Elisabeth Kuebler-Ross

Great Spirit, help me never to judge another until
I have walked in his moccasins for two weeks.

Sioux Indian Prayer

Love's way of dealing with us is different from
conscience's way.  Conscience commands; love inspires.
What we do out of love, we do because we want to.

Arnold Joseph Toynbee

Have you ever had a tight stomach before an important meeting, a pain in the neck after a confrontation, grinding teeth when you're chewing over a dilemma, or a frog in your throat before making a presentation? That's your body trying to tell you something! Physical cues like these are screaming, "Pay attention to me!" Listening and becoming aware of the messages your body sends is pivotal when you begin to cultivate your intuition.

Sometimes it's your entire body that gets the message. Marie was having a job interview, and she thought it was going quite well. But as soon as the interviewer mentioned hiring her for full-time employment, her body just wanted to get up and run away. She had to hold herself down to keep from jumping out of her chair. Fortunately, she paid attention to this warning and asked for time to think over the offer. Her discomfort stayed with her for the entire day, so she turned down the offer – even though she really needed the work.

Weeks later, a friend who did take that job told her she was very unhappy with this incredibly disorganized company. Marie's body knew this way ahead of her logical mind.

Writer and producer Arielle Ford, author of Hot Chocolate for the Mystical Lover, told me about a client who wanted her to do a big project involving huge sums of money. After the meeting, Arielle had a sick feeling. She somehow knew that working with this man would be a nightmare. She canceled the deal, and others later validated her intuitive assessment – he really was a pain to work with.

Many people literally get intuitive input from their gut or stomach. Writer Ray Bradbury said we can stay well if we pay more attention to our stomachs. The late J. Peter Grace, chairman of W R. Grace & Company, said simply that intuition "is what your stomach tells you." For Bradbury, Grace, and many other people, the "gut feeling" -- which emanates from the stomach or solar plexus -- acts as an intuitive barometer. 

The late Brandon Tartikoff, whose genius at television programming is legendary, was called the "man with the golden gut" because of his unerring ability to pick successful shows. Since executives in the entertainment field are immersed in a fast-moving and ever-changing industry, it is not surprising that people who rise to the top are highly intuitive. That is the only way they can survive.

Daniel Goleman's work on emotional intelligence indicates that emotional skills like self-awareness, empathy, motivation, and paying attention to gut feelings will contribute more to your well-being and success than your intellect or technical expertise. An integral part of emotional intelligence is knowing what you're feeling -- which includes noticing your gut feelings or intuition about important life decisions. 

After a decade of research, Goleman has isolated a large class of neurotransmitters, or brain chemicals called peptides, which were first discovered in the gut. He says, "They're identical mates to brain-cell receptors, and that means that what's working in large parts of the brain is also active in the gut, and the central nervous system is wiring the two together. So it's not really a surprise that gut feeling should be a way you get "messages."

Begin now to become aware of your body's messages. Notice, for example, when your stomach feels tight or heavy, your lower back hurts, your knee feels locked in place and can't move, or your gums ache. Ask yourself what's going on at that moment or in your life. Are you facing an unsettling decision at work, in relationships, in your personal life?

Begin to connect these bodily sensations to messages from your mind, heart, or soul. This is called making the mind-body connection. Sometimes they send messages in the form of puns, as dreams often do. If my neck abruptly begins to ache, for example, I ask myself, "Who's the pain in my neck annoying me right now?"

Start noting these instances in a journal to keep track of the correlation between these body bulletins and what's happening in your life. As you begin to become aware, you'll probably notice that you respond more quickly and appropriately.

   

Acting on intuition means heeding one's premonitions, paying attention to an inner voice, and responding to what seem like creative bolts from the blue.  When people feel uncertain -- in their jobs or their relationships -- it's often because they're not seeing the range of options that intuition can provide.  After explaining intuition's basic principles, Marcia Emery takes readers through a personal training course, helping them to develop their intuitive muscle and teaching them how to incorporate hunches into daily life.

Eyes Wide Open
tom walsh

Not-so-Common Sense

One of the most interesting behavioral traits that I notice in people (myself included, obviously) is our tendency to ignore common sense in situations that call for it.  I've watched people play around on the edge of six-hundred-foot cliffs at the Grand Canyon, acting as if there's no danger at all involved in doing so.  And they do this in spite of the great amount of documentation about people who have died doing just what they're doing.

I see countless people talking on cell phones and texting while driving on crowded city streets, even though there's tons of evidence that this is a very dangerous practice, and even though thousands of people a year are killed by the practice, including many innocent people in other vehicles.

I see people in relationships with others who mistreat and abuse them, and who stay in those relationships despite all the evidence that things simply aren't going to get better.

In all of these cases, it seems to me, people are using their own thoughts and logic to contradict what seems to be pretty strong common sense:  if there's danger involved, if someone could get hurt by what I'm doing, then I probably shouldn't do it.

Common sense seems to be dying, though, in the world.  We're so bombarded by information and hints from other people and even automated systems that tell us what to do and when to do it, that we seem to be losing the ability to think for ourselves and do what's most practical, situation by situation.  We're losing our pragmatism as more and more people convince us that we need the cell phones, that we need the text messaging, that we need the GPS systems for our vehicles (and even to wear when we're running or biking).

All these people are selling us, though, is convenience.  Their marketing tells us that they're selling us necessities, but in truth, the most helpful thing that we can develop in our lives--and it doesn't cost a cent to do so--is common sense.  The best thing that we can do for ourselves is to learn from the people who have been there and who have done that--learn ways to cope that we can use in many situations, learn problem-solving techniques that work in many ways, learn critical thinking skills that will help us to differentiate between things that are good for us and things that aren't.

If we do learn these things, though, we're not playing into the hands of those people who want to make money from us by selling us solutions, by taking care of our problems for us, by selling us convenience.  For example, study after study shows that car alarms provide no real deterrence to car thieves--they're basically expensive add-ons that are ineffective.  Yet how many people continue to spend money on them, not thinking about alternatives once someone brings up the idea of the alarm to them?  So if you're a person who wants to sell car alarms, do you want people to be able to think through the possibility and examine the alternatives?  Quite simply, no, you don't.

Common sense can help us in many different areas of our lives.  In relationships, common sense says that we should treat people well if we expect to be treated well in return.  If we do treat people well, guess what?  Common sense says that if something seems too good to be true, it probably is.  But how many people succumb to scams that make them lose money and possessions?  Common sense says that if you can't afford something, you shouldn't buy it.  That way, we preserve our financial stability.  Common sense says that we should eat enough to keep us healthy, no more and no less.  But many people end up eating more than they need, or less, and end up being very unhealthy because they ignored their common sense.

Common sense, in the end, is simply a matter of trusting ourselves and acting on that trust.  It's especially effective if we learn and practice to think for ourselves instead of being reactive thinkers.  That way, we learn to trust our thoughts because we know the motivation behind them.  We truly never can know the motivations behind the thoughts of others, no matter how much we trust them.

If I could ask for one gift to get me through life happily and in good health, it would be common sense.  It's sad to see so many people not just ignoring common sense, but not even considering it as a possible source of answers to their questions and dilemmas.  No matter what the world tells us about how we should think, though, we always can reclaim that authentic part of ourselves that knows what's right and wrong, and that can see clearly the best directions to take based simply on common sense.

--- Show me the need to fulfill all responsibilities, both at home and away from it.

--- Care about the well-being of himself and his family.

--- Be a great overall example.

Needless to say, I still haven't found that one mentor yet.

Since I couldn't find that one special person to guide me, I needed to create a mentor.  Now, how does one go about doing something like that?  Well, it's not as hard as it seems.  You first have to determine what you want.  That is most important, not only because it's part of the mentor process but because it directly concerns what will make you happy in life.

Once you figure out what you want, find the people that have it or know how to get it and make sure they are willing to teach you how to get it.  You don't even have to know them personally.  As your mentors, they can teach you through a variety of ways:  books, audio tapes, lectures, seminars, etc.  A mentor then can have millions of protégés.

Here is some additional advice in finding mentors:

1.  You can learn from practically anybody.  In essence, anybody can be your mentor.  Not only can you learn what to do or how to behave, you can also learn to avoid the wrong paths that others have followed.

2.  Identify the key people in your life.  Mentors can be close family members like parents or siblings, and they can also be public figures.  Again, don't believe that you have to have a close relationship with your mentors.  Public figures can be key people in your life because they can have a profound effect on how you live it.

3.  Find people with specialized knowledge.  If certain people have written an insightful book on a particular subject or have inspirational life experiences to share, then they might be possible mentors who can help in motivating you.  Plus, if they are famous, they are easy to watch via television or the Internet, and their material is not difficult to find.

4.  Try to ask as much as possible.  Ask people for advice, ask them how they got where they are, ask them how you can get the same things.  Also ask yourself what certain people would say or how they would act in specific situations.  The more prepared you are, the less likely you'll make a mistake in the future.

5.  Mentors can simply be people who are happy in life!  Salary and position don't matter as long as there is contentment and commitment.  Mentors can range from athletes and politicians to religious figures and stay-at-home mothers.

I have hundreds of mentors.  So how many do you have?
  
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© Self Improvement Online, Inc.  David Riklan is the author of Self Improvement: The Top 101 Experts Who Help Us Improve Our Lives, an Encyclopedia on Self-Improvement with information, quotes, excerpts and bios on many experts, such as Tony Robbins, Zig Ziglar, Dr. Phil and Brian Tracy.  Visit http://selfgrowth.com.