Dr. Phil Sez

Sometimes, when we find our lives spiraling out of control, we turn our anger on others. But, is that really how you want to behave? Is your anger making your life more difficult, interfering with your relationships, causing you chronic unhappiness?

Dr. Phil gives the following suggestions:

Define your payoffs, then cut them out. You're getting something from your behavior, or else you wouldn't do it. Work on gaining confidence—low self-esteem and pent up guilt gives you an excuse to sit on the sidelines. It gives you an excuse to be less than you can be.

Behave your way to success. Your past easily becomes your future because what you fear, you create. If you feel deprived of some experience, or emotion from some one else, give yourself emotional closure. Give yourself what you didn't get from someone else now. Create what you want out of life. If you want to be loved, be loveable. If you want to get your family interested in your life, get interested in their lives.

You choose your behavior; you chose the consequences. You are an adult now and you need to take responsibility for your actions. You can't blame your family anymore. You are old enough to do something about your feelings. Your family can't take this on. The greatest stress in life is to hold someone else accountable for something they can't control. The only person you control is you.

It all comes back to the life law statement, "You've got to name it before you can claim it." If you are stuck in an unsatisfying life, ask yourself what would make you happy? Write out what you need to hear from your family that you've never heard before. Be very specific. Give your list to your family. Ask them to read it, consider it and respond. Open your heart, put the spirit of criticism aside. Be ready to do the same for your family.

Ending The Cycle

This was originally printed in the June 5, 2008 DailyOM and we thought it a fitting compliment to the newsletter:

Ending The Cycle
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One of the hardest things in life is feeling stuck in a situation that we don’t like and want to change. We may have exhausted ourselves trying to figure out how to make change, and we may even have given up. However, each day offers us an opportunity to renew our resolve and to declare to the universe that we are ready for change. We may even say out loud that we have tried and struggled and have not found a way, but that we are open to help, and that we intend to keep working to create change for ourselves. Making this declaration to the universe, and to ourselves, may be just the remedy for the stagnation we are experiencing. And, it can be done today, right now.

It is difficult to understand, even with hindsight, how the choices we have made have added up to our current situation, but it is a good idea to examine the story we tell ourselves. If we tend to regard ourselves as having failed, this will block our ability to allow ourselves to succeed. We have the power to change the story we tell ourselves by acknowledging that in the past, we did our best, and we exhibited many positive qualities, and had many fine moments on our path to the present moment. We can also recognize that we have learned from our experiences, and that this will help us with our current choices.

When we do this kind of work on how we view our past self, we make it possible for the future to be based on a positive self-assessment. This inner shift may allow us to get out of the cycle we’ve been in that’s been keeping us stuck. Now we can declare our intentions to the universe, knowing that we have done the inner work necessary to allow our lives to change. Allow today to be the day to end cycles and enter into a new way of being.