Power of Feeling Beautiful

Power is something we learn.  Feeling beautiful is also something we learn.  We are not born with this idea of being powerful nor are we born with the sense of feeling beautiful.

We have to cultivate them both.  Cultivate our power and our ability to feel beautiful!  Only we can grant ourselves permission to harness our power and believe we are beautiful.

Power and Beauty.  These are two words that are not discussed very much explicitly in our culture yet they are very present in the underlining tone of our society.  An example would include the stereotypical runway model who we all think we need to look like in order to be what society decides is beautiful.  This critique on our physical appearance is detrimental to our power because we compare ourselves with others.

Here is the oxymoron.  Beauty is on the inside, not the outside.  Beauty consists of happiness, confidence, kindness, love, compassion, gratitude, optimism, good health, high self-esteem, self-respect, and self care.  All of these characteristics lead to your power.  These characteristics empowerment you to feel good, vital and full of zest. 

Close your eyes and see yourself with all of these characteristics, and you will see yourself with the most beauty you can imagine.  This feeling of beauty starts with your decision to want to be beautiful and acknowledging that only you can make yourself feel beautiful. 

Empower yourself!  Go to the mirror right now, look at yourself deep in the eyes and put your hand on your heart.  When you can feel your heart beat, tell yourself how truly beautiful you look right now and how beautiful you have always been and always will me.  Empower yourself to really feel that sense of beauty inside.  What better time than the present!

Embrace your inner beauty and the power that has been inside of you all along!

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Free Phone Consultation with Dr. Aymee

Learn how to use Happiness Science to coach others

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www.happinessmakeover.com

Dr. Aymee Coget, a widely-known happiness expert, has more than 15 years of experience in positive psychology. Through the Happiness Makeover™, a program developed by Coget, she teaches people how to achieve happiness and handle life's challenges. She also serves as CEO and founder of the American Happiness Association, a science-backed nonprofit designed to educate individuals and organizations about how to be happier, and was nominated for CNN Hero of the Year in 2011.

How a Rosy Outlook Can Help Your Health

In 2008, the University of California, San Francisco had one of the most exciting neuropsychological research breakthroughs in happiness science yet: the importance of optimism for the health of our brains.

It turns out that our brain has a center for optimism, and if that center is not developed we get depressed. That’s probably why there aren’t too many happy pessimists running around out there, huh?

Believing in gloom and doom does not make you happy, and that simple fact proves that sustainable happiness is not rocket science. It’s just a matter of focus, of donning a pair of rose colored glasses and choosing to look at life from a different perspective.

I live in San Francisco, and sometimes my sunny outlook is dampened by the foggy haze that cloaks the city I call home. When that happens and I feel my mood start to turn gloomy, I remind myself that above the fog, above the clouds, the sun is always shining. I have to rise above my present situation and make an effort to find the sunshine, but when I do, it makes life brilliant again.

When you feel like your optimism has run out and there is nothing but doom and gloom around you, get your head in the clouds and remember that there is always something trying to brighten your day. You have a choice about how you interpret your reality.  You can choose to know that the sun is shining no matter what and shift your thinking from being pessimistic to optimistic.

You have nothing to lose by having an optimistic outlook – except a frown. Just try sporting some rose colored glasses for a week, and see if you get happier. All the scientific research says you will.

If you need help to become optimistic and decrease depression, visit my Self-Help Store.

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Visit Self-Help Store

Free Phone Consultation with Dr. Aymee

Learn how to use Happiness Science to coach others

Hire Dr. Aymee for as a Keynote Speaker

www.happinessmakeover.com

Dr. Aymee Coget, a widely-known happiness expert, has more than 15 years of experience in positive psychology. Through the Happiness Makeover™, a program developed by Coget, she teaches people how to achieve happiness and handle life's challenges. She also serves as CEO and founder of the American Happiness Association, a science-backed nonprofit designed to educate individuals and organizations about how to be happier, and was nominated for CNN Hero of the Year in 2011.

How to Make Your Wishes Come True

If you type, "how to make my dreams come true" in a Google search, you will receive almost FIVE MILLION results! 

While the answer might be different in each result, the message is the same: there is a way to make your dreams come true. But how?

Well, you can grant your own wishes. By taking three fairly obvious and very simple steps, you can have the life you’ve dreamt about.

Step 1: Be happy no matter what.

If you believe that you’re never going to get a better job or a nicer home or a happier marriage, you won’t. If you focus on how bad you feel about your lot in life, you won’t be happy. You won’t see the possibilities that are in front of you. You won’t hear opportunity knocking if you’re too busy listening to sulking. Decide to be happy no matter what life has given you or sends your way.

Step 2: Have a vision for your dreams

Once you are committed to being happy, your brain will start believing that good things can happen. You will start seeing where you want to be, and how it is possible to have your wishes come true. You will have a clear picture of what you want, and you will have something concrete to go after. Part of making your wishes come true is knowing what you wish for.

If you’re struggling to create a clear vision of what you want in life, try using the Social Construction of Reality theory. This concept, created by Berger and Luckman in 1966, suggests that our entire human experience is shaped by seven categories of existence.

·         Socialization (the people around us)

·         Institutions (the organizations we associate with)

·         Language (the type of speech we use)

·         Knowledge (the things we know)

·         Habits (the things we regularly do)

·         Reification (the objects we surround ourselves with)

·         Legitimation (the principles we use to validate ourselves)

You can create a vision for your dreams by answering questions that help you evaluate these essential areas of your life. Ask yourself:

·         Who am I socializing with when my wishes become reality?

·         What institutions am I a part of when my dreams have come true?

·         What is the language I am using? What words and sentences am saying when my dreams have come true?

·         What is the knowledge I have when I have achieved my dreams?

·         What habits am I employing when my dreams have come true?

·         What are the "things" around me when my dreams come true?

·         How do I really know to trust that this is my dream and that it is coming true?

Once you are able to answer those questions, you will have a roadmap of how to grant your own wishes and can move on to step 3.

Step 3: Bring your vision to the present.

After you’ve got a clear vision of what you want to do, be, see, feel, have, put your energy toward bringing it to the present. If you want to find Prince Charming, open your eyes and start looking for him in this moment. If you want to go back to school, get the admissions materials right now. Start turning your wish from something in your mind to something you can grasp. 

You are your own genie in the bottle, your own fairy godmother. You know what you want and you are in control of making your wishes come true.  

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Visit Self-Help Store

Free Phone Consultation with Dr. Aymee

Learn how to use Happiness Science to coach others

Hire Dr. Aymee for as a Keynote Speaker

www.happinessmakeover.com

Dr. Aymee Coget, a widely-known happiness expert, has more than 15 years of experience in positive psychology. Through the Happiness Makeover™, a program developed by Coget, she teaches people how to achieve happiness and handle life's challenges. She also serves as CEO and founder of the American Happiness Association, a science-backed nonprofit designed to educate individuals and organizations about how to be happier, and was nominated for CNN Hero of the Year in 2011.

3 Secrets for Aspirational Acceptance

One of the most basic human needs is companionship. We are people people, social creatures, and we need to feel accepted by others.  The same desire that left you with baited breath during elementary school kick ball, when captains were picking teams, is still with you as an adult. It is a deep part of your psyche, and something that will be with you forever. But having the desire to belong doesn’t necessarily get you acceptance.

The only prerequisite to a sense of belonging is accepting yourself entirely. If we don’t accept ourselves, we won’t be able to recognize what it feels like to be accepted by others. Find out if you are accepting yourself with these evaluations. 

1.      Assess negative self-talk.

Pay attention to what you say to yourself when you make a mistake. Watch your tone of the voice. Is it condescending? Do you say things like:

·         "How many times do you have to make that mistake?"

·         "You are so stupid!"

·         "You can’t do anything right!"

A lot of us share a tendency to be hard on ourselves in this way, but we all have the ability to get a handle on this inner critic and find self-acceptance.

2.  Keep a positive self-talk journal.

To convert your harsh inner critic into something positive, try keeping a positive self-talk journal. Invest in a small spiral notebook bound at the side, and any time you have a negative thought about yourself, write it down on the left hand page. The left side is dedicated to the inner critic.

Then convert what the inner critic says into the opposite and write it down on the right hand page. This positive inner voice is what I call the inner colleague.

Keeping a positive self-talk journal requires persistence, diligence and commitment. Bring that memo pad everywhere you go and convert negative thoughts as they arise.  Immediately, on the spot, write it down and convert it right there. 

3.  Every night, review what your inner colleague had to say.

At the end of the day, read through the right hand side of your notebook. Listen to your inner colleague and her affirmations in your mind as you drift off to sleep and let your subconscious build her presence.

If you diligently study your inner monologue for three months, your inner critic will disappear and be replaced with your inner colleague. You will feel love, respect and appreciation for yourself, and that will allow others to feel love, respect and appreciation for you. Acceptance starts with you.

Like the tools listed above to build Aspirational Acceptance? 

Visit my Self-Help Store for more tools to make your life full of HAPPINESS!

*************************************************************************************************************

Visit Self-Help Store

Free Phone Consultation with Dr. Aymee

Learn how to use Happiness Science to coach others

Hire Dr. Aymee for as a Keynote Speaker

www.happinessmakeover.com

Dr. Aymee Coget, a widely-known happiness expert, has more than 15 years of experience in positive psychology. Through the Happiness Makeover™, a program developed by Coget, she teaches people how to achieve happiness and handle life's challenges. She also serves as CEO and founder of the American Happiness Association, a science-backed nonprofit designed to educate individuals and organizations about how to be happier, and was nominated for CNN Hero of the Year in 2011.

5 steps for how to love yourself

Do you want someone to love you unconditionally?  Do you give yourself 100% self love? 

More people than you can imagine, do not love themselves entirely.  Think about how that influenced your experience in life.  If we are really 'all one' and we expect others to love us unconditionally then we need to love ourselves first.

It is easy to point the finger at our significant other and say all of the things that are wrong with them.  It is harder to point our fingers at ourselves and ask, "Why is this my experience?" and look at our past and present to see why we are experiencing this lack of self-love. 

Unfortunately our society's educational system does not give us the education we need to build this sense of self love for ourselves.  There is no "How to" manual.  Our family is the only structure that offers us a hint of this 100% unconditional love and if we were raised in a semi-dysfunctional or extremely dysfunctional family, then we have the odds against us.

At some point in our lives we have to come to the decision to love ourselves before we can truly love someone else and receive true love from them.  In fact you will attract someone who does not love themselves if you do love yourself.  This will manifest into an unhappy relationship because each person will expect the other one to love them unconditionally and each person will not be able to do it because their own self love comes first. 

So the first step is to ACKNOWLEDGE that you have to love yourself first unconditionally. 

The second step is to ACCEPT your self love is only going to come from you.

The third step is to TURN YOUR ARROWS AROUND & POINT TO YOURSELF and stop looking to others for love.

The fourth step is START NURTURING YOURSELF like you were a baby.  Treat yourself to dinner by yourself, go to the spa, tell yourself you are beautiful. 

The fifth step is to take the VIA strengths survey www.authentichappiness.com that will tell you WHAT IS GOOD ABOUT YOURSELF.  Build your life in accordance with your strengths.

If you follow this quick and easy guide to building self-love for yourself, I imagine you will attract the love in your life that you were missing before.

5 Steps for learning how to accept yourself

One of the most basic needs of being human is the feeling of being accepted by others in the group.  No one wants to be the last one picked like in your elementary school gym class so to speak.  Now that we know at a deep root of our psyche we have the desire to 'belong' and be accepted by others.  What may the first step be to achieving that?

Well you can start by accepting yourself entirely.  That feeling of being accepted by the group starts with your feeling inside of whether you accept yourself. If we can not accept ourselves, we do not recognize what it feels like to be accepted by others therefore we do not comprehend the experience when we are indeed in the group environment. 

One way to identify if you are experiences negative self-talk would be to notice what you say to yourself when you make a mistake.  Watch the tone of the voice.  Is it condescending?

"How many times do you have to make that mistake?"

"You are so stupid!"

"You can do nothing right!"

Actually you are not a lone, a lot of us do this. In fact, I have invented a very practical way to convert this voice into a positive experience.  Every single one of my clients experiences negative self talk.  If you do this exercise for yourself, I guaranteed that this negative self talk would either disappear entirely or at the very least, lesson its reigns on your un acceptance of yourself and general unhappiness.

If you were to write down a piece of paper all of the negative things you say to yourself and read them aloud, it will lead you straight to unhappiness.  If you wanted to feel better about yourself write down the opposite of that negative talk. 

In my coaching practice, I have my clients purchase a small notebook and whenever that negative talk comes up, I have them write it down on the left side of the pad.  I call this negative self talk, the inner critic. 

The next step is to convert what the inner critic says into the opposite and write it down on the right hand side of the page.  This positive inner voice is what I would call the inner colleague

This is not rocket science of course, yet it requires general persistence, diligence, and commitment.  At night you can read to yourself the inner colleague, which builds its presence in your subconscious while you drift off to sleep. 

The most important element to this INNER CRITIC CONVERSION is to bring that memo pad everywhere you go and convert it as it arises.  Immediately, on the spot, write it down and convert it right there. 

Here are the clear steps so you can begin to accept yourself a lot more than you do now and in fact become happier as a result!

1 – Purchase a small notepad that you can take anywhere.  The spiral bound must be on the side.

2- Make a commitment to yourself to start this inner critic conversion. 

3- Every time the inner critic says something to you write it down immediately

4- Convert it into the inner colleague on the spot

5 – Read to yourself before bed all of the lovely things the inner colleague said to you. 

If you do this diligently for three months, you will find your inner critic will disappear or at the very least become a distant voice in the background you can laugh at.  This exercise will aid in your self-acceptance and therefore increase your happiness. If you want, you can view this 1 minute video I where I discuss the inner critic. 

Dr. Aymee

For more information, comments, or questions contact Dr. Aymee at http://www.draymee.com/.

Q: Don't we have the Pursuit of Happiness?

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”
                                                -- United States Declaration of Independence

When our country’s founding fathers decided to write a letter declaring their autonomy, they demonstrably stated that human beings are entitled to three things: life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

Life and liberty we all understand, but the pursuit of happiness, as a universal right of human beings, is not something we give enough attention to. We are, in some regards, mandated to pursue our own happiness. We have an ethical responsibility, a national duty, a birthright, to be happy.

Everyone wants us to be happy – our parents, our friends, our co-workers, even our founding fathers. Sometimes we turn to money to make us happy, sometimes we turn to people or relationships. We chase our tail trying to find something that will fulfill our manifest destiny and make us happy, but all the while the opportunity to be happy – and the responsibility for it – rests squarely within each one of us.

Try thinking about your happiness from the perspective of other people. Do they feel a responsibility for your happiness?  No. Do they have a perfect understanding of what will make you happy in this moment or the next? No. They have no idea what truly makes you happy, so it’s not fair to put the responsibility of your lasting happiness on them. 

Our circumstances are not always in our control, and even if we arrange our lives in a way that will "make us happy," – BAM! – something happens. We get a divorce, we get fired, our parent dies, we are diagnosed with cancer, life just happens to us. So what can we depend on to make us happy if our circumstances are outside of our control? Ourselves. That is it.  You are ethically responsible for your sustainable happiness.

Empower yourself to be happy. Start down the path to lasting happiness by asking yourself:

1. Am I speaking my truth and listening to my heart?
2. Am I using my strengths?
3. Am I feeling a sense of meaning and purpose?

Taking it upon yourself to be happy, accepting responsibility for your own happiness, is your duty. So go on, pursue sustainable happiness!

Dr. Aymee

For more information, comments, or questions contact Dr. Aymee at http://www.draymee.com/.