Archive for the ‘ Marriage & Partners ’ Category

MythBusters Family Version!

Tuesday, February 16th, 2010

Most of us know and love the wonderful MythBusters series on Discovery Channel; well today I want to Bust some of the most common myths that surround family life and personal development! We often have long lasting thoughts about life that just are not *really* true! In the article I will do my part to help you Bust those personal myths that hold you back from having Your Best Life! So let’s get started MythBustin’!

Myth’s about Happiness:

Myth #1 – I’ll be happy when I lose 20 (30,40,50) pounds.

How many of us have thoughts this, just to go ahead and torture ourselves by not eating the foods we love, lose the weight and be happy for just a little while. Yet after we get used to being our new slimmer selves, we realize nothing has *really* changed and we seem to have all the challenges we always had…including worrying about our weight! So in reality losing weight did not actually bring us the happiness we were looking for!
BUSTED!
Myth #2 – I’ll be happy after my house gets cleaned up.

So you’ve had it! You’re sick and tired of the mess and you get cracking…and you clean your house! Ahhhh…what a great feeling a clean house is…for sure! Yet did it really bring happiness? Well yes, it does bring happiness for a short while. Possibly even shorter than the weight lose brought due to your hubby and 3 kids messing the whole place up…lol! You realize it does feel better to have a clean house and it does add to your happiness factor, yet it is not a lasting happiness.
PLAUSABLE!
Myth #3 – I’ll be happy when I move to a different area/state or into a larger house.

Oh boy, this is one I used to believe 10 to 15 years ago…guess what I found out? Where ever I went…there I was! Meaning, happiness is an inside job! We can truly be happy for the inside out…not from the outside in. For me I had a lot of self awareness, self acceptance, personal development action I needed to take…before I could truly be happy regardless of my weight, mess, town or house I was in 
BUSTED!

Myth’s about Parenting:

Myth #4 – Kids are going to be “bad” and misbehave if I/we don’t “teach” them how to behave!

Kids are not inherently bad…just the opposite is true! They are inherently GOOD! Yes, of course we have more experience in life that we can share with our kids to help guide them. Yet truly the best thing we can do for our kids is BE there for them, be there to help them, be there to guide them when they need us. The best way to teach out kids how to be and act responsible, respectful, kind, and loving is to model that behavior. Treat your children kindly, loving, respectful & responsibly; they will “learn” that is the way to act toward others.
BUSTED!

Myth #5 I was spanked and disciplined as a child and I didn’t turn out so bad.

Well, I’m sure if you are reading this Transforming Family E-Zine you are probably right…you did not turn out so bad…lol! Yet, if you look deeply, was your relationship with your parents damaged by being harshly disciplined by them. Do you find yourself harshly disciplining your children; then feeling badly wishing you had better parenting skills?
PLAUSIBLE? NO… BUSTED!

Myths about Marriage & Family:

Myth #5 – Happily Ever After. Things should be easier than this.

The truth about relationships is there is a certain amount of “work” that goes into them. So the idea that we fall in love with our husband or babies and everything is “happily ever after…is just hoo-haa! Yep…that’s what I just said HOO-HAA! What a real happy marriage/family looks like is a group of people coming together in a common goal. Willingness to look at one another as being perfect humans in the mist of all our challenges. Being willing to do whatever personal development is necessary to be the best Mom, Dad or kids you can be. Are you willing to do what ever it takes to have the family of your dreams??
BUSTED!

Many of the myths I have talked about come up in one way or another while working with my coaching clients, if you are someone who could relate to one or more of these myths and are ready to change your thinking from BUSTED to CONFIRMED, you are ready to join one of my coaching programs!

>>>Click here to schedule a Complimentary Coaching Session<<<

Act now because I only have 2 spaces left for coaching clients before I go onto a waiting list!

Posted in Be Your Best Self, Family Advice, Marriage & Partners, Parenting Issues, Uncategorized | No Comments »

The Million Dollar Family!

Wednesday, January 20th, 2010

Have you ever noticed that people will spend money to make money? Thousands…probably millions are spent on get rich quick schemes everyday! Yet, very rarely do people make millions. Why do you think people are often unwilling to spend money on what everyone says is the most important thing in their lives…their family? Now…just go with me here…what would a get rich quick scheme look like for you when it comes to your family life?

Picture this…your husband (or wife) calls you midday and asks you out on a romantic date that night. He has planned everything, right down to the trusted babysitter. Is that hitting the jackpot as far as family life goes?? Or maybe it’s more like this for you…you have a wonderful family dinner together that everyone pitched in to make. You laugh and tell stories about your day while making dinner with your kids. Everyone happily sits down together for dinner and afterwards everyone is willing to clean up without a fuss. Next the kids take off to do homework or watch TV and you and your spouse enjoy a quiet evening without any big disturbances. OK is that making a million in family life??

You see where I am going with all this…you really can have the million dollar family! Yet just like making millions…it’s gonna take some “work”. It may even cost some $$. Is your family worth it? Are you willing to do what it takes? I know for a fact your million dollar family is right there in front of you…waiting to break the bank open so to speak! How do I know this? It is my experience! I have experienced living a poor family life first hand and I know what it takes to make it a Million!

I took my over-tired, angry, frustrated, feeling unloved and unappreciated Self from rags to riches! No, I do not literally mean monetarily. I am talking about spiritually! I am talking about being willing to do what it takes to turn things around, to have the motivation to Transform My Family. I had it 10 years ago and I have it today…the motivation that is! Are there things in your life that you know need to change? Do the same challenges come up day after day? If you answered, YES! Why not let me help you? What holds you back? The usual reasons are time and finances. I have answers for both…lol! Time is not a problem. I can schedule appointments in the evening, weekend or during nap time. I am a mother who understands interruptions. So if you’re a stay at home mom who thinks she can’t talk on the phone with me, I have worked with many moms that would tell you otherwise. When it comes to money…let me tell you…I am SO worth it! If you need proof, I have it! Just ask. Also, I offer the best Transformational Coaching Programs out there!

>>>Sign Up For Your Million Dollar Family Mastermind Session Now…it’s FREE<<<

Start Transforming Your Family into a million smiles and hugs today! Let’s start with you

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Posted in Be Your Best Self, Family Advice, Marriage & Partners, Uncategorized | 1 Comment »

5 Steps To Deepen Your Families Connection

Monday, November 23rd, 2009

*A Special Report*

1. Communicate clearly, yet compassionately.

• Clearly only comes from your Authentic/True self, you need to be connected with your true self to be communicating clearly. When connected to your true self you are not acting or reacting from ego, inner child or your conditioning. You are communicating clearly because you know it is your truth!
• Compassionately means you are communicating with love and respect. You treat the other person or people the way you would want to be treated.
• Read more… http://www.transformingfamily.com/content/compassionate_communication.asp

2. Be an active listener.

• Active listening involves fully listening to the speaker. Often we do not fully listen, we are often half listening or thinking about our reply instead of fully listening.
• Active Listening is a structured form of listening and responding that focuses the attention on the speaker. The listener repeats, in the listeners own words, what they think the speaker has said. The listener does not have to agree with the speaker…he or she must simply state what they think the speaker said.
• This enables the speaker to find out whether the listener really understood. If the listener did not, the speaker can explain some more.

3. Trust that the other person is being honest.

• Trusting the other person (when I say people or person, I am always including children!) is doing the best that they can with what they have to work with.
• Sometimes other people will not have the same tools that you have; the best way to “teach” something is through modeling it! So practice these steps, share what you know in a respectful way and they will follow your lead.
• Trust that they will!

4. Show love in a way the other receives well.

• What I mean by this is that everyone feels loved in different ways. Some people feel loved when touched physically; with a hug or a kiss. Others like to spend time with their loved one. Some people feel loved when they receive gifts and others feel loved through verbal communicatation.
• If you are interested in finding out what your love language is, here is a test you can take… http://www.afo.net/hftw-lovetest.asp

5. Have FUN with one another!

• Spend time doing what the other person/people like to do.
• Often in families where people are aloud to be who they really are, there are so many different hobbies and interests it may be hard to keep up  Yet, it is important to try.
• One person may like playing video games, ask to join them, learn how to play that person’s favorite game. Others may love going to parks or playing outside, make sure to take time to do that with them…you get the picture!
• Show that you know them, show that you care about what they like!

Please take my Best Self Quiz and recieve my e-mails, sign up for both in the right side bar! Thanks and I look forward to connecting with you soon!

Posted in Communicating With Children, Communicating With Parents, Consensual Living, Dysfunctional Relationships, Family Advice, Marriage & Partners, Parenting Issues | 4 Comments »

Trade In Your Family

Tuesday, September 29th, 2009

by Ingrid Elfver

Fall is officially here and, before you know it, you might find yourself challenged by family members that you don’t see or talk to very often. Well, NOW is the time to do something about it.

Family is one of the most important foundations that we have, but not all family members are the same. There are those that empower you and help you grow — those who believe in you, understand you, and help you reach the stars. And then there are those that hurt you, try to hold you back, and seem to want to see you fail.

Every family has its good side. But there is also a darker part of family dynamics that can be negative, limiting, and destructive. Some of those unproductive thoughts and patterns can be generations old. And those who are engaged in them often aren’t ready, willing, or able to admit or change their bad behavior.
Are you clear about which family members are helping you and which ones are holding you and your business back? Do you believe in your dreams enough to begin setting better boundaries? Do you know that you have to surround yourself with kindness, support, and love — if you’re going to live your full potential?

If you’re going to share your gift with the world, make a difference, and enjoy your life, you have to step away from people who are negative, destructive, or disempowering — and you have to let some people go completely. If you want to be fully empowered in what you think and do, you have to make a conscious break from the people in your life who are holding you back (no matter who they are).

Imagine yourself involved in only healthy and empowering relationships. You’re surrounded by people with the same goals and desires as you. They are supportive of your business, and they are supportive of who you are. You don’t have to explain why you’re an entrepreneur, why you have big dreams, or why you work as hard as you do.

You deserve to be surrounded and supported by a peaceful and loving family (and friends). You deserve to keep pursuing your dreams. You deserve to live the successful and harmonious life that you know you were born to live. You deserve to be the incredible YOU that you were born to be.

Elfver is the world’s leading mindset expert helping women (and highly evolved men) build their business and brand. For more than 20 years she’s been helping people in all industries build wealth and happiness – from the inside out.

Originally from Sweden, Ingrid now lives in the United States where she works with an elite group of mentoring clients around the world by phone. Although Ingrid is known for her Seven Secrets of Wealthy Women Entrepreneurs, she is most known as an expert on what she calls “The most important asset held by every woman in business – her mindset.”

Ingrid’s syndicated weekly column The Woman Entrepreneur, mentoring program, and online My Muse Membership help women in business expand their vision of what’s possible for them; see the gap between where they are and where they want to be; develop a winning mindset; and take massive positive action.

Website: www.MyMuse.info

Posted in Adult Children, Communicating With Parents, Dysfunctional Relationships, Family Advice, Marriage & Partners | No Comments »

Manifesting Our Family Vision

Thursday, September 17th, 2009

How do we go about manifesting our family’s dreams? The process will look different for every family since we are all autonomous beings, so the ideas I talk about in this article are not directives, I just enjoy sharing what goes on inside my head. I have found that it can be challenging to use words to describe a spiritual concept, a concept that evolves through spirit, yet I continue to try.

My vision for my family started out inside of me, my spirit was my guiding light. My spirit told me that I wanted a loving, harmonious, consensual home; I wanted everyone to hold their own power. As a child I felt very powerless and am still working on owning my power. I didn’t want to do that to my family. It has been a journey and along the way I have learned a few things I would like to share. The most important thing I learned was not to focus on what I don’t want, but to focus on what I did want. For me, I started out knowing what I didn’t want and for a while did make the mistake of focusing on that and it didn’t feel very good. I recognized that this wasn’t working, I looked for a new way and the universe delivered the knowledge I needed to move forward. I read and was told to tap into how it would feel to have this family I envisioned. I am a feeling being, so that really helped me. I remember lying in my bath tub closing my eyes and actually feeling how wonderful it would be and from that point forward it came fairly natural to focus on that good intention, instead of my old tapes. Sounds easy enough…and for some it really is easy, for others including myself there was still more to do.

The Zen philosophy really resonates with me, it is based in practicality, the idea that the spiritual is in the mundane. So in my everyday life I had to practice seeing the spiritual goodness in everything. That is not to say bad thing don’t happen or that some days people don’t just feel sad, angry or whatever. For me acceptance is the key to all my feelings and working through them. We often hear the statement “choose joy” and that can be a bit challenging when something awful is going on; an illness, tragedy, disagreement with someone or even something dreaded by a lot of people as simple as the dentist <g>. How do we choose joy then you might ask. Again, acceptance of what going on is the starting point for me. Reminding myself that all of life is available to us for a reason, we might not understand the reason, but I try to accept everything as just being “OK”. When I can accept what’s going on I am choosing joy, even if it doesn’t fell great. It’s accepting the yin and the yang of life. It is embracing what is…reality.

Just this morning I received a daily email from the Abraham-Hicks website that suggested looking at life as a buffet. I will paraphrase; to choose your thoughts, just like you choose your food at the buffet. You put what you like onto your plate and you can choose what you want in your life. Yet, what about the challenging stuff life brings us, like I mentioned above…that can be a sticking point for many of us. If I manifested the good stuff, then do I manifest the bad stuff too? This kind of thinking can bring on new age guilt, which in my opinion is undesirable. I bring this up to clarify my point about acceptance. When we accept life, focus on what we want, be true to ourselves, follow our hearts and believe we can have everything we desire for ourselves and our families we will manifest our vision! May the force be with you

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Posted in Family Advice, Marriage & Partners, Parenting Issues | 3 Comments »

About Conformity

Friday, September 11th, 2009

This Article is in response to this readers comment/question after reading my post called Parenting Curriculum. Thanks for the great question!

Tracy, I’d love to hear more of your thoughts about dealing with external pressure to conform to outside imposed criteria, for instance in interactions with parents and others (i.e. neighbors) who may be feeling threatened by our lack of parenting curriculum.

I will start with this awesome quote from JFK…

Conformity is the jailer of freedom and the enemy of growth. -John F. Kennedy

First of all, I congratulate anyone strong enough to go against the grain of society and follow their personal beliefs! I also know from experience that it is not always easy and you/we will come up against lots of resistance to our ideas. I’m not talking about doing anything against the law here; I’m talking about our rights as humans to dare to think for ourselves. Dare to not send your kids to school or parent without arbitrary consequences or punishments. These things do threaten some people like the reader above spoke about.

I will also turn your attention back to self…imagine that! Turn your attention back to everything is a choice, you can choose to feel uncomfortable or defensive or you can choose to live in the Joy of your choices !

How do you deal with interactions with others that do things differently than you? Possibly even totally disagreeing with what you are doing…very carefully and with grace! Start with self acceptance! We are all different individuals; we have different needs, personalities, and backgrounds. We bring our own gifts and baggage along for the ride. Yet, if we are truly accepting of self and the choices we are making, things usually have less charge. Less charge means we just accept ourselves and others for who they are and the choices we/they make without judgment!

Acceptance is an interesting thing, we usually have to start with self and then it flows out toward everyone else. That being said, people who are judging or acting as though they are the all knowing are really just reflecting their own judgment of self. Of course, usually unaware of their own lack of self acceptance. The same is true with judgment; if we judge another we are truly judging ourselves! I know I’m being a little tudy-fruity…airy-fairy here, yet if you take a moment and breathe deeply and soak it in, it really will help you to not focus on what others are thinking of you!

You are not alone; I have heard this from many people and have experienced it myself! Again what I found brought the most peace for me and my family was keeping my eye on the prize…which in this case is my belief system and living in JOY with my family! Not taking their comments personally is also VERY helpful! *TrusT* yourself first and foremost, you are the expert about your family!!

*REMEMBER*

Self Acceptance, Self Acceptance, Self Acceptance, Self Acceptance!!!!!!!

Posted in Communicating With Parents, Consensual Living, Dysfunctional Relationships, Family Advice, Marriage & Partners, Parenting Issues | No Comments »

Do You Feel Alone In Your Marriage?

Monday, August 17th, 2009

It has been said that all growth takes place in relationships and I would agree that relationships are the ripest place for growth. When we are in relationship with another there is a multitude of experiences that make us feel uncomfortable, or ask ourselves deep insightful questions.

You may be feeling alone in your marriage, which is a very strange and painful feeling for anyone going through it. Yet, my experience through the years with countless people is that it is real and happening all across the world. Why is this? How can a person feel alone when in a couple? I have found there are a couple of reasons that are unfortunately all too common.

Addiction. Addiction is the compulsive use of any substance, person, feeling, or behavior with a relative disregard of the potentially negative social, psychological, and physical consequences. Addiction will disconnect you from you first, and then disconnect you from your loved ones.

Deep Wounds From Childhood that are left unhealed. Many people were abused in one way or another as a child. When this has happened, people find ways to live in this cruel/bad situation to survive, which helped them as children, but now as adults hinders their ability to deeply connect in intimate relationships.

Bad Communication Skills. Good communication skills are a vital part of good relationships.

Using Time as an excuse. Here in 2009, we are all very busy. Many of us use “not enough time” as an excuse for not fostering a better relationship.

Now time for some down to earth, reasonable and logical suggestions!

Stop it, STOP it, STOP IT!! Stop using your addictions that keep you isolated. Stop holding on to the past you must heal and let go of the pain. Stop communicating poorly and not listening and Stop using time as an excuse!

~ Ok, now that I have your attention ~

If you or your loved one is aware of having any type of addiction, get help! There are plenty of resources out there…just google addiction or recovery from addiction and you can find what you are looking for!

Same goes for recovering from an abusive childhood, seek help! There are many gifted healers out there…find one!

I myself have been through many of these challenges and have come out the other side. I am happier than I have ever been and my marriage of 19 years is healthier than it has ever been! So believe me when I say…

~ You can move out of your limiting beliefs about relationships and

Move into limitless JOY within them ~

To learn more about connecting deeply with your spouse or partner, schedule your complimentary session today! call 843-343-8956 or e-mail tracy@transformingfamily.com

Partners Group

Posted in Dysfunctional Relationships, Family Advice, Marriage & Partners | 4 Comments »