Are You Attracting Emotionally Unhealthy People Into Your Life?

                                          Start attracting healthy people into your life
                                                   by setting healthy boundaries. 

Do you have a tendency to attract needy and emotionally unhealthy people into your life?

I was talking to a client of mine a few weeks ago and one of her concerns that she had was that she felt that she would often attract emotionally unhealthy and needy people.
The problem with it she said is that the relationships starts off fine but after a while she feels like she is getting consumed by the needs and the demands of the other person so much that her own life was suffering.
But on the other hand she didn't want to end these relationships and she is wanting to remain friends with these people. But can you?

Can you remain friends with people who are needy and that will demand too much of you, and also your time?

Some people have a desire to save others and in the end it's actually more about them, than it is the emotionally unhealthy person.

Of course it is not a bad thing to try to help others but if you are you trying to fill a need or a void within yourself, that isn't getting met.....perhaps to feel wanted or loved than you will probably find yourself in these kinds of relationships.

If a friend(s) start to interfere too much with multiple aspects of your life....maybe it's time to let that person go?

Are you really helping them anyway?
Usually these kinds of people will demand a lot of your time but in the end they are often unwilling to change and to help themselves.

I always say.....it's almost impossible to help someone that doesn't want to help themselves.

We cannot change anyone's life if they are not willing to change themselves. Continuing these types of relationships makes no sense. Also remember to never invest more in a relationship than you can afford to lose.

Of course you should have empathy for other people.
And it's possible to help those in need without becoming enmeshed to the point that you are actually being dragged down.

Sometimes you have to help and love people from a distance and remain there unless they show you that they are first willing to help and to change themselves.

In the meantime you might want to do some inner work yourself.
Try to find out why you constantly get involved in these kinds of relationships.

Is it because you don't get your own needs met any other way?
Are you looking to get love, or wanting to feel needed, wanted or significant?

                                                     www.karinglannstam.com

Perseverance Is The Will To Hold On A Little Longer

                                 "Obstacles don't have to stop you.
                                  If you run into a wall, don't turn around and give up.
                                  Figure out how to climb it, go through it
                                  or work around it."
                                  - Michael Jordan



Have you had to deal with any obstacles or setbacks lately?

You know, obstacles are never there to stop us on our path.
They are actually part of the path.

It's easy to feel discouraged and defeated when faced with a setback.

Believe me I have faced a number of huge setbacks myself and it's easy to feel beaten down and it takes a lot of both mental and physical energy to get back up after being knocked down.

One of my favorite empowering words is...Persevere

Persist no matter what.
Endure discomfort.
Request help.
Steadfastly hold on to your beliefs and values.
Envision triumph.
Very consistently keep at it.
Embrace adversity as your teacher.
Refuse to give up.
Enjoy and celebrate every tiny bit of progress.


                                                   The will to persevere is often 
                                           the difference between failure and success."
                                                                - Davis Sarnoff


Perseverance - Steadfastness in doing something despite difficulty or delay in achieving success.

So next time you are having to deal with a setback or an obstacle on your path......remember this word.

         

Get Ready.....Get Going.....Get In The Game

                                                  "The time for action is NOW.
                                              It's never too late to do something."
                                                          - Carl Sandburg

                               "Imperfect action beats perfect inaction every time."
                                                         - Harry S. Truman

What do you really, really want in life?

Whatever it is.....get going NOW.

Maybe you want to be successful in business? Maybe having your own business? Live a healthier lifestyle? Have better relationships

The important thing is that you start taking action TODAY.

Get in the game. Begin now, from where you are, and with whatever you've got.

Get going in the field that you want to be in.

Action always beats inaction.

Trust that once you get in the game that you will be able to make intelligent decisions in the present moment.

Make correction and adjust your sail along the way.

Successful people take action.

Unsuccessful won't do anything unless they have identified all possible problems and know exactly what to do about them. They believe that they have to know everything in advance which is absolutely impossible.

They are always preparing and they seldom take action. They will see obstacles where successful people will see opportunities.

There is no way you will ever be able to figure out everything before you get started.

Trust in your yourself and your own ability that you will be able to solve and handle any future obstacles and emergencies.

Successful people see opportunity and they jump on it and therefore they will eventually win.

Unsuccessful people don't take action and therefore they will loose.

1. Get in the game. Begin now with whatever you've got.

2. Practice optimism. It will drive negative people crazy and away from you.

3. Focus on what you have. Make a list of 10 things you are grateful for in your life right now.

Read it out load twice a day for 30 days.

Think of the consequences if you do nothing.

You will never what doors that will open for you in the future.

But you have to get started.

                                   "You are what you do, not what you say you'll do."

                                                                 - Carl Jung

                                                         www.karinglannstam.com

Make Plans For The Future, But Live Now

                                                          Learn from the past.
                                                           Plan for the future.
                                                           Live in the present.


A good friend of mine has been under a lot of stress for sometime and a while back she decided to try meditation as an alternative to reduce some of her stress and also to become more present and stop trying to constantly multitask.

A few days ago I was asking her how she was coming along with her new meditation habit.

She told me that she was doing okay, but that it was quite difficult to force herself to calm down, be in the moment and be able to meditate on a daily base.

I started meditating many years ago and I do know that it takes quite a bit of practice to be able to quiet the mind and to manage to sit still for even 5 minutes. It will take constant practice and some days are better than others.
The important thing is not to quit when you start a new habit. It will get easier. Keep on going.

Your mind will tell you all kinds of stories, why you won't be able to do what you are trying to do and why you should just forget about it.
Don't listen to that voice.

Another problem is that everybody wants instantaneous results. It doesn't have to be good results. Just fast.

Look at fast food. Is it really good? No, but it's fast.

When we were babies we wanted our needs tended to as quickly as possible. Sleep, eat and then our diaper changed.

As children get older it still takes a while before they can perform any type of action that doesn't produce instant results.

One thing we love about children is that they live in the moment. They can't grasp that the present moment will affect the future because they haven't had enough experience doing one thing continuously and having a specific result come from it eventually.

This is true about children but unfortunately it is also true when it comes to a lot of adults.

We hear a lot about being in the present moment. I think it is great thing to learn to be fully present with what you are doing in the moment or being fully there, in conversations with others.

If you are in the personal development field then you probably want to change the direction of your life, but at the same time you also want to be more present NOW.
This almost sounds like a big paradox.
Be here NOW..... but you also want to change your direction of your life.

Can we do both?
Yes, I do believe that it is the perfect approach.
Be fully present now, while you are thinking, planning and taking action that will lead your life in the direction you want it to go in the future.

So this is what I have to say to my good friend......
Keep on going. You are doing better than you think you are!
Good habits will take some time to develop. Nothing worthwhile is easy. But one year from now your body and your mind will thank you for sticking with it.

Yes we can be here NOW..... while planning and taking action to create the future that we want.

                                                           www.karinglannstam.com

Revise The Files In Your Mind

                                                  What consumes your mind,
                                                         controls your life.


Revise the files in your mind.....what does that really mean?

It means to unlearn some old and useless information and beliefs, to make room for a new way of thinking.

To be happy and successful in life, isn't just about learning new things. It's also about unlearning or letting go of what isn't true. Like old stories, ideas, beliefs from parent, siblings, teachers, friends, co-workers, spouses and also society.

Change isn't easy, but it's absolutely possible and within your power.

If you want to change what is visible, you first must change what is invisible. In other words, if you change the inside the outside will fall into place.

Your outer world is always a reflection of your inner world.

I'm sure you have heard that your own thoughts create your reality.

Thoughts leads to feelings. Feelings leads to action, which then leads to results.

Where does your thoughts come from?
Why do you think the way you do? Or why do you think differently from another person?

Your thoughts originate from the files that you have stored in your own subconscious mind. Your subconscious mind is like a filing cabinet and in that cabinet you have stored everything that ever happened to you.

Where does this information come from?
It comes from your past programming. Your past conditioning determines every thought that comes up in your mind.

Your old programming or conditioning leads to your thoughts.
Thoughts leads to your feelings.
Feelings leads to action.
Action leads to results.

Change your programming (Just like you change a program in a computer) and you can change your results.

Most of us are programmed by our own parents.
How did we get programmed?
From what our parents said, what they modeled in front of us and also from incidents or experiences.

Unfortunately as we grow up we take on programming and beliefs that are not our own and they have nothing to do with us. We have old information that doesn't reflect who we are. We continue to live with old programming and sometimes it will set us up for failure because this programming is very outdated, wrong and not our own and it's not based on who we are.

Subconscious conditioning determines our thinking. Our thinking determines our decisions.
Our decisions determines our action and eventually our action will determine our outcome or results.


How Do We Change This Programming?

Awareness
You cannot change something that you are not aware of. If you don't know that it exists you won't change it.

Understanding
By understanding why you think the way you do. Where your way of thinking originated, you can recognize that it didn't come from you. If came from outside of you. Maybe a parent, teacher, sibling or friend.

Disassociation
Once you realize that this way of thinking isn't YOU, you can separate yourself from it and choose to either keep it or to let it go.
Where you are today as an adult, you can observe this way of thinking and see if for what it is.....a file of information that was stored in your mind a long time ago, and it might not be your truth and it might not have any value to you anymore. You can now choose to let it go.

Recondition Your Mind
Expose yourself to new information and to new people that will generate the life that you want.
Rewire your subconscious. Retrain your mind for lasting change by frequently working on your mind and also by getting support around you. Spend time with people who also have adapted your new way of thinking. Find mentors, read books, go to seminars. Model people that have already created the life that you also want to create and ultimately live.

                                                     www.karinglannstam.com

Who Are You In The Process OF Becomming?

                                                          - I Know For Sure -
                                         What we dwell upon is who we become.
                                                           - Oprah Winfrey


Each and everyone of us are in a constant process of becoming, growing and evolving in the direction of our dominant thoughts.

Our bodies are also in a state of growing and becoming. Our physical evolution is affected by the food that we put into our bodies and our mental evolution and growth is largely determined by the thoughts that we put into our mind.

Anything that you think about, long enough and hard enough, will eventually become a part of your mental process. It will eventually affect your attitude and also your behavior.

In other words, anything that you dwell upon will eventually grow and your it will become your reality.

Whatever thoughts that you have allowed to pre-occupy your mind over the years, have now become your reality and it has affected where you are today.

Not only have you made yourself into what you are today but you are continuing the process of construction with every thought that you think.

TIP!

So the smartest thing anyone can do is to persistently think the thoughts that are consistent with the person that they would like to be or become.

The more we think about and dwell upon the person that we would like to be and the qualities that we would like to have, the more these thoughts are being planted in our subconscious mind and eventually they will become part of our reality.

Thought is creative. Thought in mind will produce after it's kind. In other words.....like attracts like.

Start today by taking full and purposeful control over the contents of your conscious mind. Discipline yourself to keep your thoughts on only the things that you desire and off the things that you fear and don't want in your life.

Remember that your outer world is a reflection of your inner world.

What you see on the outside is merely a reflection of what is going on the inside.

You are the only one that creates you reality.

                                                        www.karinglannstam.com

Stress Free Zone

                                                              "Slow down.
                                                               Calm down.
                                                               Don't worry.
                                                                Don't hurry.
                                                           Trust the process."
                                                       - Alexandra Stoddard


One of the best lessons you can learn in life is to master how to remain calm.
Our ability to remain calm and to be able to manage our emotions when we are under pressure is a wonderful skill to have. This skill is a direct link to how well we will perform.

It's known that top performers are skilled at managing their emotions in times of stress in order to remain calm and in control.

We all know how stress can wreak havoc both on a person's physical and also mental health. I am talking about prolonged stress. If the stress doesn't last for a long period of time.....it is harmless.
Remember that it's important to keep stress under control as much as possible.

Stress will unfortunately increase a person's risk of developing heart disease, depression, obesity and it will also decrease our cognitive performance.

Most of our stress in actually under our own control and today I will share a few comping strategies that can help you reduce your stress level and make sure that the stress doesn't get prolonged and that it won't affect your physical and mental health.

Breathe
One of the easiest ways of reducing stress is just to simply breathe. Practice of being in the moment will make your brain focus entire on the task at hand.
When you feel stressed, take a couple of minutes and simply focus on your breathing. Turn off all distractions and find a quiet place and focus on how it feels to breathe in and out. It's sounds simple but in the beginning your mind might wander, but all your need to do then is to simply bring your thoughts back to your breathing. The goal is to be able to spend the entire time on your breathing. Start with one minute and as you get better at focusing entirely on your breathing, then you can add another minute or two.

Gratitude

Take time to focus on what you are grateful for in your life. This will automatically improve your mood. Cultivating the habit of gratitude will give you more energy. You will feel a sense of well-being and it will elevate your mood.
Learn to develop and attitude of gratitude.


Disconnect

When you make yourself constantly available to others, you are exposing yourself to a lot of stress. Force yourself offline and turn off your phone once in a while. Doing this will give your body a break from a constant barrage of stressors.
How about starting with disconnecting one day a week?
Or turning off you email after 7pm to give yourself a chance to re-charge your body and your mind?
As you get more comfortable with disconnecting, your co-workers begin to accept the time you spend off line and off the phone and then you can gradually expand the amount of time that you spend away from technology.
Technology is suppose to make our lives easier.....not more difficult.

Sleep

When you sleep your brain is recharging. It sorts through all the day's memories and then it stores and discards them so that you can wake up the next morning feeling alert and clear-headed.
Sleep deprivation raises stress hormone levels on their own, even without any other stressors being present.
Make sure that you take enough time to get a decent night's sleep in order to keep the stress away and getting things under control.


Negative Self- Talk

Stop all negative self-talk, right away. The more you ruminate on negative thoughts, the more power you give them. Most of our negative thoughts are not facts.....they are just thoughts. Stop believing all your negative and pessimistic thoughts.
Make a list of your negative thoughts. Right down what you are thinking in the moment will allow you to later when you are more clear-headed to examine and evaluate what you wrote down.
Ask yourself.....is this really true? You can also show what you wrote down to a trusted friend and ask them if they agree.


Stay Positive

Positive thoughts will make you re-focus your attention on what is working in your life. This is easy to do when things are going well in your life and it might be a little more difficult when things are falling apart or going poorly and your mind is flooded with negative thoughts.
We must give our wandering brains a little help by consciously select something positive to think about.

Pay Attention To What You Eat And Drink

Too much caffeine can put your body in the "fight-or-flight" response by triggering the release of the hormone adrenaline.
Pay attention to what you put in your body. You want to fuel your body with things that will give you long lasting energy, not just a quick fix.

                                                      www.karinglannstam.com

Beware Of Negative People

                                                    Whatever you do, good or bad,
                                  people will always have something negative to say.


Are you one of those people who possess a positive outlook on life?

Even if you are..... it might be a good idea to avoid negative and pessimistic people, especially those who are critical of your big dreams and goals.

Even if most of us try to avoid negativity in our own minds, what we speak of and what we write, it has a way of sometimes entering our conscious mind and also our subconscious mind.

So when difficulties and smaller setbacks arise it's natural to begin to wonder if your non-supportive friends and critics weren't right after all.

Life offers us plenty of things to be negative about and sometimes if feels like life is trying to beat us all down. So the more we can avoid negative people the better off we will be.

We need all the positive thoughts and images that we can get in order to fight the never ending stream of negativity and pessimism that is being thrown at us on a daily base. Some of the nicest and most helpful people can be very negative and that makes them even more dangerous than the negative person that is angry and nasty all the time.

Negativity can sneak up on you and it can do it's damage to you before you knew what hit you. In fact negativity, complaining and pessimism often comes from the people closest to us. Particularly family members can be hard to deal with. A spouse, friend or co-worker offering advice may be well meaning, but his/her observations and conclusions can still be wrong.

Constructive criticism and advice from the right person can be worth a fortune, while ill-intended criticism from the wrong person can do more that tear us down. It can damage our self-esteem and prevent us from pursuing our goals and the ultimate vision for our life.

Be careful who you take constructive criticism or advice from. Do you respect this person handing out the criticism? Does he/she have their own life in order? If the answer is no, just thank the person for their advice. Delete their advice from your mind and walk away.

Sometimes the agendas of others is simply to be able to discourage us from trying to do something that they themselves have been unable to do. Some people just love to discourage others. These kinds of people are very bad news because they will try to chip away at our self-confidence.

Someone who always criticizes others is just an unhappy person. They thrive on the opportunity to be able to pull others down to their level. If you are not careful this kind of person will portray themselves as your best friend and mentor and once you have confided in them about your life they will fool you to believe that they themselves are well adjusted and problem free and soon they will make you psychologically dependent on them.
Ill-intended criticism from the wrong party can become a huge obstacle in your life and in your pursuit of your big dream.

Remember that the only way to avoid criticism is to do nothing, say nothing or be nothing.   
- Aristotle 

The more successful you will become, the more you will be criticized.

                                                         www.karinglannstam.com

Self-Respect Starts With You

                              People need to understand that if they don't respect themselves,
                                                         then no one will respect them.

I had an interesting conversation with a good friend last week and we talked about life in general and how to be happier and to have more peace of mind. After discussing this subject for a while, I asked my friend......what do you want?

She thought about this question for a while and then she answered.....I want to respect myself more.

One of the first questions that I always ask all my coaching clients is.....What Do You Want?

You will be surprised to find out that most people can't answer this question.

One reason for this is that no one have asked them this question for a very long time. And they haven't asked themselves this question either for a very long time.

Often we get so wrapped up in life and other people's agenda that we often just go along and we put our own dreams and desires on the back burner and sometimes we end up living a life that is out of alignment of who we truly are.

Back to my coaching clients. After thinking about this questions for a while, the answers that I get the majority of times are.....

I want to respect myself 

I want to love myself

I want take good care of myself

I have heard these same answer so many times.

So my question is .....

What is self respect?

And what does self-respect look like to you?

Today I want to share 12 things that I believe will help us get more respect for ourselves.

1. Speak Kindly To Yourself?

Pay attention to what you say to yourself, because you are always listening.

It's amazing how nasty we can be to ourselves. We say things to ourselves that we would never say to anyone else and if we did..... we would probably end up in jail.

Start paying attention to your self talk. Maybe you need to change the way you talk to yourself? Everything starts with your thinking and you can control your own thoughts. We don't have control over a lot of things but we do have control over our thoughts and our own self talk.

Time to clean up your vocabulary. Self love, self compassion and self-respect starts here.

2. Take Care Of Your Physical Health?

What do you eat and drink on a regular base? Over eating is not a good way to show yourself love and respect. How about too much drinking or smoking? I am not talking about a little alcohol. I love a good glass of chardonnay once in a while, but not all the time.

How about exercising? Are you moving your body on a regular base? You don't have to spend time at the gym every day, but I am talking about a brisk walk 5-6 times per week.

How about sleep? Most of us need about 7-9 hours per night. Make sure you get plenty of sleep to help your body to heal and to re-charge. 

3. Clean Out Your Environment?

Are you living in a cluttered home? Maybe it's time to clean out some old stuff that you no longer need. Make room for some new things to enter your life by getting rid of old stuff that no longer serves you. Have things neatly organized can save you a lot of time when you are trying to find things. Clean out you house, your office, your garage, closets, refrigerator and don't forget your car. Having a clean home will make you feel happy and energized.

4. De-Clutter Your Relationships

Some friendships might have gotten a little stagnant and they need to go. If people around you don't want to grow and their energy feels wrong to you....maybe it's time to do a little spring cleaning. Some people are just negative, gossiping and complaining all the time. If you spend time around these kinds of people it will eventually rub off on you. Don't let your loyalty become slavery.

Learn to let them go. 

5. Don't Stay In Situations Or Relationships That No Longer Makes You Happy

Don't remain in a job that you hate or that makes makes you feel unfulfilled. Most of us spend 40 hours per week at work, make sure that you enjoy what you do. If you want to leave your current job but at unable to do so at the moment, because you have bills to pay make sure that you start creating a game-plan to leave, when the right opportunity arises. 

Don't remain in an intimate relationship with someone because you don't want to be alone. If your intimate relationships don't work other areas in your life will also be affected. Same thing with a job that you don't enjoy. It will affect all areas of your life. 

Respect yourself and walk away from things that do not longer work in your life.

Don't remain somewhere because it's the easiest thing to do.

6. Create A New Vision For Your Life

Sit down and think about what you want to do with your life. Dream a little. Come up with a few new inspiring goals and maybe even a new vision for your life. Goals are like a huge magnet. They will pull you through almost anything. Make sure that you establish some new and empowering goals. Without a vision it will be hard to stay excited about life.

7. Be Selective To What You Allow To Enter Your Mind

Pay attention to what you listen to on TV. What you read online and in the newspaper. It's hard to live a happy and fulfilling life if you load up on what is wrong with the world. What is wrong is always available. Instead try to find things that is right with the world. It's hard to live a positive life if you fill it negative images and messages.

Stand guard at the door of your own mind because you have to live with the results of what you allow to enter into your mind.

8. Spend Some Time Alone

We are surrounded by noise everywhere we go. Everyone and everything is trying to get out attention. Learn to disconnect once in a while and spend sometime with YOU. Reflect on what is going on in your life. Allow yourself to dream and to create. We don't have enough time to be creative anymore. Being creative is fun and it can open the door to many new things if you just allow yourself to be still and quiet for a while.

Make sure that you don't overwork just because you don't want to be alone or because you need to be validated. Make sure that you get plenty of recharge time. Maybe learn to meditate?

9. Always Be Present

Get together with people. Don't just send them an email or a text. Make time to actually meet in person. And when you do get together, put the phone away. Be there, with the that person. They are the most important person at the time. Plan dates with your spouse, children, parents and friends. No one is too busy. It's all about priorities. Don't spend time with people that are constantly checking their phone when you are together. Don't lower your standards for anyone or anything.

In the end.....you teach people how to treat you.
Learn to say NO.

10. Start A Savings Account

Have some extra money saved up will give you freedom in all areas of life. Decide to put away a certain amount of money every month and learn to live on the rest. I call my savings account "My Freedom" account. You can start with a small amount and then increase it as time goes by. You will be amazed how much better you will feel when you don't have to worry about money all the time.

11. Forgive Others And Forgive Yourself

Forgive everyone including yourself. People that have betrayed you and did your wrong. Let it go. Parents that didn't take good care of you and didn't give you what you needed. Forgive them. They did the best they could, and they gave you what had been given to them by their parents.

Forgive yourself for what you have done in the past. Learn from if and then let it go. Know that today you would not do what the younger version of you did. When you know better - you do better.

Understand yourself and your own journey. Then set yourself free by letting it go.

12. Self-Acceptance

Accept yourself the way you are. Flaws and all. You are unique. There will never be another you, ever again. Celebrate yourself . You have talents that no one else have. Learn to use them.

Know that you are worthy of good things in life. You have value and you do have something to offer this world.

                                    "I forgive myself for having believed for so long,

                         that I was never good enough to have, get & be what I wanted."

                                                         - Geanna DeRohan

Now..... it's your turn.....how do you define self-respect?

Do you agree with my list above?

Maybe you have some ideas that you want to add to the list?

Please leave your comments below.

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