My Favorite Self-Help Stuff

When you’re stressed and things look hopeless, remember there’s always a way. And in tough times, prayer can be a powerful tool for hope, renewed faith, and yes, stress relief.

Here’s how prayer works to give strength and hope in the darkest of times.

Whatever your belief system may be – if you believe in God or a Higher Power of any name, praying will help.

Here is the phone number of a prayer hotline that I highly recommend (Unity):

1-800-NOW-PRAY

It’s free, the people who will pray with you are wonderfully calming and reassuring, and they’ll even send you an encouraging letter afterwards. Meanwhile, your name will be held in prayer for 30 days after your call. You’re not alone.

Another wonderful Prayer Line is staffed by Science of Mind practitioners. It too is free, and you can call them around the clock at 1-800-421-9600.

Of course, you can also pray by yourself. In fact, that’s a very good idea.

Here are my two favorite books that have helped me learn how to pray more effectively:

Adventures in Prayer – Sharon Connors

Handle with Prayer – Alan Cohen

Both of them have their spiritual roots in Unity, which isn’t exactly a religion but more of a non-denominational spiritual movement of seekers, with strong emphasis on inclusiveness, and very compatible with The Secret and Abraham-Hicks teachings. I find it very life-affirming. No matter which religious background, if any, you come from, you will likely get some peace of mind from prayer.

In terms of how to pray: “Please help!” is always appropriate. Of course, “Please help me out by bringing that $10,000 I need to pay my Amex bill right now!” may not be the best approach, especially if you don’t believe it’s actually possible. However, “Please give me guidance on what to do at each step of the journey, and please give me the strength to handle whatever comes my way, and the faith and trust that everything will turn out for the best” may help a lot.

Even more importantly: Give thanks for the blessings already received and for those you anticipate. Pray as if you had already received them, as if you knew that the best outcome for all concerned (including you) were just around the corner and had already been provided: “Thank you for your divine guidance, and for keeping me safe.”

Feel free to pray to your guardian angel as well (provided that it fits with your faith). Or to other deities. It all depends on your beliefs. Ganesh, a Hindu deity, known as the destroyer of obstacles, for example, is very popular for obvious reasons.

Ready to let go of all that extra stress? You’re invited to download my FREE Easy Intro to EFT and get started right away. Why EFT? It’s an extremely powerful tool for stress relief!

Is Test Taking Anxiety getting you all stressed out?

You may want to read the previous couple of posts, for two reasons:

Time pressure is part of what causes test taking anxiety — since most tests are timed, and if you blank out you loose time too, which will only increase your stress, and that makes it even harder to function.

And the other part is the bit about needing to be in a better feeling place in order to get stuff done.

So you need to get past that anxiety and stress. But how?

Well…

Here are some options:

You could do some basic breathing and other stress management techniques.

Or get the free version of the above guide with some great stress tips.

Or you could try EFT — click here to get my FREE easy intro to EFT guide.

If you get that guide, you’ll also get ongoing tips on using EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique) for all sorts of things, including exam anxiety, fear of public speaking, and much more.

And there’s also a fantastic program involving hypnosis that promises to calm you down and make test taking anxiety a thing of the past. I’ve checked it out and it really rocks:

Your Test Taking Anxiety Cure

Personally, I think those tools work great in combination. Hypnosis can be very effective, and the guy who has created the hypnosis program has been a professional hypnotist and therapist for a long time and has helped countless students overcome their test taking anxiety.

And chances are, it will take care of yours too. But it never hurts to have a few extra tools you can use quickly DURING the test — hypnosis might now be quite practical in that setting– just so iyou know you’re covered if the need should arise. And EFT fits the bill.

So this is the deal: Find tools that help calm you, so you can retrieve what information is in your brain.

Obviously, you’ll also need to study, or else there won’t be much for the brain to retrieve! Fortunately, the above tools will help with studying as well.

One more thing… Make sure you get enough sleep. In fact, take naps between sessions of studying, or go for walks etc. It helps make the info stick better. Really!

So do check out those tools, the free ones and also take a look at the powerful hypnosis program.

And good luck with your test!

Do you have too much to do? And far more than you have time to do it in?

Chances are, the answer is yes. And the result — Time Management Stress Big Time!

In this post, I’ll go over a variety of approaches that you might find helpful — and some of them are quite contrarian.

I’ll skip the truly traditional approaches, but will give you a resource for one that is taking it to the next level: Brian Tracy — the big guru of high performance action:

21 Great Ways to Manage Your Time and Double Your Productivity

That’s a good way to get started, and it complements some of the other things I’ll suggest. Tracy does believe in those charts and cschedules, but he lets you draw up your own. He teaches a whole philosophy around it, which, he says, should be internalized.

He strongly believes in focusing on the highest pay-off tasks, and includes positive self-talk, modeling, visualization and other such techniques.

Then, there’s my friend Jason Fladlien’s approach, which is VERY heavy on the carrot side of the carrot and stick approach, and will transform how you’ve been thinking about time management. In fact, where Tracy uses the 80/20 technique (focusing on the hightst pay-off tasks), Jason takes that principle to a whole new level.

He includes lots of principles from NLP (Neuro-Linguistic Programming), but gives it his own twist, and manages to double, triple, and in some cases even quadruple people’s productivity, much of it by taking away resistance and ambiguity and helping them to get super motivated to tackle whatever it is that needs to get done.

When Jason put it together, he had especially internet marketers in mind as his primary audience. There’s a reason for that. That’s what he knows really well, that’s what his clients do, and that’s where there are a LOT of built-in obstacles to productivity, yet without producing you won’t get anywhere, especially not there.

And internet marketing is filled with distractions. All those enticing emails with the “next big thing”… And then, of course, there’s the “day job” that also requires attention.

That’s why his program includes a bonus called “Day Job Annihilator” that will help replace the money from the day job quickly.

Is this course only for internet marketers? Of course not. It’s great for any professional who works under a lot of pressure, especially time pressure, and who struggles with procrastination and difficulty deciding what to do first and next.

I’ve found his course very helpful — in fact, I’m IN the course. I was one of the people in the original webinar, which is also included. That’s where Jason went in and gave people some laser coaching on how to overcome their biggest time challenges. The guy is brilliant!

Click the following link to find out more about Jason’s Time Management approach.

Both those approaches have to do with increasing your productivity, and they both help.

Next time, I’ll talk about a couple of other approaches that will approach this issue from a rather different angle.

In the meantime though, don’t overdo the productivity thing. If you’re tired, you’re not going to be productive. If you’re stressed, you’re not going to be able to do good work. So it has to be a priority to take care of yourself FIRST.

Take a nap. Get help with stress management so you can tackle your deadlines and tasks with a refreshed body and mind. Trust me, you’ll be MUCH more effective.

Quick case in point — if I have to grade papers, one particular paper might take me 5 to 10 minutes of focused attention, which will allow me to read it, understand what needs to be done to improve it, and write a few comments to help the writer to upgrade it significantly.

If I’m tired, that same paper will take me half an hour OR MORE — because I end up reading and rereading it and my brain simply won’t cooperate. Should I struggle on? Absolutely not.

Getting through a stack of 10 papers will take me 5 hours or more, and the feedback will be far less useful than it would have been if I had been well-rested and could have done the job in an hour and a half, or maybe two.

So if you’re tired, go take a nap! And if you’re stressed, listen to a stress relief hypnosis CD or do some deep breathing or any number of other techniques designed to relieve that stress.

More next time

Elisabeth

Better sleep? Less stress? One depends on the other, and if you’re plagued either by insomnia or excess stress, you’re caught up in a vicious cycle, also known as a catch-22.

So what to do?

Not sleeping enough makes it harder to cope, and that will increase your stress. And being stressed can keep you from sleeping, right?

Ever spent a night fretting about something, an upcoming exam, bills, a job interview, your kids, your health? And the next day, things only got worse, and you were dog tired.

One way to break through that cycle is to break it somewhere.

By finding a way to cut down on the stress, you may well be able to regain your ability to sleep well.

And when you sleep better, you can cope with your life a lot better.

Here are a few tips:
1) Keep a notepad by your bedside.

This will help tame your overactive brain. Whatever worries you might have, just write them all down. You’re basically turning them over to your notebook (or the Universe, or God), where they will be where you left them, but probably less daunting.

And your brain actually goes to work on them once you go to sleep, so you might even wake up with a solution.

There are other techniques that will help you break through that cycle. There’s EFT, of course, and if you attended the EFT summit I wrote about recently, you’ll know all about that.

Look for my free ebook soon.

Then, there’s also the Sedona Method, a slightly different approach. Some people swear by it, and I found it quite helpful myself — and I still use it, though overall I personally prefer tapping.

You can find out more about it here (just click on the link):

Have Boundless Energy and
Sleep Soundly with the Sedona Method.

It’s easy, and you won’t need any tools really, other than the audios until you get the hang of it.

What else?

Meditation.

Yeah, right. If you’re stressed, how are you supposed to meditate?

Okay, I admit it. It’s not exactly easy, but it IS extremely helpful. And you don’t have to make it more complicated than necessary. Here’’s the easy meditation method recommended by Abraham:

Sit (or lie) comfortably, close your eyes, and take deep, slow, comfortable breaths. And just focus on thhose breaths, in and out, in and out, one after the other.

If you mind should wander, just gently bring it back to your breath. Do that for about ten minutes, and you’ll be a WHOLE lot less stressed.

It’s best to set a kitchen timer though so you won’t have to try to check if the ten minutes are up yet — or worry about going to sleep.

Unless, of course, you’re doing this at the end of the day. In that case, by all means, leave the kitchen timer turned off and just keep breathing and focusing on your breath, and before you know it, you’ll …. wake up.

Hope this helps.

For a LOT more Stress Tips, check out my Free Stress Tips Report or get my whole manual with Instant Stress Relief Strategies, which currently comes with a FREE Stress Relief Hypnosis audio!

If you already have my stress tips report, just sit tight and keep an eye on your inbox. I’ll send it to you really soon.

Everybody else — check this out:

I just expanded my FREE stress tips report and added a bunch of tips for how to reduce holiday stress. It’s now the expanded Special Holiday Edition!

And where can you get it?

Here:

Holiday Stress Tips Report

And that’s just for starters.

I’ve also added a ton of new stuff to my Christmas Present Ideas blog, and created two new Squidoo lenses on the subject too, one of them on Last Minute Gift ideas. And another one: Christmas Present Ideas. Yeah, more of them.

I guess it’s the season

After all, what to buy for whom is a great source of stress during the holiday season, so I figured I’d help you out.

And don’t forget — if you aren’t already on my email list, please click on the link above and get my Holiday Stress Tips Report It’s free!

Happy Holiday Season

Elisabeth

P.S.: A couple of years ago, I read about EggNogg’n tea (by Bigelow), but I couldn’t get my hands on a pack. But now I have. It’s great stuff! Yummm.

And Stash also has a great holiday tea with pumpkin and spice and stuff, and it’s even caffeine free!

A nice cup of tea can be very relaxing. And if you’ve found any special holiday teas you like, please share them here in the comments section .

It’s been a while, and I’m still listening to Jon Gabriel every night as I drift off to sleep. His Gabriel Method really rocks.

One of the various reasons I like it is this:

He shows us how stress is largely responsible for installing the Fat Program in our system, and how ratcheting down the stress can uninstall it (or at least weaken its power). His audio is one of the most de-stressing things I’ve listened to in ages.

It’s worth getting the Gabriel Method just for that alone!

He also promised a companion program — to be played in the morning. I can hardly wait and keep checking his website.

Now another new interest of mine is how stress relates to high blood pressure, and of course high blood pressure is also affected by weight, so it all goes together.

Here’s a special offer for any fellow fans of Jon Gabriel:

I do have a free stress tips report and you can get it by going here:

Free Stress Management Tips

Just sign up and you’ll get my free stress tips report. Plus my self-help newsletter.

And then, here’s what I want you to do: click “return” on one of the first emails you get and Put “Gabriel Method” in the title, and I will send you the link for my easy introduction to EFT how-to special report.

It will help you reduce stress even further.

BTW, if you don’t know yet, Jon Gabriel also has a blog talk radio show which is pretty cool. It’s on Thursday evenings, EST, and you can subscribe to it too.

Find the link for it here: The Gabriel Method

Want updates? Just follow me on Twitter:

If you like this twitter badge, you’ll find more of them and where I found them on my other blog:

http://www.myfavoritewebstuff.com/talkspot/twitter-badges/twitter-badges-for-your-blog/

I’ve been guilty of neglecting it for a long time, but i’ve finally updated the WordPress version, so now it’s fully up to speed, and I’m going to put it to use, sharing my favorite web stuff, just like the name says.

I’m also going to post a quick “how to” for those of you who love those badges but wish they could figure out how to actually put them on their blog

Meanwhile, back to The Gabriel Method:

1) Sign up for my Free Stress Tips

2) Send me an email with Gabriel Method in the title for my EFT How to Report

3) Follow Jon Gabriel on Twitter at http://Twitter.com/GabrielMethod

4) Follow ME on Twitter

5) Optional: Go to my other blog for the Twitter badges info:
http://www.myfavoritewebstuff.com/talkspot/twitter-badges/twitter-badges-for-your-blog/

6) Have a fantastic day!

Elisabeth

Self-help stuff/stress relief audios? Sure.

I decided to give it a shot. They’re not the world’s slickest in terms of production quality, but you can listen to them and get the info while going for a walk (highly recommended.

Here’s one to try out:

5 More Stress Relievers

I’ll post some more, and maybe I’ll send links to others to my newsletter subscribers

Hope you enjoy them. I’ll get better audio quaility as I learn how to do these better…

Take time off for stress relief? Absolutely! The core of any stress relief or stress management program is to take some time off periodically. But those of us who have our own businesses find exactly that VERY difficult at times. We feel like we constantly have to keep all the balls in the air — and continue marketing as well, or else, our business will just evaporate.

And that can cause problems. Burnout for once. Or just exhaustion, or disenchantment. We might wish it would all just go away. I’ve been there, and the horrible thing is that our wishes tend to become true.

A few years back, I was getting very burned out from working double shifts — running a business in addition to my more than full-time job, and within weeks, my business went POOF!

It was weird. All my clients suddenly disappeared and/or no longer needed my services. One person moved away. So did another one — completely unrelated to the first one. Another became pregnant and no longer wanted to continue with my services.

Yet another didn’t like the way I had handled the increase in my fees (which was my mistake, I admit, and I did learn a lesson there), but somehow, I believe the timing was just too uncanny for this to have been an accident.

Meanwhile, I have learned about the Law of Attraction, and if this wasn’t the law of attraction in action, I don’t know what is.

So what should we do? Give ourselves a break! But what about the marketing?

Well, there’s this teleseminar coming up that will give you a great answer. It will give you strategies you can put in place right away that will help you grow your business even if you’re spending some time at the beach or in the park with your loved ones, or playing golf!

Sound too good to be true? It’s not.

Success coach Sue Clement is doing what she preaches — she’s taking multi-week vacations while her business keeps on going, and growing. And she’ll show you how you can do the same.

Where? When?

Wednesday at noon Pacific or 2 p.m. Central time, or 3 p.m. EST

Go to http://www.sueclement.com/teleseminar.html to sign up. And yes, even if you can’t make that time. Or even if you get this information after the teleseminar is already over. Because if you sign up, you’ll get access to all the information afterwards, including the downloadable mp3!

You just can’t get your questions answered… so IF you CAN make it live, it’ll be worth your while to make the effort.

Anyway, in the interest of maintaining your health and sanity — and keeping your business humming along, I highly recommend that you check out Sue’s teleseminar. I bet you’ll enjoy it and will get some VERY useful information from it.

Take Time off Teleseminar

Does The Law of Attraction really work?  I think so.  But here’s the scoop:

I just found this really cool article about it on Twitter:

http://www.youaretrulyloved.com/enlightenment/the-deeper-purpose-behind-the-law-of-attraction/

Check this out and let me know what you think.  The thing is we’ve all been going about getting what we want the hard way.  Well, most of us have.  And I’m the grand master at doing things the hard way.

In fact, I think I’ve had a deep down feeling that I only deserved things I got the very, very hard way.  It’s sort of a justification for why I got them.

And now I’m learning that I was going about it the wrong way.  I should approach things with much more ease.  To focus on what I want, enjoy the idea of having them, and then mostly do what seems to be the next step etc.

I’ve learned that from Bill Burns years ago, but didn’t fully "get" it until I’ve been studying Abraham-Hicks and the teachings of Unity.  And yes, I do have relapses…

But things do go so much better when I focus on the positive, on what I want and banish thoughts of negative possible outcomes from my consciousness as much as possible.

While doing my part in making things happen.

So here goes…

Oh, and how does stress figure in with the Law of attraction?  Well, doing things the hard way causes stress, and stress practically keeps the desired results from you.

So one step towards getting somewhere is to get a grip on stress.  Obviously, there are many ways to do that.  If you want to know one way, you can either sign up for my free report at any of the sign-up forms right here, OR you can go to http://www.FreeStressTipsReport.com and sign up over there.

And I’m just working on a new edition of that ebook, and if you still get the old version, you’ll get the new one automatically (unless you unsubscribe before I have a chance to send it to you).

So let’s all relax into attracting what we desire

Happy attracting!

Elisabeth

Want my Free Stress Tips Report, without signing up?  It’s hidden in here somewhere

I want to get that report out there, and preferably some feedback too.  And I’d like some of the people who read it to come to my next teleseminar.

What will I do on my next teleseminar?  Talk about how to relieve stress under the most stressful of circumstances.  Why? Because no amount of stressing is going to make anything any better.

Instead, action, especially focused action, does.  But it’s hard to take action, especially action that makes sense, when you’re too stressed to function.

So let others call my approach to stress relief Band Aid Approach.  I stand behind it.  I wouldn’t be here without it!  It helps. It allows you to get on with it even if you think that getting swallowed up by the earth just about now sounds really quite appealing (temporarily anyway).

That’s no license to not look at what’s going on and what’s making you stressed.  But the thing is, you’re much better able to look at it when you’re not in the middle of a nervous breakdown.

So what stress relief techniques do I like especially? You mean other than aromatherapy stress relief?

I like the combination approach.  Bring it on.  Some relaxing music in the background, some stress relief meditation, some stress management exercises, some hot chocolate in my cup, some aromatherapy in my diffuser (I love the “Aroma Shell Diffuser” which you can get from some New Age or health food stores, or from Aromatherapeutix.com, which is where I get a lot of my aromatherapy stuff).

What do I love about my diffuser? You plug it in, it has a little dish that gets warm, but not hot (no fire hazard), and it makes the oil, well, diffuse! And it takes about a minute or two till it works. No noise. No wind. No droplets flying about the air.  Very, very economical.  Two drops can last quite a while.

And then some EFT.  I’ll teach you all how in my next teleseminar! Which could be as early as this week.  Sign up for my list if you want to know when it will be.

So you want my other stress tips? You’ll have to buy the ebook

Just kidding.  You can get them right here.  No opt-in required.  It may take a moment to load though.  And I do hope you’ll opt in anyway of course. You can do so at the top right, or you can do so here.

Thanks a bunch, and let’s all take a deeeeeep breath! Aaaahhhh!

Elisabeth

P.S.: Why not follow me on Twitter:  http://twitter.com/ElisabethKuhn