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* Self Improvement and Personal Growth Weekly Newsletter *
Issue # 512, Week of June 30/July 1, 2008
Publisher:  David Riklan - http://www.SelfGrowth.com

In this issue:

– Quotes of the Week
– Recommended Product of the Week
– Article:  Diffusing Anger or Feeding the Flames - By Margaret Paul, Ph.D.
– Article:  Personal Development with a Purpose - By Paul Chek
– Book Review:  Steering by Starlight: Find Your Right Life, No Matter What! - By Martha Beck
– Brief News of the World
– How to Subscribe and Unsubscribe from this Newsletter

Current Subscribers - 268,611 subscribers
Removal instructions are listed at the end of the newsletter.

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*** Quotes of the Week ***
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It is easier to prevent bad habits than to break them. - Benjamin Franklin, 1706-1790, American Scientist/Publisher/Diplomat
 

A loving heart is the beginning of all knowledge. - Thomas Carlyle, 1795-1881, Scottish Philosopher and Author

When one has a great deal to put into it, a day has a hundred pockets. - Friedrich Nietzsche, 1844-1900, German Philosopher

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*** Recommended Product of the Week ***

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*** Article:  Diffusing Anger or Feeding the Flames - By Margaret Paul, Ph.D. ***

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Have you ever had an argument with someone — a partner, spouse, close friend, child, parent or other relative, or a business associate — that started small and spiraled into an intense conflict? Have you ever scratched your head, wondering how it got so out of control?

Let’s take a look at what feeds the flames of anger and what diffuses it.

* Feeding the Flames of Anger *

Emma and Jake have been married for 14 years. They love each other, but they frequently have arguments that escalate into intense fights where both of them end up feeling awful.

They’ve noticed that it doesn’t matter what the conflict is about. Just about anything can touch off their anger, defensiveness, and blame. Then the laundry list from the past comes up and they are at it, often ending with threats of divorce, which neither of them wants.

The problem is that they feed the flames with ANY response once one of them is angry.

Once a person is angry, he or she is no longer open to hearing another view of things. Anger is a way of trying to have control over getting one’s way. When a person is angry and yelling at or blaming another person, they are trying to bully that person into doing what they want. They don’t want to hear the other’s feelings, explanations, lectures, or logic. When they are angry, they may have no feelings of caring about the other person — they just want to control the person or the situation.

Therefore, ANYTHING you say to an angry person feeds the flames of anger and escalates the conflict. The angry person may use whatever you say against you. Then your own anger escalates as you defend against the attack and attempt to gain control over the other person’s behavior, feelings, or views.

Now you are both pointlessly trying to control each other, bringing out the heavy artillery as you defend your position.

* Diffusing Anger *

Most people, when yelled at, attacked, accused, or blamed, get triggered into defending and explaining — hoping to change the angry person’s mind. It is as if the angry person has thrown out a hook and you bite. If it is someone who knows you well, like your partner, he or she knows exactly what to say to you that hooks you into engaging in the conflict.

Yet engaging is exactly what feeds the flames. To diffuse the anger, you need to disengage. Disengaging means that you COMPLETELY unhook yourself from the conflict.

Disengaging does NOT mean that you walk away in anger, muttering under your breath about how bad and wrong the other person is and how he or she can’t treat you this way. It does NOT mean that you shut down, closing your heart and withdrawing your love or caring. Your silent anger and withdrawal of caring are just other ways of trying to control the angry person. Energetically, you are still engaged, and the other person knows it, albeit unconsciously. They know they have gotten to you, which fuels their hopes of winning.

Disengaging does NOT mean that you go off and ruminate about the other person, about how wrong they are, and how you are going to teach them a lesson. It does NOT mean that you rehearse over and over what you are going to say to them next time you talk.

When you disengage, you are walking away from the conflict to TAKE LOVING CARE OF YOURSELF, NOT TO PUNISH THE OTHER PERSON. This means that you fully accept that you have NO CONTROL over the other person’s anger. You are getting yourself out of range of attack without shutting down your compassion for yourself or the other person. You are helping yourself to not take the other person’s behavior personally by telling yourself that this is not about you — it is about whatever is going on with the other person. You are occupying your mind with helpful and pleasant thoughts — prayers for the other person, a happy song that you sing to yourself, or about what you would love to do with your time right now.

Completely letting go is a very loving act toward yourself and the other person. Because the other person energetically gets that their anger is not working, they are more likely to calm down. When the other person is friendly again, you are ready and willing to re-engage with no hard feelings and nothing to rehash, because you have kept your heart open and taken loving care of yourself.

About the Author:

Margaret Paul, Ph.D. is the best-selling author and co-author of eight books, including “Do I Have To Give Up Me To Be Loved By You?” and “Healing Your Aloneness.” She is the co-creator of the powerful Inner Bonding® healing process. Learn Inner Bonding now! Visit her website for a FREE Inner Bonding course, http://www.innerbonding.com, or email her at margaret@innerbonding.com. Phone Sessions Available.

Check out the Experts page for Margaret Paul, the Official SelfGrowth.com Guide to Marriage.

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*** Article:  Personal Development with a Purpose - By Paul Chek ***

As a holistic health practitioner, I’m a big fan of getting right to the heart of the matter. So the first thing I do when I meet with a new client who is ready to begin their quest for personal development is to ask them if they have a legacy.

What exactly does that mean?

Most of us have some sense of the meaning of the term “legacy.” The common use of this word is backward looking.

Take this question: “What kind of legacy do you want to leave behind?” In this case, a legacy is something like the achievements we’re known for when we’re gone. But this backward looking sense of a legacy is just a small part of what I’m after when I talk to clients about their legacy. After all, we’re not planning for their funeral here!

The reason why I use the word “legacy” is that it focuses our attention on the whole picture and purpose of our lives. It’s fantastic to have career goals, financial goals, or relationship goals, but oftentimes we tend to ignore the other aspects of our lives in favor of pursuing those particular achievements. This imbalance inevitably slows down our growth and frequently results in all sorts of health problems.

True personal development requires a holistic approach, one in which you’ve set out the ideal picture of your life and developed a goal structure that supports the achievement of that total life goal. Because a legacy just is your complete life’s goal, having one is a crucial step in taking a holistic approach to personal development.

So one fantastic benefit to having a legacy is that it can help you to create and organize goals. It provides you with the ideal toward which all your efforts in life are directed. But having a well thought-out legacy offers so much more. As with any other project, there will always be distractions while you are working on yourself. We have habits to overcome, patterns of procrastination, people who need our time and energy, and so forth. The power of a legacy is that it can provide a very powerful tool to conquer those habits, steer clear of the procrastination, and to meet the needs of those around us without getting diverted.

In fact, the reason why these diversions can have such a pull on us is that we don’t have any particular force guiding us in a direction that we truly want to go. But when your day is built around your legacy, those distractions become impotent. The short-term pleasures that procrastination offers pale in comparison to the potential of your legacy, and as long as you stick to your goals, you’re always one day closer to realizing that dream.

Of course, the extent to which your legacy will help you to create and organize your goals and boost your motivation is going to depend upon how much detail you give to the picture of your ideal life. This picture of your legacy often develops over a long period of time, but you can get a decent handle on it by thinking about the following lifestyle components:

1) People. What kind of people do you value, feel comfortable with, get excited about spending time with?
2) Passion. What is it about life that enlivens you and fills you with energy?
3) Purpose. What is it that brings meaning to your life or gives you a sense of fulfillment?
4) Responsibilities. What kinds of responsibilities are you comfortable handling in your life, whether they be personal, professional, or spiritual?
5) Career. What manifestation of your abilities, purpose, and passion would best fulfill your career needs?
6) Values. Your values are your needs and desires, ranging from your most basic physical needs to those that dictate your relationships with your friends, loved ones, co-workers, and the environment at large. What are your values?

This list here certainly isn’t exhaustive, but it’s a good start. Not only will it help you to fill out the picture of your career, but the relationships you develop with yourself and your loved ones. At the C.H.E.K Institute and in my PPS Success Mastery Program we get into much greater detail as we help our clients find and create their legacies on a daily basis.

Because this picture you’re developing is your life’s goal, I recommend, just as with any goal, that you write it down. Or, if you are artistically driven, you can draw it, paint it, sculpt it, or make it physical in whatever way works best for you. However you do it, don’t allow your legacy to remain just an idea! Your legacy will be much more motivating when you can look it in the face each and every day.

Knowing that you have a purpose and that you are living your purpose every day is a wonderful thing. It makes me spring out of bed each morning, energized and excited! How many people do you know that look forward to their day, every day, in that way? So take the time to map out your legacy today. You’ll be giving yourself a path to personal development with a purpose, and that’s a path to success!

About the Author:
Paul Chek is an internationally renowned holistic health practitioner, consultant to some of the world’s most elite athletes and business professionals, and founder of PPS Success and the C.H.E.K Institute. His workshops and seminars have helped thousands of people from all walks of life to go after and reach their fullest potential.

Paul has produced more than 50 videos and 7 books, including his new ebook, The Last 4 Doctors You’ll Ever Need — How to Get Healthy Now! You can download a free chapter at http://www.thelast4doctors.com. Take your personal development to new levels with this groundbreaking multimedia experience!

Check out the Experts page for Paul Chek, the Official SelfGrowth.com Guide to Personal Development.

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*** Book Review:  Steering by Starlight: Find Your Right Life, No Matter What! - By Martha Beck ***
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In the tradition of her bestseller, “Finding Your Own North Star,” Oprah Magazine columnist Martha Beck reconnects readers with their best destinies.

Described as one of the best-known life coaches in America in media such as Psychology Today, NPR, and USA Today, Martha Beck has demonstrated a rare gift for helping people whose lives have gone off course find their way back to authentic, rewarding lives. Now, in “Steering by Starlight: Find Your Right Life, No Matter What!” Martha Beck describes the step-by-step process she uses with her private clients to help them navigate the terrain of their best lives.

Bringing together cutting-edge research in psychiatry, neurology, and related fields in an accessible, substantive, original way, Dr. Beck offers powerful new methods for solving the problems that beset ordinary people. Using her trademark wisdom, empathy, and engaging style, she connects readers with fresh, never-before published strategies that have proven most effective and efficient for the hundreds of people she has coached. For readers who have found their North Stars, this book will be an invaluable tool to stay the course and overcome obstacles. For those who still feel adrift, it will provide a way to find true North and follow the path of best destiny.

Dr. Beck identifies three stages along the path to recapturing a satisfying life:
 

* “the stargazer” helps readers understand why it’s so easy to lose themselves and offers strategies for sighting their North Star

* “the mapmaker” uses this newly clarified perspective to evaluate one’s situation and plot a course for upcoming years

* “the pathfinder” discusses the adventures that may be encountered as one travels along this new life course

Whether it’s seeking better relationships, more focused career direction, the achievement of specific fitness goals, or a more harmonious lifestyle, “Steering by Starlight’s” colorful anecdotes, case studies, and exercises will point the way.

*****
The list price of this book is $24.95. To purchase it from Amazon.com for $12.47, a 50% discount, go here.

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*** Brief News of the World ***

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Positive:

* Vets OK sea turtle Dylan for release into wild *

Weighing 150 pounds and strong enough to require five men to wrestle her out of her saltwater tank, Dylan the sea turtle is ready to be set free after nine years in captivity and a final checkup by her veterinarian. Dylan’s release has been in the works for more than a year. The loggerhead sea turtle left her home at the Georgia Aquarium in May 2007 to live at the Georgia Sea Turtle Center on Jekyll Island, where the staff could prepare her to live on her own. (Click here for complete news story)

* Chinese investor pays $2.1M to eat with Buffett: Charity auction benefits S.F. poor; most expensive ever held on eBay *

* Man Saves Black Bear from Drowning: Animal Had Wandered Into Fla. Neighborhood; Bolted Into Gulf of Mexico After Being Hit with Tranquilizer Dart *

A Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) biologist pulled off a daring rescue off the Panhandle — that of a bear. Officials say a 375-pound male black bear was seen roaming a residential neighborhood, evidently in search of food, near Alligator Point, some 40 miles south of Tallahassee. The bear was hit with a tranquilizer dart, but he managed to bolt into the Gulf of Mexico before the drugs took effect. At that point, FWC biologist Adam Warwick jumped in to keep the bear, who was some 25 yards offshore, from drowning. (Click here for complete news story)
 

** For more positive news, please visit http://www.selfgrowth.com/news.html

Other:

* Magnetic migraine zapper shows promise: Device sends electric current to brain’s nerve cells to halt headaches *

A hand-held device that painlessly sends a magnetic pulse into the head may offer some migraine sufferers relief, a small study suggests. The device delivers a therapy known as transcranial magnetic stimulation, or TMS. It sparks a magnetic pulse that, when held against a person’s head, creates an electric current among the nerves cells of the brain.
(Click here for complete news story)

* Company tests eye-controlled ‘wearable’ gadgets *

Rolling your eyes to turn up the volume of a portable music player and tapping your fingers to turn on a DVD player are among technologies Japan’s top mobile carrier is testing for “wearable” gadgets. In one version, sensors and chips inside headphones detect electrical current produced by movements of the wearer’s eyeballs, says Masaaki Fukumoto, executive research engineer at NTT DoCoMo. (Click here for complete news story)

* Mars teams up with IBM to map cocoa genome *

US chocolate and sweets giant Mars is teaming up with IBM to study and map the cocoa genome in a move which could enhance the production of stronger plants, the companies said Thursday. The firms bid to analyze the key ingredient in chocolate will also be supported by researchers at the US Department of Agriculture. The companies said their research, which they expect to last five years, could benefit over 6.5 million farmers around the world and help sustain the planet’s chocolate supply. (Click here for complete news story)

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