QUIT STRESS & WORRY

'You cant swing a cat without hitting at least 10 stressed people these days!'

Worrying I am not afraid to say, in my personal opinion and experience, is worse for your health and wellbeing than smoking or lack of exercise. Stress and fear are nothing new and from my research they don't present themselves any differently through the body than they did 5 years, 10 years, 50 years or 1000 years ago. From something as simple as a headache, to as life stifling as a panic attack, to as painful as endometriosis or irritable bowel syndrome, to something as fatal as heart attack or stroke and then there are all of the 'invisible' sicknesses in between. Have you ever or someone you know ever suffered from a sickness that has been really debilitating but the Doctors cannot figure out what it is and/or have no idea how to treat the sickness? It happens all the time and I would go as far as to say it happens every second. What really unsettles me is that this is nothing new and yet it is still vastly ignored. 

Here is an exert from one of my all time favourite books from Dale Carnegie 'How to stop worrying and start living'.

"Some time ago, a neighbour rang my doorbell one evening and urged me and my family to be vaccinated against smallpox. He was only one of thousands of volunteers who were ringing doorbells all over New York City. Frightened people stood in lines for hours at a time to be vaccinated. Vaccination stations were opened not only in all hospitals, but also in fire-houses, police precincts, and in large industrial plants. More than two thousand doctors and nurses worked feverishly day and night, vaccinating crowds. The cause of all this excitement? Eight people in New York City had smallpox-and two had died. Two deaths out of a population of almost eight million.

Now, I have lived in New York for over thirty-seven years, and no one has ever yet rung my doorbell to warn me against the emotional sickness of worry-an illness that, during the last thirty-seven years, has caused ten thousand times more damage than smallpox. No doorbell ringer has ever warned me that one person out of ten now living in these United States will have a nervous breakdown-induced in the vast majority of cases by worry and emotional conflicts. So I am writing this chapter to ring your doorbell and warn you.

The great Nobel prizewinner in medicine, Dr. Alexis Carrel, said: "Business men who do not know how to fight worry die young." And so do housewives and horse doctors and bricklayers."

This was first published in 1948 and is an incredible little book but very unknown. You have most likely heard of Canegie's book 'How to win friends and influence people'. 

Learning how to deal with stress would not only save and/or prolong your life but also help you to live a much more happy or satisfying life. Happiness is not what the general media, marketing and advertising agencies tell us is. It is not a fancy car, a big house, a new set of golf clubs or that Louis Vuitton hand bag you dearly want but is $10,000. Happiness is actually much easier and cheaper to achieve than any of the above! In saying that, please dont get me wrong... there is absolutely, as far as I am concerned, nothing wrong with having the biggest and best material things and ideals money can buy. If you want it go for it. BUT happiness is not there. It is within you. It is in the here and now. But of course we are not told that! We are bombarded with images material objects which say... WE WILL MAKE YOU HAPPY. Well I have some good and some bad news for you. 

YOU CANNOT OUTSOURCE HAPPINESS.

It comes from within. From living every day as if it were a gift. To do what you love and learn to feel again. It is in the removing of the burdens from yesterday and the fear of tomorrow. All life ever asks of you is that you do your best from when you wake in the morning until you go to sleep at night. You cannot change the past and if you want to give your future the best chance possible, worrying about it should not be an option! But of course, quit worrying and fear? Like everything... easier said than done. But I have put together a little tool to help you! It help me magnificently and has been tested on the smallest worries to the biggest life stifling ones! I hope you enjoy it! 

    

Kick that fear/worry/stress in the butt and live by these two sayings:

'I will cross that bridge when I come to it!'

and

'No use crying over spilt milk!'

Take back your power! 

Much Love 

Cx

DEFINE YOURSELF CHALLENGE!!!

Following on from the 26 day affirmation challenge I have another challenge for you!

I CHALLENGE YOU TO DEFINE YOURSELF ON YOUR TERMS!

I have been talking about being yourself this week on my BlogTalkRadio Show (you can listen to that HERE) and my blog (read the blog HERE). A great way to help you understand who you are you need to define who you are in the first place rather than being a product of your old habits and environment! 

I have put a tool up on this blog which is a table that has a space for ten personality traits and below that is a list of every personality trait I could possibly think of including being AWESOME :) You can access that blog HERE. I suggest you go through the list and pick out every trait you believe is yours and if you have more than ten go through the ones you have and list them in order of importance and the top ten will be the ones you should concentrate on developing! Give the ten traits some considerate thought and from MONDAY the 28th of November (this coming Monday) for ten days you can join me on the challenge of concentrating on one trait per day! Each day you will choose a trait and write down how you can consciously develop that trait for the day. For example: 

'Awesome'- I will be grateful, smile, laugh and be confident today so I can show to myself and the world how awesome I am! 

or 

'Nice' I will be patient and understanding and be nice to people today and see what I can give whether it be a smile or a helping hand to show myself and the world I am a nice person.

 Remember your interpretation of each trait is subjective and completely up to you how you develop it! I will be writing on my facebook wall each morning my trait and how I will develop it that day and you are more than welcome to do so too! I would love to see what traits you would like to develop and how you will do it! Even if you dont want to put it up on my facebook wall you can message me to let me know you are going to do it just to help you along with your accountability! My email is casey.evans@acaseofbusiness.com so feel free to share with me or just let me know you are doing it so I can check in and see how you are going! 

I suggest you read my blog on the tips to being yourself (read blog HERE) and listen to the show (listen in HERE), sorry about the first minute and 20 secs of the show as I had trouble connecting but the show does start after that initial hiccup! 

Remember I am starting this challenge on Monday November 28th and it will go for 10 days! 

I hope you take up the challenge!

Much Love 

Cx

DEFINE YOURSELF ON YOUR TERMS TOOL

• accepts authority, loyal, devoted
• accepts what's given
• affectionate
• aspiring, ambitious, motivated
• awesome
• candid
• confident
• caring
• change; accepts, embraces
• cheerful
• charming
• considerate, thoughtful
• cooperative
• courageous
• courteous
• curious
• decisive
• dependable
• devoted
• determined
• does what is necessary, right
• enthusiastic
• expansive
• faith in life
• faith in oneself
• faith in others
• flexible
• forgiving 
• focused
• freedom giving to others
• friendly 
• frugal, thrifty
• funny
• generous
• goodwill
• graceful
• grateful
• happy
• hardworking
• honest
• humble
• humorous 
• integrity
• intelligent
• interested
• involved
• jealous, not
• kind 
• loving
• lovely
• mature
• modest
• nice
• open minded, tolerant
• optimistic
• patient
• perfects
• persistent, sustaining 
• positive
• practical
• punctual
• reliable
• respectful
• responsibility, takes
• responsible
• responsive
• self confident
• self directed
• self disciplined
• self esteem, high
• self giving
• self reliant
• selfless
• sensitive
• serious
• sincere
• social independence
• sweet
• sympathetic
• systematic
• takes others point of view
• talented
• thoughtful towards others
• tolerant
• trusting, trusted
• unpretentious
• useful
• unselfish
• understanding
• willing does, willingness
• work oriented

BE YOURSELF

This is a follow up blog/reminder blog for yesterdays BlogTalk Radio Show that I did. You can listen to the show HERE. My apologies about the first minute and 20 seconds as I was having some trouble but if you stream to 1.20 then the show starts! On the upside the sound quality is much better this week!

1. YOU ARE OK EXACTLY AS YOU ARE RIGHT NOW!

Give yourself a break and accept who you are and where you are right now in your life! It is very important! It will bring some relief for you, different levels of relief for different people depending on how hard you are on yourself! It is important to cut yourself a break and tell yourself that you are ok, right now, no matter what. It doesn't matter how bad you think things are or how bad you think you may have been. It is ok! Now you know its ok you can move forward with some clarity and get prepared to be YOU! 

2. DEFINE WHO YOU ARE ON YOUR TERMS

Many people are going through life expressing personality traits that feel awful and not right. They are just personality traits that they have picked up along the way and used them so much they have turned into habits and could not be further away from who they actually are! Sit down and decide what personality traits you want! How do you know which personality traits are really yours? The personality trait that feels good to you when you express it, is who you really are. The one that feels bad is not who you are. For example if you have a ‘temper’ and when you express that trait and it makes you feel awful once it has been expressed that is not who you are. If you are confident and you feel great when you express that trait then that is who you really are! A great way to really help you define yourself is to sit down and write out ten personality traits that feel great to you and you want to get in the habit of expressing easily and freely! For example-

1.Confidence

Charm

Loving

Funny

Understanding

Enthusiastic 

Courageous

Determined

Friendly

Grateful

You have to write down the traits that feel good to YOU, not ones that other people think you are! That is why this tip is called define yourself on YOUR TERMS.

 Once you have given some considerate thought to your ten traits write down next to each one of those traits how you are going to foster them! For example when I decided being a confident person was who I really am I wrote down that I would remember my posture and stand up straight, I would be conscious of the tonality of my voice as when I was in a situation where I had no confidence I would talk very softly and people couldn't hear me so I had to remember to talk as I normally did, I also read books on how to develop confidence. When I was confident I felt great and could express myself easily and freely! But when I was not confident I felt terrible and stifled as a person and I knew that being confident was who I really was! 

3. STOP SEEKING APPROVAL

Constantly acting in a certain way to draw out approval from others is one of the quickest ways to move away from who you really are! When I say drawing out approval I mean- trying to please everyone and worrying about other peoples reactions or judgements towards you! Some of us get into the nasty habit of those things and like everything people do it to varying degrees but no matter how much or how little you do it- STOP IT. When you honestly and openly be yourself and are happy being yourself it does not matter what others think of you, nor is it any of your business what others think of you just as it is not other peoples place to judge you! You owe nobody nothing! You do not need to act in a certain way to meet peoples expectations or ideas about you because no doubt they are false! All you need to do is meet your own expectations! Always look after yourself and remember the only person you need approval from is YOURSELF. You’re number one priority is your happiness and although you might enjoy pleasing other people it must never be at the expense of yourself. If a person cannot accept you for who you are and what you do if you are truly being yourself it is their problem... not yours! 

4. TRUST YOURSELF

Trusting yourself is a great way to also stop trying to get approval from others. Try making some decisions on your own and trust that you made the right decision! Do what feels right for you and don't do what feels not so great! You are smarter, more capable, courages, powerful, strong and have more opportunity than you know! You, no matter who you are, should never underestimate the amazing person that is you. Why wouldn't you trust yourself? No one knows what is best for you better than YOU. It is your life, it is all you so trust you.

5. ENLIST SOME HELP

If you have some supportive friends or family let them know what you are doing and that these are your ten traits YOU have deiced you want to keep developing within yourself and if they could help point out when you ‘slip up’ or help remind you to ‘be yourself’! Your friend or family member will no doubt be very excited to help you along and probably even do the exercise with you! Dont let them dissuade you from what you are doing and if they ask why you are doing it in the first place have the courage to continue! Friends who support you and are all too happy to see you shine will always lend a helping hand so dont be afraid to ask!

Don't forget to check out the whole show HERE if you have not already! Have fun being yourself because no doubt you are actually truly amazing! 

RELATIONSHIPS

Relationships can be seemingly difficult and complex and we tie so much of our emotions to relationships. We care so incredibly much about what ‘they’ think of us and what their reaction to us might be. We tie our wonderful positive emotions to the acceptance, permission and approval from others and our negative destructive emotions to the disapproval, indisposition and rejection from others. The fear of rejection in our society is so thick it could be cut with a knife. We try and predict others behaviour and wonder what they are thinking so we can plot and plan our next move to ensure we get the reaction we want. All the while adhering to the ‘please love me’ rule. We get so lost in trying to convince others to love us that we do things and say things that meet others approval but could not be further from who we actually are! Sound familiar? No doubt you may have felt that at some stage in your life. You may have done or said something and thought later... why did I say that? That is not what I really think! or, why did I do that when I knew it was wrong! Most of us have felt that at one stage or another. There are two things that are incredibly wrong with this situation that many of us find ourselves in:

1: We lose all sense of self and develop a sever sense of insecurity

2: You are completely disrespecting the other person by trying to assume what they are thinking or trying to predict their behaviour and reactions and you are projecting a false personality to them.

When we are busying ourselves trying to fit in we meet the standard of words and behaviour that are used in the situations we find ourselves in with these people we want acceptance from. We spend so much time (consciously or even for the most part unconsciously) doing and saying things that we think will draw out approval from others instead of thinking about ourselves and what we really want, that we do not know ourselves at all. So many people say to me, ‘but Casey I don’t know who I really am! I don’t know what I want to do with my life!’ or even ‘I don’t know what makes me happy!’. So many people do not have a sense of self because they have never explored who they are personally. We think being a good person is being loved by others and when people approve of us we are doing good and when people disapprove of us we are doing bad. This idea could not be more stifling to your life! Surely you have heard many people who seem to have and do miraculous things say ‘BE YOURSELF!’. Its not a throw away, ironic, saying or idea. It is, in itself, a massive truth that will change your life if you decide to take up the challenge! 

Stop trying to fit in and draw out acceptance from other people who are actually doing the same thing to you! You both end up in the land of no where, having no sense of self and then wonder where all your ‘real friends’ are when you feel you need them! They are just as busy pretending as you are and they are just as lost and have just as little sense of self as you do. 

So in saying all that where do you start when it comes to relationships?

Ponder lightly any and every relationship you have as a Q&A. You are the ‘Question’ and the other person is the ‘Answer’. The most important factor in the Q&A relationship is the ‘Question’ because when you know the question you have more of a chance of affecting the ‘Answer’. The Question is always the same and the Answer will always be different but it will always have the same theme unless you consciously change it. The Question is:

HOW DO I TREAT MYSELF?

When you can answer that question yourself and when you are happy with that answer you will always be more than happy to be yourself and you will always receive an amazing ‘Answer’ from the relationships in your life and you don’t tie yourself to that answer!

You, in your life, are completely responsible for the question and the answer. BUT never tie the other person to the answer because how you answer the question is EXACTLY how the other person will answer the question. If you, in the privacy of your own mind, are nasty, degrading, harsh and judgmental towards yourself then that will be your answer from other people too. No doubt even your closest relationships are in turmoil or are a constant disappointment. Have you ever been in a relationship where you have thought ‘wow this relationship really brings the worst out in me!’. Relationships can bring the worst out in even the most seemingly lovely people. The relationships you find yourself in is a direct reflection of your relationship with yourself. If you want amazing, loving, honest, trusting, there when you need them friends then you better start being amazing, loving, honest, trusting and there for yourself! No one is more important than you and your life unfolds according to how you treat YOU.

'No man is free who is not the master of himself'
Epictetus

AUDIO BOOK REVIEW: DR.QUANTUM PRESENTS MEET THE REAL CREATOR - YOU!

I was first introduced to Dr. Q in the movie The Secret when I watched it way back in 2006; the mad looking scientist with a wonderful sense of humour and a brilliant message. I saw that he was a Quantum Physicist and I never really gave it much thought, I just imagined him in a room full of giant Tesla Coils which I guess would be todays equivalent of a kite and a key in a thunder storm. 

Then a few months after I watched The Secret I was introduced to a wonderful movie called What The Bleep Do We Know which is an incredible movie (I highly recommend it if you haven’t seen it) and it basically looks at the idea of “The Secret” or the Law Of Attraction from a Scientific perspective or a Quantum Mechanics perspective. The movie shows us that there is ‘proof’, so to speak, for the idea that we create our own reality. Then after watching that film I put all books down for a while and got on with ‘life’. After making the decision to change my life at the beginning of the year I have been reading book after book, watching movie after movie and listening to audio after audio and taking what resonates with me and actually consciously implementing it into my life. It’s not easy I tell you. I have 25 years worth of bad habits to break but in all honest truth it is not as hard as I thought it would be and it is worth it a thousand times over as it has changed my life! Obviously for the better! But the funny thing is that everything I have been picking up lately always brings me back to the idea of Quantum Mechanics which is why I decided to download Dr. Q’s audio book. 

Dr. Q makes some pretty far out statements in this audio and for some that have never been introduced to the idea of Quantum Mechanics I suggest you start with What The Bleep Do We Know. Although the message is pretty ‘wow! far out! no way!’ it opens your eyes to a whole new world that science is the key to. I remember reading once that science has no place in religion and religion has no place in science but the way Dr. Q incorporates the two is awesome and I thoroughly enjoyed it which makes me wonder what the point of one is without the other! 

Dr. Q completely deconstructs your physical reality by bringing simple layman's examples to your attention before completely blowing your mind with the other possibilities. One example he gives when talking about the physical world and that it is certainly no where near all it seems to be is that- a rose is actually not red, in fact most of the colours we see and what colours we identify with certain objects are not that colour. The colour we see is actually the colour the object is rejecting and saying ‘no i’m not that colour so I will reflect it out’. So what we see as a red rose is not at all! It is called a subtractive process and the funny thing is when we mix paints we think we are adding together paints to make a colour but we are actually adding paints together which cause a subtractive process because of light. It is all about light and what light reflects back to our eyes. In the audiobook the idea behind this example is very big and I had to listen to the audio twice to completely get it and I can tell you the idea without ruining the book for you because the details and the examples in the book are priceless so I suggest you listen to it but the idea is 

‘You can take things at face value and give all of your attention and your reactions to what you see in the physical world, which is what you have been doing so far, OR you can choose to realise that there is much much more going on beyond what your eyes are telling you and give that feeling a chance and do something to learn about it.’ 

There is something more, something within you that is there and it feels like it belongs to you but you have been so busy living ‘outside’ that you have no idea how to get back in. Dr. Q calls it our ‘Spiritual Elephant’ and suggests to us that it is our real source of power. There are so many ideas and examples in this book I really cant begin to explain them all. 

But here are a couple that really stand out:

We are actors: our physical body, everything we sense with our fives senses and the personality which is a product of our culture and society is the act and the actual actor is the ‘soul’. 

We get lost in the act: we have been taught no other way than to believe that we are the character that we are acting out so we get completely lost in the character and believe that it is us and we get stuck in the physical and then wonder why we are so unhappy. 

The Soul is who we really are: people always say ‘be yourself’. Dr. Q takes it further and suggests you start to realise  and shed what is an act and habitual cultural conditioning and find out who you really are. 

They are three examples which are all along the same path but ring very true to me as I have realised so much as of late how much of what I said and did was a mere habitual act. I even now find myself saying and thinking things and when I catch myself I realise it is just something that everyone else says and thinks and I had just gone along with it for so long that it became habit! I had never stopped to really think about what I personally thought! Most of my reactions to people, situations and circumstance were habits. Not real. An act!

He goes into way way way more detail than just saying we are actors. He goes into different and wonderfully mind blowing Quantum Mechanic theories and results. It is all very good! But it is not an audio for a person who knows nothing about Quantum Mechanics as I have done a fair bit of research into this and find that I had to draw on my previous knowledge to understand what he meant especially about the theory of objective reality and universal wave function and if you don't know what either of those mean then start somewhere a little more simple! Again I highly suggest ‘What The Bleep Do We Know’ as it is incredible and so easy to watch and understand, it really is outstanding work by who ever put it together or if you like Deepak Chopra he often talks about Quantum Mechanics in some of his books an example being ‘Synchrodestiny’ which I will be rereading next to review for you so we can keep going along the same sort of path! 

My Humble Opinion: Great audiobook! Dr. Q is hilariously funny and entertaining! He is so full of life and I just LOVE listening to him! If you didn't watch What The Bleep Do You Know and did no research on Quantum Mechanics I don't doubt you would actually probably still get the gist of it and get the point or at least some of the points! It is such a friendly audiobook. Please dont think for a second that it is just a man reading a science textbook because its far from that notion!


 The information presented is so complex yet seemingly so simple! Very easy to misunderstand some of the examples just because of the sheer mind boggling and not taught in school results that Quantum Physics produce so it is something that you should listen to at least twice and make an effort to dissect and inflect. Dr. Fred Alan Wolf is an incredible man and I really respect his teaching methods as he makes it FUN! Highly recommend! 

Cx

8 AREAS OF YOUR LIFE TOOL

Which parts of your life need a little more care and attention?

EXAMPLE

This pie has eight rungs in each piece so the score would be 1-8, 1 being not so good and 8 being great. Rate yourself in each area keeping in mind that you need to go deeper than face value. Always assess what your beliefs and/or values are surrounding each area are before you give yourself a rating. Print the picture below or draw your own to see whether or not you have any balance in your life!

Once you have assessed each area and given it a rating- set a goal for each area to improve it! There is ALWAYS room for improvement!