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Resources to deal with bullies, difficult, abusive or toxic people

Resources to deal with bullies, difficult, abusive or toxic people

These are books I’ve found helpful in learning how to deal with difficult people. You can use them as a place to start finding resources that will help you cope and care for your well being.

  1. Tongue Fu!: How to Deflect, Disarm, and Defuse Any Verbal Conflict by Sam Horn
  2. Take the Bully by the Horns: Stop Unethical, Uncooperative, or Unpleasant People from Running and Ruining Your Life by Sam Horn
  3. The Verbally Abusive Relationship: How to recognize it and how to respond by Patricia Evans
  4. Verbal Abuse Survivors Speak Out; On relationship and recovery by Patricia Evans
  5. Controlling People: How to Recognize, Understand, and Deal with People Who Try to Control You by Patricia Evans
  6. The Gentle Art of Verbal Self-Defense at Work by Suzette Haden Elgin
  7. Toxic People: Decontaminate Difficult People at Work Without Using Weapons Or Duct Tape by Marsha Petrie Sue
  8. The Reactor Factor: How to Handle Difficult Work Situations Without Going Nuclear by Marsha Petrie Sue
  9. Coping with Difficult People: The Proven-Effective Battle Plan That Has Helped Millions Deal with the Troublemakers in Their Lives at Home and at Work by Robert M. Branson
“Remove Mind Tattoos” from wikihow

“Remove Mind Tattoos” from wikihow

from wikiHow – The How to Manual That You Can Edit

“Mind tattoos” are mental imprints. Though not physically visible, these manifest themselves in your actions, reactions, and thought processes, and more often than not, they are a negative imprint. If body tattoos are exhibits, might we not view mind tattoos as inhibits?

Unable to be concealed no matter how hard you try to cover them up with excuses, distractions, or addictions, mind tattoos harm you through their persistence and habitual nature. However, with small effort and much resolve, it is possible to shed your mind tattoos. On paper the recipe is very simple, and certainly it will be harder to actually implement, but once you’re resolved to deal with your mind tattoos, and once you dedicate yourself to this task, your life will take a turn for the better.

Steps

  1. Use the simple displacement method. Mind tattoos and negative mindsets grow in a vacuum. Do not allow such a vacuum to be created in your mind. Increase your curiosity for things around you and beyond, allow yourself the privilege to be wonder-struck. Let the newness of every moment tickle your senses. Question yourself, keep asking what, why, when, where and how. A questioning mind is an open mind. It is not a knowing mind (the knowing mind soon leads to arrogance and shutting down on newness). Only an open mind can be creative. A knowing mind can never be creative.
    • When you open your mind, it can be filled with creativity, positivity and newness. Negative mindsets and tattoos will be displaced and deleted.
    • A questioning stance sensitizes the mind in a very special way, enabling it to sense what would have been missed otherwise.
  2. Come out of the mindset of blame games. The most damaging tattoo is the tendency to look for and find a scapegoat for every situation. Release yourself from the tendency of being problem averse and for shifting away responsibility. Stop wringing up your hands whenever there is a problem; while it is good to hope for a life without problems, realistically it is possible only when you work to make your problems surmountable, by cultivating a problem-friendly attitude. This means just rolling up your sleeves whenever you’re faced with a problem, and searching for an opportunity to improve the quality of your life by dealing with the problem. Being faced with a problem is never a problem. It is way of life and once you have woven problem-solving into the matrix of your life, you will feel stronger, more capable, and freer of the negative mind tattoos.

  3. Open your mind to ideas from friends, acquaintances, and even strangers. A tattooed mind is beset with preconceived ideas and closed to suggestion from outside. Open up your thinking to the ideas, opinions, and viewpoints gathered from your friends, colleagues, and even from strangers. Once you realize the value of these alternative ideas and views, you will be in a position to start using your increased understanding and empathy to improve the quality of your own thought and decision processes.

  4. Set achievable goals, and achieve set goals. A major reason for negative thought process is failure on personal or professional front; not just failure though – it is the failure to learn and grow from failure, to accept it as part of life’s lessons. The negative thinking can set in when personal or professional goals are not properly set. An improper understanding of your strengths or constraints often results in goals being not properly set and many excuses being made to sidestep developing a purpose to your life. In letting others make the decisions and change the rules on you, you drift rather than achieve through life. Instead, know yourself, understand yourself, and be yourself when setting your goals. This way you can be successful in setting and achieving your goal and keep failure out of your door. Moreover, do not be dissuaded by the failures but see them as detours that teach what to do better next time.

  5. Come out of the habit of perennial dissatisfaction. Perennial dissatisfaction is a major indication of a person with a negative mindset; a positive thinker can spot such a person a mile away and will do their best to steer clear (hence, you attract more negativity than its opposite). It is good to be acutely aware of your dissatisfaction and unfulfilled desires. However, this awareness should not frustrate you or cause you to give up citing everything as being “too hard” or “all over”. Even if you are frustrated, it should never be reflected in your behavior toward other people. As a matter of fact, you should use this awareness as a stimulus to realize your dreams, and to be grateful for that which you have achieved already. See How to Stop Feeling Like Your Life Isn’t Good Enough.

  6. Don’t overestimate the effects of your level (or lack) of schooling. A feeling of being uneducated or inadequately educated is one of the biggest self-destructing tattoo one can carry around. But higher level schooling can also imprint more negative tattoos: arrogance, self-righteous behavior, and greater dissatisfaction with one’s lot in life or sensitivity to past failures. Whatever category you fall into, understand that schooling is different from education. Education is sourced from life itself, the people you meet, the things you discover, and the environment in which you move and observe daily. Very often people with less or no schooling are found to be highly educated in matters of life and other way round. Less schooled people are often highly successful because they have minds clear of the biases that schooling can build into us. The more highly schooled who have simply associated their learning with being of a “higher status” might actually lack openness to new ideas and empathy for others, so they wind up less likely to succeed. Both would do better to
    • realize that universities and degrees do not determine your level of your education and do not even determine a person’s all-round intelligence or suitability for the rest of life.
    • Instead, figure out what you still need to learn and find the fastest way to learn it.
  7. Reframe your situation from different angles. A situation often appears to be hopeless and irretrievable. In many cases, such catastrophizing does not ultimately turn out to be true, especially where it is based on allowing ourselves to be the victim and to imagine things that are not there. Try to reframe the situation from different angles till you find an angle from where it looks acceptable. For example, in a cricket match in a close run-out decision, sometimes it appears that the batsman is out; however, reframing it from different angles gives the umpire more options of viewing the truth and taking correct decision. Similarly, being your own inner umpire (referee) by mental reframing of the situation often helps you to make the correct decision.

  8. Tattoo your mind with conscious, positive thoughts. What we tattoo on any part of the body for others to see is not as important as what we tattoo in our minds. Much of what is tattooed there has been absorbed from the criticisms, expectations, and limitations placed upon us by other people; they are not wanted or chosen tattoos but they are embedded out of obligation, loyalty, misplaced trust, and over-eagerness to please the other. On the other hand, positive, successful, energetic mind tattoos are a must to attain success and are tattoos that we can choose to implant and thrive from. So, it should be your conscious (and ultimately subconscious) endeavor to keep tattooing your mind with thoughts that are only about winning or thriving. Implant and nourish the tattoos that reflect who you want to be, the goals you want to reach, and the successes you seek to achieve. Mentally, make or choose your day’s outcomes for the day every single day.
    • Focus doesn’t simply sprout unaided. It requires effort and conscious attention. However, once you are focused, you can achieve a great deal of your heart’s desire because you’re consciously attending to what needs to be done, as well as channeling your subconscious experience more effectively.

Tips

  • Be very careful when implementing the process of removing your negative tattoos. It is necessary to restrain your feelings and impulses.
  • While you are going through this reform process, people around you could be the biggest inhibiting factors for you. Please be patient with them and be determined in your objective. Sometimes the fears and insecurities of others mean that they want us to stay where we are and not change or improve but you cannot bear their burdens for them, you can only choose to be a better person for yourself.
  • Take the advice and guidance of peers and elders. While you do not have to heed all that is said, other people’s experiences are important sources of information and guidance to set you on the better path through avoiding the pitfalls that they experienced. Remember that reinventing the wheel is a waste of your time when you stand in front of many generations’ of experience.
  • Thriving is better than winning at someone else’s expense. In the long run it helps you sleep better at night and gives you more future resources. If you step on people during the climb, they’ll kick you hard on the way down and remember exactly who you are.

Warnings

  • Give yourself time. Expecting too much too early can result in disappointment and frustration.
  • Your mental tattoos are well entrenched and may resist evacuation initially. You need to be persistent and confident. You can, and you will, release your mind from them.
  • Filter the advice that comes in from other people with trial and error. Try it honestly but when the trial fails, look at why. They can be right for themselves and wrong for you. Sedentary people can get sick from lack of exercise but a disabled person can get sick from exercise. If those other people have the same mind tattoos, they can often just reinforce them – it didn’t just crop up on its own. Don’t let them just hand the same biases back to you with a new set of intellectual rationalizations. Your mind tattoos came from somewhere so consider the source and weigh ideas for themselves.
  • If your friends and enemies both agree on something about you, it’s probably true or something about you makes people see you that way.

Things You’ll Need

  • A strong resolve
  • Self realization
  • A will to change
  • Dedication
  • Sacrifice

Related wikiHows

Article provided by wikiHow, a wiki how-to manual. Please edit this article and find author credits at the original wikiHow article on How to Remove Mind Tattoos. All content on wikiHow can be shared under a Creative Commons license.

Embracing a Wider Perspective

Embracing a Wider Perspective

When you leap forward in personal growth, it can be disorienting. You’ve outgrown your old awareness and have to change the way you respond to life. You can’t go back to the old way, or put the genii back into the bottle. Here are a couple of strategies that can help re-orient you to your new inner landscape.



Copyright 2011 Linda Ann Stewart
All Rights Reserved

Embrace The Changes From Personal Growth

Embrace The Changes From Personal Growth

by Linda-Ann Stewart

When you grow up and mature, you no longer wear the types clothes that suited you as a teenager. They don’t fit the image of who you are now. The same can be true of friendships. Have you ever gone back to a school reunion, and not had anything in common with the good friends you had back then? This is normal. As you mature, grow and have more experiences, you change your view of life, your likes, values and opinions.

When this happens, you don’t try to go back and recapture the old way of doing things. It would be pointless, self-destructive and shortsighted. By moving forward, you’re fulfilling the natural impulse to grow and stretch. Your relationship to your old world changes irrevocably with growth. As the saying goes, “You can’t put the genie back into the bottle.”

The same thing happens when you jump up a level of spiritual, mental or emotional consciousness. For instance, when you realize that you deserve to take care of your health and well-being and begin to say “no” to unreasonable requests for your time, your perspective on everything else changes, too.

The same is true when you have some sort of spiritual peak experience or mental expansion. Your relationship to your inner self and the Universe alters. The way you used to connect to the Infinite changes.

It may seem like the door has closed to your contact with the Divine. It hasn’t. God hasn’t moved. You have. Your consciousness has expanded; therefore the way you used to relate to your inner landscape has also shifted. It’s not a bad thing, it can just seem disorienting.

When this happens, your way of experiencing life will probably also change. For instance, if you were originally logical and analytical, you may discover that you’ve become more intuitive. Before, you would reason out a project, now the answer might just pop into your mind. You may sense that a certain person isn’t being honest, whereas before, you would have taken them at face value. As a result of this unasked for change, you might belittle your new insights, and try to return to pure logic because it’s safer and more familiar.

The opposite can take place if you’ve always been intuitive and followed your heart. You may discover that your guidance comes to you now on a more conscious level. Instead of opportunities dropping into your lap, or synchronistically bumping into a person you wanted to see, you might have a conscious impulse of what to do or where to go. It’s now up to you to listen to the urge or ignore it. You could also need to make deliberate choices and follow guidance to their fulfillment, rather than just drifting with the tide.

You’re no longer operating out of an unconscious ability. Now you are more aware of what your insight is telling you. Because it’s much easier to operate unconsciously, you could doubt your guidance and try to dismiss it because it’s coming to you in a different fashion than it used to.

In both situations, if you try to backpedal into what worked before, you’re going to be frustrated. You can’t go back, unless you want to stall your progress. By opening to a greater awareness, you’ve expanded your mind to incorporate more of it. Consciousness includes intuition and reason, heart and head. When you increase your awareness, you’re beginning to balance them and the old responses will also change.

You can’t undo what’s been done, anymore than you can retreat to your teenaged self once you’ve grown up. The Universe is always moving forward, and you must move with it or be left behind. You’ve leaped out of your comfort zone into something that can more fully serve the more conscious you.

Affirmation

I am opening myself up to a greater experience of Life and the Universe. As I grow and expand, I embrace my new awareness and abilities. With confidence and trust, I allow my new relationship to myself and the Infinite unfold in a wonderful way. I balance my heart and mind, knowing that they both have a role in helping me expand into my highest potential.

Copyright 2011 Linda Ann Stewart
All Rights Reserved

Can you curse or manipulate another through thoughts or words?

Can you curse or manipulate another through thoughts or words?

Question: Can someone put a curse on another and manipulate them through the power of their thoughts or words?

Answer: Someone can only manipulate another through curses if the person being cursed believes it or is open to it. Someone who knows that they are Divinely protected cannot be harmed through any “magical” means. The power of thought and prayer pervades us all, and we’re all affected by this power. If it’s a negative thought from someone else, if we’re not solid in the belief of being protected, then it can influence us or our life.

I had a friend who had a former boyfriend who tried to manipulate her life through “psychic” means. At the time, this friend was learning not to let others take advantage of her. As she became stronger in saying “no” to others demeaning her, the former boyfriend’s influence became weaker and weaker. That’s what I meant by a person has to be open to it. She was open to being manipulated and belittled, so the former boyfriend’s thought was able to affect her. When she became stronger in her own worth, his thought no longer could harm her.

If someone says something with great emotion to a person he wishes to curse, the emotion will impress the subconscious mind of the person. Think of how it feels when someone says something nasty to you. Generally, you’ll feel bad. Words have power to hurt. But the stated curse can be reversed, because it’s all within the person’s own subconscious. It has very little to do with the person doing the cursing.

Copyright 2002, 2011 Linda Ann Stewart
All Rights Reserved

7 Ways To Climb Out Of Your Slump

7 Ways To Climb Out Of Your Slump

by Linda-Ann Stewart

After a few unsuccessful plays, an athlete can sometimes get caught in a slump. They start performing far less than their potential. For instance, a basketball player wouldn’t be able to sink a ball even if he was standing over the net. By this time, he’s trying too hard and it interferes with his reflexes.

Yogi Berra said, “A full mind is an empty bat,” meaning that athletes who over think what they’ve been trained to do interrupt their muscle memory. They’re out of the groove and can’t get back into it.

Have you ever felt like that? Does it seem that everything is conspiring against you? After a few difficult or disappointing episodes, your thoughts spiral downwards and nothing works. Eventually, you can’t even hold onto a glass of water without spilling it. You might find yourself saying, “I knew it wasn’t going to work out,”  “Nothing ever goes my way,” or “I always get the short end of the stick.”

You’re tying up all your energy in focusing on the problem and trying not to screw up. And since that’s where your attention is, you have more trouble. Just like an athlete mentioned above, you’re giving yourself negative feedback, and that instructs the subconscious to create more of the same.

Break that cycle and climb out of your frustration using the following tips:

1. Realize that difficulties will happen, no matter what. The challenge is not to overreact to them. That just gives them more energy and more attention. It becomes a negative spiral into a self-fulfilling prophecy of disaster. Your slump may simply be due to the natural cycle of peak performance alternating with a period of recovery and regeneration. So relax and let nature take its course.

2. Check your overall stress level. Your underlying attention may be taken up with some difficulty in your life. Your mind has a limit in how many things it can focus on. Try and go beyond these limits and everything starts to fall apart. Your mind may be distracted by your other issues. Do some stress reduction practices like meditation, self-hypnosis, exercise, and others.

3. Step away from the problem. Relax. Take a walk, go to a movie, have a picnic. Let your subconscious work on it without your conscious mind trying to interfere and control the process. By shifting your attention onto something more pleasurable, it allows your subconscious to begin finding solutions.

4. Do something, anything, that makes you feel successful. If you don’t have any money coming in, get a job pushing a broom just to have the feeling of financial flow. Find a way to feel like you’ve accomplished something.

5. Write about your concerns. Studies show that doing this can reduce the anxiety felt just before a test, a meeting or starting a project. Journaling can also help your mind process the information differently and solve problems.

6. Instead of being discouraged or defeated by a challenge, reframe it so you perceive it to be a pleasant experience. Change your attitude towards it to be something to accomplish, not dread. Viewing it from a different perspective will also bring much more creative energy to bear.

7. Write a list of what you’re grateful for as a way of changing your mood. Studies show that gratitude is one of the best ways to form a positive frame of mind. It increases optimism and instructs your mind to begin looking for the good.

Athletes form rituals and superstitions to help get them out the negative frame of mind created by a slump. Instead of using that hit and miss method, use the more productive strategies listed above. They’re more helpful in the long run. Once you’ve been able to detach from and break the negative feedback loop, you can get back into the flow.

Affirmation

All of Life is for me and works for my best interests. When I encounter obstacles and disappointments, I remember that everything is conspiring for my Highest Good. Success is my natural state, and it is always at the core of whatever happens. I change my perspective to view any difficulties as temporary challenges that will ultimately further my success and well-being.

Copyright 2011 Linda Ann Stewart
All Rights Reserved

Your Beliefs Determine Your Actions

Your Beliefs Determine Your Actions

You tend to filter current situations through your beliefs. If you tend to believe that nothing good happens for you, you probably overlook opportunities that come your way. This means you don’t take action on them, because you don’t realize there’s any action to take. But you can change those beliefs and filters. Here’s an exercise to practice turning negative beliefs around in your daily life.



Copyright 2011 Linda Ann Stewart
All Rights Reserved

Are You Ready For Greater Self-Esteem?

Are You Ready For Greater Self-Esteem?

Writer, speaker and hypnotherapist, Linda-Ann Stewart, will be offering an exciting free teleclass this month. In the highly educational, free one-hour teleclass, “Self-Esteem Isn’t Earned, It’s Learned.,” Linda-Ann will discuss whether self-esteem is earned by achievements, or a learned trait. She will also cover how people can improve low self-esteem, and develop the confidence to achieve what they want in life.

There are two critical questions you must ask yourself to achieve your life’s goals.

  1. How can I develop self-esteem that’s true and will see me through life’s trials?
  2. Can I earn it by doing more or learn it by taking some important actions?

Self-esteem is the all important gauge of how you feel about yourself. It gives you a sense of worthiness and feeling of being competent. High self-esteem allows you to feel appropriate and assured, as a person. It is the foundation inside yourself on which everything else is built. With good self-esteem, there’s nothing you can’t do.

Self-esteem is also necessary to feel a connection to God, Spirit or the Universe. If you don’t feel good enough for the world, or worthy enough for the good Life can offer, why would you feel like you are acceptable to God?

This one-hour conference call at 5:30 p.m. PDT, Thursday, March 24, 2011 will cover a variety of topics, including:

  • What self-esteem is
  • How self-esteem develops
  • What steps to take to gain a sense of self-worth
  • And more

There is no charge for the teleclass, except for normal long distance fees. Registration is limited. For more information, or to register now, visit www.Linda-AnnStewart.com/se-tlcls.html

This life-altering opportunity can open the gates to help people achieve all they want from life. Register today to improve your life.


“How to Stay Positive when You Know Your Life Sucks” from wikiHow

“How to Stay Positive when You Know Your Life Sucks” from wikiHow

How to Stay Positive when You Know Your Life Sucks
from wikiHow – The How to Manual That You Can Edit

Thinking negative? Here are some strategies for how to start thinking positively and accomplish what you want in life.

Steps

  1. Ground Yourself. The most common reason why people think their lives suck is that they aren’t living their own lives. Look deeply into whether you are acting to please others – to please family, friends, and society. Realize that you need to get to know who you are and what your needs are, and make the choices to follow your own path. To know these things, a path of meditation and inner exploration is invaluable.
  2. Look on the inside. What are some qualities you have that you like about yourself? Are you funny? Are you intelligent? Are you sincere? Are you generous? What do you have pride in? Try focusing on the positive things in your life. You may be having a positive influence on others even when you think you’re useless.
  3. Prove those negative thoughts wrong. When you find yourself in a bad mood, you could think of the negative things such as, “I’m dumb and annoying”, “I’m better off dead”, “I’m ugly, I wish I looked different”, etc. Even though it’s not true. Change your mind. Look for your good features, think about the ones that you know love you, look on your greater side. Realize that nobody’s life is easy and that there will always be ups and downs, and moments of low self esteem. Don’t automatically assume that nobody cares. Every person matters to someone. You’re alive for a reason.
  4. Appreciate what you see. Look in the mirror. Find some beautiful things about yourself…. Do you have nice skin? nice nails? beautiful eyes? full lips? Find stuff that appeals to you. When you can’t change something, change your attitude towards it!
  5. It’s all how you look at it. Jealous of the people with ‘amazing’ lives? They chose to be that way! Remember, there are people living in mansions who are miserable and people living on the street who are perfectly happy. It’s all on how you look at it.
  6. Determine how your life could be better. What can you do to make your life better? What do you desire to do? How do you want to feel? Make a few reachable goals and your own strategies. The first step is usually the hardest – getting help or admitting you need it.
  7. Get motivated. What motivates you? What gives you energy to go on everyday? Music? Love? Family? A 1km run? God/Allah? Your attitude? Your pet? Friends? School? Give yourself a boost by focusing on what is important to you personally.
  8. Remember that some things can pass with time. There will be a tomorrow. There will be a next week. There will be a next month and perhaps by then, things will have changed for the better.
  9. Reminisce. Whenever you feel like the future is ‘hopeless’, think about happy memories. It will help make you feel better and remind you that in the future, there will be good things, too. Think about all the good things you’ve experienced, felt, and achieved, and consider how many more good things could be waiting ahead. There will be many great moments in your life – don’t let a few obstacles get in the way.
  10. Don’t stop yourself from feeling the joy. It’s okay to step back once in awhile and just enjoy the moment. Even in tough situations – it’s important to smile and laugh here and there. Don’t restrict yourself from doing things you love because they’re “not important” or because you think you’ll be criticized for doing them. Let yourself enjoy life even if you’re not at the best place you could be. You only live once – make the best of it.
  11. Develop a gratitude journal. It’s pretty simple. At the end of every day, write down five things that have made you happy or appreciative that day — not necessarily big things, even small ones count. For example: nice weather, being praised by my boss for getting an urgent errand done, my playful dog, kids and hubby kissing me goodbye before they went to school/work, a hilarious joke a mate shared, etc.
  12. If you feel persistently sad, unmotivated, anxious, hopeless or fearful, seek professional help. You may be suffering from a mood disorder or nutritional deficit which could be contributing to your situation. Remember there is always somebody there who wants to help you. You are valuable!

Tips

  • To “go for it,” simply get up and do it. There is a small voice inside saying “Get up!”, and you need to do what it says; just dive in! Turn off the computer, turn off the TV, and get going!
  • When you think positively, your whole views change about the world and you tend to look on the better, clearer side. It may sound stupid but being resentful is what really renders positive thinking useless. When you let down your walls (or hold out until they collapse…) really trying to “focus on the positives.”
  • If the above fails for you, take the Buddhist view: Life is difficult. The fallacious thought is that we can change that. In accepting that life indeed is difficult, we begin to make it less painful…not less difficult. Accept that life is full of difficulty and choose the religion, belief system, or substance to ingest to decrease the pain; that is after all what the rest of us do. Life can suck, deal with it.

Warnings

  • Don’t make the mistake of standing still rather than giving it a try.
  • Don’t get lost in self-pity. Remember you have the ability to change your outlook and your situation.
  • Resist the urge to act out moods on those around you. Instead, write, confide in a friend, draw, take a walk, etc. Do something creative or physically active, something you feel comfortable doing and that others don’t have the right to criticize.
  • Consult someone if you start having suicidal thoughts. Don’t keep it inside.

Related wikiHows

Article provided by wikiHow, a wiki how-to manual. Please edit this article and find author credits at the original wikiHow article on How to Stay Positive when You Know Your Life Sucks. All content on wikiHow can be shared under a Creative Commons license.

Do You Resist Accepting More Good?

Do You Resist Accepting More Good?

Most of consciously would love more good in our lives. But some people unconsciously restrict it, based on fear of offending others. Here are a couple of reasons why you might avoid accepting good, and some new attitude possibilities to resolve them.

Copyright 2011 Linda Ann Stewart
All Rights Reserved