Self Improvement Site
On The Internet! Take the Self Improvement Tour
On The Internet! Take the Self Improvement Tour
Articles from Intent.com Authors | Selfgrowth.com
- Steps to Freedom: Change What Isn’t Working - by Submitted on May 19, 2009 from Intent.com AuthorsWe have all had the experience of realizing that something in our lives is not working. This knowledge can come as a sudden realization or a nagging feeling of doubt that grows stronger, waking us up to the fact that something needs to change. Some people have a tendency to act rashly and make ...
Views: 701(1 vote) - "Eat, Pray, Love" Your Way to Closer Relationships - by Submitted on Jun 24, 2009 from Intent.com AuthorsSpring has sprung, and many of us are slowly moving out of hibernation and feeling ready to get outside. This luring translates to relationships as well. With the bad news of the recession pounding, we need to surround ourselves with positive, upbeat people to help us shift gears, focus on the ...
Views: 700 - Boosting Productivity By Simplifying - by Submitted on May 21, 2009 from Intent.com AuthorsThere is a lot of emphasis on being productive right now. It's a buzzword that litters our news outlets, and is heard frequently in connection with the economy. Personal productivity is also a hot topic right now, with the business world abuzz with Stephen Covey, David Allen's Getting Things ...
Views: 700 - Our American Neighbors Could Teach Us A Few Things - Happy Canada Day - by Submitted on Sep 28, 2009 from Intent.com AuthorsMany people around the world both love and detest Americans. They would love to be able to live in the United States and perhaps realize their own "American Dream". And yet the U.S. has been criticized and reviled for its belligerent, patronizing "Father Knows Best" attitude about how the rest ...
Views: 700(3 votes) - Resisting the Oneness - by Submitted on May 14, 2009 from Intent.com AuthorsQuestion: You often speak about the "All Is One" concept, and I am re-reading "Anatomy of Spirit" while working with my root chakra to deal with all my tribal issues, and Caroline Myss is also writing of "All Is One." But as often happens when I contemplate that "sacred truth", I would like to ...
Views: 700 - Strengthening Our Family Bonds - by Submitted on Jun 10, 2009 from Intent.com AuthorsOur families are our lifelines. They are our primary source of love and strength. They are our first intimate human connections before friends and romantic relationships, and they are the most important connections one can possibly have. Yet when the chaos of our daily lives take over, we ...
Views: 700(1 vote) - Tree House: A Small Piece of Heaven - by Submitted on May 17, 2009 from Intent.com AuthorsThere is no greater way to escape the troubles of daily life than to ascend into the welcoming embrace of a tree house. Like a bird in its nest, we feel held and safe in the branches, cloaked within a curtain of green leaves. Here we can breathe more freely and think more clearly, our hearts and ...
Views: 700 - Meditation to Lower Your Stress Levels and Increase Your Sense of Well-being - by Submitted on Jul 27, 2009 from Intent.com AuthorsMost people are familiar with brain waves, but not as many people are familiar with heart waves. Researchers have found that our heart emits waves, much as our brain does. When we are in a state of stress, anxiety, worry, or depletion, these waves form a jagged and rough pattern. On the other ...
Views: 699 - Taking a Time Out: You Are Not Crazy - by Submitted on Aug 31, 2009 from Intent.com AuthorsMost of us feel a little crazy from time to time. Periods of high stress can make us feel like we’re losing it, as can being surrounded by people whose values are very different from our own. Losing a significant relationship and moving into a new life situation are other events that can cause ...
Views: 699(2 votes) - The Sweetener Diabetics & Other Health Conscious People Most Want to Avoid - by Submitted on Aug 31, 2009 from Intent.com AuthorsWhile most people agree that sugar and artificial sweeteners are bad for you, a recent study showed that a so-called “natural sweetener” can actually increase insulin resistance and belly fat in overweight people. The sweetener, fructose, has long been touted as a natural sweetener because ...
Views: 699(2 votes) - To Love or To Be Loved - by Submitted on Jun 09, 2009 from Intent.com AuthorsHave you ever asked yourself, "Am I my authentic self?" Is there a deeper more real version of yourself waiting for the right time to show up, but for the most part letting that person out is just way too risky?! Maybe when you were three years old, someone hurt your feelings and to survive ...
Views: 699(1 vote) - Wisdom in the Marketplace - by Submitted on Aug 03, 2009 from Intent.com AuthorsMonkInTheCity spoke to Zen Master Genpo Roshi about money. The Monk: It’s bonus time in the City, and I’m a Zen monk. No one wants to believe they are greedy. But to be honest, I’ve thought about it a lot. It pays the bills, the mortgage, and allows me to give some to family, friends and ...
Views: 699(1 vote) - Reinterpreting Eve - by Submitted on Jun 07, 2009 from Intent.com AuthorsNot too far in the past, if a woman was assertive, demanding and purposeful, she was considered a controlling bitch. On the other hand, if a woman complained about her lack of opportunity and played victim, she was considered an annoying whiner. Today, many women are looking to each other for ...
Views: 698 - 13 “FAB” Tips to Go from Whiner to a Winner - by Submitted on Jul 07, 2009 from Intent.com AuthorsCenter Yourself Take in a deep breath. Let it out. Now, breathe in brilliance. Exhale out the burden. Do this three times so you feel more centered. Ask For It Ask for the Greatest Good. As Mayor, take a moment and claim your office, and ask that your solutions be for the ...
Views: 697(2 votes) - An Introduction to "30 Days to a Greener You" - by Submitted on Jun 03, 2009 from Intent.com AuthorsPerhaps the biggest misconception about living green is that it requires for us to sacrifice our pleasures for a more meager, less fun existence. After all, for all the research that has been done on the environmentally damaging effects of plastic water bottles, eating beef, and driving our ...
Views: 697 - Bernie Madoff is the Bear - by Submitted on Jul 13, 2009 from Intent.com AuthorsMore than 100 years ago, it was an annual tradition in some Native American tribes to capture a large bear, tie him to a stake, and then begin dancing around him. There was also a bonfire and drumming. Then, one by one, members of the tribe approached the bear and confessed their sins. After ...
Views: 697 - Kindness: All The Cool Kids Are Doing It - by Submitted on Aug 26, 2009 from Intent.com AuthorsThe paradox of selflessness never ceases to amaze me, yet somehow I continually forget that the receiving is in the giving. I was reminded yet again on Memorial Day when I joined Random Acts of Kindness (RAK) as they kicked-off their third year of anonymous, kind-hearted shenanigans. The ...
Views: 697(4 votes) - Quick, Easy and Healthy Recipes - by Submitted on Jul 29, 2009 from Intent.com AuthorsAs a mother of two, finding the time to cook a homemade meal sometimes feels like the most impossible task in the world. Whenever I am tempted by frozen dinners or take-out meals, I try to go through a mental list of my favorite quick and easy recipes instead. Quick and easy recipes, in my ...
Views: 697 - What Makes a Great Father or Mother? The Little Things - by Submitted on Sep 16, 2009 from Intent.com AuthorsWhen I was in my twenties, my gaze was always focused on the big things—finding the “perfect” partner, the “to-die-for” job, the “huge” book deal, or getting into the “best” graduate school. Little things didn’t matter much; they were unnecessary distractions that I treated as rounding errors. ...
Views: 697(1 vote) - You can only manage your half of any relationship - by Submitted on Sep 09, 2009 from Intent.com AuthorsI'm always struck by how opposites attract. I'm also struck by how attraction turns into frustration over time. It's a fascinating phenomenon that we are drawn to people with different characteristics and strengths than we have. Then we spend the rest of our lives trying to change them so that ...
Views: 696 - Battling the Great Depression - by Submitted on May 27, 2009 from Intent.com AuthorsAn out –of –work money manager in California loses a fortune and wipes out his family in a murder-suicide. A 90 year old Ohio woman shoots herself in the chest as authorities arrive to evict her from the modest house she called home for 38 years. A record 500,000 homeowners have entered the ...
Views: 695 - How Multi-Goaling Beats Multi-Tasking Every Time - by Submitted on Jun 23, 2009 from Intent.com AuthorsOf course you have multiple things to do. That's a good thing. In fact, if you didn't have multiple things to do you might be coming near the end of an active life. Even if you've lost your job, and I know what that one's like, you still have multiple things to do. More accurately stated, you ...
Views: 695 - Remembering Ron Brown and Crafting an Agenda of Sustainable Commerce - by Submitted on Jun 18, 2009 from Intent.com AuthorsWhile most of us might not pause today on April 3, it is a date that should resonate with every American. It is the anniversary of the death of Commerce Secretary Ronald H. Brown. Secretary Brown and 34 other people, including more than a dozen dedicated public servants, lost their lives 13 ...
Views: 695 - What Helps You Expand Your Thinking? - by Submitted on Sep 29, 2009 from Intent.com AuthorsSo many of us think about creativity in the context of being an artist or musician. However I prefer the definition that resiliency expert Frederic Flach uses. Creativity is “a response to a situation that calls for a novel but adaptive solution, one that serves to accomplish a goal.” That’s ...
Views: 695(3 votes) - When Time Stands Still... - by Submitted on Aug 02, 2009 from Intent.com AuthorsSuddenly, nothing much matters and nothing matters much. The circus of life seems to have come to a decisive halt. I am here now. Right in this moment. Not living in the future nor reminiscing the past. Not making plans or breaking down the sand castles I once built. I am here. Just as I am. ...
Views: 695(2 votes) - How resilient are you? - by Submitted on Jul 06, 2009 from Intent.com AuthorsHow resilient are you? We all experience stressors everyday - they are unavoidable. The key is how we respond to life's challenges. With the help of some good coping skills, you can learn to bounce back from difficult life experiences and become more resilient. Take this quiz to see how ...
Views: 694(1 vote) - The Dark Truth About Our Pain - by Submitted on May 13, 2009 from Intent.com AuthorsFor the last few weeks, I have been on a radio tour for the release of the paperback edition of Why Good People Do Bad Things. In my interviews, I keep hearing the same questions. Why did you write this as your sixth book? Why is this important to understand? Why do we do bad things? Why do we ...
Views: 694 - The Wedding Poem - by Submitted on Sep 02, 2009 from Intent.com AuthorsWhen friends asked if I would write a poem for their wedding, I responded with an enthusiastic "Yes!" What an honor! I let the poem incubate in my mind for awhile, then woke up at 2:30 AM last week and wrote the following. The bridal couple LOVES it; and in the absence of the grooms mother at ...
Views: 694(5 votes) - What's Your Energy Boost? - by Submitted on Jun 23, 2009 from Intent.com AuthorsLast week, we celebrated the first day of spring by asking our community members how they renew themselves in the spirit of spring. Click here for a round-up of last week’s best articles on spring renewal. This week, I want to ask our community members: how do you maintain your energy? How do ...
Views: 694 - A Single Mother Looks at Fatherhood - by Submitted on Sep 16, 2009 from Intent.com AuthorsA good friend and fellow single mother was telling me about her plans to attend her daughter’s “Father’s Day Breakfast” at school today. A little awkward, perhaps, but what the heck. As a single mother raising sons, Father’s Day has always been a bit of a delicate proposition for me. When ...
Views: 693(1 vote) - Best of the INTENTernet: Happy Happy Happy! - by Submitted on Sep 10, 2009 from Intent.com AuthorsIn case some of you didn't know, happiness is this week's theme on Intent.com. It also happens to be the unofficial theme of this week's edition of Best of the INTENTernet! First things first, here's a compelling new video from TED on the science of happiness by cognitive researcher Nancy ...
Views: 693(2 votes) - Make Your Mornings Super-Green and Earth-Friendly: 10 Action Steps - by Submitted on Aug 25, 2009 from Intent.com AuthorsIn celebration of this week's call for content for making the best of our mornings, here is a list of ten action steps to make your mornings a little more eco-friendly. And what better way to love Mother Earth than to acknowledge her gifts at the very start of the day? 1. When you wake up, ...
Views: 693(2 votes) - Peace Through Commerce® - by Submitted on Aug 16, 2009 from Intent.com AuthorsIn the context of my work with FLOW and my collaboration with FLOW co-founder Michael Strong (author of Be the Solution: How Entrepreneurs and Conscious Capitalists Can Solve All the World’s Problems), for the past three years I have been deeply engaged in advancing the idea of Peace Through ...
Views: 693(1 vote) - Seven Tips for Sparking Your Creativity - by Submitted on Jun 14, 2009 from Intent.com AuthorsI’ve read a lot of advice about how to spark creativity. Everyone’s creativity takes a different form, however, so the advice that works varies a lot from person to person. For example, I put a lot of pressure on myself to be efficient and productive. One of my struggles is to allow myself to ...
Views: 693 - Soap Up, Without Poisoning the Planet - by Submitted on Aug 11, 2009 from Intent.com AuthorsGetting cleaned up can be a dirty job. Modern hygiene requires that you spend some quality time with your showerhead. The average person showers for about 10 minutes. In an old-school shower (made before 1992), that means you're using about 100 gallons of water. The government has since ...
Views: 693(2 votes) - The ‘Towards’ and the ‘Away From’ Families - by Submitted on Jul 27, 2009 from Intent.com AuthorsYesterday in our marketing meeting we had a debate regarding our marketing messages. We are dividing people into two major groups, or should I say two big families. The “Towards People” (People who are driven towards their dreams) and the “Away From” people (People who are driven away from ...
Views: 693(1 vote) - Hot Potato Guidance: To Keep...or to Tell? - by Submitted on Jun 07, 2009 from Intent.com AuthorsI’m pretty uncomfortable about it at this point, and I know too that I’m doing the right thing. As you know, I function as a Chief Spiritual Officer for several businesses. It’s hard to explain what a CSO does. The basic job is to look at business scenarios of all kinds and listen for guidance ...
Views: 692(1 vote) - Today Show Appearance - Shameless self-promotion or pursuit of common good? - by Submitted on Sep 02, 2009 from Intent.com AuthorsDo you find self-promotion offensive? I often do. But what if it’s rooted not in hubris, but dedication to a cause? What if it’s more akin to “shameless exploitation in pursuit of the common good”, the phrase coined by late philanthropist and actor Paul Newman, referring to his food company, ...
Views: 692(2 votes) - How Do You Learn to Enjoy All Foods Without Overeating? Practice, Practice, Practice. - by Submitted on Jun 09, 2009 from Intent.com AuthorsMarci called Thursday morning. “Can I bring a fear food tonight and practice eating it mindfully?” She’d been learning--to eat when hungry, choose exactly the food she wanted, stop eating when satiated. And, she was becoming more aware of which foods were triggers and which were simply foods she ...
Views: 691 - In San Francisco? Join Clary Sage Organics & EDUN March 26th for "Fairtrade in the Spring" - by Submitted on Jul 02, 2009 from Intent.com AuthorsClary Sage Organics and EDUN have collaborated to bring about “Fairtrade in the Spring” -- a 2-week pop-up shop of EDUN and Nude’s Spring/Summer 2009 collection at Clary Sage Organics in San Francisco from March 26th to April 9th. On March 26th, the “Fairtrade in Spring” cocktail party will ...
Views: 691 - Seneca on Pleasures & Punishments - by Submitted on Jul 09, 2009 from Intent.com Authors“So called pleasures, when they go beyond a certain limit, are but punishments.” ~ Seneca from Letters from a Stoic Deeply influenced by the classic Greek philosophers like Aristotle, the Stoics were/are all about self-control, self-mastery and virtuous living. Reminds me of Aristotle’s ...
Views: 691(1 vote) - Accountability and Sunshine in the Stimulus Process - by Submitted on Jul 21, 2009 from Intent.com AuthorsDebunking the “Prioritization Failure” Myth in the Economic Stimulus The new perceived “crisis” in the stimulus initiative is the claim that there is no way to prioritize projects to get the greatest value from taxpayer dollars. It’s true that not every “shovel ready” project merits ...
Views: 690(1 vote) - Insights from Admiring a Tree - by Submitted on Oct 01, 2009 from Intent.com AuthorsAs you know, I have been up in Northern California visiting family for the 4th of July. I have been up in the mountains, north of Sacramento, on some property that my family has owned for generations. As a child, my brother and I would spend every single summer up there, fishing, catching ...
Views: 690(1 vote) - Love GPS – The Law of Attraction Meets Modern Technology! - by Submitted on Aug 31, 2009 from Intent.com AuthorsCosmic reminders often arrive at the most unexpected times. On Sunday afternoon Brian and I were with our friends David and Leize Perlmutter, speeding through the sea green waters of the Gulf of Mexico on their boat. In order to take in more of the magnificent scenery, Leize decided to put the ...
Views: 690(3 votes) - Your Weight and Desktop Dining - by Submitted on Jul 30, 2009 from Intent.com AuthorsEating at your desk while working may be a recipe for weight gain and indigestion. Here’s why… I vividly remember the moment when I realized I typically eat at my desk while working. I was at Heinrich-Heine University in Deüsseldorf, Germany, where my husband, Larry Scherwitz, and I, had been ...
Views: 690(1 vote) - Can Dieting Cause Weight Gain? - by Submitted on Jul 21, 2009 from Intent.com AuthorsWhen I lecture about optimal eating and weight, the question I’m most asked most frequently is about the diet du jour. Many want to know what’s best: Is it the zone? Eat right for your type? What do I think about Ornish (high carbohydrate/low fat) vs. Atkins (high protein/high fat)? Which do I ...
Views: 689(2 votes) - Spring Clean Your Closet in Four Easy Steps - by Submitted on Jun 24, 2009 from Intent.com AuthorsJust a few short days ago the vernal equinox reared its well-organized head and instead of being made to feel like a compulsive neat freak, I was able to spring-clean with societal approval and encouragement. I particularly look forward to going through my wardrobe at this time of year. I use ...
Views: 689 - Thank Heaven for Little Girls - by Submitted on Jul 16, 2009 from Intent.com AuthorsToday is recognized as International Women’s Day. I hope you’ll take a brief moment out of your busy day to ponder what that means to you. Think about your mom, sisters, aunts, grandmothers, cousins, and girlfriends. For me and many others, today is an opportunity to focus on the struggles, ...
Views: 689(1 vote) - The "Cancer Card" - by Submitted on Jun 08, 2009 from Intent.com AuthorsIn the past, when I’ve talked about “The Cancer Card,” I’ve done so jokingly, as in “pulling the Cancer Card” when you’re pulled over for a traffic infraction. “Oh, Officer, I’m sorry, I didn’t notice that stop sign! I have [sniff] cancer.” “Oh, I’m so sorry,” coos the officer, “You just go on ...
Views: 689 - Real Self Empowerment - by Submitted on Sep 02, 2009 from Intent.com AuthorsOrdinarily, we don’t see from a non-dual perspective. That’s what’s eluding us, and that’s what we’re yearning for. We’re yearning to be closer to truth, closer to reality, to God, to nature, to our true nature, to our self, to others. It’s as if we’ve frozen our self into a solid chunk of ...
Views: 688(4 votes)