You deserve help

I know a woman in her 30s who tells me she is homeless and hungry. She told me the other night that she was cold and was headed to the 7 11 to beg for money for food.

Before I continue, I would like to say that she comes from what used to be a very close family. Her parents live in the most exclusive neighborhood in Orange County, CA. Her downfall is Heroine. She has been to jail a few times.  She has been to rehab a few times. She has been in one of the best in the state. Her parents have paid for this rehab. One month at one was $30,000. Between you and me I don’t think one month is enough. I think it takes months of rehab to have it stick.

I have tried to counsel her. She has a cell phone and we communicate on messenger. Having a cell phone may make you think she is not homeless. But I believe it because I was told she was a year ago. I said her parents would be there for her. She said they are “tired”. They take care of her 2 year old child, and have gone through so much with her. She said they would not offer help and if they did she would not accept it.

I suggested that she has friends who will help her. Maybe they could get her a job and a place to crash. I know a year ago that is what she was doing. She was working at a friend’s business here and there and “couch surfing.” But she says she does not have any friends. Either she is lying, a strong possibility, or she does not want to accept any more “charity” from friends.

No matter what I say she really denies herself assistance. This is so baffling to me. I have never been one to ask for help. But when I have really needed it, I asked. There is a sense of being weak sometimes when you ask for help. Sometimes people feel they should be independent. But we all need someone to lean on from time to time.

We should never feel we do not deserve help. If we are homeless, a junkie, or just trying to make it through an ordinary tough time. We are all human beings. It does not make you weak. Actually, asking for help takes strength. So. if you need help, reach out and ask. It is OK.

Cheers!

Coach

www.facebook.com/lisaylifecoach

If life were fair

One of the biggest complaints in life is very general, life isn’t fair. This is actually very frustrating. Good things happen to bad people. Bad things happen to good people. The system protects the criminals not the victims. You follow the rules and sometimes wonder why because you see those who don’t getting away with breaking the rules. “No good deed goes unpunished.”

You get instructions on how to do something. You follow the steps to the letter and nothing. Someone else puts in a little effort and are very successful. And you wonder what you did wrong. That happened to me. I tried years and years ago to sell products online. This is when this was very new. I followed the instructions to a “T”. I made $0. Other people were making money. Why not me?

Have you ever told someone you want to accomplish something or have a problem, and they tell you the most obvious answer as if you never thought of that? I have. It happened to me just the other day. The man who I turned to help said, ” why don’t you just ____?”. Duh! That is what I am trying to do, but need help. That is why I went to him. But I am having trouble with it because life is not fair.

If  life were fair, it would be a very different world. It would be a much kinder world. The good in world would be rewarded. The bad would be punished. It would not be so hard. People would not have as much discouragement in world. If it were up to me, life would be fair. But it isn’t up to me.

But we should not let the unfairness of the world discourage us. Sometimes we have to make our own luck. We have to understand what we want, what we really want. It may not be what you think. You have to understand what motivates you. With that information, you can try to equal the out the fairness factor in life.

So, the question I have today for you is how would you fill in this blank?

If life were fair _______?

I have a post on my facebook page if you would like to contribute an answer. You can find it at www.facebook.com/lisaylifecoach

Cheers!

Coach

New Contest

Hey~

So, I have a new contest going. Be the first to figure out what the following image means and you will win $500. The image is:

5:23

For clues, go to www.facebook.com/lisaylifecoach and find the post. Comments and questions will lead to the answer. So, find the post, like share and comment with your thought or question.

Come on! It is fun!

Good Luck!

If you are a personal friend you are not eligible to win, but play along to create clues. Maybe even misleading clues.

Coach

 

Is it Karma or is it life?

The concept of karma has really grown over the last 10 years or so. But there is a lot of misconception about it.

The idea most people have is do good get good and do bad get bad. In other words, when we are nice and kind good things happen to us.  And when we are mean bad things happen to us. But that isn’t karma. Think about it. That does not answer the age old question of why bad things happen to good people and why good things happen to bad people. 

Hmm…

The answer to that is quite simple actually. Because the good and bad things in life are not related to karma.

That’s life. We are here to learn and to grow.

Sometimes things go well in life. Most of us think we deserve these good things in life. So we accept them as *rewards* for being good people. Some people accept these *rewards* because they feel entitled to them no matter what. Whatever our reason for accepting these good things in life we accept them without question. Have you ever asked, “What did I do to deserve this good thing”?

Sometimes things go poorly in life. Most of us think we don’t deserve these bad things in life. We think of them as *punishment*. How many times have you asked, “What did I do to deserve this bad thing”? I have a hard time imagining anyone who has not done this many times in a lifetime. I have. We don’t usually think we have done anything to deserve this bad thing. We are good people.

This is life. It has up times and down times. And it is all part of the process of learning and growing. Sometimes the lessons are easy and sometimes they are hard.  It has nothing to do with karma. I repeat this is not karma. It is life and the lessons we need to learn. We all have pretty much the same lessons to learn. We don’t learn the same way. So, some of us learn the lesson one way and some another way and some an entirely different way. There are probably as many ways to learn a lesson as there are people.

And this is why bad things happen to good people and good things happen to bad people. And it can be very frustrating. I know someone who is definitely on the naughty list, but good things happen to this person, and it drives me nuts. I don’t like that good things happen to someone who has hurt others terribly. But this person also needs these good things to get their life back on track. And I know that this person has a long life ahead (I would estimate the next 20 years) working to fix the damage he caused. And that is not something I would want. (Remember to see the whole picture).

Now if you want clarity on karma here it is.

The 12 laws of karma:

One.  The Great Law: What you put into the Universe will come back to us.

Two. Law of Creation: Life doesn’t  happen by itself. We have to make it happen.

Three. Law of Humility: One must accept something in order to change it.

Four. Law of Growth: When we change ourselves our lives change too.

Five. Law of Responsibility: We must take responsibility for what is in our lives.

Six. Law of Connection: The past, present, and future are all connected.

Seven. Law of Focus: We cannot think of two different tings at the same time.

Eight. Law of Giving/Hospitality: Behavior should match our thoughts & actions.

Nine. Law of Here & Now: One cannot be present if they are looking backward.

Ten. Law of Change: History repeats until we learn from it & change our path.

Eleven. Law of Patience & Reward: The most valuable rewards require persistence.

Twelve. Law of Significance & Inspiration: Rewards are a direct result of the energy and effort we put into the world.

Cheers!

Coach

www.facebook.com/lisaylifecoach

 

What is your body saying?

Do you have any aches or pains?

I am a firm believer that our body aches and pains have a deeper meaning. Sure, you kick the door with your toe, hit the edge of the bed with your shin, or get hit by a ball playing a sport and you hurt that is pain from injury and that is a different thing. What I am talking about here are symptoms not directly related to an obvious injury.

It all about energy.

It has to do with too much energy being directed to an area. When we want certain things in life, we concentrate on that thing coming into our life. Just thinking about a thing creates the energy in you. This energy builds up. After some time, the energy builds up, and it forms a sort of traffic jam in the body. This blocked energy causes pain and other issues.

It is sort of like when a body *has too much* calcium. Your body will give symptoms of having too much calcium by having calcium deposits for example. But it isn’t that your body has too much calcium it has too little. You are not taking in enough calcium so your body creates more on its own. Then you get a build up.

Let me go over a few examples: 

Eyesight issues:   I, do you see it now? I.   If you have eyesight problems, it may have something to do with wanting to feel important. Maybe you feel insignificant. It may have something to do with needing to look at yourself. The reason for the eyesight issues varies from person to person. Only you know your reason. But here is what happened. You thought *I* this and *I* that. This brought *I* energy to your eyes. The energy has built up and now there is an energy jam. This slows down the muscles of the eyes. Your ability to focus has been compromised.

Back issues:  You don’t feel backed. There is no one to be supportive. Or you want to be supported more than you are. So you concentrate on getting backed. This brought *backing* energy to your back. And now you have an abundance of *backing* energy in your life. This energy is now in an energy jam. Your back does not move freely. The muscles are crammed full of energy making them cramp up.

Knee issues:  You feel a need for something. You need a job. You need someone. You need help. You think about this need. Now you have attracted kneed energy. Have you ever seen that before… need and knee? Anyway, just like the other issues, your need energy has built up and now there is a need energy jam. The energy is blocked and there is pain. Your flexibility is blocked.

Foot issues:  It depends on the issue, but the feet are the end of the line. Your feet are an exit point for energy. So, there is a build up of energy that slowly runs through the body. It ends up in your ankles. It ends up in your toes. So, ankle pain and foot issues can be from an abundance of energy ending up there. This energy can get jammed up in the ankles making them stiff. This energy can get jammed up in the toes causing bunions and arch issues.

What to do?

Step one is to diagnose the symptom. For example, knee issues what do you need?

Step two is to realize that you have brought a lot of need energy into your life.

Step three is to release the excess energy from the affected area. Knee issues, release the excess energy through meditation. Visualize the excess energy becoming unblocked and moving through the body to an exit point. Use self-hypnosis to allow your subconscious to go to work on this for you. Tell your subconscious it is Okay to let this excess energy leave.

Step four is to visualize healing energy coming in. If something like Epsom salts would be helpful for example to reduce inflammation, then visualize Epsom salts surrounding the affected area. Do not put on braces. These only cut off energy. They will only add to the energy jam. If is helpful to apply heat. Heat will open up the path of energy and help it to move. 

Step five is to find a better way of getting what you seek. In our knee issues example, ask what do you need? Hint: this would be one of the four survival needs I have discussed previously. Now, find a way to meet this need on a higher level. In our knee issues example, it may mean finding a way to get what you need through your own means or through means you have not tried before. It could mean going out of your comfort zone.

In summary: You can bring what you want into your life. Your physical symptoms are a testament to that. But there are better ways of bringing this energy into your life than debilitating physical energies.

I hope this helps. If you want help with this, let me know.

Cheers!

Coach

www.facebook.com/lisaylifecoach

 

Ask what is wrong.

Have you ever been in a situation where someone is upset with you, and you don’t know why?

More often than not you know why someone is upset with you. But sometimes it is baffling. This happened to me years ago. I took my dog to the dog park every day. I had my *dog park friends*. These were people with whom I socialized while our dogs played. One, I will call Mary. We hung out. We threw ball after ball for our dogs. We chatted. Then one day, she just would not talk to me. She went to another part of the park. This was the biggest wall of silence I have ever encountered. I asked mutual dog park friends what was wrong. And no one would talk. They knew, but did not want to get involved. I begged her to just tell me what was wrong. Nothing. I never did find out.

The point is that not knowing was very hard. You can’t fix a problem without discussion. I figured there must be a simple misunderstanding. I said or did something that was taken the wrong way. If Mary would have talked, I could have cleared things up and we could have been dog park friends again. Or at the very least we be civil.

The reason I bring this up is because I know someone who is unhappy with a neighbor. There is a language barrier so they can’t just chat over the fence. She has left nice notes on their gate. They have been something like I care about you and I hate seeing you so unhappy and frustrated when there is a very simple solution. My friend has extended the olive branch so to speak. The neighbor does not respond. So, the neighbor continues to be very frustrated over a situation. And does not even try to work on the neighbor relationship.

What would make the difference? Asking. The neighbor does not even try to understand the issues between the two neighbors. If the neighbor would ask, to understand, things could be worked out. Just like my situation with Mary. All it would take to work things out would be to ask and clear up any misunderstanding.

If you are having problems with someone, and you don’t know why, ask. Now they may react like Mary, and just not tell you. They may think you should already know, and you need to figure it out on your own. Or maybe they want to *punish* you with their silence. That probably has a solution. But if they won’t tell you there is nothing you can do about that. But if they are interested in working things out, they will tell you.

If, you ask and get no response, it is possible that you can figure out with some guided questions from someone like me. The answer is within your grasp. Sometimes it is hard to see it yourself.

RAT: Relationship Acceptance Training

If you need help with any sort of relationship, spouse, parent-child, friends, co-workers, or neighbors, I do what I call Relationship Acceptance Training. Helping people to get to the source of the issue. Then, learn to accept each other as they are versus trying to change the other. Now, people have to be willing to work things out. We can’t have any *Marys* in this training. People have to at least be willing to talk. But if the other person is a Mary, we can try to work with that. The Mary in the scenario is meeting a need by keeping a tight lip, but we can help Mary meet that need on a higher level to get her willing to talk and work on the relationship.

Remember: It takes communication to work through any relationship issues. If you don’t know the why, ask.

Happy relationships!

Coach

www.facebook.com/lisaylifecoach

 

Happy Samhain/ Halloween!

I like to share beliefs of other cultures so today I want to talk about Samhain. In case you have never heard of it.

Samhain “summer’s end” is a Gaelic festival. It is a combination festival day of the dead and the end of harvest season. It is also the start of the “darker” half of the year and the start of the spiritual new year.

It makes sense, doesn’t it? The days are getting shorter so there is less day light. It is also the time of year when we look toward Thanksgiving which is about the end of harvest. It is a time when nature relaxes and some animals hibernate. We get rested up. We also become more spiritual in December. We become more focused on bringing up mankind, spreading love, joy and peace, our spiritual season if you will. Then we have New Years when we let go of the past and put hope into the next year. We start January with positive thoughts.

So, may you have a Happy Halloween or Samhain!

Cheers!

Coach

www.facebook.com/lisaylifecoach

Rise up when being pulled down.

Is someone trying to bring you down? I have a nephew trying to bring me down. The hard part of this is that I have been very nice to him. I have tried to help him make his life nice and to live his dream. And now he is trying to hurt me. And to top it off he is  not speaking to me. He has put up a wall of silence, and is hiding from me. And family who could help look the other way. You can’t get others to help if they don’t want to get involved.

What to do?

Well, you can’t let them bring you down. I find it a challenge. I find it a challenge to raise myself up. I am very competitive. When that wall of silence went up, I became determined to get past it. And I did.

I went out of my comfort zone and did things I don’t like to do. I had to make cold calls to find help. I had to ask for help. I succeeded!  I found the help I needed, asked for help and got it. I am rising.

Then what? I felt I could do anything. I confirmed that I have control over my life. No one else is in control of my life. If someone is trying to bring you down, you can let them or you can take control and rise to the occasion.

Letting someone else control you sucks. You start bringing yourself down. You feel like a loser or failure or wimp or pushover or any number of things.

Taking the challenge and rising to the occasion feels great. You are a winner or successful or capable or any number of things. And as was true for me, you feel you can meet other challenges. You are the only barrier to having what you want.

If you think you can’t, you can’t. I know that sounds cheesy, but it is true. You may be meeting a survival need by limiting your self. But is that working for you? When that no longer works for you, you are ready to meet that need on a higher level.

Listen, I went out of my comfort zone. I had to push myself to do what I did to accomplish what I wanted to accomplish. And in the end I showed myself what I can do, and so can you.

Be pulled down or rise up… the choice is yours. You are in control.

Cheers!

Coach.

www.facebook.com/lisaylifecoach

Happy now and later

We all have goals: 

Goals for love. Goals for family. Goals for career. Goals for health. Goals for things we want to see and do. Goals for all sorts of things.

My ordeal.

I recently met a very important goal. It was actually a short lived goal. It was made and accomplished in 9 weeks.  But those 9 weeks were a nightmare. Meeting this goal is life changing. Meeting this goal makes all the difference in my future. I was consumed over it. I thought about it every minute of every day. How will I accomplish this? How? I tried alone. That only got me so far. I hired someone whose job it is to accomplish this goal. After $550, I still did not have the answer. So, I contacted someone who I thought I could help. I thought this person could lead me in the right direction. Well, she gave a few tips, but nothing concrete. I took her tips and made some calls. I did stumble on someone willing to help, but I did not want to ask this person. This person was a perfect stranger going out of his way to help. It seemed too good to be true. So, I contacted another professional whose job it is to accomplish this goal.  This person made an attempt. And was not successful. Luckily this attempt was free. At this point I felt pretty hopeless. Then out of desperation I thought about this stranger who said he was good at accomplishing this goal. I had my doubts, but what did I have to lose? So, I contacted this kind stranger. “You said you would help.” Well, on Monday, this kind stranger, now my friend, in 30 minutes accomplished the goal. In 30 minutes I met my goal. After all the hours I put into this goal, one person, the right person got me there. There is still work to be done, but the biggest hurdle has been cleared. And I know my friend will get me through the rest.

Why and I telling you this? 

Reason one. To show you that goals can be met. We don’t always meet them how we plan on meeting them. I thought I could do it myself. Then I thought the first “professional” could do it. Then I thought I could do it myself. Then I thought the second “professional” could do it. I felt hopeless. Then it took overcoming the fear I have and do some cold calling. I hate cold calling anyone, but the need was so great that nothing would stop me. And that is how I found my new friend who got me to my goal.

Reason two. To show you that often it takes effort and persistence to meet a goal. But when you really want something, everything comes together to make it happen. I contacted someone I did not want to contact who gave me tips. From there I overcame a fear and made cold calls. When I asked my “last hope” person for help, it happened. I could have given up after the first “professional” failed to get me to my goal (I think for more money he would have accomplished the mission).  But I did not give up.

Reason three. There are certain things we just can’t do alone. We don’t always understand how to accomplish a goal. If I knew what my new friend knows, I could have accomplished step one in 30 minutes. It is important to find the right person to help. In my case, there were two right people. There was the person who gave the tips (she only gave tips because that is all she knew). And then there was the person I found through my cold calling.

Reason four. To show the value of delayed gratification. This particular goal took 9 weeks. But, this ordeal started about 3 years ago. Until recently, there was nothing, absolutely nothing I could do to make my situation better. I had to wait. There were circumstances out of my control. That is how it goes sometimes. Sometimes you have to just sit back and let other things work out. It is sort of like sitting in a traffic jam. You want to get somewhere so badly, but you can’t get anywhere. Eventually, the traffic clears and you get moving. You reach your destination.

How do you feel in that traffic jam?

When you are stuck, and things are out of your control, it is frustrating. But there is nothing you can do so you have to make the best of where you are. Another way of putting this is that the ball is not always in your court. And sometimes there is delay because we need time to heal.

That was what I needed. I needed time to heal. Those 3 long years of waiting for things to clear up so that I could move forward and turn this ordeal around were frankly very difficult. But I had to go through that. I had to let go. I had to let the universe do it’s thing. You see, the other side of this ordeal, the other people involved, they had to go through what they had to go through before the traffic jam we were all involved in could clear up. We are all connected. Some things take time. So, for 3 years, I waited. I did the best to get on with life until the traffic cleared. And when it did it took 9 weeks to get on the off ramp that leads to my final destination in this ordeal.

When the dark cloud lifted. 

When I met that goal that took 9 very long and tiring weeks, I felt powerful. I felt as if a very dark cloud was lifted. I felt as if I could do anything…. anything. This is the third time in the last 4 years that I saw the miracle of things coming together. When things are ready to come together, amazing things happen.

When we have goals, we want it to happen now. And sometimes it does. And sometimes it doesn’t.

If you were to meet all your life’s goals, how would you feel?

For those goals that are stuck in traffic, just sit back and relax. I know it is hard. I had to wait 3 long years for my traffic jam to clear. But what kept me going was knowing that things work out. But you can meet your goals. Re read reasons above. Let my experience and testimony of a positive outcome give you hope. We don’t always meet goals how we plan on meeting them, but we do.

We can be happy now striving for our goals when we let ourselves feel that which we want to feel when our outcome is achieved. We will happy later when that goal is met.

Cheers!

Coach

www.facebook.com/lisaylifecoach

 

 

Get strength from the silent treatment

Hello

So many of my posts are written because of my own experience. It is my hope that by sharing things with you I can help you. I want to share with you the strength I recently got from the silent treatment.

I have a nephew with whom I have a strong bond. He has had issues with drugs. I thought he had finally gotten clean. I was wrong. So, without knowing that he was vulnerable he and his wife and I entered an agreement. I would help him to get into a business. We three would run it together. They would do most of the work, but I would help as needed. This business would give me the financial security I want. Well, he got back in trouble with drugs. It was a nightmare. Things spiraled down and out of control so fast I was numb. There was arrest after arrest.

So, the money was going God knows where, but not into the business. The deal fell through. So there I was with my retirement money getting lost. Not only was I not making this “easy” money at the business, but also they were charging up legal fees etc.  I thought having the business would put me on easy street. I was to get a nice income from a business that my nephew would handle. So, they both ended up doing time for drug related charges. So, they aren’t working and able to make any sort of loan payments.

Now they are both out. I have no relationship with her, but I have one of sorts with him. But since he got out in August, he is giving me the silent treatment. He won’t talk to me at all. I have no phone number, but I have reached out to him on Facebook messenger. But silence. We were communicating through letters when he was behind bars so this came at a complete shock. And fear set in. How am I going to get my money back if I can’t contact him or know where or what he is doing?

But today, I figured out what was going on. In this case, the silent treatment is a wall between us. When he was behind bars, he was free of responsibility. He did not have to find a way to pay me back. He couldn’t. But, now he is out and has to have a job. And now he has to be responsible. This wall of silence is a lame attempt to protect himself from the responsibility of this debt. But it won’t work. I will not be manipulated. I will not be controlled. This ploy to avoid me to shut me out is not going to work. It is having the exact opposite result. I am more determined than ever to get the money back. I want to do this the easy way and have him “voluntarily” pay me back. But if he keeps up this wall then I will be forced to go through the courts. I really don’t want to do that, but I will.

The silent treatment is a nasty ploy. If it lasts for hours (normal person silent treatment), days or years (narcissist silent treatment) , it is an act of passive aggression. It can be for many reasons. In my case, it is a substitute for a prison wall. Often it is to make the victim invisible. It is to make the victim feel insignificant. They want you to think you are not important.

The person using this ploy actually has a lot of feelings, but does not know how to express these feelings. So they don’t. They just shut out the world.

The silent treatment is also used to play on your fears. It says this is what it would be like with out me. It says see how much you need me. Submit. You may have asserted yourself. You may have stood up to this person and now they are putting you back in your place. They want control back. They are trying to create insecurity. Jump through my hoops. Kiss my butt.

The silent treatment is to control, punish, test boundaries and to avoid issues and responsibilities. Silence is actually the most powerful scream. It is a desperate attempt to be heard. But it does not solve problems it makes them worse.

What to do? Well, it differs from case to case. It starts by figuring out what the purpose of the silent treatment is. Understand that no matter the what and why of it the benefit of this ploy is (punishment for example), the survival need being met by the silent treatment is control and certainty. The answer is to find a way to get that goal met on a higher level. And that is the best I can do without knowing more.

But do not let the silent treatment control you. Take example from me and turn it around and have it give you strength. A few days ago, when I coached my mentor coach, I told her I did not want to fight him. I don’t. It is ugly and tiring to have to fight someone in court. But today, after I realized the meaning of the silent treatment I am getting from my nephew, I have strength to fight. Yes, I turned this nasty narcissist ploy to my advantage and so can you.

Cheers!

Coach

www.facebook.com/lisaylifecoach