This isn’t about sheltering them from all failure. You want them to have their own experiences and grow from them. Rather, passing on a set of practical and emotional tools can empower them to find their own way in the world.

Let’s look at some of the essential life skills you should teach.

Navigating Relationships

Relationships are among the most challenging aspects of adult life. Every relationship we undertake is different. Each person’s individual needs and emotions influence the journeys we take together. This means there’s never any single “right” way to navigate all relationships. So, how can you possibly hope to prepare your teen?

Well, many of the most important tools for relationships are related to emotional intelligence. Guide your child in developing the following attributes among others:

• Empathy: This is the ability to understand another person’s perspectives and feelings. It is, of course, vital in relationships because it allows one to recognize and respect the different needs of those they interact with.
• Self-awareness: This revolves around a person being aware of their own feelings, moods, and behaviors. Importantly, they recognize how these affect others in a relationship. Self-awareness enables them to communicate more effectively about their needs and manage their emotions.

Alongside these, you’ll need to pay some attention to helping your teen better understand romantic relationships. Teach and reinforce the foundations of mutual respect. Discuss how to approach ensuring all parties are fully able to express their consent.

It’s also really worth remembering that each generation’s views on romantic relationships shift with the times. Take the time to frame your discussions in the context of how your teen is likely to experience relationships. For instance, discuss how dating online affects communicating honestly and openly with romantic partners. Given that many modern couples are postponing marriage, talk your teen through maintaining strong partnerships outside of traditional structures.

Financial Literacy

Money matters aren’t exactly the most pleasant parts of adult life. Nevertheless, they’re somewhat inescapable. While there can be a great deal of stress around finances, providing your teen with skills here is empowering. The sooner they get practice with responsible attitudes to money, the greater stability they’re likely to have for their future.

Solid financial literacy requires discipline. Money’s not an infinite resource, after all. Teach your teenager the fundamental practices that help them keep track of and control their funds. This can include:

Budgeting: Yes, budgeting is boring. Yet, it is essential for full visibility of what funds a person has available and what resources they must go toward. Show your teenager how to develop a monthly budget and direct their finances in the correct places before spending their disposable income.

Creating an emergency fund: Unexpectedly expensive challenges can lie ahead in life. These could be related to home repairs, medical expenses, and unemployment, among others. Talk to your teen about the importance of directing a portion of their disposable income toward an emergency fund. This helps them to more comfortably navigate difficulties.

Managing credit scores: Having a solid credit score can open up more financial opportunities. This includes loans, mortgages, and business financing. Teach your teen how to responsibly build their score and how disciplined behavior keeps this high.

Alongside these aspects, help your teen grasp the day-to-day financial elements. This may include finding the best deals for everything from weekly grocery shopping to gas prices. Talk them through reducing household overheads, such as more efficient electricity use. Another good topic is how to use a tax calculator. Have them shadow you in your financial activities so they get a practical sense of how they can behave once they strike out on their own.

Communicating Effectively

Not everybody is able to easily navigate interactions with others. This can create hurdles everywhere from the workplace to friendships. Not only is this a practical issue, but not feeling able to communicate can be a huge source of stress and anxiety. This is why it’s so vital to make sure your teen has some communication skills before they fly the nest.

A couple of elements worth focusing on are:

• Active listening: Help your teen to understand that communication isn’t just about making themselves heard. They also need to effectively listen to others. Being an active listener lets them better process the other person’s perspectives and respond in the most appropriate ways. Teach them about being attentive to both the words and emotions of others. Encourage them to repeat back some of the other person’s phrases to show they’ve been listening.
• Reading the room: Different situations require varied approaches to communication. Talk your teen through how to recognize when formal and informal language is most appropriate. Noticing sensitivities and moods in others also lets them adjust their language to different needs.

Simply explaining these elements of communication may not be the best approach. Perhaps devise some role-playing exercises to better demonstrate the points you’re putting across. You should also encourage your teen to practice good communication techniques in everyday life. You can then talk about how this practice affects their understanding of your lessons and how their new communication processes affect how they feel.

Conclusion

The essential life skills you must pass on to your teenager straddle the practical and emotional. Guidance on respectful relationships, solid finances, and effective communication are great places to start. Alongside this, consider giving your teen insights into the mistakes you’ve made in the past. Your struggles and how you’ve navigated them are great resources that they can learn from. Not to mention that this peek into your humanity is relatable, which may strengthen your relationship at this transitional time.

Photo Credit

Photo by Any Lane on Pexels

Guest Author Bio
Luke Smith

Luke Smith is a writer and researcher turned blogger. He enjoys writing on a variety of topics but business, technology, and digital marketing topics are his favorite. When he isn’t writing you can find him traveling, hiking, or getting into the latest tech.

Oh yeah. That something was me.

Third time a charm, hitting that submit button would change my life forever.

Rocking the Boat

When I started grad school, I was working for a local government entity. It was the longest I’d ever had a job, closing in on a decade. I wasn’t about to leave it. Instead, I wanted to use my graduate degree to increase my career development opportunities and enhance my learning.

Instead, my new studies began to show me a side of my job I hadn’t noticed before: the failures of management. I began to see my inexperienced boss’s open-door policy for what it was: a way of appeasing her employees without actually having to interact with us. Even the weekly meetings she instituted weren’t enough.

She did one thing right by holding them on Monday mornings, but instead of being a collaborative meeting, they turned into a platform for many of the team members to complain about others. I began using it as an opportunity to rock the proverbial boat.

Before I started grad school, I wasn’t one to question authority. However, I began noticing that my organization’s management told employees one thing and did another. I realized it was time to ask myself some questions about the authority figures in my organization.

Finding my Confidence

My leadership development course was one of the main contributors to my newfound confidence at work. It was critical in my ability to effectively challenge authority at the organization. We studied emotional intelligence and learning styles. I began to see that emotional intelligence in my workplace was very different from the classroom.

Emotional intelligence has become a buzz term in leadership and management circles, but having invested a lot of my academic time in studying, I’ve realized it is a legitimate theory. We can develop our EQ in order to manage our own behaviors and those of others. In fact, EQ can be used to manipulate rather than manage.

However, I saw instead that many members of management thought of themselves as highly emotionally intelligent when instead, they were emotionally stunted. As I learned more about EQ and other leadership concepts, I began to assert myself.

Leaving the Ship

In fact, I began to assert my desire for career development as I’d never done before. Career development is key for employers who want to retain top talent. Yet, my organization failed at career development in all aspects.

Graduate degrees became prerequisites for getting interviews, no matter the experience of the individual applying for the position. This is certainly the trend in business today, but I questioned the validity of the practice in a government organization with no real career development program.

A year into my graduate program, I was starting to exhibit many of the signs that a career change might be in order. My skin looked terrible, I was grumpy, and I was starting to get bored by work that used to challenge me.

It was time I took the qualities that made me a successful online learner and the skills I was building elsewhere. During one of my courses, I was asked to make a to do list for the next five to 10 years. One of the things on my list was work at a local tech startup.

Eight years to the day I started at the municipality, I was able to cross that off my list. When I tendered my resignation, I had the courage to tell my manager there was nothing left for her to do to keep me. I took my new self-confidence, degree, and desire for a challenge and waved good-bye to an established career and said hello to my ever-evolving new day job. Hitting that “submit” button two years ago was one of the best things I’ve ever done for myself.

Photo Credit

Photo by Visualhunt.com

Guest Author Bio

H. E. James, MBA
Hattie is a writer and researcher living in Boise, Idaho. She has a varied background, including education and sports journalism. She is a former electronic content manager and analyst for a government agency. She recently completed her MBA and enjoys local ciders.

Follow Hattie: Twitter | Linkedin

The time when men were expected to open doors for women, pay the bills and give up their seat on a bus or a train have certainly passed. Women can now open their own doors, pay for their own meals and stay standing, although they do still appreciate the occasional chivalrous gesture. They’ve become breadwinners in many households and have become financially independent. They also expect household chores to be shared. This leaves men unsure of their role in this new landscape. Man Talks addresses these issue. Connor says “Men have been trying to live up to society’s norms & expectations, which is to be stoic, not show any emotions and take care of everyone else. I wanted men to be able to take a step back, reflect and have real conversations around this and establish a brotherhood.”

Connor started Man Talks in 2014. He wanted to make a living doing something purposeful while helping people along the way. Connor is not simply about putting speakers on a stage. That would have him indistinguishable from the thousands of self-improvement Meetup organizers trying to make a buck doing the same thing. Connor is serious about spreading a message of awareness. He is in the process of partnering up with Movember (which is a men’s movement aimed at bringing awareness about prostate cancer for those of you who are not familiar with this) and is organizing a CHANGE HEROES campaign in Ethiopia.

Life wasn’t always a bed of roses, though. “I flunked out of high school” says Connor “and worked at a gravel pit. That’s how I learned that I hated construction.” So Connor did what any failed construction worker would do: he pursued a career singing opera, which became a passion for a few years. “I did the starving artist thing,” says Connor “and traveled extensively all over Europe singing opera. Once I was done with that, I had to step back and reflect. Although my life looked cool on paper, I had become depressed.”

So Connor did some journaling, reflecting and read a lot of books, which included Freud and Quantum Mechanics. He ended up reinventing himself by getting a job as a sales manager and being part of the ‘normal’ crowd of regular wage-earners. He continued to ask questions internally, though, and still didn’t feel complete. Connor became fascinated with human potential and how people can live full lives and have an impact on the world. And so the idea for Man Talks came about.

“My biggest passion is to help people (1) live a life of purpose, (2) uncover their gifts and (3) find self-fulfillment,” says Connor adding “the challenge of this generation is that they don’t know what their purpose is and what problems they could address to make the world a better place.  So they end up following someone else’s vision.” Wise words from someone who was traveled inward and come back to share that journey and help everyone else with theirs. Connor Beaton will be on the stage of TEDxStanleyPark on May, 2016 to speak about what’s “Behind the Man Mask”.

Here is a short video of Connor speaking about The ManTalks Movement.

Photo Credit

Photo is a screen capture from the YouTube video

Guest Author Bio

George Verdolaga
George Verdolaga is an author, educator and speaker. He helps people get out of their own way so that they can reach their career and lifestyle goals faster and more efficiently via The Job Farmer and The Contractor Lifestyle books and his Sitting Pretty Course.

Read his blog here and be sure to subscribe to his e-Newsletter.

Blog / Website: Verdolaga Learning Systems

The problem with traditional goal-setting is that it usually begins with a statement or declaration of desire, want, or need, and it lacks the diligent work required to be successful. At its best, some logical and critical thinking might be applied to the actions, tasks and steps required to move you towards a goal; but the whole process lacks the depth that these critical factors require to ensure success.

As a result, this traditional goal-setting method represents a huge ‘gap’. It is a shallow effort that fails to warrant respect, because it ultimately lacks integrity and real authenticity.

It lacks ‘Skin in the Game’. And it lacks all of the tactile physical and emotional experiential learning and engagement gained by doing. Consider these analogies:

• Talking about music, versus playing it.
• Studying how to fly an airplane, versus actually flying a plane.
• Reading about leadership versus stepping into a leadership role.
• Being a critic of anyone who is on the field doing, versus you’re sitting safely in the stands, being judgmental.

Traditional goal-setting is the less serious or ‘lite’ version of real goal leadership and achievement.

Now that we’ve provided some context to the title of this article, ‘You Will Never Reach Your Goals’, let’s look at the Five Critical Factors for successfully reaching your goals.

Your success is dependent on you having the deep wisdom necessary that you have gained by living and experiencing each of these five critical factors at the worst of times, and at the best of times.

1. Why – easier said than done, discovering your deep whys will become what drives your motivation, commitment, and willpower. It will become the thing that you fight for.
2. Sacrifice – a key question everyone forgets to consistently ask, ‘what am I willing to give or give up to reach my goal’? It’s the consequence of creating a change and accepting risk.
3. Go/No-Go – here’s a critical distinction, its not just about being clear on the requirements of a goal, it will never happen without executing the go/no-goes.
4. Tolerance – this is the flip-side of ‘Why’, and it’s that deep awareness and understanding of your capacity to tolerate the hardship and the risk/fear of failure when stepping into that zone of discomfort.
5. Reflection – we’re talking reflection at a forensic level here. Measuring performance in terms of small wins and losses, their cause & effect, modifying tactics, asking for help, and celebrating the lessons, the milestones met, and the successes.

Be warned, knowing these five critical factors is just the first step, because simply knowing them won’t be enough. Your awareness must go beyond knowing these five critical factors intellectually, to include your direct experience of them, both emotionally and physically.

The Five Critical Factor approach to goal-setting provides the breadth and the depth of diligence required to provide a high degree of certainty in reaching your goals without all the stress of uncertainty. And it will give you the opportunity to abandon or modify a goal at anytime with the comfort and pride that you put in the thorough effort required into being the masterful architect of achieving your dreams and desires.

To learn more about how to build your capacity and increase your level of mastery to reach your goals through improved self-leadership, click here.

Photo credit:

Greg Martin: All right reserved. 

This isn’t another post to tell you how to manage stress. Managing stress is about coping, or simply surviving, or getting by. There’s more to life than coping.

This article is about enabling you to become a leader, and not just any leader, but an authentic Level 5 Leader; a leader who possesses a high degree of emotional and social intelligence, with a crystal clear mission and the willpower to convert their mission into a ‘cause’ for the greater good of others ahead of themselves.

With this kind of leadership capacity you will have the ability to transform stress from being harmful, to becoming a performance multiplier and a tool that calls you into action.

Interested? Read on.

Let’s begin with establishing some context; and for this we’ll utilize this definition of stress.

Stress – is the emotional and physical reaction that happens when we resist, regret, and/or begrudgingly accept our current reality.

In this contextual definition, stress is simply a call-to-action, and nothing else. Oh, and by the way, the call-to-action is yours! You’re the one who is accountable for the stress once its present in your life, and no one else.

Now that we’ve established context and accountability, lets make a very important distinction:

Your experience of stress is present as a result of either:

1. Something, someone, or some event that has happened, or is happening completely out of your control, or
2. Is present because of something you’ve done or not done

So the distinction here is, regardless how the stress manifests, its cause only serves as a learning opportunity for prevention in the future; and not an excuse to become and remain a victim of it.

What’s really important here is, no matter how the stress came into existence, once it’s present; you’re accountable for it.

Let’s recap.

• Stress can be created by you or by someone else
• Stress continues to exist as a result of your inactions or actions
• Stress is a necessary indicator calling for you to choose and create the reality ‘you’ want,
• Stress is a ‘call-to-action’ for you to take a leadership role, and
• Whether you created stress or not, doesn’t matter, its your ‘tool’ for leadership

To ensure you have the capacity to be fully responsible for the leadership that’s required here, you’ll need to adopt and develop a high level of self-awareness, emotional/social and relationship intelligence (AKA – Level 5 Leadership). In fact, to develop these elements at an exponential rate, you have to develop them all at the same time. And here’s the ‘KICKER’…

‘You can’t learn this stuff from reading a BOOK, ARTICLE, or BLOG…or by sitting on your butt in a class room’

To learn it, you have to experience it, in a full body and mind way, through a completely guided, physical, emotional, and intellectual experience.

Become the kind of leader that takes a stand for what’s important and transforms stress from being harmful, to becoming your personal trigger that calls you into ACTION.

Click here to find more info on this unique leadership training.

Photo Credit

Diagram courtesy of Greg Martin

Sunset after a storm in Tucson, Arizona

But I have prevailed. I learned the lessons my journey taught me, looped them back and applied them. As a result, I lead a life of balance, clarity and joy. So, here in random order, are some of those lessons:

Accept that life is not about you. Nobody owes you anything. Life is neither fair nor unfair. It just is.

Life has peaks and valleys. To paraphrase Kipling, “treat these two impostors just the same”. It gives you perspective. As you travel through those unavoidable valleys, create pockets of joy. It will make the trip to the peaks easier. If you cannot be happy aim for contentment. This is your job, nobody can do this for you.

Set high standards for integrity and honesty and then live without regrets.

Put the interests of those you love before your own. It takes nothing away from you to do so.

Adversity is a great teacher – learn from it. Delete the following from your narrative: victim, self-pity, self-doubt, guilt, regret, procrastination.

Accept who you are. Don’t let social and cultural norms define you. Your humanity not your labels define you.

Be your own best friend and enjoy your company. Let others compete for your time.

Make peace with the fact that doors on parts of your life will close. If you allow it, other doors will open. Enjoy every phase of your life and learn from them.

Make your life count for something. It does not matter what as long as your contribution to someone or something is meaningful.

Make plans for the future and be prepared but live in the present. Don’t miss the “now”.

Photo Credits

Photos by Tom Body – All Rights Reserved

Guest Author Bio

Monica Gurdjian

Monica Gurdjian was born in Bucharest, Romania during the Communist regime. Her mother was a Viennese operetta singer of Jewish descend and her father an Armenian Roman Orthodox surgeon. The family fled to Austria and then to Iran where they lived for 13 years. Monica spent her formative years in Iran before immigrating to Canada. She pursued multiple careers which included the United Nations, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service and managing her own international management consulting firm. Monica and her husband are retired and with the pit bull Tiger divide their time between Victoria, British Columbia and Tucson, Arizona. Their son lives in Denver, where he works for a multinational company.

Blog / Website: Monica Gurdjian

Connect with Monica: Facebook

Read Monica’s Book – NO LABELS

One of my jobs has been to update job descriptions. When I came to the Youth Care Worker one I had to really think about it. Youth Care Worker is usually the position people in the human service field start out with. New youth care workers are the people who apply, all full of hope and ideas and excitement about how they are going to make a big difference in people’s lives. I love them, because they are going to make a big difference. I don’t tell them it doesn’t usually happen before some one pukes in their car. It’s hard to put the stuff they have to do in a job description. The template has no place for a competency in knowing the kid you just dropped off at school went out the back door to her boyfriends. It doesn’t have a box to check that the worker knows the right thing to tell a kid when no one shows up at their birthday party.

I’m not sure what course a worker needs to teach them patience, sense of humor, and common sense, because they aren’t going to survive without those three things. I have to put in the job description that they need to be available at weird hours because crisis doesn’t happen just between 9 a.m. and 4 p.m. I want to put in that they need to know when to be quiet and watch and listen, but they also need to know when to scream for help. The youth care workers I know do amazing work. They have to figure out the right resources for each child they see, and that can vary greatly. Youth care workers spend time in real activities engaged with kids who need them. And that real time, it makes a difference. It says to a kid “You count.” It should never be underestimated in its value to the child or to the worker.  Any time spent helping a child helps a worker to grow as well .

I think the job description need to list competencies in soul bandaging, mind reading, dancing in the rain. They need to be strong enough to catch kids who are falling and lift kids who need boosting. Sometimes I think they need to be gymnasts because the job can be a balancing act. They need to be able to connect with kids at the place they are at, and be the bridge to parents and other professionals. Sometimes that bridge is stretched pretty far.

Over the years I’ve gotten good at recognizing which new youth care workers are going to stay. Sometimes it’s how their faces light up when they tell me how great the activity they planned turned out. Sometimes it’s when they cry talking about the sadness in one of their kids lives. Always it’s hope they hold…hope that human connection in real activities can improve a child’s life.

I need to be able to fit that in the damn template.

Photo Credit:

I am a youth worker because… by guttersnipe.76 via Flickr Creative Commons.
Some rights reserved.

What is procrastination?

Scientific explorations of procrastination do not abound, but some interesting work has nonetheless been carried out.

In 1995, Schouwenburg defined procrastination as the behaviour of postponing tasks, describing this behaviour as dilatory, needless and counterproductive. This rather straightforward definition, although completely right, is even better understood when enhanced with additional concepts. Solomon and Rothblum, for instance, characterized procrastination in 1984 as the act of needlessly delaying tasks past the point of discomfort; the addition of this “uncomfortable” aspect of procrastination unveiled by Solomon and Rothblum brings us a step further in our comprehension of the behaviour. Then, in 1994, Lay defined procrastination in terms of an intention: the individual who procrastinates must nevertheless have some genuine intent to complete the task.

Putting all of the above together, we can assert with a pretty high level of confidence that procrastination is a behaviour that seeks to delay a task although the individual has the intention of carrying it out because he or she is required to do so. The postponing of the task is needless because there is no actual reason to wait any longer before getting down to work; it is counterproductive because it can affect the quality of the outcome; and it causes discomfort because it  puts the individual in a stressful situation and can ultimately have negative effects on his or her self-esteem.

How common is procrastination and what are its effects?

Some researchers have attempted to measure the occurrence of procrastination, and the results they obtained are quite worrying: according to various authors cited in a 2007 article by Steel, between 80% and 95% of college students claim to engage in procrastination, and some 15% to 20% of adults are apparently chronically affected by the habit. An overwhelming majority of those who claim to have a tendency to procrastinate recognize that their behaviour is detrimental to their mental health and productivity and show some willingness to reduce its incidence.

Steel’s article states that procrastinators are prone to feeling remorse and guilt because of their inaction. Increased stress also appears to result from procrastination; the approaching deadline produces an escalation in stress levels. Anxiety also can come out of procrastination, for those who fail to achieve what they had planned to do on a given work day tend to keep thinking about what they did not finish even after they leave the office.

A 2005 survey reported that 94% of people who procrastinate claim that their lethargy has a negative impact on their happiness; 18% of those actually say the impact is extremely negative. Procrastination is believed to affect not only one’s mood , but also one’s performance: studies show a negative correlation between needlessly delaying a task and exam grades, course GPA and overall GPA. Others show that procrastination is also negatively correlated with one’s health and financial well being.

Can procrastination be fought?

Many wonder how procrastination can be overcome, and the answer is not quite clear. Some claim procrastination is inherent in one’s personality and, therefore, it can only be “cured” if one works hard at altering his or her personality. But an interesting study by Ferrari and Tice (2000) suggests something very interesting.

Their first conclusion is that individuals who rate themselves as habitual procrastinators also tend to self-handicap the most in situations where procrastination is quite harmful (before and exam, for example). Their second conclusion goes further: it gives us a clue as to why people procrastinate and how this behaviour can be fought.

Ferrari and Tice exposed their subjects to a math problem; some were told that their cognitive abilities would be evaluated, and others that the math problem was a fun game. All of the participants were provided with entertaining alternatives, in case they preferred to procrastinate a little instead of practicing before the test. The results were striking: even chronic procrastinators did not postpone the task they were asked to perform when it was described as “fun” or as a “game,” but they did procrastinate when it was presented as an “evaluative” and therefore important task!

Does the key to avoiding procrastination lie in this conclusion – namely, that procrastination can be avoided simply by believing that the task to be performed is meant to be fun? Does one only need to be told this to believe it or does one need to genuinely be fond of what he or she is told to do? Could a good start to fighting procrastination simply be to make a real effort to look at the silver lining that exists in every cloud?

As a first step in overcoming the habit of procrastination, perhaps you should ask yourself what you can get out of the tasks you have to do even though you’d rather put them on the back burner: even if the gain seems relatively small, becoming aware of the potential dividends is likely to help you accomplish your tasks and end up feeling some kind of satisfaction, both because you know that you got something out of them and because you finally followed your ideal schedule.

Bear in mind that finishing something remains the best way to get rid of it, to feel proud that you did it, and then to have enough time to do something else!

Image Credits

“procrastination” by cheerfulmonk. Creative Commons Flickr. Some rights reserved.

“I am Procrastinating by Taking a Procrastination Test: I scored as an Above Average Procrastinator”
by Tricia Wang. Creative Commons Flickr. Some rights reserved.

Guest Author Bio

Alexandre Duval
Alexandre Duval is a freelance blogger for Tourisme Montreal that offers travel and hotels information in Montreal. He is currently completing his master’s degree in political science at the University of Quebec in Montreal.

When someone that matters to us is hurtful we will naturally feel painful emotions such as anger and sadness. We may find ourselves dwelling on the injustice of the situation and holding grudges. Gradually these negative feelings overshadow the positive feelings in our lives, leaving us filled with resentment. That eventually leads to spiritual paralysis and detrimental physical destruction.

The stress of these self-defeating attitudes affects our well being; it may wreak havoc on our immune system, raise our blood pressure, and possibly lead to substance abuse. We may find ourselves suffering from anxiety and depression.

Forgiveness is a hard concept for many of us to grasp. Some think forgiveness is about letting someone who has wronged us off the hook or reinforcing their bad behavior. On the surface it may appear that we are handing someone a “Get out of Jail Free Card,” giving them permission to have crossed the line with us. But that is not what forgiveness is about.

Forgiveness does not justify a wrongdoing. We can sincerely forgive someone without excusing their actions. It actually has very little to do with the other person. It is all about letting the burden of our own resentments go.

At best, the emotional energy expended on betrayal should be proportionate to the offense. A problem occurs when it is not—when we cling tightly to the pain of the past and allow the wrongdoing to define us. By allowing our past to consume us, the bitterness we hold on to will likely infiltrate and impede every new relationship and every new experience. We allow the joy of the present to pass us by while remaining stuck in resentments we have about the past.

Forgiveness is a promise we make to ourselves to change our life. It is about releasing ourselves from the grip that hinders our well-being—the negative hold we have essentially allowed the other person to have over us.

The decision to forgive is one that requires the weighing of issues. It is often not easily done. It becomes particularly challenging when the wrongdoer does not offer a sincere apology or show heartfelt remorse for his actions, or when he continually reoffends. It is difficult when we are not given the assurance that this will never happen again.

Occasionally an offender will make forgiveness easy for us but that is not the norm. People have the tendency to think they are right and are often not willing to look at the situation any other way. Sometimes they come around, sometimes they do not. Some people will apologize, some will not.

Sometimes apologies are offered but are not sincere. An apology is difficult to swallow when it is offered and then canceled out with the word, “but.” And there are times when promises to do better in the future are flimsy—when we are told that the other person “will try to do better” instead of assuring us that they are doing better.

Relationships can only be salvaged when apologies and forgiveness are genuinely given and accepted. There certainly are situations when reconciliation may be impossible or inappropriate. But when relationships can be worked out, choosing to forgive someone is a gesture of closure. When we genuinely forgive someone we do not revisit the offense—we do not hold it over the other person’s head or relive the pain we have attached to it. When it is over it is over.

When practicing forgiveness we must be mindful that there will be times when we will want to be forgiven. How can we ask for something that we are unwilling to give? We must always remember to show the mercy, faith, and love that we expect from others.

We have limited perspective into what motivates another to do, say, or act the way he does. When we feel wronged it is always worthwhile to consider the other person’s point of view—to take the circumstances that may have influenced him to do what he did into account. Putting ourselves in someone else’s shoes may be a very helpful healing tool.

Forgiveness is a process that takes time; in the end it is our choice whether or not to offer mercy or share our forgiveness with the person who wronged us. We make that decision based on what is best for us.

Forgiveness is about healing, growing, and evolving. It is never our job to exact punishment on others for their transgressions. That is best left up to the Karmic laws of the Universe.

When we forgive others we allow ourselves the peace of mind we deserve. It is an act of self-love and self-love is a choice we have to make every day.

Photo Credits

“To Do List Concept: Forgive” –   © Ralukatudor | Dreamstime.com

“Forgiveness”  RhiannonDawnStarr   Photobucket

“I’m Strong Enough”   Sayingimages.com  

Thumbnail – “Forgiveness” DGomes27 Photobucket

Endings are not sudden, nor are beginnings. They come about through the process of transition. Transitions, the uncertain spaces between the beginnings and endings of change, the pauses and processes of life, are inevitable. Life does not exist without transition; it conveys us through the many stages of life.

Many processes of transition are subtle, occurring fluently and without our awareness. Our bodies and minds easily acclimate to them. But change, whether good or bad, can also be very difficult. We feel off kilter when the comfort of the familiar and convenient becomes the discomfort of the unfamiliar and inconvenient, when we are forced to adjust our lives in ways that seem foreign to us.

We all view the transitions that occur in our lives differently. The way we perceive them is based on a variety of factors; our personalities, life experiences, emotional fortitude, coping skills, habitual behaviors, life styles, age, economic status, and more.

Transitions are stressful for everyone, but for those who are creatures of habit and very resistant to change, transitions may be extraordinarily so. Those who look forward to and welcome change more easily adjust to the process that goes along with it.

Change is an inevitable reality for all of us; it will come whether we are prepared for it or not. It is just another one of life’s challenges. A transition can either flow through its course or turn into a crisis. It is what we make of it.

It is normal to feel vulnerable, fearful, inadequate, and disoriented when the big question mark representing our future looms large in front of us. But transitions serve a very important purpose in our lives; they are opportunities for us to learn, grow, and gain a new understanding of ourselves. They show us what we are made of, what our strengths and weaknesses, assets and liabilities are, so we can evaluate our lives and set new goals. They allow us to edit the story of our lives and give ourselves a new beginning.

We not only transition in life, we transition between lives. Birth is a transition, death is a transition, our journey to the other side some call heaven is a transition. From our efforts on the other side our souls transition to different levels of consciousness until they reach perfection.

Transition plays a huge part in our spiritual growth. We are spiritual beings living in physical bodies, here to progress our souls. There is a much bigger picture and ultimate goal for our pain and efforts in the physical world. It is not about money, expertise, or recognition. The progresses we make and the people we help as we go through the stages of life propel our spiritual growth forward. If we do not change we don’t grow.

Transition is the way the Universe gives us the lessons we need to learn and keeps us on the path that is best for us. Faith plays a huge part in it. Believing that we are never alone and that we always have divine guidance will carry us when we find it hard to carry ourselves. As difficult as life sometimes seem, understand that there is a greater plan for everything that happens—have faith in the perfection of the Universe.

Though we cannot always choose our circumstances, we can choose how we deal with them. We can be victims of circumstance and give away our personal power or we can make the best of the hand we are dealt and steer the course of our lives.

Yes, transition is uncomfortable and difficult but nothing in life would exist without it. Insecurity and discomfort are part of the process. Acceptance of our reality is what will get us through it. Resistance and avoidance only hinder the process and get us stuck. Flexibility is necessary to making easier transitions.

Transitions have beginnings and ends. We just have to push our way through the fog until we reach the end of each one. The end will always come, followed by a new beginning. We cannot possibly know what is in store for us, but hindsight of our past will assure us that everything will work out for the best. The confusion will pass, our clarity will be restored, and our vitality for living will return.

Embrace transition as a positive process that you can trust, an opportunity for rebirth. Life has a way of always working out, though it may take time to see the positive outcome. We can choose to have a positive outlook, to welcome change as a growth opportunity, even if we do not understand the reasons behind the transition or are unprepared for the process. There is much in life that we do not understand. It is the big picture that counts.

Photo Credits

‘Believe’ and ‘Everything Changes’ – Randi G. Fine – All Rights Reserved

Butterfly by Delta Green on Flickr.com – Some Rights Reserved

Life begins at the end of your comfort zone –  Credit Pending