Yes you! Put down that book you are about to buy. Drop those self books out of your
Amazon shopping cart. And listen up.

I bet you already have more than enough self help on your bookshelf to last you a lifetime. Yet there you are still looking to buy more. Why is that?

I’ll tell you why… It’s because as a culture we are conditioned to buy solutions to our problems. Unfortunately, however, the solutions to some problems can’t be bought. The only way for you to get where you want to be in life is to put the principles you find in those books into practice.

And that means stop buying new self help books and focus yourself on implementing the ones you already have. You don’t need to do more reading, what you need is to do more practicing.

So how should you proceed? Well there are many good practice guides available, both online and in your bookstore. OK, so maybe you can buy one more self-help book, but this time, make sure the book has a concrete action plan that you can implement in your life.

Or, you can join my mailing list (it’s over there on the right –>) , and in a few months you’ll be able to participate in my program, “52 Weeks to Success, Love and Happiness.” Just so you know, the program will be free, at least for a while. So you can relax. Your wallet is safe here.

Unlike most online stuff where people just pitch you with some hyped up crap to buy some some crappy half baked e-book and then the forget about you, this program makes a commitment to engage you, work with you, and support your efforts for a full year. It guides you and measures your progress as you put those self help theories, tips, mantras and bromides to actual use in your actual life, where you will get actual results.

This is a life changing program because it enables you to change the way you live your life.

The program will be run in groups where you can discuss the material, but more importantly you can also discuss the challenges you encounter in applying the program in your life in a confidential, supporting environment. It’s an ongoing, rich, dynamic, interactive processs of building the skills you need in to apply any self help lessons in your life.

So put down that self help book, and get started practicing the skills you need to change your life. Start a personal enrichment program today and start making actual changes in your life.

“Life is unfair.” I’ve yet to find a single person who will debate this. We struggle all our lives to be happy and in the end we die. It’s supremely unfair! The person who said “Life’s a bitch and then you die!” sure hit that particular nail square on the head. Most people seem to follow the same haphazard path of unhappiness in life.

For almost everyone, life is just one endless series of grim problems. You work hard to achieve something, and the world conspires against you, casting your plans and dreams and hard work into a violent of despair and doubt. When that crisis gets resolved, another more serious one arises that makes all the rest look trifling in comparison! It’s just one thing after another.

Are you nodding your head?

You aren’t the only one. We live in the present but we worry about the future. All through our lives, we worry about financial security for our retirement, a permanent home over our heads, food for the future and money to support our children. It’s an endless race to reach something that may or may not even be there for us! Think about it. Is there any guarantee that you will live to retirement? We take it for granted that slaving right now will allow us to enjoy our money in the future. But what is the guarantee that you will live to enjoy it? We just don’t have any other way to live our lives. Right?

Stop nodding your head now.

I once met a person who was really happy all the time. She wasn’t rich… quite the opposite in fact. She lived in a rented house and her family of five scraped by on her husband’s income which was paltry. But SHE WAS HAPPY! How could this be possible? I spent an entire week wondering about this before I could gather up enough courage to ask her about it. And the answer stupefied me!

She said, “I have a husband who loves me, children who are really great and help out in any way possible, a home and a happy family! What more could I want?”

What more could she want??!?!

Was she blind? Did she not have eyes? Just look around you and you will see no shortage of what more can you want. How could she not want what everyone could plainly see that she didn’t have? What was the difference between her and me? The answer, when it finally arrived, was jarring to my senses and to my sensibilities… What she had was a simple joy in the present and what she had right then.

I realized that this is what we all want and strive for. Happiness and joy. But in our stressed out lifestyle, we think we are working for happiness and joy in the hypothetical future we are creating. We want to be happy but we assume that slaving miserably today for financial security, educationally and emotionally secure children and a permanent home will create happiness for us in the future. But that is not true and deep down you and I already know it. If you can’t find that joy and happiness today then you won’t find it tomorrow either.

It’s not easy to aim for the present and to enjoy it completely… I know that… I find it difficult too. Find joy in your spouse, your children and what you have at present. Take the time to slow down, and care for yourself. Take a day off from work; the world will not fall apart if you don’t go to the office for a day. Walk in the world and observe and enjoy. You already have what you need to make you happy. You just haven’t noticed it yet.

PS. If you have trouble finding the joy that she has, the joy that is your birthright to have every single day of your life, you should consider trying a life enrichment program.

Don't get mad!

Are there times when you have actually felt like ripping a person’s throat out?

You can almost feel the blood leaking out her throat and that contemplation itself can be infinitely calming to you and your indignant psyche!

Forget the thought that it’s a crime, and you could be arrested and you could lose everything that you have ever worked for…but the sheer visualization of that vengeance on that particularly infuriating person can be infinitely soothing to the mind!

Did you notice something here?

We all get angry and we all think about getting revenge on that bleepity bleeping bleep… but very few of us actually act on the impulses that arise from anger. Of course, you might go home and bang around a few doors and attack a few pots, and shout at the family but rest assured that most of us do not spend our days actively planning revenge and vengeance on those people who annoy us on a daily basis! So what makes you and me different from the average psychopath and what holds us back?

Let’s find out why you get angry-

It’s easy to see that you will bump against a lot of people who will aggravate you day in and day out. And when you cannot deal with the frustrations and irritations of day to day life, you resort to anger which is nothing but your body’s defense reaction causing it to push away that irritating person or situation. You tend to lash out against anyone and everyone who will aggravate you. But this is not the only reaction that you will notice. For some reason, angry people tend to get in to fights more commonly. You would think that people would realize that you are upset and leave you alone but the exact opposite happens with you getting into more fights and verbal or even physical arguments with spouses and strangers alike.

Can you control it?

Yes you can and you should. Anger can be destructive and it can be wonderfully cleansing at the same time. Accept the fact that you can control neither the person in front driving you insane, nor can you change the situation that you are in at present. But you can step aside and let your mind take a closer look at what is causing you so much pain. Try to separate out the physical reactions of soaring blood pressure, and flushed skin and a roaring heart beat from emotional feelings of powerful guilt, feelings of failure and disappointment, rage, murder and suicide. It’s not easy, we know that but what you will eventually notice is that anger is not wrong; and neither is an angry person bad at heart. It’s just that most people let their emotions overwhelm their thoughts to a degree that you cannot differentiate thought from emotion. Judgment gets impaired and you spend the rest of your life inconsolable and vowing revenge for something that you do not even remember.

Is this situation worth wasting so much of your precious life for? Think about it and just let it go. You will get multiples joys along your life; this angry situation is just not worth it!

Holiday Stress Buster

The holiday season is nearly upon us, ultimately the holidays are supposed to be a joyous time to spend with family and friends. What the means to most of us is expectation. Expectations that are places on us by ourselves and others. Expectations about our time, our money and to some degree our sanity.

The holidays tends to lend themselves to us stretching ourselves too thin, between a multitude of events and people. Stretching our dollars and time as far as they will go also, most times further than they can go. With mounting bills that we know will arrive in the new year and lack of sleep it’s no wonder that depression rats and the sickness rates rise over the holidays.

Ideally in this season we take extra time for ourselves, bubble baths, massage appointments, making sure that we eat healthy and get in enough exercise but that is setting the bar even higher. Even though yoga is a natural stress buster, the last thing we need to do is add another commitment, something to feel guilty about not being able to fit into our schedules.

Try this easy stress Buster. Next time the stress levels sky rocket – just breath & be present in the moment:

1.) Stop what you are doing

2.) Take a nice big breath in- feeling the breath travel all the way down to our toes

3.) Clear all thoughts from our minds

4.) Exhale

After this grounding breath you should feel more present and a little more relaxes to carry on with all the festivities.

This article by Gaylene Thoeny, a 500hr Registered Yoga Teacher, yogi and mom. Go to http://www.groundingfitness.ca for more information. Gaylene specializes in yoga and lifestyle management. Creating a grounded life on and off the mat.

By Gaylene Thoeny

Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Gaylene_Thoeny
http://EzineArticles.com/?Holiday-Stress-Buster&id=3367360

Oscar says Merry Christmas

I’m working on the program tonight, and wanted to take a moment to wish everyone the best possible holiday season. Let’s all enjoy the holidays and hit 2010 with a fresh new attitude.

A holiday picture of Oscar the wonder dummy seemed to be in order.

OK, some details are starting to come together. The 52 week program will be a “practice” program, not a study program.

The material is relatively simple in concept. You can read all of it in under a week. You can study it easily. Yet while reading and studying the material can be helpful, it usually does not produce dramatic life changing results by itself.

To fully realize the benefits the material has to offer, you have to dedicate yourself to the practice of self improvement. And that’s what this program is: A 52 week practice.

Each week there will be an exercise, and every day of that week you focus on and work on that exercise. So for 1 full year, you will be working on some simple exercise or another every single day.

And that is how you achieve dramatic results in your life.

Stay tuned. More details to follow.
John-Paul Miller

Someone asked me if they could gain enlightenment without having to go away to meditation camp.

Well, I don’t really know the answer to that, but what I do know is that I’m specifically building the 52 week program so that you can do it in addition to your regular life.

For starters, how many people are actually able to step out for a year and disappear to Nepal?

But even more important, if you go off and develop your skills in isolation, it might be a little like an extensive study in batting using a pitching machine. In other words, you develop a dead on perfect swing against a pitch you’ll seldom see in the real world.

My goal is for the program to add to your existing life, not replace it. It should be something that helps you achieve your goals, adjust your goals and expectations, get your values and your reality to align, and give you the tools to do better at everything in life. All while living the life you are trying to improve.

We’ll learn it in the environment where we’ll actually use it.

John-Paul Miller

Second up… connect the blog to twitter.  So I installed a twitter post integration thingy for wordpress, and now my updates should be showing up on twitter.

You can now follow my progress on twitter: twitter.com/52WeekProgram

Note however, that twitter will be getting all sorts of stuff I find interesting, my own work as well as interesting things I come across.  If you are specifically interested in the 52 week program, then you should definitely subscribe for the email updates.

John-Paul Miller

First things first, I guess… I have to set up some kind of mailing list manager.  Thanks to nigeria and viagra, the world is a more hostile place to be sending emails.  The fastest way to have your hosting account yanked is to have just one person complain about just one mail that was sent.

So now we have “double opt-in mailing list managers” that accept the request, then send and manage a confirmation request.

I added one (a wordpress plugin), and put the sign up form on the right… so sign up for the updates and follow my progress as the program develops.

John-Paul Miller

So you may be asking yourself what the program is about.  It’s actually very simple in concept.  It brings together a psychological model, a work of application in introspection, a work of application through interactions with other people, and a work on leadership.

These four works complement each other perfectly and combine to provide the tools for finding peace, success, love and happiness.

Stay tuned and follow along as more details will be coming.

John-Paul Miller