Benchmark Consulting

Commit to Happiness in 2012

Benchmark Consulting — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 02:21:18 +0000

As we near the end of another year, many of us begin our 2011 review of earned income, goal achievement, successes, failures, lost dreams, new hope, and resolutions for 2012. On the personal side, our self-care plan might include: more exercise, better diet, less alcohol, daily meditation, more sleep, less internet/media, and more playtime!

The optimal result we are seeking is an experience of less stress, greater happiness, and increased well-being. Our current economic dynamic and volatile world scenarios do not always support this intention – but we can cultivate more happiness by growing into greater responsibility for our thoughts, beliefs, emotions, and actions. This includes learning to discipline the mind, challenge unhealthy beliefs, manage negative emotions, and choosing wise action. Fundamentally – to challenge, re-think, and re-wire our life.

In 2006, the BBC science department marked their 10th anniversary with a documentary called, How to Be Happy. Through a mix of surveys, opinion polls and experiments, they confirmed that ‘the proportion of people saying that are happy had fallen from 52 percent in 1957 to just 36 percent today’. Additionally, world health reports confirm there is a 10x increase in adults being treated for depression, anxiety, and other mental or emotional disorders – as well as a critically low level of well-being among our children.

Clarify your own definition of happiness.

According to Dr. Robert Holden, author and founder of The Happiness Project, ‘a commitment to happiness will influence every other significant decision in your life.’ Challenge your thinking about the meaning of happiness. Write your own definition of happiness and allow it to be the central operating principle of your life. If you have blocks to happiness, engage the resources needed to help you change your identity and transition into more happiness and abundance.

Let 2012 be the year when you commit to being happy, despite your circumstances or external influences. Infuse more of your love and joy into everything and everyone!

Warm Blessings,

Deborah

Inspirational Quote

“Ever since happiness heard your name….it has been running through the streets trying to find you”

Hafiz

Emergence Action

Keep a daily Happiness Journal to record your reflections, acknowledge your blessings, set positive intentions, make prayerful requests to your Divinity and restore your Spirit.

Letting Go…

Benchmark Consulting — Tue, 25 Oct 2011 19:36:35 +0000

Since I became a mother, I have marveled at my consistent, spontaneous ability to generate unconditional patience, forgiveness, love, and comforting words for my daughter – while still struggling at times to give the same to myself. Since many clients echo this pattern, it seems our task is to earn a new relationship with ourselves and the world. This requires learning to tolerate the discomfort activated by the change process.

What might be blocking your creative energy, your physical well-being, or your financial health? Your dreams cannot be realized if something or someone needs to be released, so you can move forward. Yet, letting go of the ‘known’ activates our deepest fears, and therefore our defense system. When our identity is at risk, we sometimes struggle with intense feelings of powerlessness, fear, anger – and the urge ‘to find immediate resolution’ to eradicate the pain.

Learning to Let Go

When you feel fearful or angry, try to breathe and patiently stay present until you gradually de-fuse the emotional charge. The discipline needed to maintain your Spiritual center and manage your clever Mind ‘in the waiting’ must be earned through daily practice. Observe your Ego, as it offers endless reasons why you cannot ‘sit’ right now and must take action. Pay attention to the fierce forces within you – as they contend for authority!

The prominent Buddhist teacher, Pema Chodron says, ‘Letting go of that which we are holding on to… can connect us with the softness and tenderness of the genuine Heart.‘ Maybe, we are not ready to let go of that toxic friend, job, or lover – or the negative behavior pattern or story we’ve held all of our life – but we can practice letting go of small things. As we let go of the little ones, we can build the muscles and confidence for the big one!

Warm Blessings,

Deborah

Inspirational Quote

“When the Heart weeps for that it has lost, the Spirit laughs for what it has found.”

Sufi Aphorism

Emergence Action

Initiate a daily mindfulness practice. 5-10 minute meditations sessions will reap notable benefits. Pay attention to the urge to react and choose to remain ‘sitting’ for your allotted time – breathing thru any discomfort and letting go of the need to move into action. After your session, notice a heightened awareness, the diminishment of anxiety and the restoration of balance within your body. Journal your reflective experience.

Changing Your Identity…

Benchmark Consulting — Wed, 13 Apr 2011 01:21:42 +0000

Are you in the middle of transitioning some aspect of your identity? Bureaucrat to entrepreneur, married to single, parent to empty-nest, naysayer to optimist, fearful to trusting …and peaceful? Changing emotional patterns, repetitive thinking, and routine behavior seems like an easy task. We just stop doing that thing we do – and quit generating that negative emotion we often feel. Endless motivational books promise that we will become more focused, efficacious, productive, and happy. Our emotional intelligence will soar upward and our mental processes will be infused with sparkling clarity.

However, in my world and that of my clients – the process is not so simple. We have developed a variety of powerful defense mechanisms designed to insure the survival of the character we have become. Re-wiring our brain and developing a new relationship with life is a formidable challenge – but achievable goal.

Treat yourself like someone you love…
The best motivation for changing one’s identity is love, kindness, patience, prayer, and positive affirmations. Many of us experienced a deficit of these reinforcing energies during our younger years – and were installed with a relational model similar to our early caregivers. Even in some of the happiest families… service, subjugation, and deprivation were the common themes; while self-interest and self-care were not often valued.

Become a benevolent authority in your own life. Seek wise counsel and worthy mentors – while using your critical thinking skills to adopt only what feels true for you. Commend yourself daily on your growth and development and yes…. become your own best friend.

Trust the process.
Like the changing weather, our days may be filled with many highs and lows – but we can condition ourselves to trust ‘the sun is always shining’. Generate a creative enthusiasm versus robotic discipline in your various tasks and give yourself permission to become and achieve all you intend.
As we exit the winter, complete the tax season and move fully into the second quarter of this most exciting and challenging year – re-visit your 2011 goals. Are you on track – or feeling foggy, anxious, overwhelmed, and struggling to maintain your commitments? Are you feeling stuck in indecision and losing precious creative energy recycling your old identity factors? Book a tune-up or goal setting session with me. I’d be grateful for the opportunity to hold you accountable for the creation of your new life!

Warm Blessings,

Deborah

Inspirational Quote

“I was a tiny bug. Now I am a mountain. I was left behind. Now, I am honored at the head. You healed my wounded hunger and anger… and made me a poet who sings about Joy.”

Rumi

Emergence Action

Capture the springtime energy and recommit to liberating yourself from your old identity. Identify one negative emotion (ex: anger) or habit (ex: procrastination) that you are now ready to change, release, or transmute into positive results. For the next 30 days, practice thinking, feeling, and acting like the person you aspire to become!