight or flight when the person was just trying to be friendly. It is quite likely that he or she had no idea they were treading in sensitive territory, or else they would have never gone there.

Simple questions like,

What do you do for a living?
What kind of car do you drive?
What’s kind of food do you like to eat?
How old are you?

All these questions are normally innocuous, but you can see under the right (or wrong) conditions, these very same questions could seem offensive to some people with particular sensitivities. And you, if you asked them, would find yourself among the unintentional jerks.

You never meant to offend anyone or hurt their feelings, and all of this was nothing more than miscommunication or misinterpretation.

Consider, the next time you encounter an out-of-control jerk, ask yourself if he or she might be an unintentional jerk? And if you might be the one with a little less control than you could have if you were a little more compassionate and understanding?

 

Everything Happens at the Right Time

You never know when your life is going to be interrupted by the unexpected. To you, this seems like an incredible inconvenience, you can get upset, angry, and protest wildly even though you know everything happens at the right time.

But you protest “but I’m late,” like I did when I had a tire blow out on the freeway. It made me late for an appointment. Rather than wait for AAA to show up, I changed the tire myself to save time, as I saw the traffic backing up and slowing to a stop.

That tire problem which had me so upset kept me from being involved in a multiple vehicle accident which cost the lives of seven people. I could have been one of them.

Everything happens at the right time and in divine order, so you can give up any false hope you have in coincidence and accidents. Although, sometimes you’re not the main character in the coincident or accident.

Just like the wreck on the highway with seven fatalities; my flat tire scene was a minor supporting role, which had it been in a motion picture script, probably would have ended up on the cutting room floor. Many other people were major players in the wreck who played significant roles, were frightened, hurt, and responded heroically.

Each one of them playing their own parts which precision and accuracy, intuitively responding with no idea they were playing out roles in a dramatic scene, perfectly. And every single one of them, the star of his or her own story.

Hundreds of stories all happening simultaneously, all brought together at this one place in time, all experiencing the event in different ways; even me, changing my tire on the side of the road.

My view of the world changed that day. I had anchored my expectation to arriving to an appointment on time so much that I could not see the grace afforded me by having a flat tire. When my plans were interrupted, my response was not good, and never once did I consider I was playing a part in something bigger.

It wasn’t until the traffic started backing up when by awareness was quickened and I experienced the paradigm shift, and my whole being shifted from being upset to compassion, grace, and gratitude. As I learned more about the tragedy from which I was spared, my heart went out to all the people, their families, and loved ones who for whatever reason were not as blessed as I was to have car troubles at just the right time.

How many times have we had our mind set on something, having had made all the appropriate plans and preparations, and things didn’t work out exactly the way you had planned?

If you’re like me, many things that have not turned out the way you had expected in the past just flashed in your mind, some of then too intimate or tragic to put into words.

Yet, as it turns out, every one of the interruptions, delays, detours, sidetracks, derailments, and disastrous events, some of which were unexpected mind-blowing experiences, were all perfectly timed to make sure that you were in the right place at the right time at a later point in your life’s story.

Perfectly preparing you to act out your starring role with Academy Award winning precision and grace.

You don’t know what key role you’re going to be playing when you are delivering your award-winning-performance in your personal teleplay. Sometimes it’s a comedy, romance, drama, or suspense-thriller, still there you are, perfectly prepared for your starring role, or your supporting role in someone else’s story.

The next time something doesn’t turn out like you expected, consider everything happens at the right time and be willing to let goof your connection to the expectation that something else is more important than the bigger picture.

And be grateful for the opportunity to play out your role with precision and grace, even when you can hear the clapper board in the back ground, as God says, “Cut!” and you know you’re about to encounter a fortuitous plot twist.

Helping the Socially Inept

You’ve been supportive and non-threatening to the awkward socially impaired “ugly duckling” in the corner and after the passage of time, the social quack-hack reaches out to you and asks for help with their social awkwardness. What’s the best way to go about helping the socially inept?

Understand that it has taken a great amount of courage on his or her part to reach out to you, the last thing you should do is to overwhelm him or her with your enthusiastic outburst and overbearing excitement of being invited to change this duck into a “beautiful swan.” Too much enthusiasm may cause them to recoil and prevent them from reaching out to you again.

They realize they are socially inept and don’t need you to over-emphasize how awkward they are. Proceed with empath and compassion by trying to put yourself in his or her shoes. It’s taken a lot for him or her to feel like he or she could trust you with their uncomfortableness. Try not to chase them away.

Don’t overwhelm him or her by trying to suggest too many changes in rapid succession. This may cause him or her to recoil and send him or her back to his or her safe place. Go ahead at a slow pace, and do not make him or her feel like there’s so much to do that he or she will feel like a lost cause. Suggest only one or two things at a time, pause, and let him or her have time to adjust then ask if they might be interested in trying something else?

If he or she does not embrace your ideas or advice, don’t take it personally. Just try to be understanding of his or her plight and be supportive. It may just take a little more time for him or her to adjust to the idea of trying something new.

Let’s say, this person has a long history of fashion crisis and he or she has reached out to you for advice. In your enthusiastic desire to help you take this fashion-crime-scene to a trendy fashion outlet for a full-blown makeover. The idea of it sounds so incredible, but it might just be too much for him or her to acclimate to. Starting with shoes and a top might be a better starting point, then inviting him or her to do it again, someday, when he or she is ready.

This is the same approach you would use for any social awkwardness, such as mingling at a party. Don’t expect him or her to introduce himself or herself to a room full of strangers. Instead, encourage him or her to meet one or two new people and learn as much as he or she can about those two people in a few minutes. Let them go at their own pace, applauding them for their success, and inviting them to try again when they are ready.

Also, keep in mind, you should not be the only resource for the socially inept person. You can be massively helpful by referring him or her to resources which he or she can study in private, such as book, magazines, websites, youtube videos, etc…

Invite them to check out the resources you’ve provided, inviting them to check back with you, when they would like to discuss his or her findings.

Try not to hold expectations of how enthusiastically they should embrace your advice and give them the space they need to go at their own pace. Then you can humbly pat yourself on the back for helping to make the world a better place.

Need Someone to Blame?

When you’re doing your best to make your way through the maze of life, you do the best you can with what life throws at you. People, places, things, situations, and scenarios will throw you for a loop, and not meet your expectations. You can feel better when you are disappointed, betrayed, wronged or otherwise let down by blaming someone for the breach. If you want to feel better, you need someone to blame.

Need someone to blame?
Victims need someone to blame

You are the victim, and from the perspective of the victim you will always be on the alert, looking for someone or something to blame for your pending (or perceived) victimization. Forever the victim looking to blame someone or something for your disappointment or pain.

On the other hand, there are those who take full responsibility for how they feel. When they feel slighted, they look within, not without, for a solution for feeling better about themselves. They do not seek to blame anyone or anything outside of themselves.

No one can victimize these people because they realize that in most, if not all, cases no one does anything to another person to cause them harm. The seemingly “offending” person is only doing the best he or she can with what they have.

They realize had they been that person, having lived their life, faced with the same set of circumstances, would have done the same thing at that particular point in time, with little thought of the consequences, or how it might have affected someone else.

From this perspective, there is not intention of malice, for everyone is only doing the best they can with what they have. From this point of view, you can compassionately attempt to try to empathize and understand what it might be like to be this person and see that there is no offender, and no victim.

But we like to blame others when we feel bad, and we feel bad when we attach our expectations to a particular outcome. When things don’t turn out like we expect, or people do not act like we think they should, we feel bad and need someone to blame.

What if someone is blaming you when you didn’t do anything wrong?

When people blame you for something you didn’t do, this is not so much false accusation as it is an attempt to make them feel better and blaming someone for victimizing them makes them feel both bad, and better, because it absolves them for any responsibility on their part.

You can have compassion for this person for awhile and take the blame on their behalf because you are a genuine, loving person, who just wants this person to not feel as bad as they might feel if they weren’t able to have someone to blame for feeling bad.

While this may be an impressive display of heroism or martyrdom, subjecting yourself to this repeatedly is a pattern of self-abuse.

At some point in time, you may have to draw the line and separate yourself from the victim and let them find someone else to blame for all the things that make them feel bad.

You can’t change the victim or expect them to perceive or act in any other way because they are only doing the best they can with what they have. Bless them, love them, leave them, miss them, grieve the loss of them, and let them go.

Let Go or Be Dragged

Thank God for saving me from a far worse fate

Sometimes you get all wrapped up in someone or something; heart, body, mind, and soul. Then when things start to go awry and its clearly time to move on, you don’t want to go. You’re not ready for the change. Maybe things aren’t the best they could be but they’re good enough, and you’re attached, deeply connected, and have a sense of safety and security even amidst all the chaos.

So you hang on.

The whole universe hints and brings you opportunities to do something different in your best interest, but you resist. Then all the powers beyond what we experience in the third dimension rally to champion for you.

God and all of creation knows there is something better waiting for you, but you don’t want to go, for a million reasons, mostly embedded in fear. You made promises. You’re dependable and exemplify truth and integrity. You feel obligated like the whole world is watching you, and you hold yourself to impossible standards because you want to be an example of doing the right thing, etc…

You persist, and God turns up the heat and all His angels champion to save you from this so that you can be ushered into your highest and best in a world that you cannot see and still you refuse to leave the toxicity and chaos.

Your life, the life as you know it, takes control of you, like a powerful addiction, and you refuse to let go, as you cannot possibly imagine life being any other way. You find ways to rationalize this is your lot in life and you succumb to the drone of everyday life defending it with every fiber of your being.

Your Guardian Angel shakes his head, thinking, “How long will it take for you to realize that life is full of changes and growth?” You’ve been fighting against yourself and all the energy and love in the world is beckoning you to change direction enough to be able to get a glimpse of what’s been waiting for you all this time.

Let Go or Be Dragged

If you continue to fight, your Guardian Angel must (if you leave your angel no other choice), will drag you, kicking and screaming, away from that station in life which is not serving you, and maybe leading you down the wrong path, even though you can’t see it at the time.

You’ve fought for your right to this struggle and now it’s come to this, your life is going to have to change and you will be forced to grow against your wishes. This will be a lengthy and painful process, but you left God no other choice.

Grieve

Accepting what is, will be hard, and the grieving process will be difficult to say the least, probably one of the hardest passages you will have to endure, but you can make it. You are love. You are loved. No one will ask you endure more than you can bear.

Don’t Fight

If you haven’t learned by now, the most valuable lesson you can learn is not to fight. Do not resist the opportunities for growth and change. The less resistance, the easier it will be for you.

And when the smoke clears, you will be able to see that all this adversity allowed you to be in the right place and the right time to usher you to a better life, your best life, enabled you to make a greater contribution and make the world a better place.

And if you’re like me, you will fall to your knees and thank God,

“Thank you, God,
for ripping my heart out!”

Thank you for the misery, the heartache, the destruction, allowing me to be stripped of all my pride because if it weren’t for my being dragged to death (that’s what it felt like), I would never have been in a position to achieve my highest and best.

Now, I can see that where I was, had me headed for a far more destructive end. As painful as it was, I was saved from mediocrity, disaster, and from myself.

Gratitude

Thank you, Jesus, for letting me go through the fire, preparing, and purifying me for You had in store for me.

Let me not resist when You want to lead me to something better.

Love, love, and more love.

-Amen.

I Love You, But

“I love you, but I don’t like” this, or that. Insert whatever tweaks your sensibilities. There is always some thing(s) you are not going to like about your partner. In fact, there are likely 10 of them. !0 things about your partner that just aren’t going to set right with you.

On the other hand, there are 10 things about your partner which you find absolutely fabulous. (If you’ve been with your partner for some time, they may be difficult to recall at the moment, but if you think back you can remember them.)

Because the truth is, every person has 10 amazing attributes and 10 things that are going to piss you off. This is the nature of people, none of us are perfect. It’s easy to see the 10 things you find so incredible about your partner in the beginning.

It is unlikely that you will be able to see the stuff you’d rather not see until after the honeymoon (Coupling) phase (2). Dr. John Gottmann (10 Lessons to Transform Your Marriage) refers to your partner’s undesirable qualities as 10 Irreconcilable Differences.

10 Irreconcilable Differences

According to Gottman the areas you’re likely to have wildly opposing views are,

1. financial matters
2. sexual intimacy
3. child rearing
4. career vs. home
5. politics
6. friendships
7. household chores
8. extended family and in-laws
9. communication style
10. personal habits

When you start to notice these inconsistencies, you’re likely to assume you partner has been hiding them from you. Yet, if you think about it, you will realize this is not true, because people are generally transparent, and had you not been projecting your best ideals onto you partner at the time, you would have seen the clues, if not blatant red flags about these irreconcilable differences.

Back then, all you really cared about was celebrating the 10 qualities youo found so exhilarating about your partner. They were so exciting, and you were so enthusiastic, that those other things just didn’t matter at the time.

Now that you are seeing things more clearly (because you hadn’t taken notice of those 10 things that are now creeping you out), you’re starting to think it might be time to cut run, and you might begin to notice there are other potential partners out there who do not have these 10 things that are gonna rub you the wrong way. Only, guess what? (Brace yourself.)

While that new prospective mate may not have these 10 irreconcilable differences, the fact remains, he or she will bring along his or her own set of 10 things that are going to infuriate you, as well as 10 things you will adore.

What will you do?

It’s up to you to decide what you want to do about it. There’s really no right or wrong way to handle this moment. If it’s not the first time, you can reflect back on how your precious decision served you.

7 Phases of Love

In 90 percent of the time, when people have thought they could do better by ditching the present partner and switching to a new, more exciting partner, more often than not (as expressed to me in confidence) they regretted what they thought was a trade up.

What they realized was while the new partner was indeed exciting, complete with 10 new lovely qualities, he or she also came with 10 qualities which were often worse than the 10 irreconcilable differences that were traded out.

It’s impossible to see or imagine when you’re wrapped up in all the emotion of it, and you can only do what you can do, but when you realize you are where you are, take a minute and try to look at you and your relationship as if you were an uninterested (but compassionate) third-party.

What does it look like from this perspective?

What advice would you give to yourself?

See you at the Soulmate Wizardry event.

Suppressed Emotions Kill

When you bottle up your emotions, push them down, cover them up, and insist on just going on through life ignoring your feelings and living a life of emotional denial, you are committing murder. You are committing suicide because suppressed emotions kill you.

It’s a socially acceptable manner of suicide, not as blatant or open as hanging yourself, taking a bottle of pills, or as dramatic as throwing yourself off a bridge or blowing your brains out, but your suppressed emotions are killing you.

In his groundbreaking work, Bernie Siegel in Love, Medicine and Miracles: Lessons Learned about Self-Healing from a Surgeon’s Experience with Exceptional Patients, implicitly defines the number one cause of disease and premature death from medical maladies is pent-up emotions.

If caught early enough to reverse the effects of a lifetime of suppressed emotions, the patient who finds healthy ways to express himself or herself, live a better life, and find happiness, become the most exceptional patients, experiencing full reversal or remission of their condition and fatal prognosis.

Most people on Mother Nature’s death row have put themselves there by not wanting to rock the boat, express their feelings, or being proactive in looking after themselves. They accept their lot in life as being in service to others, selflessly, without any regard for looking after themselves.

If you don’t look after yourself, who will?

I pray you are ready to receive this. If you are not, there is no judgment here. After all, we’re all doing the best we can with what we have. If your heart and mind are open, consider this:

If you are living a life with health challenges, consider who you are putting first in your life. If you are not putting your own health, wellness, and happiness first, and not expressing all the emotions you keep hidden away, the things that make you sad, angry, hurt, disrespected, or unworthy, your illness(es) is of your own making.

\This includes all disease (which could be redefined as “dis-ease”). If you’re not happy, your body is not happy, and your immune system disregards your body just as much as you do. If you will not stand up and fight for you, neither will your body, and you will fall victim to disease and premature death. But you will die a hero.

Friends, family, and society will put you on a pedestal after you’ve died and tell stories about how you selflessly served others, even as your own body was suffering in decay. (Even though you may have silently wished for death to come knocking, just so you could get some peace.)

Or, you could become an exceptional patient. You could find the keys to the life you’ve always wanted and deserved, even though you may have denied yourself access to it in the past. You could uncover your unique, purpose, message, passion, and/or mission and start living a better life, your best life, and make the world a better place.

You can enjoy all the good things this life has been holding for you, just waiting for you to reach out for it, including all the love and happiness you’ve ever dreamed of.

But don’t believe me. Don’t believe Bernie Siegel, or anyone else. If you decide to change your life, while there is still time, and live the life that is your birthright, only you can do this thing. Only you can make the transformation from sickness to massively thriving by choosing to become an exceptional patient.

Every day, someone who stood at death’s door awakens and starts to live life with openness, honesty, self-love with ebullient vitality and energy, staving off any self-imposed death sentence, achieving their highest and best.

Let it be you.

You can live a better life, your best life, and make the world a better place.

Today, let it be you.