Energy vampires operate by keeping you off kilter. When you’re off kilter, you can’t think clearly and the vampire is in control of the interaction. If If you stay centered, you’re able to think clearly about what your options are and exercise them, keeping you in control of the encounter.

Here’s two tricks to keep you centered and in control:

1. Breathe.

It may sound simplistic, but breathing can be a hugely helpful tool to center your energy. Deep breaths oxygenate the blood and help keep energy moving, so you’re able to think more clearly. If you know you’re going to encounter one of those energy suckers, make some time to take a few deep breaths. If you find yourself in the middle of an encounter, remember to take three deep breaths to center your energy. It helps more than you can imagine!

2. Plan Ahead.

It’s hard to combat an energy vampire when you’re not at your full strength. Take care of yourself by getting enough sleep and staying hydrated. That way you’ll have more energy to deal with them. And plan some escape routes ahead of time when you’ll be in meetings or family gatherings with an energy vampire. For example, if you know your Aunt Mildred is an energy vampire but you have to see her for Grandma’s birthday, plan to limit the time you interact with her, and have several polite but workable excuses on hand to disengage from her. (If all else fails, disengage by excusing yourself to use the restroom. No one can argue with the need for a bio break.)

Staying centered will help you better stay alert and energetic for encounters with energy vampires. Try these two tricks to help you combat their influence to stay energetic and strong.

What tricks do you use to combat energy vampires? Leave your tricks in a comment on this post so we can all learn them.

Stay energetic and strong,

Jennafer

Unfortunately, interactions with others can sometimes have an opposite effect. And if you leave interactions feeling drained of your life force, it’s a good indication that you’ve just been in contact with an energy vampire.

I know it’s a dramatic archetype: the vampire. But it’s a very fitting one. Mythical movie vampires suck your blood, but energy vampires suck your energy. And since all of our interactions are energy exchanges, it’s important to prepare yourself so you’re able to protect your energy level and wellbeing.

Spotting a vampire in the movies is relatively easy because of their pale complexions and fanged teeth. But spotting an energy vampire on sight is less easy because they could be anyone, whether a stranger on the train or your favorite cousin. You’re more likely to recognize the effects of an encounter with an energy vampire before you recognize the vampire him or herself, which, according to Dr. Judith Orloff, are:

1. Your thinking becomes clouded, confused.

2. You feel like the rug was just pulled out from under you.

3. Your mood is suddenly really down.

4. You feel tired (zero energy, eyelids getting heavy, ready for a nap).

5. You feel put down, sniped at, or agitated.

Aside from feelings as indicators, you’ll learn to spot energy vampires because their interactions with you take on patterns that place them in common vampire types. Some of these include the criticizer (who finds fault with everything and offers unsolicited advice), the victim (who has a “poor me” attitude and complains often), the drama queen/king (who exaggerates small incidents into extreme crises and seems to thrive on chaos), and the blamer (who berates and accuses).

Look for these signs and patterns to start learning to identify the energy vampires in your life, which is the first step towards protecting yourself against their attacks. Look for more tips in a future post to help you stay energetic and healthy.

love & light,

Jennafer

No doubt, there are hurts, pains and resentments that are part of our experiences from the last year.  In true 2012 vibration, it was a year of fickleness, unreliability, depression, impulsiveness, jealousy, inconsistency and moodiness.  What a relief to be over that!

How do we release the hurtful events, the painful memories we had last year?  Do we put on a happy face and act like nothing happen?  Do we carry the resentment with us and hate the other person(s) involved?  Do we push the anger deep within us, causing a host of other physical pain to compensate for not dealing with the emotional issue?  Or do we find the courage, strength and power to release the hurt, forgive the aggressor and move on?

I don’t pretend to be the expert in this area.  However, I have experienced many difficult life lessons and have come through stronger and more loving as a result.  My prayer is it the things I have learned will be of help and encouragement to you.

• Be realistic about your role.  No problem is one-sided.  It’s not realistic or fair to shoulder all of the blame or place all of the responsibility on the other person.  Be honest about what your contribution was – it’s okay to learn from your mistakes.  However, don’t take on the responsibility of the entire problem and feel guilty, discouraged or blame yourself for what isn’t your fault.
• Allow yourself to feel the emotions of the situation.  If you feel hurt, angry, sad, lonely, abandoned, scared… honor those feelings and let them happen.  I’m not discounting how difficult this process is.  It would be much easier to avoid the pain and lash out at the other person or avoid the feelings all together.  But those reactions do not bring healing.  Write in a journal, pray, go out in nature, talk to yourself, listen to music, go for a walk… give yourself some time alone to work through the emotions.  Avoid the temptation of getting revenge or speaking your mind to the other person at this point.  Honor yourself by taking as long as you need to figure out how you really feel and what is best for you based on the situation.
•  Time heals so many wounds.  If you’re like me, giving the situation time can be one of the most challenging aspects.  I want to feel better now.  I want the problem resolved now.  I want things to be different now.  I want things to work out and be happy now.  Perspective changes so many things… it allows us to understand motives, see a person’s character for what it really is (good and bad) and understand our involvement in the problem.  Perspective often comes with time.  What we thought we needed or wanted immediately may be different with some space to think through our current situation.
• Love for yourself and love for the other person.  It’s so easy to become angry, hurt or bitter and forget that we are all here doing the best we can.  Some days someone’s best isn’t that great (true for the other person and YOU).  But it’s the best we have in the moment.  Love is the highest vibration of all emotions – when we approach any situation from the heart, we gain the power to see beyond the blame and hurt.  We move beyond the human response and offer a soul response.  Our souls are much more comfortable with love and compassion than retribution and retaliation.
• Take a new direction.  This may mean forgiveness, recommitting and making necessary changes to move forward in your relationship with that person.  It may mean forgiveness, understanding and moving forward without that person in your life.  This can be a sad and painful reality.  Losing someone you love can be devastating.  Trust that you will be okay in time.  Trust that you will be happy again… some day.  Trust that it all worked out exactly the way it needed to… for you and for them.  Let the hope for the future carry you through when it feels like you can’t go on.  It may not feel like it now, but in time you will see that there is a reason for what is happening and heaven is highly involved with the outcome.  There is perfection in EVERY situation.  You will see that (if not now, eventually).

I truly believe that holding onto resentments and grudges stunts our soul’s progress and keeps us from experiencing greater love, peace and contentment.  Forgiveness is the only path to being free from pain, free from guilt and free from the energetic tie to the experience.  It is for our best good when we let go and release the pain.

Let 2013 be your year to nurture your heart.  Allowing the healing powers into your life to transform sadness and regret into understanding and insight.  Give yourself the time you need to let go of the pain and replace it with greater self-love and kindness.

I would love to hear your thoughts, suggestions and input.  Please share your comments – others may need your insights!

Until next time friends,

Tara

“When you haven’t forgiven those who’ve hurt you, you turn your back against your future. When you do forgive, you start walking forward.“  –Tyler Perry

The power to manage so many aspects of our lives is in our hands. Some of them we’re aware of and do pretty regularly, like managing our households, workloads, and finances. But there’s one important aspect of our lives to manage that many of us don’t think of often: our personal energy.

Each of us starts out each day with a supply of personal energy, and we choose how we spend it throughout the day. Managing our energy so we feel healthy and energetic, rather than depleted and exhausted, gets easier when we know a couple of tricks to help.

Tip #1. Choose activities & interactions that energize you.

All activities and interactions—from the conversation you have with a coworker in the break room to the jog you take each morning to the kinds of music you listen to—are energy exchanges, so each we engage in throughout our day either increases or decreases our personal energy. Choosing activities and interactions that energize you is the best way to ensure your energy is strong throughout the day.

How do you know if an activity or interaction energizes you? It’s all in your feelings.

If something energizes you, you’ll feel

• excited
• enthusiastic
• light
• happy
• smiley
• look forward/anticipation

If you’re excited or enthusiastic about an activity, chances are it’s one that energizes you

If something depletes you, you’ll feel

• a sense of foreboding
• dread or a desire to put it off
• disengaged
• a sinking feeling in your chest or stomach
• tired or down-right exhausted

Think about yesterday’s schedule. What did you do that energized you? What did you do that depleted you? Noticing and keeping track of your activities will help you better understand how they add to or take away from your personal energy and help you better manage it.

Once you notice which activities energize you, choose them as often as possible to keep your energy level strong each day.

2. Replenish your energy.

Sometimes we can’t avoid situations or interactions that deplete us to one degree or another. You may have to go to a family function and interact with a relative that routinely drains you. Or you may be required to attend a work meeting that you didn’t expect to be so long or frustrating and leave feeling tired. Occurrences like that are common for all of us, but we can effectively manage our personal energy by making sure we replenish the energy that these occurrences drain from us.

To do this, do activities that energize you shortly after you start to feel drained. I find it helpful to make & keep handy a list of activities that energize me. I call this my ‘happy list” and find that immediately doing items on it help fill my energy bucket back up. Items on your list could include:

• listen to music you enjoy
• watch a funny movie
• meditation or breathing techniques
• drink a glass of water
• rest or take a nap
• play with your kids
• take a bath
• diffuse essential oils
• engage in your favorite hobby

The more things on the list the better—it will give you a large pool of things to draw on to fill up your energy bucket in different situations whenever you feel drained.

Make a “happy list” of activities that energize you to replenish your energy when it’s low.

Managing your personal energy can become as automatic as managing other aspects of your life. Try these two tips to help you and leave a comment letting me know how they helped or any additional tips you have.

Let’s stop for a moment and take an inventory of how you are doing at whittling away at your long term goals.  I find that most people get mired in day-to-day survival and lose touch with their long-term perspective.  However, it is the decisions that you make each day that get you to your final destination.  You are where you are right now because of decisions you made every day for the last 2, 5, 10, even 20 years.

In order to transform our lives, we have to be willing to transform our daily thoughts and actions.  Start listening to how many conversations you have where you or someone else will share regrets or frustrations about not having something you (or they) want.  It may be a closer relationship with your family, a thinner body, a larger savings account, more connection with Heaven, less debt, a better education… you get the idea.  You can have any of those things, but most likely it won’t come in one day.  It takes planning, focus and determination.  You’re trading what you want moment by moment for what you could have if you focused on your ultimate goals.

Today’s challenge:  make a list of the areas of your life in which you are not content.  It may be a list of two or three or two hundred.  When you are done with your list, pick out five or less items that are most important to you.  These are the items that would bring you the greatest joy and satisfaction.

Now, take each item one by one and determine what daily actions will bring you to that goal.  For instance, if you have a goal of having $1,000 in the bank but have only $50 right now, it will take some serious work to make this goal a reality.  What can you do different?  Instead of spending $10 each day for lunch, you decide to start packing a lunch.  That will save $10/day, $50/week, $200/month.   Wow!  That will make a great difference towards getting to your goal.

So the first three days are great – you get up a little early and pack your lunch.  You’re determined and motivated.  Uh oh… day four rolls around and you oversleep.  No time to pack a lunch!  Instead you eat out.  $10 of your valuable savings down the tube.  What you do on day five will show if you truly get today’s lesson or not.  On day five, do you get out of bed and say, “Oh well.  I’ll just grab lunch out today.  I already messed up the week, I might as well just start again on Monday.”  Or, do you say, “I’m not trading what I want MOST for what is convenient today.  I want $1,000 in the bank.  I won’t let yesterday determine what I’m going to do today.  In fact, after yesterday, I’m even more focused on making this dream happen.”

Yes, it will take some time to retrain your thinking patterns and hold yourself more accountable.  But you are on the path to transformation.  You want your life to be more.  Life can only be more when you make active choices to take charge of  YOU (body, mind and spirit) and stop letting your life become dictated by passive choices (decisions made from laziness, boredom, pressure from others, low self-esteem, trying to impress or please others).  Passive decisions are no longer acceptable.  Passive decisions will not get you what you want most.

Now that you have taken your goals and broken them down, you need to hold yourself accountable to the daily steps.  Look at your list morning, noon, night and 20 times in between until your daily actions become second nature.  When you catch yourself making a passive decision, Just Say No!  You are in control.  Don’t forget that!  You are creating your future and in 10 years, you want to be able to say, “I have everything in my life because of choices I starting making 10 years ago.”

Our new battle cry:  I will not trade what I want most for what I want now!  Say it louder!  Even LOUDER!

I WILL NOT TRADE WHAT I WANT MOST FOR WHAT I WANT NOW!

Until next time friends,

Tara

What does that mean?

It means not making excuses any more.  Not accepting mediocrity.  Not waiting for someone else to create something in your own life.

Yes, transforming means shedding the old things that don’t work and creating a new future that is what YOU want.

I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately.   In what ways can I transform my own life?  What about those 40 pounds I’ve been wanting to lose?  Am I ready to step out and teach and coach as my full-time job?  Can I love and encourage my family to be more confident and independent?

Often we have a little voice nudging us forward… encouraging us to be more.  What are you doing with that little voice?  Are you honoring it or squelching it?

Today is the day you make the commitment to HONOR your gut instinct and make great changes!  So let’s get started.

1.  Get really clear on what you want.  It’s hard to know if you’re making progress to your final goal if you don’t know what that final goal actually is.  Sit down with a pad of paper and pen… Ask yourself, “What excites me?  What makes me want to leap out of my chair with joy?  What do I want?”  This can be anything (career, family, personal, physical, financial, travel, fun time…. let it all flow).  Set a timer for 30 minutes and write down every idea that comes into  your mind.   This is not the time for judgement or rationalization.  This is a brainstorm session.  Go wild!

2.  Now make a list of what is most important to you.  Is it a stable family life?  Financial success?  Feeling that you’re reaching your soul’s potential?  Career success?  Adventures?  Spiritual growth and exploration?  Think of the 3 areas that are most important to you.  This is very personal – everyone will have different areas.  These will be the areas that will direct which activities are most important to reaching your personal success.

3.  Next you will rate each activity from step one.  Using a scale of 1 to 5, rate each of these activities on the three factors from step 2.  For instance, if I had the following activities on my list:  Skydiving, take a photography class, write a book, plant an herb garden and paint the fence, I would then go through and rate each of these activities on a scale of 1-5 on the three areas that are most important for me.  If I had picked:  Be the best parent I can be, Love and support my parents and siblings, develop my talents, I would use these are my guidelines for rating the activities from step 1.  So I may say Skydiving is a 1 for being the best parent I can be, 1 for loving and supporting my siblings and 3 for developing my talents.    I would then move to Take a Photography Class and rate it by the same criteria.

Take a few minutes and rate your entire list.  Don’t spend a lot of time analyzing and over thinking this.  Write down the first number that pops into your head.

4.  Now sort through your list.  Which activities stand out as supporting the top 3 areas that are most important to you?  Group them based on the rating you gave in step 3.

5.  Take a few minutes to go through the list and decide which activities make the biggest difference.   What feels RIGHT to you.  Ironically, those will usually be the same things that SCARE you the most.

6.  Review this list everyday for the next 4-5 days.  See what feels right, what you want to change, what is most exciting to you.

7.  Once you have a clear idea of what you want, it’s much easier to take steps to achieve it. Read over your list daily (preferably last thing at night and first thing in the morning).  Focus on the question, “How will I make this happen?”  It will be amazing and exciting to see your subconscious go to work to help you!

As a support for this project, I suggest you download and use my hypnosis program, Creating a Masterpiece:  You!  This program was designed to help you make changes while still being true to yourself.  You can create a masterpiece of your life by understanding yourself and becoming more clear about what you want out of life.  You’ll find greater self-love, self-control and self-confidence.

Good luck with this exciting project – you’re going to do amazing things!

Until next time friends,

Tara

Recently, I was working with a client who was facing this very dilemma.  She wanted to change career paths but was worried that she was making a mistake.  She felt good about moving in a different direction.  When it came down to action, her fears set in and she found ways to sabotage her success.

After reading her Akashic Records (soul records), we found that her decision to start a new career was not only the right decision but exactly what her soul needed to grow and develop.  She repeatedly said, “That’s exactly what I’ve been feeling” or “I knew it but I was afraid to act on it.”

How often do you know something in your heart but you find yourself thinking your way out of a decision because of fear?  What would your life be like if you committed every day to ignore your fears?  To be unwavering in reaching your dream?  I promise you… your life will be completely different!

Not only will you find more joy and satisfaction in your life, you’ll also find more confidence and personal power on the way!

Join me.

Today, make just ONE decision that scares you… and then go for it!  100% commitment!

Let a whole new life begin to unfold – the life you decide you want!

Until next time friends,

Tara

In past posts, we’ve talked about living in the moment and enjoying the process, both of which take time and  attention to do. But what if you could continuously practice living in the moment? There are many that use meditations, breath or sound triggers to do so, and that practice is called mindfulness.

If you’re like me, you probably already practice mind-full-ness of a different kind, the kind where your mind is full of to-do lists, ponderings, and more—so full that it’s hard to shut off sometimes, interfering with sleep or making it hard to concentrate. While this type of mind-full-ness is common, it’s the kind that has your mind everywhere BUT the present, so focused on things in the past or the future that it’s hard to pay attention to, let alone focus on, the present. Thankfully, the practice of mindfulness can be an antidote for mind-full-ness, helping us focus on and be very aware of the present.

So how do you practice mindfulness? Here’s two tips to try today:

1. Soak in the moment. Wherever you are right now, be there. Become an observer and notice the sights, sounds, textures, and smells. What about being there right now amuses you? Makes you happy? Calms you? Taking a mental inventory will help your mind focus on the here and now and take in your surroundings in an encompassing way, helping you be present.

2. Recognize thoughts, but realize they are just thoughts. While you’re busy trying tip #1, it’s inevitable that different thoughts will creep in, beginning to take you away from soaking up the moment. If you find that happening, moving you away from the present, recognize the thoughts running through your head. tell yourself that they are just thoughts, and bring your focus back to your surroundings, easing your mind and staying in the present.

So there’s two tips to try to practice mindfulness in order to get rid of mind-full-ness. Try them today and let me know how it goes by leaving a comment. I hope you’ll find that, when we take time to practice mindfulness, it helps us cut down on extraneous thoughts, allowing us to concentrate better when making important decisions and enjoying the moment more.

Take care,

Jennafer

]]> http://zoesoulspa.com/2012/08/06/2-tips-to-be-mindful-not-mind-full/feed/ 1 jennaferfm Be in, live and enjoy the moment mind full vs mindful Jennafer Martin http://zoesoulspa.com/2012/06/22/sometimes-in-tragedy-we-find-our-lifes-purpose/ http://zoesoulspa.com/2012/06/22/sometimes-in-tragedy-we-find-our-lifes-purpose/#comments Fri, 22 Jun 2012 14:00:29 +0000 Tara Schofield http://zoesoulspa.com/?p=3436 ]]>

There’s no getting around the fact that part of our physical experience in this lifetime is to have the opportunity to learn and grow.  Often we wonder why we have been abandoned or forgotten by heaven during times of difficulty.  When we think about something that is a tragedy, it’s challenging to understand how a loving God could allow that to happen.

Recently, a family was killed in my hometown by a drunk driver.  It was a terrible loss – devastating not only the family but the whole community.  I was saddened by some reactions, touched by others.  As people grieved the loss of their loved ones, a wide variety of emotions were shared – from anger and hate to forgiveness and sympathy.

I couldn’t help but think about how we each have a choice about how we move through tragedies.  Whether it’s as devastating as a sudden death or as daunting as a lost job or relationship, these challenges can test us to our core.  They can make us re-evaluate who we are, what our purpose is and how we can get the strength to move forward.  In the process we often find that there is more to us than we thought -  a stronger, more courageous self.  It is by taking a step into the temporary darkness that we find out how brave, powerful and wise we are.  We also learn how protected we truly are during our life journey.

This is often the case when I’m working with a woman who has been in an emotionally abusive relationship.  I am continually amazed how such a negative experience can transform the woman into a strong, bold person.  It is such an honor to be involved in the change – helping her to find her own purpose through the experience.  While it’s emotionally difficult to see a woman start at such a heart-broken, struggling state, it’s thrilling to see how she can triumph over the tragedy.  Healing is not a quick process, but it brings such great self-reflection and self-worth.

There are a couple of key steps that help us move through the tragedy and empower us on the other side:

1.  Accept that it will take time to heal.  We are often in such a rush to “feel better” that we don’t honor our need to FEEL.  If your life has taken a difficult turn, it’s okay to be gentle with yourself and allow yourself to express your sadness, grief and heartbreak.

2.  Know that you will emerge stronger.  In the moment it may seem that you will never feel happy again.  Even if you can only have a tiny bit of hope, let that hope sustain you.  If you don’t feel strong now, continue to remind yourself that you are doing your best in the moment.  Each day you will grow stronger.  It may be difficult to see at first, but it’s most definitely happening.

3.  Create a support system.  You are not in your pain alone.  Lean on family, friends, community and support groups to help you through this time in your life.  Pushing people away may be what you want to do, but it’s not what you need to do.  Share your sadness and sorrow with those who love and care for you.  Being surrounded by those who will help carry your burden will make the process possible.  Not easy… but possible.

4.  Remember that you are powerful beyond your dreams.  You have the strength of heaven behind you – and that is not to be taken lightly.  You are cared for more than you can even begin to imagine!  While your heavenly helpers won’t remove your lessons, they will ensure that you are supported and loved during your trials.

5.  Watch for the miracles.  Even in tragedy, there are incredible miracles happening at every turn.  Pay attention to how the miracles unfold and how your purpose becomes more clear through your experiences.

If you feel like life is too much right now, just hang on.  It will get better!  I promise!

You can be sure that you are not alone.

You can be sure that ultimately the right outcome will happen.

You can be sure that you will find more courage and strength when you dig deeper within yourself.

Until next time friends,

Tara

As a very goal-focused, driven person, I love the thought that I am in control.  It’s within my power to make things happen in my life.  That really jazzes me!

However, the converse can also happen.  I can easily come up with excuses to try to justify laziness, lack of motivation, and low desire.

I find it very interesting that we play such mind games.  How often do you know you don’t want to do something and instead of owning it, you come up with an excuse.  I was talking to a friend this week who knows her job no longer serves her highest good.  She’s stressed, tired, cranky and it’s ruining her personal life.  But instead of claiming her power and choosing to find a different job, she has been in the excuse mode.  It’s been easier to come up with reasons not to leave or delay quitting.  In her case, she will stay until it is so painful that she will find a way out.  Until then, she’ll find excuses and be miserable.

Are you stuck in that middle place… where you are somewhat uncomfortable but not pushed to the edge yet?  What is it going to take to push you to power position – where you decide to go after what you want?

How much more in control would you be if you took charge and went after what you really want?! 

You’d be unstoppable!

So the challenge this week is to find some areas of your life that you can positively affect by having the courage to FIND A WAY.  Get out of the excuse mode and really make it happen!  I’m working on this, too.  I’m saying good-bye to excuses and embracing the life I WANT!  Won’t you join me?

Until next time friends,

Tara