I wish I could treat myself the way my GPS treats me!

Loving yourself as if you were your best friend.

For starters let’s see what the noise and hype about self-esteem really is. 

Self-esteem is a standard of  “success” has everybody trying to get as much of it as they possibly can. 

Self-esteem is a judgment of oneself, of one’s own worth.

The proponents of self-esteem as a measure of success state that in order to have a good dose of self-esteem you have to believe and feel you are indeed very successful. And the way you get there is by measuring yourself against everybody else, by being better than or superior to everybody else. It has gotten so out of hand that you cannot be “average” or “common” or “normal” anymore. To be considered successful, you have to be exceptional.

Because of the perceived importance of good self-esteem, people work hard to achieve it. This makes sense if you believe that as you raise your self-esteem, you raise your value in your own eyes and in the eyes of those who judge you.

This race to be awesome as fast as possible has been captured by a huge industry that promises to deliver big chunks of self-esteem if you buy whatever it is they are selling. It targets the whole gamut of human existence—cosmetics, plastic surgery, cars, housing, vacations, clothing, restaurants, schools, neighborhoods, even special courses and seminars. They all promise to make you feel better about yourself, to raise your value so that you can compete better in this world.

Not even children are spared from learning to be awesome. They play with toys that aim to be role models for the winners in this race, just like Barbie’s boyfriend “totally cool Ken” and other manufactured role models.

I find this self-esteem doctrine that emphasizes your worth quite disruptive and damaging. It’s a recipe for a life riddled with anxiety and frustration that can easily lead to depression or delusional narcissism. 

To learn more visit:  Happiness No Matter What!  The Essential Seven Principles Program for a Happy You

 I would love to hear what you think about the role of self-esteem in today's society and in your own life. 

Love and Light,

Monica

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WHAT IS A MODERN LAZY BUT A LIAR?

Man in Universe - Jeremy Thomas

We have been exploring lying, why we lie and why it is an addiction quite omnipresent in our industrialized societies.  We also talked about the fact that there are all kinds and levels of lies and that although most lies are apparently benign, they are only apparently so. 

All lies leave a mark, a scar in our dignity, in who we think we are and in the way we relate to ourselves and to the rest of the world. 

The liar thinks, or lies to himself into thinking, that he can keep the pretense, but he cannot hide forever.   We all know most of the time when someone is lying.  We feel it, and we don’t like it, we end up resenting the liar.

Sooner or later, lying corrodes all relationships, primarily with yourself and then with all others.

Most people lie without even knowing they are lying, it is their default way of communicating, so they make excuses, give explanations, hide information, twist facts for many reasons but most commonly to save face or to make others believe they are “more” of what they are not, and they even lie to avoid hurting others.  We are “experts” at masking the truth.

I just came across an interesting take on lying: what Seth Godin calls “modern lazy” a 21st Century style of laziness.  He says:

"the old lazy avoided cleaning the garage or doing the dishes or cutting the grass, but that the “modern lazy avoids emotional labor.”  

This modern lazy is a typical modern liar.  It is someone that has sold his soul to the comfort of not being accountable for most anything of true value.  The modern lazy hides behind “non-commitment” and “non-interfering” because he does not want to do the “emotional labor” that committing requires. 

This modern lazy avoids emotional labor.  And what that means is that the modern lazy lacks the courage to question her convictions, lacks the dignity to look at the facts as she sees them, to ask the obvious question because it may result in a painful answer, to be fully present for the other or for a cause that she is pretending to care for, to get involved with what she knows is just, with what can help others, to encourage meaningful conversations and true dialogues instead of arguments, or to face her fears. 

This emotional laziness paints the sorrow picture of a life lived in the darkness of a lie.

If left unchecked it becomes our digital imprint and the sad irrelevant mark we end up leaving behind us in this world.

Modern lazy is not aware of how much he is depriving himself of the riches of life.  He is not present to life in all its colors and textures; he glides over them terrified of losing distance and landing over them.  

Modern lazy chooses to live life in hiding, escaping from contributing to the world.  But what he does not know is that if one day he throws away his mask, he can with his unique and dignified truth enhance the quality of his life and the integrity of his world. 

Love and light,

Monica

Please share your comments below!  I love getting your emails, but if you write your comments here, we can start a conversation going.

If you enjoy this blog, I would love if you'd forward it to your friends, and share in social media....

NEW YEAR RESOLUTIONS THAT REALLY WORK!

How can we make 2018 a year we can be proud of?

The year in itself is just a few hundred days, but how we show up for them, is what will give them their color and tone.  How we live them will make this 2018 either the year when the world became a bit sweeter more enlightened place or a bitter and darker place.

New Year Resolutions, of the usual kind, a list of statements that answer to what am I going to do? what am I going to get?…  are just a bunch of wishful statements and proclamations that almost never come alive.  And why is that?  Because most of them are formulated from our tiny ego mind and they respond to the needs of the ego, they are all about me, me, me and my needs to finally be happy.  They tend to satisfy our psychological mask and not who we truly indeed are at the core of our being. 

We just celebrated Christmas, although most of us have no idea of what we truly celebrated.  We did not celebrate the birth of a baby about 2000 years ago.  We celebrated the birth of Christ in us.  We celebrated that we allowed ourselves to open up to our immense capacity, our divine essence, our connection to the Source of all there is.   

Christmas is actually a recognition of who we truly are, an actualization of all we are.  Jesus said:  “you and I are the same.”  The difference between Jesus and us is that we don’t accept that we are inherently divine and that we have the same immense power that he had.  Jesus knew who he truly was, “I and my father are one.”  He had actualized his true self in the power of love, he lived from that place and he healed the sick and resurrected the dead.  We can too… if we only accept we are much more than what our narrow and petty ego mind tells us we are.  

The celebration of New Year, so soon after Christmas, gives us an opportunity to deepen the realization of our newly born Christ consciousness.  And we express it in our Resolutions. 

As I allow myself to become aware of my innate capacity, I do not think of New Year Resolutions in terms of what I need, I want, I deserve, I will get, I will become, I will be.  I do not talk about discovering my potential and the best version of myself sometime in the future. When I accept who I truly am, I know that I have immense inherent capabilities, and I start using them right now, one day at the time.  I do not wait till I am perfect at them, but know that my capacity is here in me now and that it will shine more and more as I practice it starting now. 

Discovering and connecting with our true Self, turn our days joyful, peaceful and complete.  We know that our mission is to be happy, to enjoy life no matter what, not only for ourselves but to pass it along to all who come in contact with us and beyond.  We become responsible for how we live and we do it guided by a deeply felt desire to be of help, of service to others.  We are motivated by a yearning to help make this world a sweeter place to be.  We do not blame anybody or anything for what is not working in our lives.  We instead welcome the awareness of what is our own individual contribution to the betterment of it all.

Our New Year Resolution then becomes an honorable request:

May I actualize the truth about who I really am.

May I become who I really am.

May I know how to show up for 2018

May I be of service to my family, my community, my country, the environment.

May I contribute to making this a more joyful, peaceful, sweeter world.

MY VERY BEST WISHES FOR A HAPPY NEW YEAR!  May you all see the light you are in 2018!

Happiness No Matter What!  The essential seven principles program for a happy you.

I would love to hear your comments!  Let's talk and start a dialogue of likeminded light bearers!  Leave your comments here or email me to:  info@monicabelizan.com

It is the Holiday Season. But what does it mean to you? What can the Holidays do for you and your life?

aaron burden/unsplash

The term Holiday originally referred to a consecrated day, a religious festival, a day of grace.   Skipping the reference to religion, it described a day put aside to reflect on something bigger than us, a god, a saint, a hero; it memorialized someone or something we admired and/or we were grateful for, it reminded us of contributions made by truly evolved humans beings to our humanity and of how they advanced us by their example.

But the term slowly but surely changed through the years and in 1937 it flourished as a greeting for: “Happy Holidays!”  Camel cigarette adds made it widely popular as a Christmas greeting. It became an exhortation to relax, to do nothing, to just let the lungs do the work.  

It later morphed into a non-working day devoted to reap the blessings of shopping and sales-hunting. Nowadays the holiday greeting could very well be:  “It’s a Holiday, shop till you drop”… sort of thing.

There is nothing wrong with that if that is what fulfills us, what makes us better people, closer to our friends and loved ones, if it is what turns us softer and less judgmental, more benevolent and truly happy.  Maybe that is your experience of the holidays, but it is not mine. 

Yes, I do like to have fun and I like to enjoy with my family and friends and give and receive presents and savor mostly great foods, and see everybody smiling a lot –hopefully. 

But yet, we are missing the point as we strip the sacred aspect of the Holidays.  In so doing we miss the opportunity to reflect on what it is that we are celebrating, what greatness names the Holiday we are enjoying, and how we can bring it into our awareness to make it ours, so that it can guide us to evolve into a greater version of ourselves.

I am not trying to water down the holidays.  I am yes, trying to bring together with the shopping and the turkey and the pies, the original sanctity of the Holidays.  I want to ascend them to their original meaning so that we become aware that we can indeed incorporate the attributes we gather to celebrate and enrich our lives.

Thanksgiving is past now, it is 3 full days gone by now, but since I still have my laptop jammed with Cyber Monday “attacks”… I would like to take the opportunity to reflect on Gratitude once again. 

Gratitude is the direct path to grace, to happiness, to wholeness, and to peace.  That is what Thanksgiving can remind us to bring more of into our lives.

Happy Sacred Holiday Season!!!!

Love and Light,

Monica

I appreciate all your emails and would love to see your comments here.  Thank you!

A TRUE THANKSGIVING PRAYER - A GIFT FOR THE HEART- Courtesy of Mercedes Sosa.

Thanksgiving is here again!  One more opportunity we have to think about what really matters and be grateful for it all.  It is a truly enlightened festivity in that it highlights the immense power we receive when we celebrate life.

Yes, I believe that Thanksgiving is the most sacred day of the year and I am fortunate and---very thankful—that I live in a country that takes one day of the year to say and think:  Thank you! 

Usually, I suggest that we make lists of all the benefits we receive and enjoy.  

But this year I am strongly motivated to share with you a special form of gratitude that has the sweet connotations of a deep prayer.  It shares the true meaning of gratitude and involves us in contemplative prayer.

I am referring to a magnificent piece of music written by Violeta Parra and sung by a true master of life  --Mercedes Sosa.

GRACIAS A LA VIDA is the original version.  The following video is in Spanish with English subtitles.   If you do not understand Spanish, listen to it feeling the emotion of her heartfelt THANK YOU TO LIFE.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AsadhxkzHl0

I would love to hear your comments!   And if you want to keep them private send me an email to:   info@monicabelizan.com 

YOU HAVE CROSSED THE BRIDGE. YOU ARE IN NEW TERRITORY. SO WHAT DO YOU DO NOW????

YOU HAVE LEARNED TO MEDITATE.  

YOU MEDITATE DAILY.

YOU ARE ON THE OTHER SIDE.  

YOU ARE IN NEW TERRITORY.

SO…..WHAT DO YOU DO NOW????

You are on the other side of the river.  You have started to acquire a new awareness, a new way of looking at “reality”.  You understand the futile circularity of your thinking process.  You are beginning to discern what is important from what is not important.  You get a glimpse of how much the voice in your head is getting you no-where. 

In a word, your mind is leaner and you are wiser.  You feel a bit happier but you also realize you are becoming a different person.  What was important yesterday is not relevant today, what was drama and hysteria is now an experience to go through, what was judgment and anger are becoming something slightly more subtle.  You realize that you have shed stuff you were familiar with.  Stuff that made you who you thought you were for decades.  You are on the other side of the bridge looking back at that familiar face that is paling little by little. 

And… you panic!  The grass may be greener here but you are not that sure of who you are in this new territory.  You realize that most of what gave you confidence and a sense of belonging is becoming quite irrelevant in this new world. 

You understand that the little you have explored through your meditation practice has given you beautiful moments of deep peace, fragrant whiffs of new ways to love, tentative sharp insights that surprise you, glimpses of kindness that turn you happy.  You know it is the real you in a beautiful land and yet….  so much newness makes you uneasy. The uncertainty of the newness, of the novelty, of the change, is unsettling you.

Paradoxically, you also start noticing a bit of fear creeping into your mind..., the fear that all this growth and newly acquired joy might disappear.  You realize you don’t know how to work with it or what else to do to make it permanent.  

You wish there is something you can do to not only keep your meditation practice strong but also to strengthen your connection to the new You and to your new Life. 

And I believe you are right! You need other tools, techniques that will complement your meditation and will integrate your quiet practice with your active life with a renewed sense of reverence and sacredness. Something else that will deepen the intention you bring to your meditation so that it will permeate all aspects of your life.

There are many many tools:  rituals, devotional chanting, ceremonial participation, retreats, yoga, breathing exercises, etc., all beautiful enhancers of any spiritual path, but I believe that there is one in particular that is absolutely essential to give deep meaning to your spiritual unveiling and growth: PRAYER.   

Prayer is the ultimate “technique” you need in order to navigate the new territory you have started to acquire.  When you learn what it is, what is an authentic prayer, a powerful prayer, and you learn to use it, you will begin to feel its grace pouring over you.  You will know that you have arrived.

In my next posts, we will dive deeply into the realm of prayer.  Stay tuned!

In the meantime, I would love to receive your comments, your questions, suggestions, scrawl down to the comments box, or you can send them to:  info@monicabelizan.com

Love and Light!

Monica

To go into more depth on what to expect when you start to meditate and how to become the happiness you are meant to be, check out my new book:  HAPPINESS NO Matter What!