Happy New Year!

Do you do any kind of formal or informal year-end review? My mail box has been filled with instructions about how to make 2012 your (my) best year yet. Aren’t you relieved that I have no similar instructions for you?

I have always hated to set specific goals. Instead I’ve decided on my priorities and check to see whether the choices I make are aligned with them. Keeping a journal makes this process easier for me, and besides, it’s fun to discover what I have to say almost every day.

I rarely read my journal, but on New Year’s Day I was counting my considerable blessings and looked to see what my day had been like a year ago. This year’s entry was so much happier than last years that I spend some time reflecting on how I made such a dramatic shift. My answer was involvement – involvement in writing “99 Things Women Wish They Knew Before Saying I Do” and in practicing and teaching Logosynthesis.

So naturally I intend to stay involved. The book is done so as soon as it is released my focus will shift to letting the world know it exists. The short, pre-publication reviews are wonderful and I’ll share them soon. Meanwhile, I have already started writing lots of brief articles about relationship issues to publicize the book. I think you’ll enjoy the two most recent that I’ve posted. Check them out and leave a comment.

She Cheated On Him: Should She Stay or Go?
Lisa cheated on her long term boyfriend when she was really drunk a… http://t.co/CbmWMsdi

Alcohol Abuse: What Will Help? Kirsten wants advice because she Is tired of the “stupid crap” she’s been puttin… http://t.co/vbZpVBdb

Only you know what you should do this year. No matter what it is, I suggest you include figuring out what makes you feel best about yourself and about other people and doing as much of it as you can.

By the way, if you live in the Denver area come to the free introductory program on Logosynthesis Jonathan and I are offering at People House in Denver on January 25^th at 6:30 pm. Let me know at laurieweiss@empowermentsystems.com if you would like to attend. And please share this information with anyone who might be interested.

Yes, it happened to me. Panic! It was over in a split second. We were holding the laptop upside down with tea dripping out and I went into shock!

All I could think of was the things I had promised to send people in the next few days and the manuscript waiting For me add the finishing touches and the backup to a new system that had been interrupted by our cruise with our Internet marketing friends. I just sat and stared while Jonathan tried to restart the computer. It was dead!

Logosynthesis the rescue — not of the computer — of me! Jonathan led me through the sentences that let me recover my energy from our disaster. Surprisingly, the target sentence that had the most impact involved the belief that I had made a mistake. Accidents happen, but I have spent most of my life putting energy into avoiding them. Something definitely shifted and I was able to be involved in other things during the rest of our 14-hour trip home.

We were lucky. Hours later the computer had dried out enough to restart. The only noticeable damage is that the U key on my keyboard stopped working. A new keyboard is on order and I’m using Word recognition software in the meantime. I had no idea how many words contain the letter U.

The seminars during the "at sea" days focused on different ways to invite people to view our various websites. One of those strategies is to answer questions posted at Yahoo questions. I’ve created two answers so far and will be doing lots of others. I’ll be posting them on this blog. Watch for them.

Meanwhile I’m grateful to be home again after our exciting travels during the last couple of months. I am happy that I can offer you another chance to take advantage of one of our special 30 minute telephone or Skype sessions to help you find a new way to manage difficult holiday encounters that are causing you unnecessary stress.

 Yes, we do use Logosynthesis — and yes, it really does work. You can see what our students have said at http://www.EmpowermentSystems.com . 

We expect to celebrate quiet, peaceful holidays at home this year so we have time to help December 19-23 and 26 to 30. Just email Jonathan at Weiss@empowermentsystems.com or me at laurieweiss@empowermentsystems.com .

Meanwhile Jonathan and I both wish you a joyful, blessed, and relaxed holiday season.
_______________________________________________________________________________________________________________

Remember to schedule your own energy recovery Logosynthesis session. Each 30 minute session is available for only $75. We can accept payment with Visa,  MC or PayPal.  All you need to do is email Jonathan at Weiss@empowermentsystems.com or me at laurieweiss@empowermentsystems.com to schedule an appointment. Let us know a few times that work for you.

Let me explain. A few weeks ago I was interviewing a fan of one of my books. I met Rhonda by accident at the “Y” where we have both worked out for years. I don’t remember how I found out that she had my book but I had wanted to interview her for a long time. However the book was out of print, so it wasn’t a priority. But I recently republished I Don’t Need Therapy … But Where Do I Turn for Answers? for the Kindle and other e-readers.

Did you ever get an A+ on a paper in school? Did you bring it home and proudly show it off? Did you save it for a long time? It was fun, wasn’t it?

My 10-year-old grandson, R, called me on Skype the other day to delightedly show off his first place team ribbon in a math tournament. Of course I was thrilled and excited with him.

So will you help me celebrate something that happened a long time ago and is happening again?

I’ve had my books favorably reviewed many times, but once, the reviewer raved about the book and said it was absolutely wonderful! I felt like I received an A+. 

 I Don’t Need Therapy … But Where Do I Turn for Answers? did well and sold about 10,000 copies, but it has been out of print for years. Now I can share both the book and the review again. I’ve included part of the review as a preface for the new edition.

So, if you have a Kindle or a Kindle App on your device or computer — or if you have some other Ebook reader or app, you can actually get it again NOW.

Wow, not too long ago that sentence would have been gibberish to me! I love the miracles of technology even if they sometimes drive me crazy.

Usually Jonathan does all of the technical heavy lifting and I just get to enjoy the results but this time I wanted to do it (at least partly) by myself — and I did. I am so proud of myself!

Please go check it out now. Kindle is at http://www.amazon.com/dp/B004P1IYIU and to sample or purchase I Don’t Need Therapy ,.. but Where, Do I Turn for Answers? in all formats (including Kindle) go to http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/43645  (On Amazon.com, you need to scroll down the page to read the description.)

By the way, I just discovered http://www.Smashwords.com and it is an amazing resource.

Not only am I excited about being able to make this book available again, I am excited about all of the other possibilities this format opens up. I can make parts of my other books available there too. More than enough to keep me busy for a very long time.

And I’ll let you in on my secret:  I am about to sign a contract to write another book!

Laurie

Let me explain. During the holidays I encountered Chip and Dan Heath’s marvelous book, "Switch: How to Change Things When Change is Hard." They use rider and elephant as metaphors for your logical and comfort seeking parts that often operate by trying to go in different directions.

In Transactional Analysis (TA) terms, my Parent and Adult ego states want to be productive and my Child ego state would rather curl up and read a good book. Visualizing my elephant is less precise but more fun. Especially since I have ridden two different living elephants in my adult life and have pictures to prove it.

I digress. This is supposed to be about the promise of a new year. I do hope that yours has started wonderfully well. Mine has. We spent the holidays with all of our children (2) and grandchildren (5) gathered in Lake Charles, Louisiana.

It’s been hard to recreate my home life after being away for 43 of 81 days.

Each of our 5 different trips was wonderful in its own way. However, a side effect seems to be that my elephant has forgotten how much she truly enjoys connecting with you this way.

"Switch" is well worth reading. It is filled with strategies for facilitating change – mostly in work situations – that include helping our elephants feel safe and comfortable enough to allow their riders to guide them in productive directions. 

Just incidentally, it makes it very obvious why elephants undermine New Year’s resolutions so effectively.

Our new tools for helping people make rather amazing changes seem to be connected to calming the elephant about things that make it uncomfortable and resistant to change. We continue to be amazed at how gentle and effective Logosynthesis is proving to be.

So far our own changes are holding firm. I managed air travel delays and discomforts without any particular stress and have come through the entire experience weighing the same as when I started – without even thinking about it. We have helped others resolve overwhelming stress, stage fright, traffic terrors, balance issues, seasickness, talking to authority figures, quieting critical internal voices, living with the stress of remodeling, feelings about historic parental neglect, cold symptoms (but not the cold itself), sleep disturbances, humiliation, etc.

It’s not that we couldn’t help with a lot of this before – we could. But it took a long time and a lot of energy. This is much quicker and easier.

Logosynthesis has become a regular part of our coaching, consulting and therapy practices. As you know we work with people if a variety of ways – in person, by phone and by Skype.

We are thinking about offering some coaching groups where we can demonstrate the process by working with individual issues. Witnesses seem to get great value just from observing the process. So if you would like some help yourself or know someone who would, please let us know. Just email laurieweiss@empowermentsystems.com or phone the office at (303)794-5379(US). We are excited about our new ability to help in this way.

(See the previous post. to catch up on the story)

 What questions am I stimulating for you? Please share them here.

What if you could do something to keep remembering who you are and what you really want during the next few busy weeks? And the rest of the year as well? I am very excited about a new methodology for doing just that. We studied Logosynthesis this past weekend in Halifax, Nova Scotia. It focuses on gently removing energy blocks we put in place throughout our lives so that we can reconnect with our deepest and truest selves. I won’t try to explain it to you. I’ll leave that to its inventor, Willem Lammers, with his new, free ebook that you can download for yourself at

www.logosynthesis.net/docs/logosynthesis.primer.pdf Jonathan and I participated in the Logosynthesis basic training and felt the effects of this powerful methodology ourselves. I think I have finally lain to rest my tendency to make air travel even more miserable than it is. I say "I think" because I have now been traveling for 8-1/2 hours and I seem to be doing fine. Maybe it isn’t really miserable after all. Now I need to use "Logo" to stay calm about learning to use Word and Outlook 2010. Jonathan just installed them last week and nothing seems to be where I expect it to be. In any case we are ready to use our new tools to help our current and future clients resolve discomfort and stress much more quickly and easily. Let us know if you want to try it for yourself. We can do it by phone or Skype as well as in person. I’ll be traveling a lot and writing infrequently for the next several weeks. So if I don’t get back to you soon, have a relaxed and happy holiday season. BTW, Our 50th Anniversary Celebration continues. If you or anyone you know wants a more loving and supportive relationship be sure to visit http://www.BeingHappyBook.com to start our Being Happy Together Program.

Here is a short piece about The Zen of Perfect that makes perfect sense to me when I am in the right frame of mind. When I am in the wrong frame of mind it reminds me that there is another way to look at the world. Enjoy!

http://www.bestofthomas.com/blog/zenofperfect/

1. What is one thing to start doing, which would have the most positive influence on your life right now?
2. What is one thing to stop doing, which would have the most positive influence on your life right now?

I invite you to answer those questions for yourself. When I answered them and started thinking about the implications of my answers I learned a lot about myself.

My answers were to stop reading my e-mail first thing in the morning and to start writing more frequently. So here goes…

I am now more aware of how I measure my contribution to the world beyond the mutual contribution I make in all my direct, personal relationships.

My contribution is the writing I do that helps others to change and grow without my direct presence. I measure contribution by the standard Eric Berne proposed 40 years ago: “is it good for the infant mortality rate?” To me that standard means is what I am doing ultimately contributing to a world in which more babies that are born alive stay alive.

* Educating and coaching people about how to have important conversations is key for me.
* I care that relationships work so that both children and adults get what they need from others.
* I believe in selfishness as described by Thomas Leonard in The Portable Coach. This means being aware of and communicating your own needs to others.
* I also believe that agreements people make with each other should be honored (or changed by mutual consent.)
* I want to help people operate with as much integrity as possible.

In order to do this I need to become more proficient with tools that will get my message out into the world. I’ll be contributing what I’m thinking about to two different blogs or perhaps three and my goal is to publish at least twice a week.

This is a creative production goal rather than an outcome goal. Outcome goals don’t work well for me. They don’t leave enough room to be surprised and I often surprise myself. It’s a goal of staying in a creative tension so that I stay productive. This is how I will stay in integrity with myself.

I need to stay in the creative tension instead of drifting off into “deserving retirement” or just grandmothering. I do enjoy my freedom to explore and travel and I adore my grandchildren. Both of those are fine in their place, but they are not enough for me. I need to stay creative and contributing in order to feel fully alive and happy.

That’s a lot of insight from answering two questions. I admit I was in a very stimulating environment where I was surrounded by other master coaches all challenging each other to live their dreams.

I hope you answer the questions for yourself, take time to think about the implications of your answers and share what you learn.

You can post your answers and comments here. If you prefer, send them directly to me and I’ll put them up on the blog for you.

More about Laurie Weiss

“A mind committed to compassion is like an overflowing reservoir – a constant source of energy, determination and kindness. This is like a seed, that when cultivated, gives rise to many other good qualities, such as forgiveness, tolerance, inner strength and the confidence to overcome fear and insecurity. The compassionate mind is like an elixir; it is capable of transforming bad situations into beneficial ones. Therefore, we should not limit our expressions of love and compassion to our family and friends. Nor is the compassion only the responsibility of clergy, health care and social workers. It is the necessary business of every part of the human community.” 

This client confuses the feeling of compassion with taking action that may or may not help the recipient, but is damaging to herself and her goals for her own life. 

She often becomes a Rescuer instead of a helper who puts on her own oxygen mask before assisting others. When she Rescues from this caring but thoughtless position she eventually becomes a Victim who needs assistance herself. 

In Transactional Analysis terms the kind of compassion described in the quote comes from an integrated Adult. An integrated Adult in a mature person attends to and considers (Inner) Parent rules, (Inner) Child needs and the constraints of reality before making decisions to take action. 

My client often makes decisions from a Child ego state, eager to please someone, and/or a Parent ego state that discounts the needs of the Child ego state and who tells my client that the needs of others are important and her needs are not.

These guidelines can help anyone in this position, who feels compassionate and wants to help others to be genuinely helpful instead of risking martyrdom.

Guidelines for Helping Without Rescuing 

1. What do I think would be helpful?
2. What evidence am I using to decide that help is needed?
3. Do I have the resources to provide this help?
4. What will helping cost me? (Time, energy, money, etc.)
5. How will helping benefit me? (I’ll have more fun, feel less tense, feel like a good person, be more comfortable asking for things for myself later, etc.)
6. What is likely to happen if I don’t help?
7. Given these predicted costs and benefits, do I really want to help?
8. Has the other person asked for help?

   If the answer is yes and you want to help, clarify what you can do and go ahead and do it.
   If the answer is yes and if you don’t want to help, decline and suggest an alternative.
   If the answer is no and you still want to help, don’t just go ahead. Instead offer some specific help. Wait for the other person’s agreement. If you don’t get agreement, don’t help!

9. Check to see if your help is actually helping. (Ask questions, observe)
10. Give only as much help as needed. Giving more than is needed often leads to resentment for the helper and low self-esteem for the recipient.
11. Accept the positive strokes youget for helping. (Say thank you.)

By the time we finished we had a car trunk full of items to deliver to a donation center, several huge boxes of papers to recycle, a pile of trash and many miscellaneous items related to the obsolete technology of developing film in a darkroom.

Some of the choices were easy to make. We asked questions like,

• Do you need this?  
• Will you miss it if you never see it again?  
• What on earth is this?  
• Can somebody else use this?” 

Other choices were more difficult.

Photography was a hobby shared by my husband and my dad, who bequeathed his (then ancient) darkroom equipment to us over 40 years ago. A few pieces have sentimental value. I remember using them while helping my father in his darkroom when I was a child. Yet they have no place in my life now. We haven’t decided how to dispose of those things yet.

A question we didn’t ask is why many of the things we saved for so many years were important in the first place. Why did we save them?

I think I saved most things because I expected to use them again. Then I didn’t, and it took more time to make decisions about disposing of them than it did to just let them accumulate. That’s my style. I’m not proud of it. I have a computer full of files that could be pruned — but they’re even less visible than what was in the storeroom. 

How about you? Would you feel better if you released some of the things you intended to use again? Or is it better to just keep moving forward and leave the clutter hidden away until you are moved to address it?

I don’t have an answer for you. What I suggest is to make a choice and relax. What we did do makes me feel lighter as we move into the busyness of the holiday season. And I’m not worrying at all about what I haven’t done yet. 

I wish you and the people you love a joyful and relaxed holiday season.

Also — If you are having trouble dealing with the holidays, watch for a blog post in a few days. My colleague, Dr. Joe Rubino,
created a free 45-minute audio recording called 7 Steps to Soaring Self-Esteem. You can claim it now at http://cli.gs/V8WdP2 if you like, or wait  for the post that explains it in more detail. 
It’ll be a great way for you to start the New Year.