Think of any fictional or mythological fantasy quest. By the end of the story, the heroes and heroines are usually changed in some way, transformed, improved. But it is rarely the finding of the mythological ‘quest item’ that is responsible for this positive transformation. Rather, it is the many experiences the adventurers encounter along the way.
In other words, it is not the destination which improves them, but the journey.
It is worth bearing this in mind when considering the quest for self help, self improvement and personal development. The search for self help products shouldn’t be perceived as a means to an end, but as an experience in its own right. The journey is as important (and, quite possibly, more important than) the destination itself.
As we browse through the virtual shelves of the online self help marketplace, we are, in a very real way, exploring our own personalities, our strengths and our weaknesses. Too often, we treat the search for self help products as an act of faith. We place our faith in the hands of the guru of the hour, who claims he can improve our lives in (typically) just seven days. When these products fail to completely deliver on their generally outrageous claims, our faith is often shattered.
The solution to this is to focus on the journey, to focus on ourselves, and not put our faith in the hands of others.
This isn’t to say, we should abandon self help products. Quite the opposite, in fact. A journey needs a destination, after all. We should try everything to improve and develop ourselves: self-hypnosis, the Law of Attraction, binaural beats, Reality Creation, Manifesting, Affirmations, Cosmic Ordering… everything. And we should take something away from each product, from each experience, from each little adventure we encounter along the way on our incredible voyage of self improvement. And, like the heroes and heroines of a fantastical quest, we’ll find ourselves transformed by the journey itself.
For the best self help books, audio and downloads, visit The Happiness Superstore, the best self help store on the web!
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When you have finished reading this article you will know 3 self-help tips that can help you deal with General Anxiety Disorder or GAD.
To begin with, it’s important to understand that the inability to handle uncertainty plays a very large role in anxiety and worry.
Self-help tip #1: Learn to accept uncertainty
If you are a chronic worrier, you probably have a hard time when you don’t know with 100% uncertainty what’s going to happen.
But thinking about all the things that could go wrong, doesn’t make like any more predictable. So, one good way to stop constant worrying is to work on your need for immediate answers and total certainty.
Ask yourself questions such as, “is it really possible to be certain about everything, ” ” How helpful would it be if you could be certain about everything,” and “do I predict bad things will happen just because I’m uncertain.”
Asking and answering these questions can go a long way to helping you stop worrying as much.
Self-help tip #2: Challenge negative thoughts
If you suffer from GAD, chances are you think the world is more dangerous then it really is. For example, you may think that everything you do will turn our badly or you may immediately jump to a worst-case scenario.
These negative thoughts are called cognitive distortions and are usually part of a lifelong pattern of thinking – making them hard to break.
To fight these negative thoughts, start by identifying the thoughts that are frightening you, then treat them not as facts but as hypotheses that you are testing.
For example, you might ask yourself questions such as “is there a better, more positive way to look at the situation,” “what’s the probability of the event that is frightening me actually happening,” and “what is the evidence that this thought is true or that it’s not true.”
Self-help-tip #3: Learn to relax
If you are a chronic worrier, learn some relaxation techniques such as muscle relaxation, deep breathing and meditation – all of which can teach you to relax. The key here is to practice your relaxation technique every day. Try to set aside 30 minutes a day. Over time, the relaxation response will become easier and more natural and you will find that you blood pressure stabilizes, your heart rate slows down and you breathe slower and more deeply.
Douglas Hanna is a free lance writer who has written articles on a wide variety of subjects, including anxiety attack treatments, anxiety attack medications and the mental symptoms of anxiety attacks.
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Infertility is a wide spread problem, it affects over 5 million married couples that are of childbearing age in the US alone caused by environmental toxins, unhealthy diet, physical, and emotional stress. While infertility is often attributed to women, in fact male infertility is accounted for over 40 percent of the problem caused by low sperm count, decreasing sperm mobility, and other problems. Many couples are frustrated with conventional treatment because they had no success so they may want to seek help from alternative medication. Here are some tips that may help you to find the best self help fertility program.
I. The self help program
1. Qualification
Qualification of the author is very important, it may help you to increase the confidence of the program. I personally like to have an author who has been working for many years in the conventional medication field of obstetrics, infertility, and had devoted his or her time and experience to improve male fertility in alternative medicine, such as MD, RN and dietitians.
2. Pinpoint the causes
There are many causes of fertility, but the self help program must cover at least the causes of most common problems. This includes low sperm count, decreased sperm motility, aberrant sperm morphology, and physical and emotional effects.
3. How the program will help you to increase the chance of fertility
The self help program must also address how it will help you to increase the chance of fertility depending on the causes of infertility, such as how it will improve the sperm count, how to improve the sperm motility, etc.
4. Types of alternative medicine used
All nutritional supplements and herbs used must clearly specify their functions, effects, and ingredients, and if possible, how their functions and effects will help to improve the chance of fertility.
5. Effects of each type of alternative medicine
Each alternative medicine must pinpoint what organs of the body it helps and what effects that it will help and how it helps to increase the risk of fertility such as in Chinese medicine, herbs to improve male fertility, herbs may be needed to treat liver, kidney, or prostate gland depending on the diagnosis.
6. Pinpoint the best time for conception
The self help fertility program should clearly indicate the day and the time that is best for your partner to get conceived.
7. Side effects of each type of medicine
Alternative medicine used to treat infertility is safe and with little or no side effects but the self help program should clearly state the side effects of each medicine because there is always a chance that someone may be allergic to some types of ingredients.
8. How long will you be ready
Normally, it takes about a month for the alternative fertility medicine to take effect and allow your body to readjust to the medicine. You generally can feel the effects of medicine in a few days. The self help male fertility program should be able to tell when your body is ready.
9. Healthy diet must be included in the treatment
No matter how great the self help program is, without slowly changing diet some of the medicine may be wasted which reduces the effectiveness of the medicine.
10. Refund policy
It essential that you purchase the self help fertility program with a reputable company and offer at least an 8 week refund guarantee.
II. Your Part
Since there is no use even with a best self help fertility program without contribution from your part. If you continue to ignore the advice from the program, such as too much drinking, and eating food that causes the problem from the first place, there is no point in starting a program.
Patience and endurance
Alternative medicine may help, but it needs time to have an effect. Normally, it takes at least a month for your body to get ready. You may be asked to change your diet slowly and do some exercise depending on what type of treatment.
Since male fertility is treatable, please be patient if you choose alternative medicine for treatment
I hope this information will help. If you need more information of insurance or series of articles of the above subject at my home page at: http://malefertilityguide.blogspot.com/
All rights reserved. Any reproducing of this article must have the author name and all the links intact. “Let Take Care Your Health, Your Health Will Take Care You” Kyle J. Norton. I have been studying natural remedies for disease prevention for over 20 years and working as a financial consultant since 1990. Master degree in Mathematics, teaching and tutoring math at colleges and universities before joining insurance industries.
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No seriously, I hate those Self Help gurus! Now its all come into focus. I understand what my personal hang up has been with you all, and why I keep reading all around the web, how much people are starting to dislike, nay HATE you self help gurus, that are popping up EVERYWHERE!
There’s a few good reasons, but before I explain them, let me say TO those folks…in case they happen to read this too, I don’t dislike you as ‘people’, just the manner in which, this industry has evolved, and the drivel that so many gurus or pawning off on folks.
You see, it’s easy to hate the self help ‘experts’ for a number of reasons; they seem to have already MADE it to the place we are trying to get to, they don’t have the same kinds of problems WE have, they are FAR too easily able to SOLVE those problems….or maybe it’s just they have a better publisher than we can find…LOL.
Seriously, the one main reason I personally have come to dislike them (I’ve decided to go with a less aggressive and angry word…dislike works better for me…) is because they don’t let us IN.
No really. Think about it. How many of those Self Help folks, have you WATCHED, pull themselves out of a rut, or a horrible situation, or just something stressful, to find personal success in a challenging moment in THEIR lives?
I haven’t seen it once. And I’ve been looking. HARD. You see, that is what I think is one of the BIG missing pieces, regarding this idea of Self Help. There are MORE than enough people online, and walking about the normal world, who CLAIM to have ‘it all together’, and talk about how ‘easy it can be’ to get things done.
But now often are they SHOWING, rather than just SAYING?
Well, I think the time for that has ended. And I came to this because of my own personal rut. In fact, the motivation FOR this online effort, was not only to share this information I have, but also, to actually DO, what I was talking about…right here, IN YOUR FACE, for all to see.
My weight loss, and maintenance. My financial growth. My battle with smoking. My learning to communicate better. My working to ascend to a higher level of understanding and existence.
These things are exactly what I feel, no REALIZE, I need to work on.
Listen, I’ve been pretty successful, based on MY personal consideration for success (not measured in wealth, but spirit and happiness), and there are some tools I have learned along the way, that WILL work for anyone that applies them.
Over time, I found that I had a bit of a way with words, so that I could possibly write down, what I had learned, and share it. AS such, I sat down and wrote a short book, about what you find all over the LivingYourDrea.MS blog. Personal success and development.
I also found over time, that as long as I was talking to someone who I was not personally involved with, I could easily communicate the ideas and methodologies that could help that particular person, to find their OWN success in life.
Combining the two, meant I had a way to get MY personal passion out to the masses, if I could find a way to get it published. But, I ran into a rut. I hit a wall, and just couldn’t figure out HOW to get that done. And this was unique, because I am VERY MUCH a do’er. I get things done.
But after pouring my soul out onto those pages, I just couldn’t seem to muster the strength, or ‘just do attitude’, to get it in front of the right people. And, worse, I couldn’t figure out why. But there was a passage on a website, written by a man who inspired me greatly – James Redfield, author of The Celestine Prophecy, who was talking about HIS personal experience of hitting a wall of creativity.
He spoke about how after he had written HIS book, things just slowed down. The energy he was used to flourishing on, started to dwindle, and how he was searching for ways to get his message out to the public. But despite his best ‘efforts’ the flow had just petered out for him.
It was at this time, that he did a serious personal assessment, realized WHAT was holding him back, cleared HIS log-jam and all of the sudden, things began flowing again. Well, that happened for me as well.
I really started examining what I was doing. How I was doing it, and what my true goals were. I realized that I hadn’t really defined those goals effectively enough, and as such, all of this was just a Hodge-podge of ME. Something many of my close friends are used to….but not something I should subject you all to.
Anyhow, I digress. Once I realized this important fact, that I was holding myself back, with simple mental issues of ‘excuses and fear’, I set a STOP MECHANISM, and began to work that out of my experience. As I was doing this, I also noticed something else happening. Others around me, were responding to my ACTIONS.
The THINGS I WAS DOING, were inspiring THEM to take action in their own lives.
Now THIS was a ‘boon’ for me, as it let me know that I was missing a crucial component, that as I studied, was also missing with those Self Help folks. They were doing, and ARE doing a lot of talking, but little SHOWING, of the process.
It’s a proven fact, and the way we all learned things like Math, that a visual accompaniment to an audio or text based lesson, will enhance the learning experience.
But it seemed that guys like Tony Robbins, and others (not to pick on the Big Guy), felt like the only REAL proof they needed, the only visual accompaniment they required, was DVD’s of them, on stage in front of TONS of people, all nodding their heads, in agreement of the MAGNIFICENCE, that was the speaker on stage at that time.
Well, I don’t agree. I believe that in fact, we ALL require a bit more, and that was made glaringly obvious by the lesson I had learned with MY own experience. How people were responsive to seeing what I can DO with what I know, versus, just HEARING what I thought might be helpful to them.
Ok, so now you should get WHY I am so disturbed with those Self Help Gurus, but here’s the kicker! I have a solution.
I’m actually going to DO IT. I know! Crazy….right? Well, not that crazy. You see, as I said, I have SEEN the power of VISUAL motivation, and how watching someone DO what they are trying to explain YOU should do, is a far more effective way of teaching.
Think about grade school, as mentioned above. We almost all learned math, because a teacher stood at the front of a classroom, and wrote, with that chalk, on that dark green board, the process, numbers, letters, and such, that assisted us in understanding HOW to accomplish the completion OF that math problem.
Without that visual assistance, it would be considerably harder to understand math concepts. The same hold true with almost anything else. Consider riding a bike. If you had NEVER seen anyone riding a bike, well, first off, you may not want to tangle with something so strange looking, but if you got past that initial ‘what the HELL’ thought, you would have NO idea, and I MEAN ZERO consideration, of how to get on and ride it.
You NEED to see what it looks like. How it works. How to go about getting on, trying to balance, and ultimately, coasting off into the wind, while trying to pedal, balance, and NOT get hit by the oncoming ‘parked car’, that somehow, someone put in your way. (ROFL…personal experience…sorry)
So, what is it that I am saying? This, simply. That I am not going to do to you, what THEY do. I don’t consider myself any better than them, just going about this process in a slightly different fashion.
I want you to SEE how this process works. I want you to SEE how I take the tools I talk about on the blog, and USE them in my life, to accomplish the change that I am aiming toward.
I want you to WATCH when I have a bad day, and don’t feel like working out, or blogging, or recording a video. Why? Because THAT is real life. That is how you get to see HOW to succeed in the hardest of times. And with THAT knowledge, you can more easily implement it in YOUR life, and moreover, understand how to adjust it to fit YOUR specific needs.
So, yes, this is OUR TIME. I’ve said it before, and I will say it over and over again. This is not about MY Challenge, it is about OUR Challenge. There is NOTHING we can’t do, together, and I am not just going to say that…I am going to SHOW you that.
Alright, so I have blown their hair back enough…..I think they get it. I don’t really Hate those Self Help Gurus, I am just taking a step away from their methods, and gonna show you a different way to Get Things Done.
Akiba Howard
The Self Help NON-Guru
Collectively Learning
[http://livingyourdrea.ms/blog]
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