Ericksonian Principles

We’re Different People Then

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Self-Portrait

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“It’s no use going back to yesterday, because I was a different person then.”  ― Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland

That’s one of the reasons we long for yesterday because we want to experience how things were then. It is true we had some good times, but we forget that we had some difficult times in our past as well. We were different people then because since then we have added new experiences and those experiences has changed us over time. Today we have different needs and desires. What was important then is different from what is important to us today. It is no use looking back at the past through today’s lenses for something we want today. Our lives change over time whether that’s our tastes in things or our values as we learn to get older physically and psychologically. We hope that we’re getting wiser as time passes.

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[bctt tweet=”It’s no use going back to yesterday, because I was a different person then. ― Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland”]

Your Self-Respect Blossoms

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Blossom!

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Do something to allow your self-respect to blossom. — David Viscott

It is important to nurture our self-respect. When we nurture self-respect, our self-esteem increases. However, self-doubt is one of the quickest ways to lower our self-esteem that in turn affects our self-respect. When an opportunity comes our way we can take advantage of it because we believe we deserve it. We believe we deserve an opportunity because we know we worked so hard to get to where we are now and we’re ready to take it. We earn self-respect. We can be our worse enemy or our best advocate when it comes to making a choice to build our self-respect or not. No one can lower our self-esteem unless we allow it. Self-respect gives us the privilege to express ourselves through doing what we find important to us.

 

[bctt tweet=”Do something to allow your self-respect to blossom. — David Viscott”]

 

 

 

Success and Frustration

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Steps to Success

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Success is not built on success. It’s built on failure. It’s built on frustration. Sometimes its built on catastrophe.— Sumner Redstone

The above quote reminds us that success comes with a price. Before success, we will experience failure, frustration and sometimes catastrophes. Failure just helps us to see our weaknesses and our strengths. We build on our strengths and accept our weaknesses. We will get frustrated at times because we want things to go as plan. The reality is that not everything will go as plan. There will be setbacks and delays, but we continue pushing ahead. Success is never without its perils. Through frustrations and failures, we learn how not to give up or give in to the difficulties of success.

[bctt tweet=”Success is not built on success. It’s built on failure. It’s built on frustration. Sometimes its built on catastrophe.— Sumner Redstone”]


Take Our Own Advice

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Pondering Bob's advice

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Nobody can give you wiser advice than yourself. — Marcus Tullius Cicero

There are times we need some advice. However, most of the time we have the answers. We ask other for advice because we want validation. And there are times we want to ask other for advice because we’re just avoiding taking our own. Nobody else knows us better than we know ourselves, so what better person but ourselves to take our advice. Self-trust and self-reliance are what we need to be confident in taking our advice. We know our like and our dislikes. We pretty much know how we react to various situations in our lives. However, sometimes we surprise ourselves now and then. Wisdom comes from the experiences that we acquired over the years. We will always find our wisdom through the experiences that we’ve lived.

[bctt tweet=”Nobody can give you wiser advice than yourself. — Marcus Tullius Cicero”]

 

Meaningful Past With Friends

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Let Us Reminisce On Yesterday

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Meaning is not what you start with but what you end up with. — Peter Elbow

The struggles and challenges are what we start with that give us meaning in the end. It is, even more, meaningful when we struggle together and help support each other to get through it. It is those memories we tell our story or reminisce about something we did in our past. When there are two or more of us reminiscing the past together, we collaborate and compare memories. One person may recall something we have forgotten. They recall a memory that was long forgotten about because it was more meaningful to them and how it’s impacted their lives the most. As we reminisce, we re-experience the memory as though the event happened yesterday. We’re re-establishing a special bond that we developed many years ago when we reminisce together.

 

[bctt tweet=”Meaning is not what you start with but what you end up with. — Peter Elbow”]

 

Hold Head High

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High Dynamic Range (HDR) Shots of Malibu with a Nikon D3X

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Never bend your head. Always hold it high. Look the world straight in the eye.—Helen Keller

It is difficult to experience confidence when we keep our head bent. However, if we hold our head high with confidence we then will experience confidence and that others will see that and want to be around us. When we look at the world straight in the eye, we’re engaging the world. We’re freer when we’re participants in the world instead of bystanders. If we’re constantly looking down, we won’t know what direction to take next. We built our confidence through the goals we set and met. We see that we build a foundation when we look back later at our work. Our foundation is our proof to ourselves that we can do what we thought what we can’t do before.

[bctt tweet=”Never bend your head. Always hold it high. Look the world straight in the eye.—Helen Keller”]

 

 

Difficulties Produce Growth

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Growth

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Man needs difficulties; they are necessary for health. — Carl Jung

As long as we’re alive, we will always have difficulties. We can’t avoid or ignore them so we might as well accept them. Accepting difficulties are the first step in learning how to handle them better. Another step of how to better handle difficulties is changing the way we see them. Every time we go through a difficult situation we’re stronger than we were before. We can see that we’ve also gained more wisdom as long as we have learned something from the experience. Life is not meant to pacify us but to build character. Life is about self-discovery.  Life forces us to see ourselves in the mirror. We see things we dislike and the things we like about ourselves. We learn to embrace both the negative and the positive side of us.

[bctt tweet=”Man needs difficulties; they are necessary for health. — Carl Jung”]

 

 

 

 

Jump, then Our Wings Unfold

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Jumping into the sea at sunset. Using the self timer

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Jump, and you will find out how to unfold your wings as you fall. — Ray Bradbury

Sometimes we have to jump before we could ever think about what we’re getting ourselves into when we leave our comfort zone. As we jump, we’re forced to use every brain capacity we have and every experience we have for us to unfold our wings and learn how to fly and to land properly. That’s where we will find our excitement and create meaningful experiences when we jump into something. It is about taking risks. When we’re taking risks, we’re defining who we are as a person. Growth happens when we take risks. Taking risks is life changing experiences and memories we can take with us. As we recall our past adventures through our memories, we can re-experience them anytime we want.

[bctt tweet=”Jump, and you will find out how to unfold your wings as you fall. — Ray Bradbury”]

 

 

Better to Do than to Try

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Beyond a shadow of a doubt
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“Do, or do not. There is no ‘try’.”- Yoda (‘The Empire Strikes Back’)

When we say to ourselves or others, that we will ‘try’ to do this or that, we’re leaving room for doubt. It is natural to have some doubts when we’re challenged to do something we feel uncomfortable doing. We can think of many reasons why we get afraid to do something.  We have two choices; we can listen to doubts in our head, or we can ignore the doubts in our heads. Doubting is a circular thinking exercise in the mind that keeps us from doing. The fastest way to expel doubts from our heads is just do it, take action. Something about taking action breaks up the doubts in our heads. We have more opportunity for success if we do than if we try.

 

[bctt tweet=”Do, or do not. There is no ‘try’. – Yoda (‘The Empire Strikes Back’) “]

Let It Rain

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rainy day

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The best thing one can do when it’s raining is to let it rain. — Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

We have to let things happen. And things will somehow work itself out. Letting go implies accepting what we can’t control. A rainy day is temporary. We may want the sunshine over rainy days. However, if we’re in a drought, we would welcome rain because water maintains life. A sunny day is appreciated when it’s been raining all day. So it is better to get something out of a situation than lamenting about it. Perhaps we can learn to be part of the solution. A positive attitude can be useful in the difficult situation. We can better handle life when we just let it rain.  [bctt tweet=”The best thing one can do when it’s raining is to let it rain. — Henry Wadsworth Longfellow”]

Don’t Stop, Keep Going

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It's time to let go.

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“It does not matter how slowly you go as long as you do not stop.” — Confucius

Just because someone is ahead of us doesn’t mean we have to catch up with them. We all have our own pace in life. We all have different speeds in life too. We don’t need to make comparisons. It is about us competing with ourselves, not with the other person. Since we have our own pace, then we don’t have to rush things along. We don’t stop doing until completion. We don’t stop doing because it is hard. We don’t stop because it is a struggle. We can endure what’s ahead of us as long as we don’t stop prematurely. It is hard to start something new, it is harder to maintain something new, and the hardest is to complete something new. Our regrets are born out our unfinished projects. But if we take our time doing things, then there will be fewer headaches in the end.

 

[bctt tweet=”It does not matter how slowly you go as long as you do not stop. — Confucius”]

 

 

Change Your World

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The world at your feet - El mundo a tus pies

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Change your thoughts and you change your world. — Norman Vincent Peale

We see the world through our thoughts. If we see the world with our thoughts, then it is our world we see. Our thoughts can distort reality. We interpret the world based on our previous experiences. Therefore, our minds automatically fill in the gaps without testing our assumptions. There will always be some degree of distortions when we see the world. “The map is not the territory.”  Since the map is not the territory, then we can change our map any way we want. Communication is the key to testing our assumptions and verifying facts. We alter our world when our assumptions are challenged. When our world expands, we see clearly that we don’t have to overreact to things. We just accept what is and use what we have already to move our world.

 

[bctt tweet=”Change your thoughts and you change your world. — Norman Vincent Peale”]

 

 

Look At Your Darkness

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The Darkness Inside

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Your willingness to look at your darkness is what empowers you to change.— Iyanla Vanzant

Just as it is difficult listening to a recording of our voice, it is difficult looking at our foibles or weaknesses. Sometimes we do things out of our weaknesses and then later regret that we did them. We play the denial game on others and ourselves. We deny the fact that what we’re doing can have a big effect on us. The conscious learnings eventually move to the back of our minds. Our learnings and behaviors become automatic. Most things we do becomes second nature and that we don’t think about them. We’re designed this way so we can do more than one thing simultaneously. But once we begin to observe how we respond to different situations, we then can alter our behavior.

 

[bctt tweet=”Your willingness to look at your darkness is what empowers you to change.— Iyanla Vanzant”]

 

Follow Your Passion

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Passion Butterfly

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Follow your passion, and success will follow you. ~Terri Guillemets

We’re not looking for success when we follow our passion. When we follow our passion, we don’t mind the great labor it takes to want it because we already have what it takes to get it. When our days are up, we follow our passion, and when our days are down, we still continue to follow our passion. We follow our passion because we enjoy doing it.  We follow our passion because it gives us satisfaction and purpose. Our success is meaningful when we follow our passion.  We can do without success because our passion is our driving force to continue doing it.  Sometimes success can stifle our passion if we’re not careful. We follow our passion because we like doing it not because we can be successful doing it. Our passion always remains when our success leaves us.

[bctt tweet=”Follow your passion, and success will follow you. ~Terri Guillemets”]

The Ability To Start Over

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Post Written By Eugene Morgan

Strength shows not only in the ability to persist, but in the ability to start over. — F. Scott Fitzgerald

Starting over is one of the hardest things to do when we already put in a lot of work and time into a project. It takes everything we got to restart the project.  But if we think of restarting a project as rehearsals, then we can deal with starting over better. Rehearsals imply that we’re just getting better at doing a certain thing each time. It doesn’t have to be perfect, but we can strive for excellence. We want to do good work. Sometimes, we are going to redo something. In other words, starting over means we’re making improvements to what we’re doing. We can never substitute time and hard work. Time and hard work build strength. Starting over also give us an opportunity to find what we overlooked.

 

[bctt tweet=”Strength shows not only in the ability to persist, but in the ability to start over. — F. Scott Fitzgerald”]

 

Thankful

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Thankful

The thankful receiver bears a plentiful harvest. — William Blake

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When we give thanks, we’re taking a moment out of our busy schedule. When we give thanks, we’re reminding ourselves and each other what is more important in our life. It is easier to allow ourselves to be stressed out from trivial things that we may or may not remember later. We’re thankful for things that touch our hearts in a profound way. Around the table, we’re gathered to celebrate life and to be reminded not to take for granted our lives, family and friends but be thankful we have them.

[bctt tweet=”The thankful receiver bears a plentiful harvest. — William Blake”]

The Motivating Factor

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the thin red line wine

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Poverty was the greatest motivating factor in my life. — Jimmy Dean

When stripped to almost nothing, there is something inside us that motivate us somehow to change our situation. Self-reliance grows out of life or death situations. There are times in our lives we had to hustle to get above the red line. We must learn to trust ourselves to do what is necessary to pull ourselves up out of a well. Self-preservation is a powerful motivator when we’re between a rock and hard place because we are forced to make decisions quickly and to do what must be done to get out of our predicament. There is no room for procrastination when a time is of the essence. We hear many success stories about individuals who’ve gone from rags to riches. A common denominator that motivated these individuals to do something that made a difference in their lives were an immediate threat to self-preservation.
[bctt tweet=”Poverty was the greatest motivating factor in my life. — Jimmy Dean”]

 

Enjoy Your Life

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~ LIVE ~

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The best way to enjoy your own life is to stop comparing it to others. — Unknown

It is no use to comparing ourselves to others. How can we find joy in our own lives when our attention is busy comparing another. If we redirect our attention on how best to enjoy our lives, then we have no need to compare. Life is about discovery what we can do and then using what we can do to help ourselves and others. We each have to walk our own path that’s unique to us. Our lives can be meaningful and satisfying, if we let ourselves live it. We’re unique as our fingerprint let us become what we suppose to be and not what we hope to be. We live a finite life so why not live today.

 

[bctt tweet=”The best way to enjoy your own life is to stop comparing it to others. — Unknown”]

 

The Beginning of Happiness

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Stick insect..Ramulus sp?....IMG_2970 copy

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“Knowledge of what is possible is the beginning of happiness” – George Santayana

We’re unhappy when we get stuck in a rut. If we see no possibility of getting out of a rut, then our mind is closed for new ideas. For us to get out of a rut, we have to see things in a new light.  Ideas come after processing knowledge we have learned. New ideas help us to expand our mind to see what’s possible. Knowledge is power because it will reveal to us something that we haven’t had before.  We don’t have to be stuck doing the same thing every day. We can rearrange our routine, so we don’t have to stay stuck for long. Rearranging our routines fragment the old pattern so we can produce new patterns and new behaviors. New behaviors bring new possibility thus the beginning of happiness

 

[bctt tweet=”“Knowledge of what is possible is the beginning of happiness” – George Santayana”]

Tie a Knot and Hang On

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TIE A KNOT AND HANG ON

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When you reach the end of your rope, tie a knot in it and hang on. — Thomas Jefferson

We all experienced days when nothing went right. Our patience was tested when everything decided to break around the same time.  We just want the day to be over before we scream at the top of our lungs. We can only fix things one thing at a time. We can’t fix things simultaneously. Although we could be in a jam, we can always take steps back to see the forest for us to figure out a plan to get ourselves out of a jam. When we take steps back, this will help us to find some clarity to see if there are options available to remedy the situation. We won’t be able to fix everything because problems will always arise. All we can do is take one problem at a time and hope for the best and keep our heads high.

 

[bctt tweet=”When you reach the end of your rope, tie a knot in it and hang on. — Thomas Jefferson”]