The Confidence Doc

Managing Stress From the Inside Out

Stress seems to be ubiquitous these days, judging from how often I hear the word used.  I see people who look anxious and being “busy” is epidemic.  I no longer buy into the idea that being busy is a badge of honor or affirming to my self-worth.

In fact, it was not until I re-ordered my life and created more balance and time for myself and other things that are important to me, that I started to feel more self-acceptance.

For one thing, I was able to actually feel again, and get out of my head.  What a treat!  The issue though, is that first I had to free myself from the negative self-talk that was provoking the negative feelings that I was running away from in my busyness in the first place.

What most people do not realize,is that the negative self-talk going on in your head is contributing to your stress levels – and there is scientific evidence to prove this now. About ten years ago, I started meditating for many reasons, and one of them was specifically to slow down my busy mind.  I wanted to learn how to deal with and release the negative self-talk.  

Growing Confidence Increases Your Prosperity

Confidence is a quality that has a magnetic force to it.  We all admire confident people and if we are honest about it, it is much more desirable to feel good about yourself and confident than it is to feel insecure and self-deprecating. 

Your level of happiness and success is related to how you feel about “YOU”.  The trick is to build your confidence on a strong foundation by constructing it from the “inside out”. 

We have been conditioned to look outside of ourselves for affirmation and to believe that money or material things can elevate our self-worth.  The issue always of course is, what will you do when the external props are pulled out from under you? 

All that you have to do is look around you at the condition of our economic landscape.  The stock market has taken a serious dive, home values are still falling and the threat of loosing you job is looming – or so the media says.

The point is, if you are depending on the external world to determine your value, you are in trouble. 

Confidence Cures: Make Peace With Yourself

Confidence that is truly empowering is not something that comes from externals.  While you may have the will to push yourself into situations that are out of your comfort zone, the old “sink or swim” tactic, if you want to operate your life from a truly empowered place, starting from your core is the place to begin. 

What I mean by “core”, is to start from the premise of your Inner Spirit being, your True Self.  As a spiritual being having a human experience, you can live your life from an integrated fashion – spirit, mind and body. 

When I lived with a lot of inner turmoil, while I managed to go to work everyday and function, I was not living a life I loved.  It was a life of struggle, “life is tough”.  Since this was my focus, this was my experience. 

I had confidence to perform in my role of physician and surgeon, but I had much insecurity that my spirit self, from my heart, wanted to face.  I wanted to feel better about my self and live more adventurously.  I have an artist heart, yet I had long forsaken this part of myself. 

Empowerment: Running From Life Lessons Will Trip You Up!

Empowerment is necessary to take the reigns of control of your life on purpose.  If you feel that life is just happening to you and you are a victim of circumstances, one of the reasons is due to your refusal to look your fears in the face and deal with your life lessons. 

Life lessons are those areas that cause you to play small and require your faith, discipline, courage and action to change.  They challenge you.  You can think of your journey as a type of journey to empowerment. 

I have come to see more frequently all setbacks or disappointments as opportunities for growth.  I purposely rise high enough intentionally to see things from a transcendent view and I ask the questions about what can I learn here and I look for recurring themes in the story at hand. 

If I see patterns, I really pay close attention.  If I feel fear or resistance, I look even closer.  You see if you are serious about the Law of Attraction and intentionally co-creating your best life, you will have to stop running from your life lessons or you will keep falling down in your attempt to expand your life. 

You can consult all of the marketing know-how gurus and spend a ton of money on seminars that have you walking across hot coals.  In the real world of practicality, subconscious fears dealing with your lessons are much harder to face and overcome than breaking a piece of wood with a karate chop. 

If you don’t deal with your life lessons, you will not graduate to the next level of experience.  I am very practical.  I did the karate chop stuff, but until I faced my feelings about why I felt that something was wrong with me, a weekend seminar about busting through something was temporarily a fun distraction, but when Monday morning came, I still felt like Pavlov’s dog doing the same old thing again. 

Law of Attraction: Beyond Mental Movies and Poor Results

 Law of attraction is a term that is heard much more commonly now since the movie “The Secret” by Rhonda Bryne has been such a big hit. 

I remember when I first became aware of the term at least ten years ago, it seemed a bit “out there”, but I found it interesting enough to begin to investigate it back then.  The more I learned, the clearer it became that it was really not a new concept at all. 

You see I realized that I had been attracting what I focused on with belief all of my life.  The problem was, in those days, most of what I focused on was what I did not want!  Actually, most people make this mistake. 

For example, most people are focusing on fear, lack and the negative headlines about our economy and so it is no wonder that things continue to take a downward slide.  I read everyday about the rise in stress and emotional depression.  Is it any wonder? 

It is the Law of Attraction at work.  What you focus on with feeling will expand.  This is a major key as to why the “secret does not work” for most people.  Most people are trying to use the Law of Attraction to attract more money, success, happy relationships etc, however, what they do not realize is that the other name for the Law of Attraction is “The Law of Vibration”. 

Attraction is based on “like attracts like” and most people’s vibration is on the level of LACK, not abundance and it is totally unconscious.  This is the problem.  You can run positive mental movies all day long and FEEL fear, lack, unforgiveness/bitterness and anger and thus be producing a vibration or “vibe” that will cancel out your positive mental movie. 

Feelings have a much stronger electromagnetic vibratory attractive force than do thoughts. 

Emotional Awareness: A Key to Authentic Empowerment

Emotional awareness and empowerment are connected in that feelings are the fuel that drives thoughts.  What I mean is, while thought is important, the emotional perception attached to the thought makes all of the difference as far as the energy that you put out into the Universe as a “vibe”. 

This matters to your health in terms of the stress that people are feeling now due to the turmoil that is going on in our economy.  I am hearing more and more about “stress” and how people are worried about their security. 

I’ve read articles where even people who are employed and are not under imminent threat of losing anything are also experiencing increased depression and anxiety. The issue here is that most people believe that the external environment is causing them to feel fear or powerless. 

We are conditioned to believe that life is happening to us.  Actually, we are, by the power of our own perception, creating the anxiety and this anxiety can actually contribute to our experience of life.  True, there are issues going on in the economy, but that does not in and of itself cause your ulcer. 

It is your fear, your perception of perceived threat that is triggering your nervous system to react in the “fight, flight or freeze” response.  Everyone is not responding the same way.  I know I am not.  I live here in the United States as well. 

I am fortunate enough to have taken the time and made it my business to understand my own mind over the past decade.  I used to be an overwhelmed, stress-out professional, but I pursued the “secrets of the Universe”, and I have found them in essence. 

Stress: Your Focus Determines Your Vibration

Stress is a killer and it is at an all time high.  Stress causes feelings that are harmful to your body when they are chronically released.  These feelings are actually chemicals. 

Feelings cause electromagnetic energy to radiate from your body (this may sound sci-fi, but I assure you it is not) and this sets up a vibrational pattern.  Haven’t you ever gone into a room and noticed the “vibes”? 

You are feeling the thought and feelings of others radiating outward into the environment.  Just because you cannot see them means nothing.  You cannot see electricity either; you can see the effect of it through a light bulb though.  Your body is like the light bulb. 

Here’s the point – what you focus on and give your attention to will impact your feelings.  Feelings determine your vibration and your vibe will determine everything from your health, wealth and relationships.  If you get yourself into anxiety, worry and fear, from listening to too much negativity about the economy or world events, you can get depressed. 

In fact, I just read an article in the NY Times today on this very topic.  People who are not even suffering financially are worried about the possibility.( Click Here NY Times)  Well,if you worry about it, you are actually more likely to attract it as you will start to put out the negative vibes to make it a reality. 

If your mind is focused on believing negativity is coming your way, your subconscious has the power to direct your behavior in the direction to make it happen.  It’s like a missile seeking machine. Haven’t you ever heard the term “self-fulfilling prophecy”? 

Core Confidence: The "Obama Effect" and the Power of Belief

 Your confidence and self-esteem are really just what you believe about yourself.  They are not objective; they are totally subjective!  So why not learn how to believe what serves and expands you instead of hanging on to what destroys your joy and creates pain and suffering in your life? 

What your parents, boss, husband, wife or friend said about you is only their opinion – and usually a projection of their own insecurity at that!  It is time to wake up to your own power and master the ego sense of false “self”.  Your life will manifest what you expect and truly believe, really nothing more or less. 

The trick is getting to those unconscious beliefs.  These unconscious beliefs are wired into your body as cellular memory and this is what makes it so tricky to change.  It truly takes a Spirit, mind and body, a wholistic approach, to dismantle the conditioned beliefs of your genetic heritage (consciousness), family and social upbringing.

From my perspective, it is getting easier to do this with new tools and scientific understanding of how our thoughts and emotions work and wire into our physiology.  The collective unconscious influence of your race associations can also influence your sense of confidence and self-esteem.  It is like the breaking of the four-minute mile. 

When society thought that it was “impossible” no one was breaking the barrier.  However, Roger Bannister DECIDED to push the limits and built up his self-belief (and tapped into his spiritual power I believe) and busted right through it. Now, even high school students routinely break this “impossible” time. 

I came across a New York Times article on a research study referred to as “The Obama Effect”.  View Here  What has been found is that since President Obama’s acceptance speech and taking of the office of president, the gap was closed in test scores between African Americans/Blacks and Whites in the study. 

Emotions and Health: Ignore Your Feelings to Your Peril!

Emotions are very powerful and they impact your health whether you are aware of them or not.  Emotion technically, is not the same as feelings.  Emotion is the perception that colors your reaction to a particular thought. 

You either experience a “like it” emotion, or a “don’t like it” emotion.  Once the emotion is connected with the thought, the thought plus emotion is processed in your nervous system to create the feeling in your body.  These feelings are literally chemicals that affect your body at a cellular level. They form memory in your body’s tissues. 

I used to repress my feelings because I had conditioned myself unconsciously to fear feeling pain.  This is really a learned behavior.  While feeling negative may not be the most pleasant experience, repressing feelings is very unhealthy, psychologically as well as physically.

 Stress and repressed negative emotion is at the root of at least 85% of disease.  Look at the word disease – “Dis-Ease” or not at ease.  The lack of ease, the feeling of fear and struggle can gradually kill you.  It is at the root of cancer and chronic illness.  Illness does not just come out of nowhere.  It is a combination of nature and nurture. 

You may have a tendency toward certain diseases due to genetic composition but you DO NOT have to manifest the illness in your life.  How you think and feel is a major contributor to whether or not you will experience the disease as well as your nutritional intake.  While environment, including dietary and exercise habits matter, your emotional health is the main driving factor. 

Age is not naturally associated with disease.  Our Creator did not design us to last a few short years and then start to suffer and deteriorate from chronic sickness.  Unfortunately, ignorance is not bliss.