During these unique and challenging times, many feel that it’s selfish to be focusing on success.
But think about it for a minute. Is it really?
If you look at success as the dictionary definition — “The attainment of money, fame, material possessions, or power”– then yes, this might not be the time to just focus on those types of goals.
But I think you and I would agree that in today’s world, that dictionary definition of success is as outdated as the BlackBerry at the bottom of your junk drawer.
Our society has begun to redefine success and for most, it’s no longer about just money or fame or outer achievement but must include contribution and inner fulfillment.
My dear friend, Debra Poneman is an international success expert and mentor to some of the most renowned transformational teachers of our time. In her acclaimed e-book The 5 Secrets to a Life of True Success, she offers a new paradigm of success and the simple steps to live it.
In her ebook Debra suggests (and research confirms) that the reason the old paradigm of success so often leads people to despair is the expectation that attaining goals will lead to fulfillment.
Although Debra is in no way averse to setting goals and making plans to achieve them, she believes that there’s an important component missing from that approach. In her ebook, she shares spiritual and energetic practices we can use to first create an unshakeable foundation on which to build our outer success. Then, whether or not we reach our goals, our self-love and inner silence never diminishes.
She also gives us tools and techniques to live our dharma as well as heart-warming, real-life stories that illustrate how engaging in sacred activism and opening to receiving love makes the manifestation of outer desires become effortless.
We particularly love the story about what the great spiritual teacher Maharishi Mahesh Yogi told Debra when she asked him why everyone else loved him more than she did.
Tens of thousands of people all over the world have used the formula Debra shares in her e-book to create lives of ultimate success.
“I’d become immune to e-books and their promises of changing my life, but I heard you on a podcast and loved what you had to say so I thought I’d just take a glance at your book. I just finished it and I am in tears. My heart has been burst wide open by the stories you share (especially the one about your son) and I am completely committed to following your steps to true and lasting success.” ~ Carolyn D., Chicago
“I read every word of your book and it was breathtaking!! Truly amazing. I’m inspired and filled with a sense of awe. It’s very clearly not just a thrown-together loss leader like so many. This is the best ebook I’ve ever read. And The New Success is definitely an idea whose time has come.”
~ Shelly Lefkoe, Founder of the Lefkoe Institute“Of all the teachers we have access to in our on-line world, one extraordinary woman stands out amongst the crowd. Master mentor Debra Poneman leads the way to continual inspiration. I’ve seen first-hand how the depth of her knowledge, the wealth of her wisdom, the vastness of her love, the breadth of her humor, and the contagiousness of her joy can and will inspire you to say YES to a life beyond what you can even now imagine. From the truest place in my heart, I encourage you to take advantage of anything she offers, including her profoundly life-changing ebook. Your life will never be the same.”
~ Katherine Woodward Thomas, NY Times Bestselling Author, Conscious Uncoupling and Calling in the One“Over 30 years ago I first attended Debra’s Yes to Success seminar. I was completely blown away by her unique vision and practical tools for how every one of us can live our most cherished dreams — and by her powerful presence and radiant spirit. I ended up attending the seminar so many more times that I lost count and each time I gained new insights that impacted my life and allowed me to formulate The Passion Test. And now she’s taken the essence and put it in this e-book. What an incredible gift.”
~ Janet Attwood, Co-author NY Times Bestseller The Passion Test
The world needs you to live true success now so that you can have peace and happiness in your soul and BE the contribution you long to be. Debra’s beautiful e-book shows you how.
GET YOUR EBOOK NOW => The 5 Secrets to a Life of True Success:
Till Next Time, I’m Sending: Love, Phire, and the Violet Flame of Peace
Jill Hughes
PS Don’t miss the story in Chapter 2 where Debra tells about the time she broke her foot and sprained her ankle two days before one of the most important presentations of her life and how she turned the pain into a monumental success.
PPS When you download Debra’s e-book, you’ll then be invited to attend her free live webinar, The 5 Pillars to Your Ultimate Life, as well as a 5-hour LIVE “Yes-a-Thon” titled Living a New Paradigm of Success with special guests including Marianne Williamson, Marci Shimoff, Janet Attwood, Katherine Woodward Thomas, Sonia Ricotti, John Newton and Jose Hernandez!!
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Do check out our previous blogs. You can find the last four here:
- Debra Poneman: [LIVE EVENT] The New Success for 2020
- Debra Poneman Free Video – Heal Your Heart
- Debra Poneman: Free Video – Harness Your Innate Ability to Effortlessly Manifest:
- Debra Poneman: Free Video – The Power of Living Your Truth
New thought was a philosophy that began in the early mid-nineteenth century that postulated the idea of “healthy mindedness” as well as a healthy body. It was a spiritual movement with its roots in metaphysical beliefs. It grew out of existing Christian beliefs, especially those of a Calvinist origin. New thought’s basic premise was; “that anything that exists in the mind and could be expressed through words had the ability to transcend the physical and be realized through individual thoughts and intuition.”
One adherent to the new thought philosophy was Joseph Campbell. An American author and editor who lived from 1904 to 1987, Joseph Campbell is best known for his works on comparative mythologies across the world. He examined the universal functions and impacts of myths in various cultures and mythical figures across a wide range of different literature from all over the world.
Bliss is a concept that almost defies description. It is vast, boundless, immeasurable AND it is a totally different state, for every single person and that is the key. Bliss must be personally experienced to understand what it is for YOU. Bliss exists on an entirely different dimension to simple happiness – it is so much more than that. It is a state where the sense of ego slips away and a feeling of total connectedness takes over. When you are in a state of bliss there is no sense of “me”, separate from the rest of creation – there is just joy and peace.
We’ve talked a lot in the last few blogs about the importance to our well-being of our own self-talk. Regardless of the reasons for us having a low opinion of ourselves, so many of us do and we are continually berating ourselves for not measuring up to either our or others opinions or expectations of us. When we denounce ourselves, we are doing serious harm to our self-esteem and self-worth.
I’m sure that will right now be resonating with readers of this blog. What an inspirational quote – if we act and think positively, with respect to self-love and self-talk, we can create whatever we desire and need. If thoughts are things and we can achieve whatever we conceive and believe in, if we don’t believe in ourselves, we will create exactly what we believe in and constantly tell ourselves – that we are hopeless, we are a failure, we can’t do anything right, or what’s the point in even trying if we’re just going to mess it up?
There are so many people in this world today who are quick to try to bring you down, to scoff at your achievements and to belittle you or even withhold applause or praise. Congratulations, and celebrations are so important – always look for things to appreciate in yourself and give yourself a big pat on the back and a high five whenever you make constructive progress or take positive action. Self-love is also about moving away from lower [on an energetic sphere] feelings / emotions such as shame – guilt – anger – judgement and so on, and raising your vibration, instead.
Well, I’m here to tell you that is absolutely untrue! We have everything we need, inside of us, to achieve the self-love and happiness that we owe ourselves. Even more importantly, I have some incredibly easy practical steps to begin our journey of wiping out the past and building a new future through the things we say, think, and believe, today.
Fall in Love with Yourself: We’ve talked about this idea of “falling in love with yourself”, in previous blogs. Stop berating yourself for things you perceive as being your faults or shortcomings. We all do this – we focus on what we don’t like about ourselves instead of all the amazing things that make us the incredible individual we truly are. Be kind, be gentle, be loving to yourself. Think about it this way – we are taught from early on to be nice to other people, to praise them and not to criticize them. Why then, should it be any less for us, the most important person in the Universe, to be kind and compassionate to ourselves? It’s insane that we consistently drag ourselves down instead of building ourselves up.
Express and Feel Deep Gratitude: Gratitude is so important to improving our feelings about ourselves. Be grateful for who you are, for your strengths and gifts. If you feel blessed it is so much easier to look at yourself with positive eyes and positive thoughts. You are alive, you are living on a blessed planet and you are capable of making an immense difference in your life. What a lot to be grateful for!
Eat Properly: There’s nothing wrong with “treating” yourself, rewarding yourself for something you did or tried (in fact that is to be encouraged) but limit the treats and you’ll appreciate them more. A balanced, healthy diet, will make a balanced, healthy, you.
Finally, today, I’d like to introduce you to a concept I’ll be talking about a lot in next week’s blog on Self-Love and the “New Thought” movement; the notion of “following your bliss”. This concept was first brought to our consciousness by 20th Century mythologist, writer, and philosopher, Joseph Campbell.
Now, these are all great lessons to learn but, what do they teach you about loving yourself and caring for yourself. Do they tell you to hug yourself? Do they tell you to be kind to yourself? Let’s be honest, the only time our parents allowed us to interact with ourselves was when they placed us in “time out” for being naughty and then self-love was far from our minds. Invariably we were fuming about losing, our play time and our toys, for a while which seemed like an age.
This is why, let’s say you see some new activity, sport, idea that you think would be brilliant, your ego immediately kicks into gear and reminds you just how “ordinary” you really are. The ego says things like: “sure, that looks like fun but remember the last time you tried something new… well, that was an abject failure wasn’t it?” It constantly seeks to remind us that we aren’t good enough and we genuinely think it is us that is saying it – it’s not.
Why is it that we are invariably our own harshest critics? We have this tendency to do things or take particular directions for all the wrong reasons; either we’re striving for something we’re not quite ready to achieve yet, or we’re seeking the approval of others. Often when we make a decision to improve our lives (self-love), we’re not motivated by what we want but rather by impressing others or from a sense of guilt (in the example of being overweight for instance). When our motivation is not driven by what we want, it is a lot easier to give up and add that to the impressive list of failures the ego will bring out to bombard you with next time you make a positive decision about yourself.
Not eating properly: Comfort foods are a temporary fix at best. Eating a well-balanced, healthy diet keeps you good not only physically but mentally and emotionally as well.
Next week, I’ll be looking at some practical ways to break down these barriers that keep you from self-love and as always, I’ll be reminding you to LOVE YOURSELF because you absolutely deserve it – you are a unique and beautiful human being.
Self-love is analogous to self-care and many people prefer to use the term self-care precisely because of those negative connotations that are sometimes ascribed to the term, self-love. However, whatever you call it self-love can best be summed up in the following affirmation: “self-love is the understanding and belief that I am a unique human being with talents and abilities that nobody who has ever lived or will ever live, possesses. I am worthy of love, I am worthy of respect and I am the equal of any person, anywhere.”
“You alone are enough. You have nothing to prove to anyone.” 
Self-love, or self-care, if you prefer, is critical to our physical, mental and spiritual health and yet we invariably CHOOSE to put it at the bottom of our priority list. Why is that? Are we not important enough to put ourselves at the top of our priority list? The truth is – many of us think we are not and I’ll go into why that is so and how to overcome these impediments in our next blog on this topic, however, for now it is important to understand that we are the ones making the CHOICE to ignore our own needs for the needs of others – we are the ones who control our own lives and yet we choose not to and do so at our peril.
“No one can make you feel inferior, without your consent.” 
The World Health Organisation presents us with some incredibly sobering statistics: They estimate that approximately one million people commit suicide every single year – that’s a global mortality rate of 16 people per 100,000 or one death every 40 seconds – horrifying, isn’t it? Worse, they predict that by 2020 it will be one death every 20 seconds.
Say positive things to yourself (“I am unique – I am amazing”)
