Negative Body Image Issues

Building a Healthy Body Image
Both emotional specialists and psychologists generally agree that eating disorders are generally rooted in negative body image. When this happens, sufferers usually see distorted body images when they gaze in a mirror – and as such, feel “fat” or otherwise imperfect regardless of whether these terms accurately describe the structure of their physical bodies.

Negative body images can manifest from one or more of the following factors:

Negative Conditioning Our parents’ and family members’ attitudes toward food and concepts of beauty can significantly factor in our body image. For example, parents who…

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Coping with Failure

Lessons in Entrepreneurship Part II: How to Cope with Failures and Take Responsibility for Them
Being your own boss is an exhilarating feeling, but it also means extra responsibility! Handling this responsibility and accepting blame for all the failures is one of the most common hurdles that new entrepreneurs stumble against.

Being the captain of your ship means you must take complete responsibility for all your failures and set backs. By taking responsibility for your failures you admit to yourself you are facing the consequences of your past actions. This also brings the realization you have the power to change the future consequences by changing your present actions…

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Past Life Dreams

Dream Interpretation: How to Identify Past-Life Dreams
Dreams associated with our past lives often come at a time when we are dealing with life or relationship situations which may have a karmic link with our past. These dreams are actually past-life memories supporting us to see our present challenges from a higher perspective and shed the associated karmic baggage. For instance, a dream about an abusive relationship in your past life could explain why you share a negative relationship with the same person in your present life.

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Assertiveness: Standing Up for Yourself

Although some people don’t view it this way, being assertive is a positive thing. Unfortunately, people often equate assertiveness with aggression, stubbornness or being opinionated; moreover, this is especially true when an assertive person happens to be a woman as well.

In reality, however, assertiveness simply means having the conviction to say no when you’re unconvinced that something is right. Additionally, it means that you have created defined boundaries that you want others to honor and respect. When we view assertiveness this way, it has no negative connotations. The problem, of course, is that many people don’t have this view of assertiveness.

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Teething Troubles

Lessons in Entrepreneurship Part 1: Overcoming Teething Troubles
To become a successful entrepreneur requires courage, vision, leadership qualities, business acumen and confidence. Most of us are not born with all these qualities, but that doesn’t mean we can’t develop them. If you have a strong desire to start something of your own and be your own boss, success will come to you provided you stay focused on your goals.

How to Stay Focused on Your Goals
Most businesses face some amount of “teething trouble,” which is the most challenging part of entrepreneurship: retaining your faith, focus and confidence while trying to keep your little boat afloat. People who manage to get past the first phase of entrepreneurship without severely denting their confidence usually find the going easier as their business starts growing…

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Dream Interpretations

Guide to Dream Interpretation I: How to Remember Your Dreams

Dreams are tales woven by our subconscious, often to send across a message that our conscious is unwilling to comprehend. But the language of dreams is coded with metaphors and symbols, so to understand our dreams we therefore need to understand the unique visual language of our subconscious.

The first and most important step in dream interpretation is recalling your dreams accurately; however, it is at this first step itself that most of us falter. Generally we remember our dreams vividly the moment we wake up, but within seconds our conscious mind takes over. And as the minutes and hours of the day pass, the dream fades away from our mind…

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Building Healthy Relationships

Generally speaking, romantic relationships begin with a heady and intoxicating feeling wherein you see everything through rose-colored lessons. However, over time this is tempered by reality and the growing familiarity you have with one another. Unfortunately, sometimes this can result in conflict and contempt. Although all relationships experience setbacks, knowing how to overcome these setbacks before they grow is key to building a healthy relationship with your paramour.

Making Relationships Work
Although there are differences in all relationships, the existence of mutual love can help you overcome most of them. Below are some strategies commonly recommended by relationship experts.

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Improving Concentration

How to Improve Your Concentration Power
Do you have trouble staying focused on the task at hand? Is your attention span only slightly better than that of a two year old? Do you find it hard to battle distractions? If yes, then what you need are some exercises that can help you put a rein on your wandering mind!

Exercises to Improve Your Concentration Power
Mind-Clearing Exercise This exercise is useful for people who have never mediated and have extremely low attention spans. The mind clearing exercise is a form of guided meditation that allows you to literally clear your mind of all stray thoughts and anxiety. It is a good idea to record the following steps…

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Attracting Abundance

How to Attract Abundance
Your attitude toward money largely shapes your efforts toward achieving your goal of abundance. While a positive attitude will make it easier for you to attract opportunities and take advantage of them, a negative attitude (such as treating money as essentially evil, being too stingy, or focusing on what you don’t have) will end up repelling abundance.

If you treat money as a necessary component of life and focus on your dreams about abundance instead of lamenting your past losses, doubting your ability to achieve abundance, or grudging others for being “rich,” you will be able to attract better opportunities your way.

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Minor Arcana in Tarot

Tarot decks come in many different designs, with varying images, foci, and intentions, so provide yourself with the space to experience more than more deck. A typical tarot deck consists of 56 Minor Arcana cards divided into four suits – namely, Cups, Swords, Wands and Pentacles. The four suits represent the four elements of air, earth, fire and water. Each suit is a symbol of an aspect of human emotions and ambitions, and all suits have ten numbered cards and four court cards.

While the numbered cards generally refer to transient events, advice, ideas, etc., the court cards represent people in our lives or behavior patterns….

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Pursuing Happiness

Pursuing Happiness
For many people the search for happiness can last a lifetime. Although finding happiness is simple to achieve, it is also difficult to comprehend despite how many people follow this pursuit. This is because many people are unaware of what true happiness really is.

Happiness: What Is It?
Ask a dozen people what happiness is, and you’ll get at least a dozen different answers because people tend to define happiness based on what they most desire at any given moment. Someone who is struggling financially may equate happiness with having an ample supply of money, while someone who is lonely may think of it as finding love. In short, people find a connection between happiness and what they don’t have but do desire.

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Perfection Problems

Deeply rooted beliefs and long-term conditioning cause perfection, which can result in perfectionists believing that achieving excellence is the only way to find happiness. Unfortunately, such a degree of perfectionism can often border on obsession despite its positive aspects.

Yet the biggest problem with perfection is that despite the positive aspects associated with it, like meticulousness and diligence, is that perfectionism is not something of which one should be proud. Even though earnestness and a commitment to being as perfect as possible can be good qualities, perfectionism can often cause you more harm than good.

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Self-Hypnosis & Pain Relief

The stress of the holidays is beginning to hit most individuals already, coupled with financial challenges. Stress can hit us all differently, but in most instances the first physical signs of stress will come through some sort of pain: neck stiffness, lower back ache, shoulder tightness, etc. Taking a few moments to go inward to release the stress and associated pain can go a long way in making this holiday season a little more enjoyable.

In metaphysical terms, pain is actually the result of negative emotions like anger, jealousy, stress, anxiety, etc. You may have noticed how your head or shoulders start hurting when you are under immense stress or how anxiety causes discomfort in various parts of the body. If you look beyond the obvious you will realize that pain is simply a distress call of the body.

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Karma and Abundance

Each one of us desires abundance and financial security. We all want comfortable and fulfilling lives for ourselves and our families, and almost each one of us has had secret dreams of finding a hidden treasure or winning that elusive lottery or contest money! The problem is that for a lot of people abundance remains a dream. Have you even wondered why this happens? Of course you have! A more appropriate question perhaps would be, “Do you know why some are more ‘lucky’ than others?” There are two words that can answer this question: Karma and attitude.

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Time Management

How to Improve Your Time Management Skills
Time and life are constantly racing against each other. And unless we learn to fix the race by “managing” time, we’d better get used to life losing!

Time management is a simple skill, yet most of us fail to master it despite repeated attempts. The problem generally lies with either the strategy or our will power. The following tips, however, may make managing time easier for you.

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Forgiveness and Forward Movement

Forgiveness and Forward Movement
Love and joy are a part of life, but so are more negative experiences like heartbreak and hurt. Over the course of our lives we’ll meet untold numbers of people, some of whom will enrich our lives and make it more fulfilling. On the other hand, there are people who will either intentionally or unwittingly leave us hurting and break our hearts. Although the pain may ebb with time, the resentment can linger.

Negative Effects of Clinging to Resentment
Often people cling to anger and resentment because in some illogical way we view these emotions as being representative of punishing the person who hurt us. While we may move on, it’s sometimes difficult to forgive someone because to do so feels as those it’s a mark of weakness. Consequently, we may convince ourselves that forgiving someone is tantamount to condoning his or her hurtful actions…

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Preparing for Meditation

Although it sounds like a simple exercise on the surface, people often find it difficult to focus during meditation. This is especially true for beginners, who can find that it’s a special challenge to move from finding the time to embrace the solace meditation offers to committing to practicing meditation on a regular basis. Often this is because they underestimate the degree of focus necessary to practice true meditation, since it’s far more than a simple breathing exercise. Indeed, meditation is a form of intentional introspection that demands the total involvement of the entire person, including mind, body and soul. As such, it’s critical that you appropriately prepare yourself to practice meditation.

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Tarot Symbology

Previously we touched on the introduction of the use of Tarot cards and their ability to support us as we move through transition. Tarot’s symbols and images have fascinated mystics and artists alike for centuries. Every symbol and image in tarot is worth more than a thousand words; in fact, every card in tarot seems to tell a part of a universal story. A facet of life is depicted in each card, and when the cards are put together in a spread you can read the message like a page in a story book.

Based on their interpretations of tarot, several artists and mystics have created their own decks. They may seem completely different from one another, but if you focus on the images and colors you will realize that the stories they tell are essentially the same.

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Chakra Cleansing Therapy Explained

A popular alternative healing therapy, chakra cleansing is a method of balancing the seven energy centers that run along the human body’s midline. With roots in ancient Vedic philosophy, the therapy holds that our minds and bodies function properly when our chakras are properly aligned.

Many people are able to sense or feel (if not see) chakras during a cleansing session, which they often describe as manifesting as spinning globes or wheels of color associated with each particular chakra. There are seven main chakras. We will examine these, along with their associated colors, locations, and functions.

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Dealing with Insomnia

Nights are meant to be spent in dreamland, but for insomniacs catching the ever-elusive eight-hour sleep is like a dream that simply doesn’t come true. Stress, overconsumption of substances like caffeine, alcohol and nicotine, a noisy or uncomfortable sleeping environment, and indigestion are some of the main causes of insomnia.

Insomnia can have terrible effects on a person’s physical and mental wellbeing. From baggy eyes and fatigue to an increased risk of cancer, insomnia comes loaded with a packet full of diseases -- not to mention the ill-effects on our ability to be coherent and make sound decisions.

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Stick to Your Fuel Plan

Motivate Yourself to Stick to Your Fuel Plan
There are four primary reasons for lack of motivation: boredom, no rewards, laziness, and a weak will power. A good fuel plan (Remember that a while ago we changed from using the word diet to fuel.) will ensure you don’t get bored or frustrated because of lack of results. We believe the following therapies will help improve your personal situation regarding your level of “laziness” and the possibility of having a “weak will power.”

Positive Affirmations Persistent self-talk, whether negative or positive, slowly makes its way to your belief system. Just like telling yourself every day you are not good at anything will kill your confidence, repeatedly telling yourself you are capable of sticking to your resolutions (Remember the word resolution is just a new solution to a challenge before us.) will help you become more assertive and confident. “Positive affirmation” is simply…

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