Many times when we feel hurt or carry a deep pain in our hearts we choose to run away from the pain. It may seem a lot easier to ignore the pain and to tell ourselves that "time heals all."

But as time passes and the pain remains, it begins to affect our lives in ways that we may not even realize. It is as if for every hurt that we ignore we add an emotional twig or small branch to a pile of hurtMany times when we feel hurt or carry a deep pain in our hearts we choose to run away from the pain. It may seem a lot easier to ignore the pain and to tell ourselves that "time heals all."

But as time passes and the pain remains, it begins to affect our lives in ways that we may not even realize. It is as if for every hurt that we ignore we add an emotional twig or small branch to a pile of hurt. With time the twigs will add up to a pile of wood that stands high in the air and is ready to be ignited into a big flame. When these piles of figurative wood are ignited by a tense situation or hurtful word it creates an intense fire that burns and hurts us and others around us.

There are five ways that we can deal with hurt and pain in our lives. The first is denial. When we act in denial we choose to ignore the pain and tell ourselves it is not there. Someone once told me that denial stands for "don't even know I am lying."

Philosopher Denis Diderot said, "We swallow greedily any lie that flatters us, but we sip only little by little at a truth that we find bitter."

The second way we can choose to deal with pain is to blame others for our pain. When we do this we build resentments (add more twigs to the pile) and build a wall between us and others.

The third way people can deal with pain is to become consumed with their pain. This is what we would call depression. The person thinks so much about their pain that they are swallowed up with the pain. There may also be some self-hatred and self-blame involved.

The fourth avenue some take to deal with pain is to escape. This can be done by running to alcohol, drugs, sex, eating, gambling, playing video games, etc. This numbs the pain temporarily but the pain grows in time.

All of these ways to deal with pain lead to the twigs piling up and pain controlling the person's life. The fifth way we can deal with pain is to confront the pain gradually by being honest that it is there and dealing with what is alive in us (our hurt feelings and unmet needs).

Proverbs 10:9 tells us that "The man of integrity walks securely, but he who takes crooked paths will be found out."(NIV)

When we confront our pain we face the demons in our life. We bring what we are tempted to ignore and hide into the open, into the light. When we don't do this the pain continues to fester and infect our life. It may manifest itself in hatred, resentments, discrimination, revenge, selfishness, rudeness, anger, etc. It becomes evident to all that we have a problem.

Henry Nouwen writes in his book The Inner Voice of Love, "There are two extremes to avoid: being completely absorbed in your pain and being distracted by so many things that you stay far away from the wound you want to heal."

Hopefully we will not take the crooked paths to dealing with pain but rather the highway to healing our pain. The road which entails being honest with our present feelings about something someone said or did and realizing what we need. When we realize what we need we can seek ways to get that need met today. We also can then do the work of speaking truth to ourselves. At times it may be helpful to have another person do this because they may be able to see the truth we cannot see.

By confronting our pain we will be doing the work of walking through our pain instead of avoiding it. It is by doing this work that we can escape the dungeons of darkness that pain traps us in and see the light to freedom.

The first impression that a person gets when initially meeting you will greatly influence how they interpret all your interactions after that. The typical time it takes to form this first impression is around 10 seconds, so you need to know how to get it right if you want to maximize the benefit.

Western society today has demanded that we all work towards some sort of success. We are bombarded by ads by some of the most beautiful and richest people on the planet simply pushing the fact that they are successful and we should have what they have. Success though often eludes many of us so I want to share the first secret millionaires know of becoming obscenely wealthy and successful.

If you are like a lot of people I meet, you probably have too much on your plate. Your Blackberry is jam-packed with all the commitments you have to keep. At the end of the day, do you find yourself wondering where did the time go AND frustrated because there's so much more that you want to accomplish! Here are 5 Tips to help you "button up" your life so it's a lot less hectic and more streamlined. Follow these guidelines and I guarantee that life will be easier and you'll get your life back!

5 Top Ways to Systemize and Simplify

1. Stop Recreating the Wheel: Document your processes. Write down each step you take to accomplish certain tasks, such as online-billings, telephone sales-scripts, standard mail responses, or new client intake procedures. This way you don't waste your valuable time looking for what you need and re-doing your process every time. All you need to do is create a document with a list of the steps clearly defined and save it. The next time you need to do x, y or z, you've got the template or list of steps you need to take right at your fingertips. Doing this will help you to be a lot more efficient with your time, allowing you to do more of what is important to you.

sWhether you are an employee or self-employed if you learn to how to get the most out of your work day and then apply that learning you can considerably increase your annual income.

Not only will your income increase but your job satisfaction will increase as well. It is so much more satisfying to be able to look at your work day and to say with total conviction that your time was well spent.

As your personal fitness trainer my passion is to teach, coach, understand, push, prod, cajole, investigate, research and apply, over and over… As a ‘Fitness Role Model’…well…I feel vulnerable with weakness, so, in hopes we can all learn, from my own weakness, here goes…My Confession.
Last year I had a number of clients who started stubbornly on the Atkins diet despite my warnings. Immediately I saw almost profound results in their weight loss. I reminded them it was the loss of water weight, and warned of the strain on the kidneys and the high cholesterol risk.
During this time I was mastering my yoga practice as a complete vegan but found that my immune system had been profoundly compromised and I was currently on my third cold for the fall season

People are obsessed with dieting and weight loss! Don't believe
me? Just tune-in to any source of advertising...you're instantly
bombarded with the latest diet schemes and "Hollywood" food
fads.

Here in America, we have built a thriving industry trying to
control our weight and treat the consequences of over-indulgence.
The cost of weight loss and obesity related health care
treatments is staggering...Americans alone spend around $114
billion every year! And even with all this interest in losing
weight, we continue to pack on the pounds like never before...

The true nature of who you really are is nothing at all. In the experience of being something, you move away from this state of nothingness.

It is not possible to experience being nothing for that realization is a state of being. In the world of the absolute or nothingness there is no being. Consciousness, is nothingness being something-"I am" this or that. Consciousness is a place in time, a focus of the nothing state wishing to experience something. As an individual of this nothingness you choose amongst all the possibilities of being. Your focus in the physical life moves from one experience to another and you can only experience one thing at a time. For example, you may be male, a father, employee, husband, lover and any number of things-but when the focus of you attention is on being a father-in that moment you experience nothing else. But that does not mean all the others things are not valid or do not exist-they do.

All things exist simultaneously in the same time and space-it is only your focus shifting back and forth from one to another that creates the illusion. From the state of nothing to the experience of being, is called consciousness. During any particular time of the day you move back and forth from one state to another. During the time of sleep the mind is active in another realm of experience or being-called dreaming.

In our last series we discovered two life-changing facts:

1. Abundance surrounds us and our true self is that of abundance,

and

2. The things that are manifested in our lives are birthed from our expectations of observed experiences.

In this section, the last of our 3rd part series on The Universal Law Of Abundance, we will reveal how there is no such thing as lack in the Universe.

What do you think about when the word goal comes up in conversation? Do you cringe and snort thinking to yourself "right, goals . . . whatever. What's the point of making them if I won't keep them?" Or, do your eyes light up as you tick off a long list of goals for the New Year that will be impossible to complete?