Hal Stratton's (and Your) Personal Transformation
Last week I wrote about “who” vs. “what.” We all have lots of “what’s” in our lives, situations and events to which we must respond. Some can be quite challenging. However, by knowing who we are and anchoring ourselves in deep, positive beliefs about our identity, we empower ourselves to respond in positive, non-reactive ways to life events. That was certainly an important reason Elizabeth Smart was able to overcome her tough ordeal. She was an example of hope and courage. [Read more...]
I recounted in my blog, last week, the story of Elizabeth Smart, the 14-year-old girl kidnapped from her home in the middle of the night and held captive and abused daily for nine months before being freed by law enforcement and returned to her family.
You might recall that I posed a question at the end of the article: What enabled Elizabeth to overcome this horrible experience and move forward with her life? [Read more...]
I’m intrigued by the story of Elizabeth Smart, the 14-year-old girl who was kidnapped from her bedroom in Salt Lake City on June 5, 2002.
The previous evening, Elizabeth’s family attended an award ceremony at Elizabeth’s school. Her father, Ed Smart, locked up the house, as usual, and the family went to bed. In the early morning hours, Brian Mitchell broke into the home and entered the bedroom of Elizabeth and her sister, Mary Katherine. At knife-point, he forced Elizabeth out of bed and down the hallway. Mary Katherine, who had been faking sleep, immediately got out of bed and to tell her parents but froze in fear when she nearly ran into Mitchell and Elizabeth as they looked into her brother’s bedroom. Terrified, Mary Katherine crept back to bed, not daring leave her room for a couple of hours. [Read more...]
I’ve been writing a lot about self-esteem these past several weeks. This week I want to continue the theme of being real by encouraging you to honor and be true to who you are. In Shakespeare’s play Hamlet a father gives his son some advice about shaping his life and character. “This above all: To thine own self be true; and it shall follow, as the night the day, thou canst not then be false to any man.” [Read more...]
Being real means being who you are rather than trying to be who you are not for the sake of pleasing someone else. It is being comfortable enough in your own skin that you don’t have to play games, pretend, manage an image, etc. You can be you, warts and all. [Read more...]
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Feeling good about yourself on a consistent basis is only possible if you are willing to experience yourself as the source of your own self esteem. Whenever you allow others to decide your worth, life is an roller coaster ride over which you have little control. Taking that responsibility back gives you the power and freedom to be in charge of your life. Ultimately, no one else can decide for us whether or not you have worth. [Read more...]
I’ve been writing about the power of our beliefs these last several weeks. I want to go deeper this week. I’ve worked with lots of people, in both seminars and coaching, who have confronted limiting beliefs very much at the core of their identities. A common belief of masses of people is “I’m not enough,” or “if people really knew me they wouldn’t like me.” Such beliefs are usually formed pretty early in life, at a time when they were vulnerable and lacked the support or internal awareness and resources to make a better decision. Making such a decision can happen as the result of criticism, through comparisons to others, through neglect or abuse. The commonality is that the situation-specific conclusion (often repeated a number of times) sticks and becomes a core belief. [Read more...]
When Carol was a young girl, she exhibited a vivid imagination and proficiency in language skills. She always received “As” in her English and, in high school, excelled in creative writing. She even placed second in a short story contest sponsored by a popular teen magazine. It was exciting to see her story in print and receive the small honorarium check that came as a result. Carol felt that she had found her niche in life. Encouraged by her mother and teachers, she decided she would be a writer. [Read more...]
Most of us have grown up with beliefs that don’t serve us. We live in an imperfect world. We are nurtured by imperfect care-givers (some much worse than others). And, especially when children, it’s easy to misread cues in our environment and arrive at false conclusions about ourselves, life and relationships. Then we spend our adulthood acting out those beliefs. They become the paradigm, so to speak, from which we view the world. [Read more...]
I’ve been writing about the power of our beliefs these past few weeks. I want to continue this theme by introducing “The Belief Model” which illustrates how our beliefs determine our behavior and eventually our results. You’ll notice that the model is the key moment model only with a little different twist. It’s based on the idea that we interpret any given situation from the filter of our core beliefs about what is true and not true. These beliefs directly influence our inner experience (thoughts, feelings, physical sensations) which influence our behavior and eventually our results of the outcomes of our lives. [Read more...]
