What do you fear? Not being good enough, not being loved, not belonging and being alone? It may be failure, success, being too fat, being too thin, being too friendly, not being friendly enough, being too lazy, working too hard. You may fear spiders, snakes, public speaking, even death. Maybe it’s the creepy old man down the end of the street, your fifth-grade teacher who you sometimes still bump into down at the shops. 

Fear, as irrational or logical as it may be can be paralysing. It can waste your time and energy, cause you emotional distress, make you doubt yourself. It can ruin relationships. It can prevent you from living the life you truly want. Fear is insidious. It’s sneaky. And it can affect you without you even being aware of it. 

However, whatever it is that you fear, if you want to overcome the fear, you can. 

People with high confidence take criticism constructively, take calculated risks with less fear, back themselves in a discussion, learn from their mistakes, can take a compliment, have a positive outlook on life and do what they think is right despite the opinions of others.

The most important factor in increasing your confidence is knowing yourself. If you know who you are (your identity), know what you want (values) and employ your own set of rules to live by (beliefs) you will be certain to have strong levels of confidence.

Self-esteem refers to the value we put on ourselves, our self-worth or self-respect. Low self-esteem results in a lack of confidence and feeling that you don’t have certain abilities (even though you do). It can cause people to freeze, leaving them stuck in their current circumstances, unable to move forward and achieve their life goals. In some cases, it can lead to depression. Once your self-esteem increases, you’ll feel as though your opinions are worthy of being expressed, you won’t feel out of place in social situations, you’ll have more faith in your ability to achieve your goals and you’ll feel more enthusiastic and less hesitant to participate in life generally. 

After having kids and the initial novelty as well as the sleepless haze wares off, you emerge from the tunnel of satisfying everyone else’s needs and realise that the person you were before the chaos no longer exists. You try to get back out there by doing the things you used to love but you feel out of place. Your needs have changed, your likes and dislikes have changed, and it’s time to get to know yourself all over again. “But didn’t I do that in my 20s? I thought all that was behind me!”  Sorry kid, you won’t stop learning and growing till you die. Of course parenthood has changed you! How couldn’t it have. You’ve trained yourself to supress your needs, you’ve had to sacrifice parts of your identity in order to serve your offspring. And you did it willingly. But where to now?

Why are goals so important? What is it that drives us to seek more? As Tony Robbins says, “If you’re not growing, you’re dying”. As humans we seek constantly to be learning and evolving and it’s our goals that guide us through this process. Usually we actually know what our goals are, but our fears, insecurities and beliefs cloud our passion. It’s rare for someone to find a dream mid-life completely out of the blue that doesn’t somehow have a link to their past.  

What does it even mean to “understand yourself?” Understanding yourself means you can make quick decisions, you can make sure those decisions are solid and that you won’t change your mind. It means you know how to motivate and inspire yourself, how to avoid pushing the wrong buttons. You know what to expect from yourself in certain situations without surprising yourself. You know your own skills and abilities. You know how to make yourself laugh, how to make yourself cry. It means you have your own back. Apart from the fact that this understanding gives you a strong sense of security and stability, the reason why it’s so great to have a solid understanding of yourself is because it enables you to know what you want and why, which ultimately leads to greater feelings of success and fulfilment in life.

I’ve come across a new tool for my toolkit that’s capable of helping people even more effectively and efficiently. It’s really quick and really easy and can be taught to clients so they can use it on themselves.

The tool is called the Emotional Freedom Techniqueand due to the way in which in requires you to tap on various acupressure points it’s commonly referred to as “Tapping”.

The world is in crisis. It’s undeniable. North Korea. Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria. And then there’s the increasing number of natural disasters, that seem to be reflecting where human society is at. Volcanos erupting in Hawaii, earthquakes in California and Mexico. We’re pretty fortunate to be so isolated from it all in Australia. But this can sometimes make us feel helpless too. Where do we even begin?Although probably not as globally devastating, we have our own crises. Bullying is affecting more kids than ever, at younger ages and with more serious consequences.Ghandi advised us to “Be the Change we want to see in the world.”  So maybe this is where we can begin. This is something you do actually have the power to influence,and I’m going to give you the knowledge to make the changes within your own family, schools and community. Aren’t we fortunate to have access to the resources and information that enable us to actually do something about it!

When we hear the word ego we often think of arrogant, good looking men with big muscles who drive fast cars and use hair gel. Every move they make is a scream to the world to “look at me, I’m the greatest!” This isn’t the ‘ego’ we’re going to be looking at today. Today we’re going to look at Freud’s ego – that self-conscious part of ourselves that’s aware of our feelings and thoughts and is very much responsible for the creation of our identity.

You know that feeling. The one where your heart starts to race a little, your muscles begin to tense up, your breaths become short and shallow, your chest tightens and it takes a huge amount of willpower to supress an explosion. Take a deep breath. Exhale.

Do you suffer from stress? Do you simply ‘manage’ it because it’s just the way of the world? Well, let me tell you something and you need to listen to this because it’s really important – you don’t have to.

It has been found that approximately 80% of all visits to the doctor have stress as a major contributing factor. Stress affects us physically, causing high blood pressure, heart issues and a suppressed immune system; and psychologically by causing depression, memory loss and poor decision making. And of course, stress doesn’t help us get a good night’s sleep either.