Sunday, Oct 06, 2002 Self-Positivity! ezine (HTML edition) Your Self-Esteem ezine from Crystal Woods http://www.self-positivity.com
Contents	Welcome from Susan! (Guest Editor)
Welcome What's New Article: Dream Treasures Article: Sustaining the Fire (Susan Knox)	Hi again sue here, this month I have written a sequel to the first article on how to keep the fire burning when it comes to keeping your dreams and visions going. I know this can be the hardest part, but once you begin it is also the most rewarding. Catch you all agin next month Sue
What's New from Crystal	Article: Dream Treasures
With the site, I'm now planning ways to help finance the stuff I'm now going to have to get others to do for me, since my eye operation. Brainstorming, I'm thinking I might set up an "e-book bargain barn" type thing, with all the ebooks & packages I've bought resell rights to over the years offered in Aussie dollars, instead of US (essentially close to half price). Going to start putting up some of my favourites this month, but if anyone has a package or ebook they've been looking at please feel free to email me, I might have it & can put it up quicker for you, or if I get 2 people want it I'll happily pick it up & put it on the list. On a personal note, I've started my retraining & am now seriously looking around for a job in learning & development. Reckon I'd be good at it - don't you agree? ;-) Also visited the dentist again this week. Erk. Had to have one of my teeth pulled. Didn't realise I'd be dosing up on painkillers & useless for anything for 3 days after... Healing up nicely now, and am determined I am GOING to grow a replacement - just coz he told me I wouldn't! (Hey, two of my teeth are already up to the third instalments, the only difference is I lost & regrew those ones before anyone told me you were only supposed to have 2.) Enjoying the sunshine here, in between furious land gales. Getting really good at pulling all the furniture in off the back porch before it goes flying down the street. Oh, yes, and I'm finally getting my new contacts, so I'll be able to see (relatively) clearly again!!! Hooray!!! Distortion is still there, but my mind's getting used to it now & I'm not seeing so many double images. Was very lucky with the surgeon I got - brilliant man! Someone was watching over me when I got sent to him - and I'm very, VERY grateful!!!!!!!	I wrote an article for this month's ezine early on in the month. It was titled "Believing the Hype" and it was about thinking about the effect of the messages the media give us. On reading through it again, though, I decided not to include it here. (I may yet post it on the website later, or run it next month if I get enough requests) The reason? I found something I wrote a few years back, about what I wanted to do with my website. The ezine was mentioned. My dream was to send a positive, upbeat message out to help people maintain the most optimistic, 'wring everything you can out of life and just dam well LIVE it!' type attitude they could. I decided that, although the article was well intended, drawing your attention to something that could rob you of your self-esteem, it just wasn't true enough to the dream. So I went back to the drawing board to come up with something more positively focused. Sitting staring at nothing, working on getting inspiration, I suddenly realised that there was a positive focus right there, in going back to my original ideas and making sure that my actions now were still in line with my intentions then. The Dream I had, and followed, of putting information up on the web, of writing to others how I felt about the importance of believing in yourself, how I'd grown through my own adversity to come to self-acceptance, and what Self-Positivity means to me, is now a reality. There's a great deal of satisfaction in that, but an awesome responsibility as well. Finding my old draft plans was a reminder that it's not enough just to start something - you gotta put stuff in place that keeps it heading in the right direction as well. You've put your trust in me, sharing your contact details with me (which I have no intention of abusing by reselling or passing on to any 3rd party) and even in some cases shared part of your own stories in the wonderful letters & recommendations I get back. The Dream has grown beyond just me to include each & every one of you, but that doesn't let me off the responsibility I have to keep on feeding, nurturing, and treasuring the original impulse that started it all. Yes, it's changed, it's growing, but at the heart of it all is still my dream, and it's still very much worth treasuring. So I'm taking the time this month to say "Thank you" to all of you who have helped me along the way, who've written to tell me how my site, course & ezine have helped them, or even just participated by taking the time to read, and hopefully think over, the info I work to put together each month. May the Dream continue to grow, and the message that we're all worthwhile, and dont need anybody's say-so to believe it, spread ever wider... Have you got any Dreams in need of treasuring in your life right now?
Guest Article: Sustaining the Fire (Susan Knox)
Ok so you have begun your great project and now after a few weeks you find yourself coming up with every excuses under the sun to get out of the hard work required to fulfill your future goal. Your fire begins to go out. Admittedly hard work is not much fun, but then neither is driving in heavy traffic, or dealing with hard to get along with people. Many of us think that we just can??™t handle the amount of effort we have to put in but in actual fact it??™s the way in which we view the hard work. Life is about working, hard or otherwise. So how do we keep our fire burning? Simply by learning how to discipline our thoughts. Say for instance you are trying to loose weight, and you have set yourself a daily exercise routine. Now after a week you don??™t see any great results and you begin thinking this isn??™t working, I may as well just give up. Here your thoughts need discipline. The type of discipline where you call the shots and not your negative fears and worries. Tell yourself that yes, its hard work but that you are capable of it and that the results will come if you stick to it. Getting past your thoughts of self-defeat is probably harder than the hard work that you are facing. Today, society dictates that life should be made as easy as possible. And yes this is true. Dishwashers are a wonderful invention, so are automatic cars and escalators but they don??™t do us any real favors as far as discipline goes because after a while we begin to need everything to be easy and we look for ways to make our lives as easy as we can. But as the saying goes, life wasn??™t meant to be easy .we need to find a balance in where we are comfortable with the amount of effort we are going to put in and just how much we can put in. If we begin by first of all thinking about our future goals as being enjoyable and beneficial then the first step is done. Don??™t let your thoughts talk you out of your effort. Argue with your negative thoughts and overcome them with positive messages about why you are going to keep on going. A plan is also a good thing to have get a plan and work your plan. When you have a plan to follow then it becomes a little more stable. This may take a little practice to get good at. Don??™t start of too big, just train your thoughts to get past small obstacles at first. Make yourself do something simple that you really don??™t want to do like pay a bill or clean out the linen closet. Once you have done this take notice of how you feel afterwards. Its like a burdeon being lifted off your shoulders. This is how it will begin to feel when you keep to your plan, and work towards your goal. Don??™t let your thoughts keep you in captivity. Break free and let your fire be intense and burn long and passionately.