Uplifting Articles
To Help You Get The Perfect For You Life You Need.
Why Self-Wisdom Is The Most Potent Intelligence
By Anna Elena Berlin, Certified Well-Being Coach
Our intelligence enables us to learn from experiences and adapt to the environment, even as small children. But the efficacy of what we learned then was greatly affected by how we learned it. Was it learned through calm challenges, or was it beaten into your head? When you finally learned it were you praised, or shamed because it took you so long? When you did something unacceptable were you told you did something bad, or that you were bad?
What we learn and experience until we're about 7 years-old is permanently filed away by our subconscious minds as truth. At that young age we have no discernment, our subconscious minds take in everything within its range of reception and puts it into its permanent storage. The good, the bad, and the ugly are in our subconscious minds as long as we are alive, whether we remember them or not.
According to psychologytoday.com, “Unconscious fear-related memories can remain totally hidden from your conscious mind, yet they still have the ability to dramatically affect everyday behavior and emotions.” Like most of us you’ve probably wondered why you have done things that your conscious mind didn’t consent to. It's no wonder there are so many stuck in deficient feeling lives.
Making the right choices to get a good feeling life relies on how well you know yourself, and what works well in your life. People who have achieved top-level success also struggle to find lives that feel good to them, even though this was most likely why they strove to be successful in the first place. It doesn’t matter if you are fortunate or unfortunate, your subconscious mind keeps hidden the true reasons for your dissatisfaction, dismaying fears and behaviors, and what you need to have a good feeling life.
It is an enigma to our conscious minds where logic and reason are at the forefront. In a perfect world they would rule. Unfortunately our subconscious minds are a formidable 95% of our mind capacity, leaving only 5% to operate our conscious minds. With that much strength it rules our reality by wielding the power of our subconscious originating emotions.
The point is that we are fundamentally dependent on our emotions. They are the actual driving force in our species. To paraphrase Dr. Brene Brown, Research Professor of Social Work at the University of Houston, on the power of emotion, “Emotion is driving the car, thought and reason are in the trunk.” If this is an unsettling thought for you, be assured you are not alone. However, as I wrote in my book, it's important to understand that your conscious mind can work with your subconscious… and that’s how you get to be wise about yourself.
Enter stage right… Wisdom, the key to making the best of trying situations, and having a satisfying life in an increasingly complicated world. Being wise about yourself is the most Potent Intelligence because we tend to see everything through the same perceptual lenses that we see ourselves through. Utilizing Self-Wisdom improves your self and world views so you can make progress to a life that is optimum for you.
One of the brightest things I’ve ever heard was when my daughter said, “By changing my perception, I have changed the world.” She wasn’t just talking about seeing the world differently. She also meant that changing her perception about herself enables her to improve her life, and how she feels in it. This in turn empowers her to affect good change in the world.
If you are a parent this may be the most valuable skill you will ever learn, because if you don’t have a good self-view you won’t see anyone or anything else in a good way either. You enable yourself to Feel Better & Do Better by thinking and doing what serves your core needs well. The more your self-view improves the better your life feels, and the more you’ll know you’re moving in the right direction for you.
Those who are wise about themselves are more resilient when disappointment and other harsh emotions upset them, so these have less of a negative impact on their lives. They are better connected with their core needs which are vital to feeling good and doing good. Self-study helps them to be intimate with these needs so they can overcome the habits and behaviors that plague them. If this sounds daunting to you, just ask yourself, “Do I really want to feel like I do now next year?”
Self-Wisdom is the most Potent Intelligence because it maximizes what the definition of intelligence describes as: the ability to learn or understand or deal with new or trying situations, and: the ability to apply knowledge to manipulate one's environment. Self-Wisdom enables you to deal with new and trying situations because you learn that you can handle what life throws at you, even if it doesn’t feel good for a while. Self-Study makes you wise about yourself and is the key to finding out what you truly need so you can apply that knowledge to manipulate your environment and GET A LIFE THAT FINALLY FITS YOU.
Unfortunately, according to Eric M. Brown PhD, of Mental Health Counseling and Behavioral Medicine at Boston University’s Department of Psychiatry, “We currently may be witnessing the generation with the most choices and the least easily identifiable help. Being able to identify who is wise and know how to make wise decisions can provide us a path forward as we seek to make the best of what life has given us.” This is why it’s important to be able to tell the difference between an influencer and someone that can help you to learn how to be wise about yourself.
If you are stuck in a life that doesn't feel good, if you’re in transition, if you need rescuing, or just don’t know what you need—take heart there are still Wisdom Keepers among us that can guide you toward a good destiny that you choose.
The Difference Between “Perfect” And “Perfect For Me”
By Anna Elena Berlin, Certified Well-Being Coach
The first two definitions of perfect in the Oxford Dictionary are:
1. having all the required or desirable elements, qualities, or characteristics; as good as it is possible to be; highly suitable for someone or something
2. free from any flaw or defect in condition or quality
Is it possible to have the first definition without having the second definition being involved? Well—yes, it’s not difficult to see that the second definition is not needed to support the first. So what is the difference between a perfect life and a perfect for me life? The latter is actually attainable. Why? Because as a human, being free from any flaw or defect in condition or quality is not possible. But, experiencing a life having all the required or desirable elements, qualities, or characteristics; as good as it is possible to be; and highly suitable for someone is entirely possible.
Once you realize that you can have a perfect for you life, you can make it a point to get one by learning what makes your core self happiest. By far the most effective place to begin is to aspire to talk to yourself with careful consideration and respect, because to learn yourself deeply you need to have an effective open dialog. Like learning anything, this takes some practice, but can you think of anything else more worthy to work towards than a life that is finally a good fit for you?
Words are powerful, especially the ones we say to ourselves. I have heard the brightest people say negative things out loud about themselves. I can only imagine the kind of verbal beating they give themselves when they are alone. This negative self-talk can keep them from experiencing a perfect for them life, because putting themselves down is not only counterproductive to their happiness goals, it’s damaging to their Self-Esteem—which heavily influences their choices and decisions.
The point is that improving the way you talk about yourself elevates your Self-Esteem, which goes a long way towards enjoying your best feeling life. This Self-Compassion skill is especially valuable if some, or all, of your life feels ill suited to you. This sounds simple, but as with all things human, very little is as simple as it sounds. Because this is the point in our human experience where we are vulnerable to those who want to make money off of us.
Companies promise to make your life better by elevating your status, which is meant to elevate your Self-View. In other words, they are saying that you will feel better about yourself after you purchase what they are offering. The problem is that this joy of new does not last long, and it leaves you still stuck with the same Self-Worth issues that caused you to spend the money in the first place. This can become problematic as can be seen when having too many possessions overtake people’s lives, and wind up owning them instead of the other way around.
You can’t buy yourself into good Self-Respect and Regard, which are needed to know what A Life That Finally Fits looks like. However, speaking to yourself kindly, with your own best interests at heart, works because we are subconsciously fine tuned into intent. Whether it is from what we see, or feel, or hear, we naturally respond better to kindness than we do to bullying, it’s a much more effective way of communicating. Since bullying triggers Shame Reactions within us, the last thing that you want is to have this Master Emotion negatively influencing your life.
To give yourself the best chance to improve the way your experience of life feels, take negativity out of what you say to yourself. Give your core self a better opportunity to let your conscious mind know it and what it needs. If this seems daunting to you because you don’t have time to learn how to better relate to yourself, remember this:
You decide what to focus your attention on. You decide what is worth your time, and what is not. A Perfect For You Life can only happen when you focus on what your true nature needs.
When you realize that influences from outside of you are determining what you do in your life, it becomes easier to take back some of your precious time to devote to your enduring health, happiness, and well-being. When you decide that you are worth the conscious effort it takes to finally get a good fitting life, shifting time over to Project Me becomes possible.
Improve your Emotional Maturity by upgrading your personal lexicon. Be mindful of the words you use and what you say about yourself. Our species tends to believe the stories we tell ourselves, so tell yourself better stories.
No one is more responsible for how you experience your very finite existence, because only you know how it feels. Use your innate power to find what is best for your core self and get a life that feels Perfect For You.
You Are More Powerful Than You Know
By Anna Elena Berlin, Certified Well-Being Coach
What if I told you that you have the power to get the life that's perfect for you? Power is defined as the ability to act or produce an effect. This primary definition is not how many of us relate to the word power, which is understandable given the political headlines the media exposes us to daily. But the fact is we all have power—especially over how we experience our own lives.
We do nothing more in this physical existence than experience our lives. Before we are born we hear our parent’s voices and even experience a sense of security when we suck our thumbs. When our energy aspect departs the body that can no longer support it, we have lucid experiences.
We have no control over these beginning and end of life experiences, but we do have a lot of control over what occurs in between them. The problem seems to be that many of us don’t realize how powerful we are. There are many reasons people don’t reap the benefits of their innate power over the way they experience their lives. Certainly some just don’t know how much power they have over how their lives feel, ergo this saying:
~ I'm stuck in that awkward stage between birth and death ~
While this saying may sound dark, I am using it to illustrate how people often feel out of place in their own lives. As if the universe stuck them in a life that’s not suited to them by mistake, and they don’t know how to improve their situation. I have experienced this in many forms, from confusion to torment, and asked myself, “How the hell do I get out of this life that doesn’t feel good?”
Many endure their ill fitting lives until they can’t take it anymore. Others spare themselves this ordeal with the belief that they can get a life that feels good using conscious effort and focused attention on this prime personal goal. Either way, change is the key.
“The measure of intelligence is the ability to change.”
—Albert Einstein
Like all of the choices you make, there's two ways to look at change: it's either worth it to you, or it's not. There are literally millions of things you can focus your attention on. However, none of them give you the kind of reward that redirecting some of your energy towards this endeavor offers you.
What’s the reward you ask? It's enjoying A Life That Finally Fits. It's feeling good in your own skin in a life you created. It's a personal gift that no one can give you, except yourself. So what's the catch you want to know? If you’re experiencing suffering that you need to get out of, there isn’t a catch. There's not even a cost of admission. It's more of a trade of how you spend your time.
To rescue yourself from an unsatisfying, sad, or painful life, focus some of your time asking yourself who you are at your core level. What brings your hidden self pain, joy, healing, and wholeness? Asking yourself questions might sound simplistic but they are proven keys to retrieving vital information about your core needs from your subconscious mind.
You may not consciously know why you have an aversion to something, or truly love something else, however, your emotions reside in your subconscious mind and it remembers everything. And, it’s compelled to answer your questions, albeit in its own good time. Be aware that the answers can come as a knowing when you see, or hear, or feel something that your subconscious recognizes rings true to your question. So being open and receptive to learning from unexpected sources is worthy.
The answers you get will be invaluable when it’s time for you to include and exclude things in your better life plan. Write down questions, answers, ideas, and inspiration in a journal or notebook that you keep with you at all times. You never know when you’ll think of or come across something you want to consider.
Learning more about your hidden self will improve your self-view, your self-regard, and your self-confidence so you can make the most of the life you design, which will feel so much better than the ill serving life you wound up in, or that you chose when as a teenager just starting out on your own. This process is the best investment in time and effort you will ever make because nothing is better than having a life that feels good to you.
Pleasure Or Happiness?
By Anna Elena Berlin, Certified Well-Being Coach
Ever wondered why some things that feel good are good for you, and other things that feel good are bad for you?
We have a reward system that is so important that without it we would not want to be alive. Nothing less than the survival of our species depends on it, according to Robert Lustig MD, MSL, a renowned neuroendocrinologist that studies the regulation of energy balance by the central nervous system. His research has determined that reward and contentment are not the same thing, but that reward and pleasure are synonyms. However, people confuse reward and pleasure with contentment and happiness all the time.
We need to know their differences to better understand the world and how it can manipulate us and cause us misery. There are seven differences and if we know them we can avoid the things that make us unhappy.
1. Pleasure is short term like enjoying ice cream, and happiness is long term like having a satisfying life
2. Pleasure is visceral and felt in the body, happiness is ethereal and felt in your mind
3. Pleasure is taken like a gambling win, happiness is given like Habitat for Humanity
4. Pleasure is achieved alone, happiness is achieved in social groups
5. Pleasure is achieved with substances, happiness is not
6. Pleasure is addictive and creates all of the --holics, like alcoholic, shopaholic, and foodaholic, while happiness is not addictive
7. Pleasure creates dopamine, and happiness creates serotonin
Dopamine is an excitatory neurotransmitter that brings a sense of temporary pleasure. But, the body has a tolerance to it which means you need more stimulation to get less pleasure which creates an environment for addiction. On the other hand, serotonin is an inhibitory neurotransmitter, and you can’t overdose on too much happiness. Dopamine downregulates serotonin, so the more pleasure you seek the more unhappy you get. This is the reason too many people keep trying to feel good through pleasure, thinking that it will bring them happiness when it does the opposite.
Knowing the difference between reward and contentment, and between pleasure and happiness has eluded most of us because mainstream marketing makes them all seem the same. If you don’t know the difference you may continue to seek reward to uplift your life until it brings you misery. That’s because dopamine is powerful, it says, “This feels good, I want more.” By contrast serotonin says, “This feels good, I don’t want or need anymore.”
The third essential component to this pathway is the stress hormone cortisol which works on the brain’s prefrontal cortex. If yours is dysfunctional you may only live for the present moment because you need your reward now. It’s the combination of dopamine and cortisol that results in addiction. It turns out that reward is good, but reward plus stress is not. This is your wake up call, because most of us have chronic stress that makes us need to have reward, which sets us up to get addicted.
Like dopamine, cortisol also downregulates serotonin by making less of it with fewer receptors for it. This causes depression which happens under the influence of chronic stress. The problem is there is so much more now than there was 50 years ago due to the onslaught of information available 24/7 on the internet and TV.
It’s clear that this added modern stress is driving the increase in chronic health diseases and disorders that are lowering life expectancy more every year. We humans are at the mercy of our own judgment all the time. We choose what we put in our minds and bodies based on our belief that those things are not harmful to us. But the ugly truth is that this belief is highly flawed. To save us from ourselves we need to ask if the pleasure oriented habits we indulge in to compensate us for enduring our chronically stressed lives are actually in our best interest. Especially since avoiding constant chronic stress is always the better choice.