Self-Empowerment Tips & Tools
an e-zine for the
body, mind & spirit,
ISSN1073-6158
Volume 1
Issue 2
Welcome to Self-Empowerment Tips & Tools, my free self-empowerment e-zine for women and men. This is the first step in launching Project-Self Empowerment, LLC, a company set up to give back for all of my blessings. In 2006, I’ll publish my book, How Do I Love Me? Let Me Count the Ways to distribute for free through colleges, churches, women’s and men’s shelters, prisons, eating disorders clinics, etc. The book will also be sold in stores. All profits go into giving away more books. Anyone interested in participating in this project as a sponsor or another way can contact me directly (daylle@daylle.com).
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This e-zine has suggestions to help you to live a healthier, happier and more productive life. All the aspects I discuss are ways to show yourself love. The more loving you are to you, the more loving you feel. The more loving you feel toward yourself, the more you want to make YOU happy. I sincerely want you to be happy and will provide tools to help achieve it. I have guest writers too. This time I’m thrilled to have Rita Milios, MSW and Julie Havey. I write the rest.
Please send any questions you’d like me to consider answering in a future issue. If you felt more empowered in a specific situation, please send details for consideration in my Success Stories section. This e-zine is for each and every one of you. It’s free. All suggestions are welcome.
Daylle
Deanna Schwartz
Project
Self-Empowerment, LLC
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In this issue:
1.
Happiness Empowerment: You Are
What You Think – Rita Milios, MSW
2.
Confidence Booster: Developing a Confident
Stance
3.
Taking Control of Your Body: Why 71% of dieters
fail, and what YOU can do to avoid it! - Julie Havey
4.
Good Health Empowerment: Onions or a Pill –
for Allergy Relief
5.
Communication Empowerment: Open & Close
Nicely
6. Healthy Relationship Empowerment: Connecting with Intimacy
7. “I Love Me” Tip
8. Spiritual Growth Booster: The Power of Personal Intentions
9. Ask Daylle: Question from a reader
10. Self-Empowerment Success Story
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1. HAPPINESS EMPOWERMENT
By Rita Milios, MSW
Most of us don't spend much time thinking about the way we think. But thinking is a habit, and the way we talk to ourselves in our minds is a habit. Bad habits, such as negative self-messages and put-downs, get bad results: low self-esteem, depression, and lack of motivation. Good habits, such as talking to yourself in a positive way, focusing on positive thoughts, and being positive with other people, get good results: success, happiness, and peace of mind.
Think Before You Speak: Start monitoring your inner dialogue. Write down each negative message that you notice over two or three days. Then, begin to consciously change those negative messages. Whenever you feel yourself starting to think a negative thought, STOP. Don't finish it. Change the thought a positive one before it leaves you.
Don't Worry: Like positive thinking, worrying is a habit, too - a bad habit. Here are some tips to help you reduce your worry time:
• Set aside one half-hour each day to do all your worrying. During this half-hour, worry to your heart's content, playing out all the possibilities to their ultimate catastrophe. But at any other time during the day, you must not indulge in worrying.
• Gradually reduce your worry-time. Start with a half-hour a day. After a week, cut it down to twenty minutes, then ten minutes. Then eliminate your worry-time altogether.
• Create an imaginary "safe place" to contain your worries. Label three containers: Doubts, Fears and Worries. Whenever you have a doubt, a fear, or a worry, lift the lid on the appropriate jar and toss the feeling inside.
Rita Milios is a transformational psychotherapist, author and speaker.
Visit her at http://www.ritamilios.com.
There will be a confidence booster in each issue. Confidence is a big key to getting what you desire. Nobody is born with good self-confidence. We all have insecurities. Some people grew up in an environment that boosted their self-esteem and nurtured confidence. More didn’t. Use my confidence boosters to develop yours more fully.
I have a secret. While those who know me assume that I’m always self-assured, I get insecure plenty of times too. We all do. But nowadays I can use my tools to get on a better track fast. I used to have no confidence and it was obvious to everyone. Now I’m in a much better place – 90% in a better direction. I am confident most of the time. But not always! And it’s okay. My façade always gives off a positive image because I’m conscious about how I carry myself. I make it through tough times by looking good, and it translates into feeling good.
Have you ever seen someone who’s not standing up straight and assume that this person doesn’t feel good about him or herself? We all make snap judgments about people we don’t know, especially those we consider working with. Your first impression can instill an initial image in someone’s mind. So stand up tall, lift your head, and make the impression you give a good one! Good posture makes you look confident, even if you’re nervous.
Begin to develop your posture today by becoming conscious of how you carry yourself. Make an effort to pull your shoulders back and lift your head high to look more self-assured. Straightening up your body is also healthy for you. It promotes an overall sense of well-being and relaxation. Good posture has saved my back when I do my long power walks. I used to be sore after trekking 10 miles. No more! Since I practiced walking with good posture, my back feels great and I look more confident. Two for the price of one effort!
You’re judged by how you carry yourself, so make a positive impression by standing straight, arching your shoulders, and keeping your head up. That helps people to buy your image of confidence so they take you more seriously. It sets a positive tone for their immediate perception of you. Carrying yourself this way rubs off on how you see yourself. The better my posture gets, the better I actually feel about me. Good posture instills confidence and makes you feel more powerful. Remember Descarte, who I quoted in the last issue – “I think therefore I am.” When you look the way a confident person does, it can become natural. Take advantage of this simple conscious act that packs a big result!
Daylle does personal growth counseling, in person or by phone. Call her at 212 688-3504 or email daylle@daylle.com for more details.
Taking care of your body is a gift of love to you. Being healthy makes you feel better. In every issue I’ll include advice in this section to help you keep your body healthy. When you focus on being healthy, you give yourself love! Julie Havey writes a terrific column for http://www.ediets.com. She kindly shared some advice for my readers.
Why 71% Of Dieters Fail, And What YOU Can Do To Avoid It!
By Julie Havey
In a recent survey, an amazing 38% of the respondents said that despite their resolve to adhere to their diets, they are breaking their diet EVERY DAY to give into and eat their vice foods. Another 31% claim to cave into their vices on a weekly basis! That is 71% of dieters who have an issue with their vices.
What exactly is a vice, you may be wondering? Good question! Let me shed some light on this dark side of dieting. A vice is ANYTHING that consistently hinders one’s weight loss and is consumed frequently enough and in such quantity that it as a major contributor to the excess weight. Therefore, a vice can be things such as chocolate, ice-cream, pizza, soft drinks, chips, or even a lack of portion control, exercise or belief in one’s own ability! Vices are as individual as the person on any given diet. I think this is where the problem with traditional dieting lies. Diets hook us in by telling us you can eat the foods you love and still lose weight.
Come on America – wake up and smell the coffee! YOU CAN’T EAT WHATEVER YOU WANT TO AND STILL LOSE WEIGHT. I don’t care how many late night ads you may have read that claim otherwise. I don’t care how many pills, powders and potions have promised you that they will block, absorb or cast evil spells on the fat you consume. They just can’t!
There is good news though, in fact, there is GREAT news! You CAN eat and eat a lot of food and still lose weight. The catch is what kinds of foods you choose to eat and in what portion. In addition to a healthful diet, you must also BUST the VICES that have control over you and your actions.
It does a person no good to go all day or all week on their diet, only to indulge in just one of their vices. If you eat healthfully all day, you can’t reward that with a bowl of ice cream, a piece of chocolate or some fries! There are some things in your life that just have to go permanently! Yes, living without the things that control your impulses is NOT living a life of denial. Living under their control however, denies you from realizing your dreams and weight loss goals!
Julia Havey is LifeChanger...for BUSTING your VICES and losing weight.
http://www.JuliaHavey.com
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Julie is sadly right. Life would be so much more delicious if we could pop a pill to allow fats and sugar to pass through our bodies without repercussions. We don’t have to always deprive ourselves but the serious trigger foods we love should be avoided when we want to lose weight. I’ve learned to differentiate between general fattening food and food I love so much I lose control of portion size. The key to dieting successfully is controlling your need for food. Most of us have treats we love that control us. One of my favorites is Oreos. Yum! I just love those cookies. But if I buy a box, I have to eat a lot of them, often indulging until nausea stops me. J Occasionally when I travel, I’ll treat myself to a small package of 6 for dessert on the plane. Of course I eat them all! But if I had a whole box, I’d eat a lot more.
While I do have a sweet each day, I can’t have a box of Oreos in the house. Instead, I buy plainer cookies that I like, not love, so I have control. I take out two after dinner and put the rest away before having my dessert. Identify the trigger foods that control you – the ones you can’t stop eating. While it hurts, keep them out of your house! That’s how you take control and enable yourself to shed some pounds. If you’re looking for support in losing weight, visit Julie’s website and check her out her columns on http://www.ediets.com. DDS
We can do many things to improve our health. I strongly believe in complementary medicine – using both traditional and alternative treatments. In most issues I’ll include an alternative solution to a physical problem. Doing something to alleviate a physical problem increases happiness. I’ve heard from people who got the phone number for Lee, the Chinese practitioner I wrote about in the last issue and they said his painful massages have helped many of their ailments. It’s always good to know you have alternatives to taking drugs that might have side affects!
I’ve suffered from nasal allergies all my life. I dreaded spring and fall because of all the unpleasant reactions I had to stuff in the air. Yet those are my favorite seasons and it was awful to want them to be over! For years my sinuses throbbed so much in the fall that it was hard to function. Sinus headaches lasted as long as 6 weeks and the pressure made me tired. No medication gave much relief. Then I was advised to try Quercetin.
Quercetin is a bioflavenoid found in onions, apples, and other plants. This is one of the few alternative supplements that have many clinical trials that recognize it as good for allergy relief. It’s been proven to be an effective anti-inflammatory, so it reduces swelling in the sinuses and also desensitizes the body to negative reactions to allergens. It’s also been proven to help asthma sufferers. Quercetin is now being studied for its affect on swelling in the prostate.
I began taking Quercetin +C (it usually comes with vitamin C, which works with it) one August about eight years ago. Fall arrived and I continued to function normally! I still had stuffiness and sneezing. But it was at a very tolerable level – not debilitating like before. And since then, I no longer get the bad sinus headaches. I take two Quercetin capsules when I know allergy season is coming. As my symptoms lessen,