Moxie Up! for Confident Courage and Authentic Greatness

Your Relationships Reflect Your Relationship with You

2010-04-28T09:19:00.000-07:00

"Each relationship you have with another person reflects the relationship you have with yourself." - Alice Deville.

You have a lot of personal and professional relationships in your life. Some relationships are loving, satisfying, uplifting, supportive and enrich your life experience. You love spending time with these people. They motivate and inspire you. Other relationships are tense, adversarial, problematic, strained, and exhausting. You don't like, or avoid, spending time with the people who drain the life energy right out of you. The funny thing is that all of your relationships, good and bad, are a reflection of the relationship you have with yourself.

How can that be?

It's very simple, really. You love the good relationships that you have because these people reflect what you like about yourself. They're kind, giving, nice, loyal, fun to be with, and all of the other attributes that you enjoy when you're involved in a good relationship. You dislike the people you have difficulty with because they reflect the parts of you that you don't like. In these people you see something in them, however tiny or large, that you don't like about yourself. If they're needy, they remind you of the times when you have been needy. If they're rude, they're a reminder of the pain you caused others by your own rudeness. If they're annoying they bring out the annoyer in you. If they are liars, they remind you of the time you lied, how that felt and the damage that lie may have caused you or others.

Pay particular attention to the people who bother you, get under your skin, for no apparent reason. These people reflect something within you that you have been unwilling to see.

I'll give you an example.

Several years ago I had a business associate, Naomi, who irritated the heck out of me. Naomi was a nice enough person, never hurt me, but every time I saw her my skin crawled. If she said, "Hi. How are you?" I wanted to run in the other direction. Any time she called with a business related question or invitation I couldn't get off the phone fast enough. Naomi frequently invited me to networking events and I always found some excuse to decline. For some unexplained reason I just didn't want to be around this woman.

Yes, I Found Excuses And Reasons (F.E.A.R.) not to like her. To me, Naomi was a pushy, needy, wishy-washy person who just wanted to cling onto me to advance her career. What I didn't realize at the time was that I had been a pushy, needy, wishy-washy person who clung onto other people to advance my early career. I'd grown up a lot since then and was no longer that person, yet I definitely once was that girl. And now Naomi was reflecting that behavior back to me. And it bothered me to even think of her. I did not want to be reminded that I, too, was once at that very same place in my personal journey of self-awareness and development.

You love what is reflected back to you that you love within you. You dislike what is reflected back to you that you dislike within you. You are neutral to what is presented to you that is not a reflection of you.

Examine your relationships with the people in your life. Identify the attributes you love and like in the people you have a good relationship with. You hold these attributes too. Acknowledge and own them. Love that part of you. Identify the attributes you don't like in the people you have a bad, or troubled, relationship with. You hold these attributes too. Acknowledge and own them. Have compassion and forgiveness for that part of yourself and of the other person for each of you are only doing the best you can given the light you have to see. Granted, some people have fewer batteries in their flashlight than others! Yet they are still doing the best they can. No one deliberately decides to exhibit unwanted behavior. Learn the lesson to add a few more volts to that flashlight of yours. Every relationship, good and bad, brings gifts in the lessons and the light they offer to you. Cherish the gift. It will empower you as you continue to move forward in the direction of living your rich delicious life.

"Life is a succession of lessons, which must be lived to be understood." - Ralph Waldo Emerson

Valery is a Moxie Master who will teach you how to have the confident courage to go after what you REALLY want with unrelenting drive and passion. That's Moxie! Claim your truth, own your power & command your stage with her unique fast Moxie Therapy process. Get going. Get it done. Moxie Up! today! Get free tips at http://www.MoxieTherapy.com

Your Relationships Reflect Your Relationship with You

2010-04-27T11:39:00.000-07:00

Grow Up. Move Out. Move On. Moxie Up

2010-04-23T08:52:00.000-07:00

I often ask successful people what was the best piece of advice they ever got from a parent. What words of wisdom carried them forward as they achieved their personal and professional goals? Responses such as "Don't take anything for granted", "You have to work hard and struggle for success" and "It takes money to make money" are among the most common. I posed this same question to Wendy, a woman I met at a luncheon not long ago. Her quick response was "Grow up. Move out." That was her Dad's mantra to her ever since she was a very young child.

Wendy had a good, loving relationship with her father. He is no longer with us yet his sage word of advice echo in Wendy's conscious every day. The wisdom has changed a bit over the years. "Move Out" now means: Out of my comfort zone! Wendy is now a very successful financial planner and the Mother to two beautiful children. "Grow Up. Move out" encouraged Wendy to take full responsibility for her life.

She allowed her inner child to grow up without fear and self-doubt while maintaining a playfully creative approach to life's challenges and opportunities. Wendy never empowered her Inner Critic, the part of her that has the ability to hold her back. She always relied on her True Self, that strong powerful voice within her that is pure intuition and the birthplace of inspiration to guide her. Whenever choices had to be made, especially difficult ones, Wendy remembered her Dad's advice, "Grow Up. Move Out".

And Wendy grew up and moved out fast! She was a respected high school graduate at age 15 and graduated college with honors at 18. She married a few years later and pursued a career in financial planning. Her husband was diagnosed with cancer when she was pregnant with their second child. Her husband did not survive long after the birth. "Grow Up. Move On." the winds of change echoed. So empowered, Wendy navigated the troubled waters of a young widowed mother building a new life for herself and her children. There were many many challenges to overcome. How would the children be cared for? How can she continue to build a career? How do you pick up the piece of a life shattered by such a tragedy? "Grow Up. Move On." Take full responsibility for what you want to experience moving forward.

People sometimes fall-back into old childish patterns of behavior when triggered with a devastating experience. There is a tendency to crawl back to a place where you feel safe, feel protected, and can hide. This desire to grab for any internal comfort that you can find often empowers the Inner Critic, the voice of self-doubt and fear. This is the voice that protected you, helped you cope, in your environment when you were little. You are no longer a child and cannot move on if you are frozen in fear or doubt your abilities or what is possible for you.

Wendy moved on and formed a company with her Father to help others build financial wealth and security. It wasn't long before her father was also diagnosed with cancer. He died within a few months. "Grow up. Move Out". Wendy continued to grow from this experience and moved on the become an advocate to empower widowed women to protect and enrich their financial future. Her words of advice for them is "Grow up. Move Out" Wendy now teaches others who face the similar tragedies and challenges how to put one foot in front of the other, how to "Grow UP. Move Out." Get it going. Get it done.

Wendy tells her story with a broad smile on her face. To many, it is a very tragic tale. To Wendy she has lived a blessed life. She continues to find joy and inspiration in her daily life. Each morning presents another opportunity to continue to grow and move beyond her current comfort zones. "Grow Up. Move Out." is the lifelong gift from her Dad that propels Wendy forward as she turns her dreams into reality.

Another way of saying "Grow Up. Move Out" is simply, Moxie Up!

I invite you to Moxie Up! as Wendy did. Have the confident courage to achieve authentic greatness with unrelenting drive and passion.

Valery is a Moxie Master who will teach you how to have the confident courage to go after what you REALLY want with unrelenting drive and passion. That's Moxie! Claim your truth, own your power & command your stage with her unique fast Moxie Therapy process. Get going. Get it done. Moxie Up! today! Get free tips at http://www.MoxieTherapy.com

The Tyranny of Expectations

2010-04-15T07:46:00.000-07:00

"I'm not in this world to live up to your expectations and you're not in this world to live up to mine." - Bruce Lee, Actor

Without noticing it, you too may be suffering from the myriad ways in which expectations can undermine your life. I call it the tyranny of expectations. They plague your daily life, causing you to be irritable, disappointed, and disillusioned. Many times they lead you to say unkind words, act unskillfully, or make poor decisions. Expectations are so insidious that you can persist in maintaining them even after you have clear evidence that they are unfounded.

What is most amazing is that despite the suffering caused by your expectations, you hardly notice them most of the time. Sure, there may be a few big ones you are somewhat aware of, but even so, you only sort of notice them; you do not act to free yourself from their tyranny. Plus, there are countless smaller ones you never notice at all. It is only when you feel acute disappointment that you have any awareness of having been possessed by expectations. But for each of these moments of acute disappointment, you've experienced many hours of dissatisfaction, impatience, and tension that you never realized arose from your expectations.

The good news is that you do not have to continue to suffer from the tyranny of expectations. It is one of the most troublesome areas of life, yet it is also changeable. Muster up the Moxie to let go of your expectations of others AND yourself! Even a little effort makes a huge difference. But first you must penetrate the nature of expectations, observe how they manifest themselves in your life, and be able to access another way of approaching the future.

You may be surprised when you discover how much choice you have in letting go of expectations. As you have seen, there is nothing to be gained from a mind filled with expectation. But there is much to be gained by living out of your values with real effort and discipline. When you do this, you are showing up for what you value and discovering a sense of joy and ease that is independent of the conditions in your life.

"Confounding people's expectations was a way to maintain integrity." - Lindsey Buckingham, Fleetwood Mac

Valery is the modern day Auntie Mame. As a Moxie Master she will teach you how to have the confident courage to go after what you REALLY want with unrelenting drive and passion. That's Moxie! Claim your truth, own your power & command your stage with her unique fast Moxie Therapy process. Get going. Get it done. Moxie Up! today! Get free tips at http://www.MoxieTherapy.com

3 Lessons to Achieve Authentic Greatness from Steve Jobs

2010-04-13T07:45:00.000-07:00

When I'm in the mood for a little inspiration I seek out extraordinary people speak their truth from the heart. These are the thought leaders who fully express their Moxie - the confident courage to achieve authentic greatness with unrelenting drive and passion. In this abundant content driven Web 2.0 age it only takes a few clicks of a mouse to bear witness to their words of wisdom.

After giving up the seemingly impossible battle to overcome something called a kernel panic (who thinks of these names?) on my computer I reached out to YouTube to replenish my soul. I discovered the video of the 2005 Stanford commencement speech given by Steve Jobs. So surprised and moved by what he had to say, I watched the video three times. Here are the three key empowering lessons, reminders of what I sometimes forget when stressed:

Lesson #1: Your intuition knows which path to take. Trust it!

"You have to trust in something--your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever--because believing that the dots will connect down the road will give you the confidence to follow your heart, even when it leads you off the well-worn path, and that will make all the difference." - Steve Jobs

Having experienced the ups and downs of the DOT COM industry in my former 'inauthentic' career I certainly knew of Steve Jobs as the founder and CEO of Apple Computers and the former chief executive of Pixar Animation Studios before its acquisition by The Walt Disney company in 2006. I knew very little of what influenced his rise to the top. What I learned was another profound example of what it takes to achieve unprecedented success on your own terms.

Steve Jobs was adopted as a baby boy with the condition that his adoptive parents send him to college after he graduated high school. Dutifully obeying this clause Steve went to college. He dropped out after six months, trusting that all would work out OK. He quit so he could stop taking the required classes that didn't interest him and start taking the ones that did. Much of what he stumbled into by following his curiosity and intuition turned out to be priceless later on.

Steve took up calligraphy. I had a hard time imagining the Steve Jobs I thought I knew painting elegant doodles on a page. He found calligraphy fascinating because it was "beautiful, historical, artistically subtle in a way that science can't capture". That influence was integrated into the design of the Mac ten years later. It was the first computer with beautiful typography.

Lesson #2: Follow your heart. Don't settle.

"You've got to find what you love, and that is as true for work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work, and the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking, and don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it, and like any great relationship it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking. Don't settle." - Steve Jobs

Then he got fired from Apple, the company he started, when he turned 30. Steve's vision for the future didn't jive with another key executive in the company. After a falling out, Steve got the axe.

So he started other companies including Pixar, the most successful animation studio in the world. If Steve Jobs hadn't been fired from Apple the world would have never seen "Toy Story", "Ratatouille", "Wall-E" and the Academy Award winning "Up".

Lesson #3: Live authentically.

"Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice, heart and intuition." - Steve Jobs

In 2004, Steve was diagnosed with a very rare form of pancreatic cancer. He wasn't expected to live longer than 3-6 months. As I write this on April 12, 2010 Steve is very much alive, living full out, thanks to an amazingly skilled surgeon. Death, to Steve, is the single best invention in life. As a change agent the prospect of impending death wakes you up to living your own life, not someone else's. Live each day as if was your last.

After my YouTube diversion I no longer cared about the kernel-thingie that was plaguing my computer. I'll get it taken care of. I always do. I went out and enjoyed the rest of my day, away from the computer, for that is Not how I would spend my last day on earth. My day was filled with love, laugher and really good wine!

If you'd like to see the commencement speech click here.

Valery is a Moxie Master, Mentor & Coach who will teach you how to have the confident courage to go after what you REALLY want with unrelenting drive and passion. That's Moxie! Claim your truth, own your power & command your stage with her unique fast Moxie Therapy process. Get going. Get it done. Moxie Up! today! Get free tips at http://www.MoxieTherapy.com

Emily Blunt's Moxie: The Power of Intention

2010-04-08T08:18:00.000-07:00

Actress Emily Blunt walked into her audition and firmly announced "I'm here to play Queen Victoria and I'm not leaving until you give me the job". She then focused and commanded every scrap of energy and talent within her to deliver her best performance possible and did not leave that film audition until she was awarded the role.

That, my friends, is MOXIE! The power of intention enables you to Command Your Stage. Emily's ability to muster up her moxie is a shining example of the secret to superstar success. Know what you want and put every part of your being - your thoughts, feelings, choices and actions into alignment with that desire. Speak and act in the direction of your dreams. Let no one and no thing stand between you and that which will make your heart sing.

The difference between those who can't reach the next rung on the ladder of achievement and those who rise above the competition to become extraordinary is Moxie. To reach superstar success you must hold within you a self-focused commitment to an authentic burning desire. A self-focused energy is not about stomping over everyone else to get what you want. It is about acknowledging and honoring who you are and what you want and allowing yourself to have that.

"I love more than anything looking at a movie scene by scene and seeing the intention behind it." - Jodie Foster

Allow the child within your heart, to rise above. In your heart of hearts, you know what you long to do. Notice if the child within your head, what is called the Inner Critic, is holding you back by Finding Excuses And Reasons why you can't have what you want, why you can't do what you want to do and be who you want to be. The acronym for Finding Excuses And Reasons is FEAR. And when you're in fear you turn your back on yourself and retreat, often by taking a path of least resistance.

"Only one who devotes himself to a cause with his whole strength and soul can be a true master. For this reason mastery demands all of a person." - Albert Einstein

It takes chutzpah to walk into an audition and declare a leading role as yours. What's the worse that could happen? If you don't get the part you're no worse off than you were when you walked into the audition. Any thoughts of failure by not landing the role and what that means for you is stuff you just made up. Doesn't make it true. There will always be another role, another opportunity - unless you get in your own way through fear. What's the best that could happen? You get what you want!

In order to get what you want you have to first know what you want. Then focus all of your thoughts and actions in a way that will support getting it. That self-focus is the first, and essential, intentional step required for superstar success. With each succeeding step you take as you move closer and closer to your goal continue to focus in that direction with the same power of intention. You'll begin to marvel at how your life experience shifts from struggle to seemingly effortless flow as you fully invest yourself in your creative endeavors.

Muster up your Moxie. Have the confident courage to achieve authentic greatness with unrelenting drive and passion.

Valery is a Moxie Master, Mentor & Coach who can teach you how to claim your truth, own your power & command your stage with my unique Moxie Therapy process. Muster up your Moxie!: The confident courage to achieve authentic greatness with unrelenting drive & passion. Get free tips today a http://www.MoxieTherapy.com

A Conversation with Dad: The Shock that Rocked My World

2010-03-03T10:37:00.000-08:00

When you show up with love in your heart, what is returned to you is pure love.

While I knew this piece of universal wisdom to be true, I never experienced it so profoundly as I did the other day. I flew to Miami to see my aging ailing Father. I have a good, although not very close, relationship with Dad. My childhood was tumultuous. My parents went through a long drawn out battle of a divorce that left a lot of emotional debris. My father, who was a renowned neuro-psychiatrist, went on to make some horrendous decisions in his personal life. His misguided thinking and its outcomes were splattered across the media headlines on more than one occasion. Other bad choices liquidated the wealth he had built up over his lengthy career.

I defined my Dad by these life-altering choices. Taking the lessons I learned with my as I watch his life experience crash and burn, I made different decisions – took different paths – in my own life. What I didn’t know, until the other day, that the greatest gift I would ever get would be from my Dad.

This week my Dad taught me the following:

1. You do not know what you do not know
2. The natural human spirit creates life and faces the end of life with grace and dignity.
3. As long as there is breath in our lungs there are gifts in the lessons that can be learned – we continue to grow.
4. When you show up with love in your heart, what is returned to you is pure love.

In earlier visits with my Dad I showed up as if I was fulfilling a family obligation. I had my expectations about what the short time we spent together would be like and got exactly what I expected. Year after year. All I did was reaffirm what I thought to be true about my Dad and my relationship with him; Dad was a selfish SOB and he never knew or cared much for me.

This time I knew it might be the last time I would see him while he was still lucid. He’s bedridden and cannot see or hear very well. I prepared his tiny meals and fed him as I would any infant. Sitting at his bedside I decided that I would give him the gift of closure, peace of mind, so that he could let go comfortably. I decided to arrive in a state of love instead of expectation.

I wasn’t prepared for what I experienced. Here was a man who I thought was devoid of emotional tenderness, any interest in who I am as his daughter, and full of himself. Who I experienced was a man stripped of all ego, all parts of him that he used to cope with his own inner pain, freely expressing his truth. It was the most profound awakening I have ever witnessed. The awakening wasn’t within him. This new perspective came from within me. I woke up to who my Dad really is at his deepest core and it rocked my world.

Dad expressed the lessons he learned, his love for me, my siblings, his wife whom he was once estranged and his love of life. While his Alzheimer’s made it difficult for him to fully communicate what he wanted to say he spoke of his appreciation for life and all that it had to offer. When his memory failed he would fill in the gaps with a little joke, a rhyme or pieces of an old song that surfaced out of nowhere. I was captivated and engaged as an observer and witness to the joy and delight that is my father. My time with him flew by and I longed for more.

I kissed him goodbye when I left. The flight home was tearful as I felt a wave of stuck toxic energy within me release itself. The resulting hole in my inner being was filled with love and appreciation for the resiliency, enormous power and inner wisdom that is the human spirit. I am grateful that I had learned enough of my own lessons to get out of my own way so that I could experience what I never thought possible….to know and love and be loved for who I am for and by my Dad.

I was completely wrong about who I thought my Dad was. His actions were always well intended yet his choices of execution were woefully misguided through his own Inner Critic, his own pain. Dad is a man filled with love for his children and his purpose in life, to heal others in pain. He never gave up his quest to become the man his heart longed to express. I was blessed to be a witness as he revealed his truth, all that he had learned, and all that he still had to share.

I invite you to show up with love in your heart the next time you visit with what you assume are your dysfunctional family relationships. Give yourself the gift of the profound power, energy and lessons that can be learned through the purest expression of the human heart.

Valery is an Inner Wizard Mindset Mentor & Coach who teaches people how to be the hero of their opportunity instead of the victim of circumstance so they can fully invest themselves authentically in their personal and professional endeavors. Empower the Wizard Within http://www.InnerWizard.com Free tips!

How to Stop A Downward Spiral

2010-02-19T11:37:00.000-08:00

Have you ever felt a little out of control, perhaps short-tempered, not in a good place, spiraling downward and not sure why? I help lots of people every day rise above this state so that they can master their opportunities instead of continue to crash and burn as a victim of their circumstance.

So you can imagine my surprise when I recognized that I was smack in the middle of my own tumble and fall.

It happens. To everyone. The key is to be aware of where you are so that you can examine what brought you to that place so you can turn yourself back around.

A downward spiral starts with an event or two that sets off a trigger. This charge stirs up old outdated coping behavior that only serves to add energy to the emotional roller coaster. Events in and of themselves do not cause stress. It is what we have these events mean for or about us that ignites the fall from grace.

In my case it was the notification and the cold realization that my Father won't be with us for very much longer. He lives 3,000 miles away and I only see him a couple of times a year. I fly in and fly out as quick as I can for the obligatory visit. We were never very close.

I made my peace with my Dad years ago. He's 94 years old so I've been well prepared for this day for a few years. Even with a good attitude, the life he's living now hardly able to walk with very little eyesight or ability to hear isn't what he wants. So why was I on such a downward spiral, unable to get out of my own way?

I stopped everything that I was doing so that I could quiet my mind. In the silence, that calm inner wisdom, what I playfully call the Inner Wizard, spoke to me. It told me that I was not reacting to the eventual death of my Dad, I was beginning to mourn the loss of not having a warm loving close relationship with my Father - ever. If he was gone, then it is certain, I will never know what that kind of parental relationship feels like. This pain, this profound sadness, had been buried deep within me all these years without me realizing it. And now that pain was bubbling up to the surface. I allowed myself to feel the deep inner pain of that realization.

After some time, I turned my attention to the lessons I learned as a result of the dysfunctional parental upbringing I went through. I understood that my Father, too, never had much of a childhood. He came from a very poor family, raised himself on the streets of East Orange, New Jersey and became a recognized expert in his field. His personal life was riddled with his own downward spirals, major crashes and severe burns. I learned a lot of valuable life lessons as the observer of his life experience. I also knew that he was always well intention, just very misguided by his own inner pain, his jabbering Inner Critic. How could my Father express his love for me when he couldn't even love himself.

As a child I thought he considered me to be a disappointment, a moron. His word for me, "lamebrain", echoed in my mind. Through my own personal journey of self awareness I realized that everyone is doing the best they can with the light they have to see. My Father was just misguided and misdirected. Even as a brilliant neurologist, he was missing several batteries in his flashlight when it came to his own perception of himself and the world.

What I discovered as a result of having gone through the experiences, the pain, the sadness, the anger, resentment, the self-loathing enabled me to turn all of that into forgiveness, peace, joy and unconditional love. I discovered that he really did, and does, love me. I would not be who I am today without my Dad. I may not have reached a point where I felt so lost and shut down to muster up the courage and the strength to do something about it. I became committed to claiming my truth, owning my power and commanding my life direction. I love who I am and what I do in my life today - teaching others how to do the same.

Wow. My Father went through a lot of pain to give me a priceless gift. He gave me the gift of empowerment and self-actualization. We are complete. I now feel nothing but love for him. At peace, and off the downward spiral, I booked a flight to see him so I could tell him, in person, how much I love him and thank him for all that he has given me.

You have the power within you to turn around irrational coping patterns that manifest as emotional tornadoes of angst. Downward spirals are a signal that you have a tremendous opportunity to rise above, reach even greater levels of expanded awareness and possibility. If you are in such a state, love and value yourself enough to get the gift in the profound lessons you can learn to heal and grow.

Valery is an Inner Wizard Mindset Mentor & Coach who teaches people how to be the hero of their opportunity instead of the victim of circumstance so they can fully invest themselves authentically in their personal and professional endeavors. Empower the Wizard Within http://www.InnerWizard.com Free tips!

Prepare To Be Mystified!

2010-01-26T09:52:00.000-08:00

"When you feel in your gut what you are and then dynamically pursue it - don't back down and don't give up - then you're going to mystify a lot of folks." - Bob Dylan

Some of you may have noticed that I have not been blogging in the last two weeks. Empowered by my Inner Wizard, I am busy joyfully creating a new and even more powerful website jammed packed with new goodies for you! For those of you who are new to this blog, the Inner Wizard is your unique expression of the human spirit. Some people call it a Higher Self, Inner Being, Soul, Heart-centered God force, or any number of other names that describe the voice of authenticity, intuition and the source of inspiration within each and every one of us. I playfully call it the Inner Wizard.

The outer expression of the Inner Wizard is:

Worthy
Inspirational
Zealous
Authentic
Responsible
Deliberate

My gut, my intuition, my Inner Wizard has been calling me to allow it to come out and play, to boldly and fully express herself. Stay tuned. I will keep you posted.

“Laugh at yourself, but don't ever aim your doubt at yourself. Be bold. When you embark for strange places, don't leave any of yourself safely on shore. Have the nerve to go into unexplored territory.” - Alan Alda

Excerpt: For the moment I'm busy playing in the 'kitchen' with my Inner Wizard cooking up a new and delicious website jammed packed with goodies for you. Stay tuned!

Valery is an Inner Wizard Mindset Mentor & Coach who teaches people how to be the master of their opportunity instead of the victim of circumstance so they can successfully achieve what their heart is calling them to become. Empower the Wizard Within http://www.InnerWizard.com Free tips!

How To Identify and Transform Victim Mentality

2010-01-07T07:20:00.000-08:00

In one of the Harry Potter books Harry comes face to face with a mirror in which he sees his parents staring back at him. He longs to stay with the mirror to continue to see his parents and Professor Dumbledore tells him he must stop. This mirror shows exactly what the viewer wants to see instead of what is.

You view your life through such a mirror.

What you see and what you experience is really what you want or expect to see at your deepest core. What you see is not reality. It is merely an interpretation shaped by your belief system and internal thought patterns – too often created by your Inner Critic, the voice of self-doubt and fear that you hear chatting endlessly in your mind.

Your husband doesn’t appreciate you, your boss is unrealistic in her expectations, the economy is holding you back, and the grass is most definitely greener in someone else’s yard. Bad things happen and you want to say that the people or circumstances around you are to blame for these things.

You can’t be, do or have what you want because of someone or something else – outside of you. You don't take responsibility for your life because you think that these other people and circumstances have power over you.

The challenge with this thinking is that it turns you into a victim. Some experiences are too painful to admit that you had a hand in it so you would rather look the other way and say it is someone else's fault. Well, it is someone else’s fault in a way – it is the fault of your Inner Critic. Oh wait, your Inner Critic is your own creation – so it really is your fault.

Not really. While your experiences are your responsibility the word fault, shame, or blame has no place in you examination of the events of your life. You do not deliberately create bad experiences for yourself. You do not deliberately set yourself up as a victim of your life. Unfortunately where you struggle, you have unconsciously given your power over to your Inner Critic and you are now victim to its misguided opinions and demands.

When you are in this state know that it is your Inner Critic just trying to do his job of keeping you safe. He does this by holding you back. By Finding Excuses And Reasons he will not allow you to move forward out of your safe comfort zone where you will have newer unknown – therefore potentially scary - experiences. By the way - the words Finding Excuses And Reasons create the acronym FEAR .

Your Inner Critic is afraid of anything it does not already know. You may not like your current comfort zone but your Inner Critic knows it to be safe so you’ll stay right where you are, thank you very much!

To hold firmly to your personal power, to deliberately direct and govern your life experience you must reclaim the power you have given to your Inner Critic. Restore it to you’re the voice that comes from your heart, the place of your authenticity, intuition, passion and inspiration. Some people call this their Higher Self, Soul, or Inner Being. I playfully call it the Inner Wizard. Look within and ask from your heart what role you played in creating a specific experience.

Let go of any judgment when you ask this question. Just look for information. When you discover how YOU created the bad stuff you now have the knowledge to put in corrections to have a better experience the next time a similar situation is presented. Without such examination you will continue to repeat the same unwanted patterns of behavior that create the same bad experiences over and over again.

In your examination, you will realize what you can do to turn the situation around so you can have a good experience moving forward. Sometimes, just realizing that you have the power to create even the bad stuff brings relief and new awareness.

If you have the power to create the bad stuff you also have the power to create the good stuff. Examining good experiences will give you the recipe to create a similar good experience over and over again.

If things are not going well for you - stop. Take a breath and tap into your Inner Wizard. She will tell you where you went off track and give you guidance on how to get on the right road again. Ask for help in seeing a bigger picture. This new perspective can be as simple as understanding that you absolutely without question have the power to change your life. You are a victim to no one and no circumstance.

No one can take away your personal power but you can surely give it away. Take it back from wherever you’ve parted from it. Let your heart-centered Inner Wizard guide you to the places you left your personal power behind.

Own and face your responsibility in any situation. Learn the lesson and forgive yourself for the part you played if it is an unwanted experience, and let it go. Remember how you felt when you gave up your power and became a victim. Notice how you feel now that you have reclaimed your personal power and are creating the experiences you choose to have.

If you ever want to know whether you are operating from a Victim mentality just check to see how you feel. If you feel bad, you have allowed yourself to be a Victim of your Inner Critic. If you feel good, you are standing solidly in your personal power deliberately creating a life that makes your heart sing.

You and you alone are responsible for the quality of your life. You have the inner resources to be the deliberate creator of your life experience. By disarming your Inner Critic and empowering your Inner Wizard, you will transform your victim mentality to a powerful creator. You will then be empowered to succeed in the passionate and authentic pursuit of your deepest desires.

Valery is an Inner Wizard Mindset Mentor & Coach who teaches people how to be the master of their opportunity instead of the victim of circumstance so they can successfully achieve what their heart is calling them to become. Become the hero of your opportunities instead of the victim of your circumstance. Empower the Wizard Within http://www.InnerWizard.com Free tips!

The Inner Wizard Formula For Success

2010-01-05T09:54:00.000-08:00

There are what seems to be an infinite number of books that provide a formula for success. They will tell you to work hard, pay your dues, earn advanced degrees in your education. The Inner Wizard formula for success, however, is a bit contrary to many of those strategies and quite simple.

There are 3 Essential Empowering Factors in the Inner Wizard Formula for Success:

• Authenticity: Who You Really Are & What You Want to Achieve
• Confidence: Self-esteem and Intuition
• Alignment: Mindfully Speak & Act in the Direction of your Highest Goals

To apply this formula you must first acknowledge where you currently are and get clear on what success looks like for you. What would make your heart sing? If you don’t know the answers to these initial questions you may be on a path that is not your own.

Do you even know who you REALLY are? Do you show up in your life authentically? Or have you become who you "SHOULD be" or are "SUPPOSED to be"? Are you expressing your authentic self each and every day or have you learned to express who you were conditioned to be from an early age? If you are chronically tired or feel unfulfilled then you’re probably living through your conditioning instead of who you came into this world to be, your natural self. If you have a lot of energy and feel good about who you are and what you’re doing then you are living as, or very close to, your true self, your true nature.

How you feel will tell you whether or not you are led by your Inner Critic or your Inner Wizard. Your Inner Critic is the conditioned voice that speaks through self-doubt and fear. The voice of your Inner Wizard is the voice of your truth, your intuition and deepest desires. If you believe your conditioned self is your true self and make life decisions based on that false view you set yourself up for a lifetime of struggle. You’ve empowered your Inner Critic and become it’s victim.

To achieve, maintain and enjoy success you have to stand centered in the truth of who you are as you live and breathe.

Confidence is the factor that convinces you that you are capable of achieving whatever goals you set for yourself. Self-esteem is rooted in how you value yourself. If you have high self-esteem you know you are worth whatever effort it takes to achieve your goals and realize your dreams. Without a healthy self-esteem, you will just buy the books, attend the seminars, buy the gym memberships, make the New Years resolutions and so on, and never follow through. Your Inner Critic will continue to lead your life’s direction.

You’ve already been there, done that. To the extent that you have not yet achieved your dream is the extent to which you have allowed yourself to fall into the trap set by your Inner Critic to keep you safe in your current comfort zone. If, however, you tap into your own intuition you will be guided by inner wisdom to propel you forward. You will naturally focus your energy and intention upon your deepest desires. You will pay attention to your gut feelings – you know, the voice you said you should have listened to instead of making the decision or taking a step that didn’t end well.

The third factor for success is to speak and act in alignment with what it is you long to achieve. Mindfully pay attention to your words, your thoughts and your actions. Do they move you closer to or away from your goals? Do they support success or limit your ability to triumph? If how you think and feel goes against what you intend to create then reach for a newer and better perspective. You must rise above unconscious unsupportive self-talk, procrastination, limiting beliefs and any actions that only serve to hold you back. Even a decision to not do something, such as public speaking, is an action that keeps you from success if getting out in front of people will move you up a few rungs on the proverbial ladder to success.

Once these three empowering Inner Wizard factors are actively in place, your success is guaranteed. You will naturally and intuitively work tirelessly and joyfully as you turn your dreams into reality. You will continue to grow and expand your vision of what it possible for you to achieve reaching higher and higher levels of achievement you wouldn’t consider possible today

You and you alone are responsible for the quality of your life. You have the inner resources to be the deliberate creator of your life experience. By disarming your Inner Critic and empowering your Inner Wizard, you will get out of your own way as you succeed in the passionate and authentic pursuit of your deepest desires.

Valery is an Inner Wizard Mindset Mentor & Coach who teaches people how to be the hero of their opportunity instead of the victim of circumstance so they can fully invest themselves in their creative endeavors. Become the hero of your opportunities instead of the victim of your circumstance. Empower the Wizard Within http://www.InnerWizard.com Free tips!

How To Empower Yourself for the New Year

2009-12-30T07:14:00.000-08:00

This is the time of year when people get off the proverbial treadmill of their workday world and allow themselves some time to reflect on the past year - what they accomplished, what they didn't, what was good, and what wasn't so great. Too often people feel like they've fallen short of their expectations of themselves and spend the time beating themselves up over mistakes, missed opportunities or what 'could have been'. Perhaps this is why many people fall into a bit of a depressed state at this time of year. Their Inner Critic is celebrating the holidays with a good dose of self-judgment, blame, criticism and added drama.

If this sounds familiar to your experience it is time to put the Inner Critic to bed for the year. Give him a sippy cup and a bankie. It's time to let your Inner Wizard come out and play. Your Inner Wizard, the voice of your truth, intuition and inspiration, knows that mistakes are opportunities to learn and grow. Missed opportunities provide more gifts in the lessons they provide. Empowered Inner Wizards focus on what "can be" instead of what "could have been".

It's time to Empower your Inner Wizard. Let him join the party. As you slow down the pace, rest and relax over the holidays, have some fun with your Inner Wizard. Expand your vision for 2010. Reach deep within you to ask your Inner Wizard the following question:

For 2010:

If I got really radical today, stopped fearing the consequences, let go of any doubts about my ability to succeed and enthusiastically set out to be what I was born to be, what would I be doing?

Once you have your answer you have your intention for 2009. Write it down! Tell others about your intention to hold you accountable. Empower your Inner Wizard to guide you, give all of your energy, attention and focus to that intention, take action as guided by intuition. Mindfully speak and act with purpose and in the direction of what your heart is calling you to become and you will absolutely turn that dream into a very real experience.

I asked myself that question. I was not surprised at the answer. It was something that has been nagging at me for a long time. The funny thing is, the answer was rooted in what I have been resisting the most - public speaking. I know, with certainty, that what I resist out of - yes, I admit it - FEAR - is the very thing my heart longs for. So I have set my intention and have already taken forward action to ramp up my speaking engagements to larger audiences in the coming year. I've written it down. I've told you.

As creative beings our fundamental life-affirming need is to continue to move forward and grow. Like sharks, if we stop moving we will whither and die. If you notice that you are holding yourself back from acting upon your intention take a breath, acknowledge where you are and take one baby step forward. Then another. Soon you'll be off and running again.

May 2010 bring you love, laughter and empowerment.

Valery is an Inner Wizard Mindset Mentor & Coach who teaches people how to be the hero of their opportunity instead of the victim of circumstance so they can fully invest themselves in their creative endeavors. Become the hero of your opportunities instead of the victim of your circumstance. Empower the Wizard Within http://www.InnerWizard.com Free tips!

Happy Holidays And My Favorite Things

2009-12-24T15:38:00.000-08:00

I wish you LOVE, LAUGHTER, HEALTH and HAPPINESS now and for all eternity. This is a wonderful time of year to express your love for those who touch your heart and, most importantly, for your self. To the extent that you struggle in life is the extent to which you hold back love of self and others. Know that you are loved. I love you.

This is the time of year when we slow down a bit and reflect upon what worked and where we can learn a lesson or two in the experiences we've had over the past year. I've spent the last couple of days doing just that. What I realized was that I was doing a great job of teaching yet not a great job of sharing who I am with you. The Internet is a wonderful platform to get to know people from all over the world who share interests and with whom we can enrich each other's lives. I'd love to learn more about you so please introduce yourself in the comment box below.

I'll start. Here are a few things about me you may not know.

1. I have a wonderful husband, Al Satterwhite, who is a photographer and cinematographer. You can check him out on Facebook or at his website: http://www.AlSatterwhite.com.

2. We have 2 cats rescued from the Hurricane Katrina debris when they were kittens. They're delightfully odd. Willow 'prays'. I have a video of her doing that on my Facebook page, ID: Valery Satterwhite. Scroll down the page - its at the bottom left hand side of the page. Dakota loves Twizzlers! I had one on my desk one day and she ate half of it. I'm a good Mom, I don't let her eat any more candy.

3. I have a sister, brother-in-law and niece who live about 5 minutes down the road from where I live. We spend time together most weekends. There's always good wine and lots of laughter involved.

4. I have another sister, Father and Step-Mother in Florida as well as another niece and nephew. I'd love to see them more often.

5. A few of my favorite things:

- White chocolate
- Going to The Laugh Factory in Hermosa Beach, CA. They often showcase 10 comics for ten bucks! Going to see Eddie Izzard in January
- Traveling and meeting people from other parts of the world. They know the best places to go and things to do. Many have become lifetime friends.
- A story well told. Yes, I'm a sucker for a good chick flick.
- White chocolate
- Fashion. Favorite designers are Demeulemeester, Dries Van Noten, Holly Harp (Vintage), Temperley, Dinnigan and my Pucci collection.
- Mid-century modern and Art Deco architecture
- Music: Van Morrison is my ultimate favorite artist, although there are lots of other artists I like. Christina Aguilera has an amazing voice.
- Red wine. Can't drink the white stuff. I use white wine when I cook.
- Dance. I love to watch a dancer 'in the zone'. ok, here's a secret: I danced on the Jackie Gleason show when I was really really really young.
- I don't know how old I am. I was too young to know what day it was when I was born.
- Formula One. This is a new interest. It's the only sport Al cares about. I've decided to get into the sport to know what's going on. Go Hamilton!
- White chocolate
- Sunsets and sunrises. We're up before dawn. It's my favorite time to write.
- Being silly, especially with friends.
- An engaging conversation where I learn something new.
- TV: Grey's Anatomy, Private Practice, Brothers and Sisters, Craig Ferguson, Charlie Rose, Inside the Actors Studio, The Daily Show. Studio 60 was great, really well written, but it got cancelled.
- Sushi
- The fish market at the Hermosa Beach pier.
- The friends I am blessed to have in my life
- Books. I'm an avid reader. Have recommended "Eat, Pray, Love" by Elizabeth Gilbert. Check out her video at www.Ted.org
- Ted.org - great site, very informative and inspiring.
- Did I mention white chocolate?

There are a lot of things I love to do and enjoy. But that's enough about me for now. I'll share more in future blog posts. I'd love to learn more about you so please tell me about you, your dreams, desires, what inspires you, what challenges you and what makes your heart sing.

Happy Holidays!

Much love,
valery

Valery is a Mindset Mentor & Coach who teaches people how to be the hero of their opportunity instead of the victim of circumstance so they can fully invest themselves in their creative endeavors. Her Inner Wizard process provides tools to tap into the greatest Coach in the world, your Higher Self, authentic voice & power. Empower the Wizard Within http://www.InnerWizard.com Free tips!

Time For A Chuckle: 21 Ways To Annoy Everyone

2009-12-23T08:48:00.000-08:00

21 Ways To Annoy Everyone

1) Pretend to be one of the (Bart) Simpson family. Doesn't matter which.

2) Have an uncontrollable lusting for someone new every five minutes.

3) Pretend to be from different ethnic backgrounds every hour, and when people ask you about it, answer like a hillbilly would.

4) Act like a hillbilly. Period.

5) Improvise Italian operas.

6) Gossip about someone to their face.

7) Answer every question with a question.

8) Repeat yourself constantly.

9) Act like a member of the opposite sex.

10) Repeat yourself constantly.

11) Act like Mr. Flanders from The Simpsons.

12) Repeat yourself constantly.

13) Change what you repeat every now and then.

14) Use homonyms in your e-male that the spell cheque would knot sea as miss steaks.

15) Change what you repeat every now and then.

16) Talk to someone while looking at somebody else.

17) Employ in your casual banter extensive vocabulary that will befuddle thy contemporaries.

18) Change what you repeat every now and then.

19) One word: Caffeine.

20) Another word or two: Caffeine and Sugar.

21) stringwhateveryousayintoonelongwordsoitshardtomakeoutwhatyou'resaying.

If you love silly nonsense like I do, you just had a good chuckle, a guffaw or jello running out of your nose. A daily dose of laughter and joy enriches all aspects of life. It is a great stress reducer and encourages a number of physical benefits including the production of endorphins and disease fighting immune cells. Finding 'the funny' in daily life and the human condition heals and uplifts emotionally and spiritually too. When you laugh, you relax, feel energized and are able to see the lighter side of life.

A good giggle gets your blood flowing and raises your inner vibration. We live in a vibrational Universe. What you experience in life is a mirrored reflection of your vibrational level. It's the vibes, man! Healthy good vibrations create good experiences. Defeating bad vibrations create unwanted or 'less than' experiences. It's a simple as that. When you laugh you elevate your natural vibration, your self. In this way, laughter is like a magic wand that turns negative emotions, stuck energy and static thoughts into powerfully intuitive A-HA moments that propel you forward in your creative endeavors.

When you notice that you are anxious or stressed in any way reach for a moment that will tickle your funny bone. Watch a madcap movie, read a joke book, share some fun with family and friends. You will discover that you feel lighter and have a new and better perspective on any challenges you face.

"You don't stop laughing because you grow old. You grow old because you stop laughing." - Michael Pitchard

Valery is a Mindset Mentor & Coach who teaches people how to be the hero of their opportunity instead of the victim of circumstance so they can fully invest themselves in their creative endeavors. Her Inner Wizard process provides tools to tap into the greatest Coach in the world, your Higher Self, authentic voice & power. Empower the Wizard Within http://www.InnerWizard.com Free tips!

4 Steps to Manage Toxic People

2009-12-17T08:13:00.000-08:00

Do you have people in your life who sprinkle misery wherever they go? When you spend time with them, do these people suck the life energy right out of you? Do you they make you wrong, make you feel angry, deflated, belittled, inadequate or unworthy? If so, you have become their victim. As a victim you can only create more experiences of victimization. As chocolate is poison to a dog, these noxious people have the power to reinforce limitations and low self-esteem within you that will hold you back from the successful pursuit of your creative endeavors - if you let them.

There is a distinction between someone who's just having a 'bad hair day' and a virulent person. The former is experiencing a moment of stress or anxiety the latter demonstrates chronic toxic behavior. People who are just trying to cope, albeit misguidedly, on a particularly stressful day don't feel good about lashing out at someone else. Those whom complain all the time or unload their blame or anger upon you and then feel better about themselves as a result are the ones to keep an eye out for and manage. If you don't they will dump their negativity and pessimism upon you, drain you dry of motivation and inspiration to move forward in your life. The human spirit is like a shark. It has to constantly move forward or it dies.

"Any fool can criticize, condemn and complain and most fools do." - Benjamin Franklin

There is a simple test to recognize whether or not you have a toxic person in your life:

Examine the experiences you have had with this person. It doesn't matter much what you were doing together, just reflect upon whether or not your are energized or depleted at the end of the event. Reflect upon more than one instance to discern whether there is an emotional pattern or a single incident. Were you tired or inspired? If you discover that you are left exhausted or weakened by your exposure to this person then you are in the presence of a toxic person. If you feel nourished by the experiences you've had with that person this is someone with whom you want to spend more time.

If you identify a toxic person in your life here are 4 Steps to manage and transform your relationship with that person.

1. Observe that this person is doing the best he or she can given the light they have to see. A toxic person is in the dark or at least missing a few batteries in their flashlight, their self-perspective and world view. You cannot change or control anyone.

2. Distance yourself from this person. Limit your exposure to and the time you spend in their presence. If it is a co-worker or family member and avoidance is unlikely, let whatever poisonous babble they expel go in one ear and out the other. Do not react or take on their anguish. Hold onto your personal power by refusing to engage, stoop down to their emotional level.

3. When they are complaining, finding fault with you, their circumstance, or the world in general ask them what they DO like about the matter at hand. Get them focused on a more positive note; what they like instead of do not like; what they want instead of do not want.

4. Feed your soul. Do something that replenishes and energizes you after your encounter with a toxic person. Center yourself by taking a few cleansing breaths to ground you as you shake off their destructive residue.

You and you alone are responsible for the quality of your life. You have the inner resources to rise above any and all adverse communication. As master of your life experience, you have the tools to deliberately create the outcomes you want to have with the people with whom you are in contact in your personal and professional life.

"You cannot cause a shadow to disappear by trying to fight it, stamp on it, by railing against it, or any other form of emotional or physical resistance. In order to cause a shadow to disappear, you must shine light on it." - Shakti Gawain

Valery is an Inner Wizard Mindset Mentor & Coach who teaches people how to be the hero of their opportunity instead of the victim of circumstance so they can fully invest themselves in their creative endeavors. Become the hero of your opportunities instead of the victim of your circumstance. Empower the Wizard Within http://www.InnerWizard.com Free tips!

How To Rise Above Challenging Circumstances

2009-12-15T07:16:00.000-08:00

Take a moment to ask yourself:

What would be the best thing you could do for yourself, right now, given the incredibly uncertain and stressful times you are facing?
What would best prepare you for whatever your life, the economy or other circumstances, might throw at you?

If you watch, read or listen to the media today it’s bad news piled upon more bad news. As a result, most people are stressed and worried.

Most people. Not all people.

Look around you. Expand that vision outward to look from a larger perspective beyond just people you know. There are certainly people who are struggling. Take a closer look. Can you find examples of people who are doing well or are at least successfully overcoming challenges? Are some people recreating themselves so that they can continue on their path to achieving their deepest desires? Some of these people are even helping others do the same.

Why do some people succumb to stressful events while others continue to grow and expand?

Events in and of themselves do not cause stress and worry. It’s how you react and respond to the circumstances in your life that create your life experience, good or bad. If you feel like you’re in a downward spiral of misfortune then you are spending way too much time listening to and acting upon the misguided beliefs of your Inner Critic, the voice of your self-doubt and fear.

"We don't see things as they are. We see things as we are." Anais Nin

The truth is, YOU don't have to feel stressed and overwhelmed by whatever is going on around you, no matter how bad it gets. You absolutely have the power within you to rise above. You are not a victim of your circumstance unless you allow yourself to be.

It’s an amazing thing. You already have the resources within you to achieve your goals even in the most challenging conditions. You just have to learn how to tap into your inner power and wisdom, what I playfully call the Wizard Within, who is the voice of your truth, intuition and inspiration.

It is possible to feel empowered to make resourceful choices, take mindful and deliberate action even in these challenging times that will move you closer to achieving your goals. It is possible to come up with clear-minded solutions that will move you forward instead of backwards in your personal and professional endeavors.

Here is the best thing you can do each and every day to be successful even in the most trying of times:

Focus upon what you CAN do instead of what you cannot do.

1. Ask yourself, "What are 5 things I can do today that will move me closer to achieving my goals?"

2. Do those things!

3. Examine your daily experience.
What did you accomplish? Give yourself a pat on the back for a job well done!
What didn't you accomplish? What got in your way? Did you Find Excuses And Reasons (F.E.A.R.) to hold yourself back? Know that you have the power within you to rise above. Reach for a newer and better perspective. Add any uncompleted tasks to your intention list to get done the next day.

4. Speak and act only in the direction of your highest achievement.

Before you know it, new opportunities will be revealed. You are now the creator of your experience, no longer a victim of your circumstance.

"Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure." - Marianne Williamson

Valery is an Inner Wizard Mindset Mentor & Coach who teaches people how to be the hero of their opportunity instead of the victim of circumstance so they can fully invest themselves in their creative endeavors. Become the hero of your opportunities instead of the victim of your circumstance. Empower the Wizard Within http://www.InnerWizard.com Free tips!

Overwhelmed? 5 Steps to Become Your Own Taskmaster

2009-12-10T08:13:00.000-08:00

In today's fast paced hustle and bustle world you may become overwhelmed by everything that needs to get accomplished in a day, especially during a busy holiday season. A feeling of overwhelm will set in where you just can't decide what to do or how to do it to achieve your personal and professional goals. You're stuck in the paralysis of analysis and don't know what steps to take to get unstuck. Or you'd just really like to get more focused on what will get you the greatest return on your time investment. If these scenarios sound familiar you are not alone.

When you get bogged down, stuck, in indecision cause by switching back and forth between so many possibilities your energy gets blocked. Blocked energy is a clear sign that you've jumped out of the natural progressive flow of life experience. You have not taken the time to sort out your choices and the values they represent.

To get back into the productive and fulfilling flow of the highest expression of your full potential it is necessary to tap into your inner guidance system that is your birthright. You can call this personal GPS your Higher Self, Inner Being, God-Force or whatever feels right to you. I playfully call it the Wizard Within.

When you connect with your inner power you get in touch with a deeper understanding of yourself, how your life works, and how to mastermind, body, spirit and emotions in everyday life. Whom you want to become, what you want to do and have as your ultimate life experience becomes clear. Scattered mind energy and thoughts become aligned and uncluttered. Flow is restored.

When you are back into your natural flow you are able to hear and sense the Wizard Within. This is the voice of your truth, your intuition. Listen and trust this personal reservoir of wisdom to know, specifically, what tasks to do that day to accomplish or get closer to achieving paramount outcomes that will make your heart sing. You really don't need to become your own taskmaster for you already have one within you.

Here are 5 steps to tap into your own inner wisdom and taskmaster:

1. De-clutter

Clean up all areas of your life. Clean up your desk. If you do not have a desk or a dedicated workspace create one. Having a place to work and get organized is essential. Pay your debts or make promises to pay those you owe. Clean out your house, closets and car. Clear up any miscommunications you have with people in your professional and personal life. Clutter, whether it be in your mind or space, creates stuck energy, creates overwhelm. By cleaning up your clutter you are clearing the runway for the future you long for.

2. Ask What Your Higher Self Wants

Get clear on what you really want to accomplish. Let go of the "should dos" that you either tell yourself or allow others to misguidedly place upon you. Look deep within to reveal what you really want to achieve. Make sure it is a true desire or you will stay stuck in a pattern of having to make the same stressful choices every day or even give up trying.

Ask what will give you fulfillment, satisfaction, joy and inspiration in your personal life and career? Write these desires as a mission statement. Own it with every fiber of your being. Remind yourself of your mission each and every day.

3. Set Daily Intentions

As you reaffirm your mission statement ask yourself what 5 things you can do today (or the next day if you set intentions the night before) that will get you closer to your goals, achieving your mission? Anything that does not move you closer to the actualization of your desired outcomes is not a priority. Daily responsibilities will fall into this category as reneging on responsibility will only serve to clutter your mind and space once again.

4. Take Action

Act on your intentions. Start with a baby step. Then take another step. Soon you'll be off and running. Some people prefer to get the most challenging task out of the way early in the morning so its 'over and done with'. This sense of accomplishment energizes them to easily complete the remaining intentional tasks of the day.

5. Examine Your Experience
At the end of each day review your set intentions. What did you accomplish? Congratulate yourself for successfully being your own taskmaster and getting closer to, if not achieving, your goal. What didn't get done? Without judgement, examine your day to discover what got in your way of completing your objective. Did you Find Excuses And Reasons (F.E.A.R.) to get in your own way, to fall back into old habits? Reach for a new and better perspective that will put you back into flow. Set your intentions for the next day.

As you own taskmaster you will live a life that is empowered and on-purpose. In the energetic life-affirming flow you will naturally propel yourself to your desired destiny. Your vision is written, the plan is set, and nothing is in your way of the fullest expression of your potential in any area of your life.

Valery is an Inner Wizard Mindset Mentor & Coach who teaches people how to be the hero of their opportunity instead of the victim of circumstance so they can fully invest themselves in their creative endeavors. Clients also learn how to root out self-sabotaging behavior that can land them in the National Enquirer! Empower the Wizard Within http://www.InnerWizard.com Free tips!

Creative? Create Your Life Instead of Living As Its Creation

2009-12-08T07:14:00.000-08:00

Have you ever thought life would be different for you today if you had a different childhood? Have you ever held thoughts such as:

"My Mother never really cared about who I was."
"My Father told me that I'd never amount to anything."
"People won't like me if I don't agree with the crowd."
"If only I didn't come from such a dysfunctional family."

These are only some of the comments I have heard from people who are stuck or struggling in any creative endeavor. The underlying theme is "I'm not (good, smart, talented, rich, worthy, respected, whatever) enough. Heck, I used to make similar laments about my lot in life. Experiences of my past governed how I thought about myself and what was possible for my future. Then one day the truth hit me and rocked my world:

Life does not shape me. I shape my life. I am the creator not the creation of my experience.

How you look at, how things make you feel, depends on you not the things. Whatever anyone said to you, good or bad, or whatever you witnessed in your childhood were mere events. What you had those statements and actions mean about you, however, was entirely your own doing; your creation. You formed a valid interpretation through your young lens, your limited context, of your circumstance. This interpretation became a fundamental belief that you relied upon as you authored your life as you know it.

If the belief works for you, that's great! For example, if you have an integral belief "If I deliberately and intentionally pursue what I love to do success will find me" chances are you are experiencing a fulfilling life immersed in your passionate pursuits. It is when the belief holds you back, stops you from expressing your full potential that you have to re-examine the interpretation that formulated your belief.

Let's say you examine your innermost feelings and thoughts and realize that deep down inside you believe, "I am not good enough. I will never amount to anything." This belief doesn't feel good. Beliefs shape your emotions. All emotions are valid Good emotions work for you. Bad emotions do not work for you. If you discover a belief that doesn't feel good take some time to examine the belief.

In your examination recall the earlier events that lead to the conclusion "I am not talented enough." That conclusion was only one way to interpret the event. There are others. How else could those incidents be viewed? One possible interpretation is that the person saying or doing the thing was just having a bad hair day. Perhaps he was repeating his own misguided belief. There are any number of other possible interpretations that your adult mind can come up with that are just as valid.

Challenge the belief. Look for events in your life then and now when you were absolutely good enough to take on a challenge and master it. Let's start with the simple fact that you learned how to walk and talk. You fell on your butt more than a few times and misspoke but that didn't stop you from pursuing your goal. With each stumble and misused word you learned something. That little nugget of wisdom eventually created the experience of naturally and easily walking and talking. You can even do both at the same time! Find more such examples. There are plenty to notice if you just look.

This is how you deliberately create a new perspective, a new lens through which to view yourself and your possibilities. You now realize people, events and things did not shape your life. You did based on the meanings, the interpretations, the beliefs, you took on for yourself as you experiences what you heard and saw. One thing is for sure. You are a masterful creator. You created all of your life experiences to this moment and you will create your experiences in the future. Express your full creative potential by becoming the hero, the Wizard, of your opportunity instead of the victim of your circumstance.

"The unexamined life is not worth living." - Socrates

Valery is an Inner Wizard Mindset Mentor & Coach who teaches people how to be the hero of their opportunity instead of the victim of circumstance so they can fully invest themselves in their creative endeavors. Clients also learn how to root out self-sabotaging behavior that can land them in the National Enquirer! Empower the Wizard Within http://www.InnerWizard.com Free tips!

What Thoughts Wake You Up At Night?

2009-12-03T08:02:00.000-08:00

I asked through Facebook and Twitter "What thoughts wake you up at night?" The response was varied; from nonsensical to downright scary.

"Gee, the idea of munching on some (fill in the blank with just about anything vegetarian) sounds great."
"Where is my handbag?"
"Did we lock the security gate?"
"Why are the dogs so quiet?"

And several matched the thought that woke me up the other night:

"I gotta pee."

It's one thing to be awoken by your kids making noise in the next room and quite another when it's you who is sabotaging your own restful night.Thoughts that wake you up in the middle of the night engulfed in worry or fear is a common indicator of stress. The pressures and uncertainties in your daily life visit you through dreams and symbolic thoughts. Sometimes these dreams and thoughts jar you back into consciousness yet the feelings that evoked the rude jolt to healthy sleeping patterns remain.

These feelings are indicators for you to examine to reveal a greater understanding of yourself and what you experience. A dream in which you are worried, scared, or stressed in any way is a reflection of the dis-ease you are experiencing in your waking life.

According to the Dictionary of Dreams, the following symbols may shed some light on what the above thoughts may indicate as deep rooted feelings and fears that are getting in the way of emotional and physical well being:

eating food - This may be an indicator that the dreamer is concerned about a weight problem or eating disorder. It may be a health warning to draw attention to one's eating habits or weight problem. (although the veggie munching response to my query above could have been sent in fun and humor)

search - Search and not find: Instills the need to find something that is lacking within. Can be spiritual or need for self-examination. Search and find: Signal of accomplishment and self-capability.

gate - Closed: An opportunity for you to decide upon. Open: The beginning of an opportunity to leave your current situation.

intruder - Someone or something has interfered with your peace of mind by forcing a situation upon you.

burglar - An intruder, unwelcome person or event, loss of something. Being forcibly deprived by someone's actions.

With regard to the need to pee - when ya gotta go, ya gotta go!

Most dreams contain messages that serve to teach you something about yourself. Recurring dreams and wake-up thoughts are triggered by a life circumstance that keeps repeating itself. They are a message from your Higher Self to pay attention to, examine, and form a new perspective around the hidden meaning behind the dream symbol. Without judgment of any kind, look within yourself and face whatever you find in your exploration of what is the underlying stress.

Chances are you have placed yourself as a victim in your worry. Any area where you give up your personal power, your ability and responsibility to intentionally create your experiences, you will suffer with stress or anxiety. Know that you are a victim to no one and no circumstance unless you allow yourself to be. Whether a horrible thing happened to you or could happen to you is not what is creating stress. What brings on worry, doubt and fear is what you have the event mean for or about you in your life moving forward. You have absolute power over how you choose to experience any event in your life, unless you relinquish it. When you let go of your power you deny your self.

To reclaim your personal power focus upon all that you have done and achieved in your life. I'll bet that anything you set your mind to and were passionate about you have either achieved or are in the process of making it a real experience. Instead of giving up on yourself you were able to overcome obstacles, reach for new perspectives and new ideas when the going got tough. Do the same thing now with whatever wakes you up at night, Reach for a newer and better perspective. Take back your power and responsibility so that you can dream sweet dreams and enjoy restful nights.

Valery is an Inner Wizard Mindset Mentor & Coach who teaches people how to be the hero of their opportunity instead of the victim of circumstance so they can fully invest themselves in their creative endeavors. Clients also learn how to root out self-sabotaging behavior that can land them in the National Enquirer! Empower the Wizard Within http://www.InnerWizard.com Free tips!

The Art of Flow and How to Tap Into It

2009-12-01T07:41:00.000-08:00

I've often affirmed, "Let go and flow." Flow generates inspiration and births the A-HA moments of your clarity and vision.

All struggle is out-of-flow experience. Where you struggle is where you have turned your back on and said NO to you. Denying who you are and what you are here to be, do and have is an act of self-loathing. Life is exhausting for the person who holds back their truth, lives the 'shoulds' and 'must dos' of others, and limits their vision of what's possible. Where personal power is used to minister to internal fear and self-doubt, stress and anxiety is the end result. Such negative emotions are clear indicators of out-of-flow existence.

What is flow and how do I know when I'm 'in it'?

You've been in the flow before. Think of a time when you were completely and joyfully absorbed in what you were doing, exhilarated, moving beyond any fear and firing on all cylinders. You had no sense of time or space. One action succeeds another without thought. Endless energy gushed through your body. "In the zone" of creative life-affirming flow you were authentically expressing your full potential.

Truth is, you came into this world in the flow. A bundle of unconditional love and goodness at birth you used your personal power to feed your desires without fear. Your desires included your innate need for food, care and the actualization of your veritable presence on this earth. As you got older you began to use and direct your power to feed your fears. You began to doubt your worthiness, your abilities and what you wanted to become. You may have even lost your voice, you ability to express your truth.

"Eventually you will come to understand that love heals everything, and love is all there is." - Gary Zukav

To tap into your authentic flow it is essential to align your inner power with your personal truth wrapped in unconditional love of self and others. Sounds like a difficult if not arduous undertaking doesn't it? It's a lot easier than you may think.

When you let go and flow you do not sit like an overstuffed turkey on the sofa eating bon-bons all day waiting for opportunity and fortune to waltz into your living room. Quite the contrary. If you want to end persistent struggle you must let go of the thoughts, beliefs and choices that hold you back from full authentic expression and achievement. Flow requires action. You must get into motion when a bright idea reveals itself.

"Truth is such a rare thing it is delighted to tell it." - Emily Dickenson

Notice that when you go against your truth you suffer through anxiety and stress. Notice that where you withhold your love for your self or others you will feel alone, disconnected from life. Notice when you give up your personal power you become a helpless victim, blaming other people and external circumstances for your misfortune. All of these experiences are out-of-flow, a movement away from that which you are here to express, your purpose in life.

Pay attention to how you feel. If you feel good, you're in flow! The choices you make, the actions you take are heart-centered and in agreement with who you are at your deepest core. If you feel bad, you're directing you are using your energy to go against flow. The choices you make, the actions you take are misguided attempts to keep you from growing, keep you stuck right where you are in a comfort zone that you may not even like very much. If you notice that you are stress, anxious, angry at yourself or others, stop whatever you are doing. Take a moment to breathe and center yourself. I call times of agitation "do no harm periods". Make no decision, take no action, when you are in a negative state. If you do, you will not like the outcome you create. Reach for a newer and better perspective. Redirect your energy and focus to what you want instead of what you do not want. Make sure you concentrate your attention on what you really want, what will make your heart sing. Imagine how life will be when you have achieved that vision.

Feels good, doesn't it? Hold this feeling of a life well lived with you as you intuitively use your personal power to actualize that image. Know that this is what you are here to be, do and have. If the feeling starts to slip back into the familiar drone of struggle then you have begun to slip back into an old pattern. You have a choice. You can stay right where you are never getting anywhere or you can artfully turn yourself around and get back into flow. Use the exercise above to tap back into your personal power, authentic truth, and unconditional love.

"When the power of love overcomes the love of power the world will know peace". - Jimi Hendrix

Valery is an Inner Wizard Mindset Mentor & Coach who teaches people how to be the hero of their opportunity instead of the victim of circumstance so they can fully invest themselves in their creative endeavors. Clients also learn how to root out self-sabotaging behavior that can land them in the National Enquirer! Empower the Wizard Within http://www.InnerWizard.com Free tips!

How Penelope Cruz Leverages Her Fear to Create Mastery

2009-11-24T07:32:00.000-08:00

“When I start a movie, the first day, I feel like a duck.” - Penelope Cruz, Academy Award Winning Actor

Penelope Cruz makes no secret that she's terrified when she embarks on a new project, a new role. Inner thoughts of not being talented enough and anxiety over the sureness that she will be fired for one reason or another engulfs her mind as she prepares for those first few days on the set. While there is the occasional thespian who musters the temerity confidently to embody a character at the onset, Cruz is certainly not alone among actors who begin insecure and fearful they may not be able to deliver the performance the Director is looking for.

Fear and panic are not great external forces; they are powerful internal ones, generated deep in the part of the brain that is home to what I playfully call the Inner Critic. The Inner Critic is that egoic part of you that means well, wants to keep you safe, yet is woefully misguided. Preferring to keep you secure in your current comfort zone it will block you from stretching into the unknown. Every time you choose safety you reinforce what you terrifies you.

Unfortunately many talented people in every creative endeavor freeze and succumb to their fears. They Find Excuses And Reasons (F.E.A.R.) not to take on challenges, quit or hold back on the fullest expression of their creation. Have you ever faced an opportunity you wanted, perhaps even longed for, but were afraid? What went through your head at the time? Did allow your fear to hold you back or did you harness and leverage your fear to propel you forward beyond fear and into performance mastery?

Actors like Cruz acknowledge their inner fear and trepidation as they turn and focus that energy into their creation. As a committed actor, acting is more important to Cruz than giving in to her fear. Like an alchemist, she turns that fear into courage to push herself to even higher levels of excellence with each performance.

"I haven’t lost the normal fear and insecurity that comes with acting, and I don’t want to lose it. Every time a project starts, it feels like the first time. You have all these experiences that have been accumulating, yes, but it’s still new, still fresh, and I love all of those feelings, all of them. Especially the fear. Because I need that fear. I use it as fuel." - Penelope Cruz

If you surrender to your fear, let it overpower you, you destroy the creative passion that burns within you. If you try to suppress your fear, tension will build and become blocked impulses, responses, emotions and thoughts. This is the death knell for an actor.

If you acknowledge your fear and release that depth of emotion into your performance, into your art, into whatever it is you what to bring forth into this world you will experience a life-affirming richness of fulfillment. You fear will disappear as you embracing the foreboding nightmare and mindfully step through it with every fiber of your being. There is nothing more thrilling and exhilarating than the fullest expression of your creative potential.

"Ultimately we know deeply that the other side of every fear is a freedom." - Marilyn Ferguson, American author, editor and public speaker

Valery is an Artist Mindset Mentor & Coach who teaches people how to be the hero of their opportunity instead of the victim of circumstance so they can fully invest themselves in their creative endeavors. Clients also learn how to root out self-sabotaging behavior that can land them in the National Enquirer! Empower the Wizard Within http://www.InnerWizard.com Free tips!

Who Are You? Misguided Blockhead or Masterful Wizard?

2009-11-19T07:22:00.000-08:00

Who are you? Some say that a person is a product of his or her choices. Much like the causality dilemma of "Which came first, the chicken or the egg?" that evokes questions about life and how the Universe in general began, who you are can be rooted in a circular cause and consequence pattern of experience.

Or is it?

The answer is, it depends. It depends upon how you choose. Are you creating your choices or are your choices creating you?

The decisions you make, the actions you take and the results you experience are originated in how you think. The outcomes of your choices shape your thoughts which influence future decisions. If you don't like what's going on in your life you have the power to change how you think to create newer and better outcomes.

Let's say you got fired. You walked into work one morning and was given an unexpected pink slip and was shown the door. At that moment you have a choice, you can blame your "idiot" boss, cuss out your co-workers or clients and make yourself feel better by telling yourself you don't need that stinkin' job anyway. Or you can recognize the moment as a learning opportunity, take a step back and examine why exactly you got fired.

If you choose to blindly attribute your misfortune to the acts of others you are left with no information to prevent the same unwanted experience from again happening. After some time you find another job only to be shown the door again a few months later. And the repeated pattern of experience continues. You become a resentful, bitter, perhaps depressed, person who can't hold down a job and thinks your fate is in the hands of misguided blockheads.

Is this you? No. This is a person who lives life on autopilot, powerless to achieve an inner calling. It not who you came into this world to become. Nevertheless, the revolving door of bad experience after the other has, however, become your life experience as a consequence of the choice you made to blame others for the loss of your job. Your choices are creating who you have become. You have become the misguided blockhead.

What if you made a different choice? What if you examined why you initially got fired? You would discover what, specifically, lead to your termination. You would discover what errors in judgment you might have made, what signals you missed or didn't act on, or what relationships you failed to cultivate. Armed with this new information, lessons learned, and better way of thinking you will make very different choices in your next job.

Is this you? Yes. It is the you in the process of discovering and expressing your full potential. This is who you came into this world to be, tapped into your personal power as the deliberate creator of your life experience. The question remains, which you are you expressing today? If you're not sure, check in with how you feel. If your tired and frustrated your choices are creating you. If you energized and fulfilled, you are creating your choices. Like an masterful Wizard, you are the alchemist turning your passionate dream into a real experience.

"The unexamined life is not worth living." - Socrates

By the way, the answer to which came first the chicken or the egg is, the egg. It has something to do with zygote cells, DNA, and an illicit tryst with a rooster.

Valery is an Inner Wizard Mindset Mentor & Coach who teaches people how to be the hero of their opportunity instead of the victim of circumstance so they can fully invest themselves in their creative endeavors. Clients also learn how to root out self-sabotaging behavior that can land them in the National Enquirer! Empower the Wizard Within http://www.InnerWizard.com Free tips!

Resentment and Expectations: Big Fat Life Hold Ups

2009-11-17T07:28:00.000-08:00

I work with a lot of people who are often in conflict with people they work, or aspire to work with, or in their personal relationships. Time and again I see people become frustrated, angry, and hostile, all a result of having fixed and expectations of one another. Some hold onto and wear their resentment like a badge of honor. It's an exhausting way to live. Helping people recognize and reframe these control-based expectations is essential to real movement toward agreement, better experiences and overall emotional intelligence growth.

The source of anger and resentment is unmet expectations. Simply put, you are not here to live up to other people's expectations. Nor is anyone here to live up to yours. Think about the times you have been angry, aggravated, frustrated or downright pissed off. What was at the root of your upset? Chances are something you expected did not happen the way you wanted or assumed it would. Expectations can be good when used to energize and motivate in a positive direction. However, when entangled with unrealistic suppositions often developed in early childhood, they are likely to cause disappointment. Common reaction to disappointment is anger, resentment and depression.

Often when people come up against what is their idea of right and wrong, they tend to revert to old coping pattens of thinking. These 'rules of life' might have helped you make it through childhood safely and securely but they no longer are useful if they get in your way as an adult. In an effort not to lose what is really a false sense of control and security, people unrealistically expect all people to behave a certain way and presume all situations should turn out as they think they should. If any of this sounds a bit familiar, know that in these circumstances you unwittingly set yourself up for an unhappy experience. You will likely feel the blunt force of disappointment, anger, resentment, and rage.

What you don't realize is that this powerful negative emotion was stirred up by no one other than you so that you could 'be right' in the situation. You seek your validation through making others wrong. Being right makes you feel better about yourself because it gives you an excuse to direct your anger, your blame, at someone else instead of taking responsibility for your own agitation.

Know this: Any time any one or any thing controls how you value yourself or how feel, you are a victim to that person or thing.

No other person or situation can make you angry. Events alone do not cause anger. If someone does or says something that is not in line with your expectations you have the power to choose to react or respond. You can blindly react as if on autopilot as you run you old victim oriented "how dare she do this to me" routine that holds you back from moving forward or you can stop and deliberately decide how to respond.

Resentment is a thief that you invite in to steal your personal power. The more you resent the more you will feel victimized and powerless. Your emotions are indicators of whether or not you are about to act in a way that supports you or adds insult to injury. If you feel good, or at least calm, you are fully present in a position to respond productively from a centered place. If you feel bad, you've slipped into old thinking patterns of the past and are reacting automatically and irresponsibly from a disturbed place. Resentment over stymied expectations is not your friend in any circumstance. Pain can happen, anger and resentment is a choice.

If you discover that you've been hit in the fact with a thwarted expectation take a breath. Instead of cursing, believing that you've been foiled yet again, ask yourself the following questions:

Was your expectation realistic?
Just because you would do or say something in a specific situation does that mean that everyone has to act in the same way?
Do you even have all the facts?
Are you making up any of the details of the circumstance?
Are you making assumptions about the other person's motivations, agenda, thoughts or beliefs?
How do you know what you assume to be true is absolutely true?
Is there any other way the situation could be perceived?

And one more question:

Even if this other person disrespected or devalued you in some way, was it what you expected them to do? If so, look within to reveal where you disrespect or devalue yourself through your thoughts and beliefs about you. You cannot get that which you do not already have. If you want to be valued, respected, or loved you have to respect, value and love yourself first.

Once you've examined your expectations, change your thoughts, and decide upon the best course of action.

If someone has maligned you in some way, it is not within your control to alter another person's behavior. The only thing you really can change is your inner image of that person in such a manner that you are feeling less disappointed, hurt, bitter, cheated, or wronged by them. Truth is, everyone is doing the best they can with the light they have to see. Some people are missing a few batteries in their flashlight. Others have no idea how to turn on a flashlight. They are in the dark, unconscious to, their own unrealistic expectations and misguided thoughts that their actions are based upon. You can choose to dim your light to match their or shine your light to brighten their way.

As you begin to appreciate others in spite of their faults, you begin to appreciate yourself in spite of your own faults. You are doing the best you can and have opportunities to learn new, more productive, ways of thinking. As you do so, you will enjoy renewed energy, a more positive attitude and much better experiences when you let go of beating yourself up over unmet, often unrealistic, expectations of yourself.

"Resentment is like drinking poison and waiting for the other person to die." - Carrie Fisher - Author, Actress

Valery is an Artist Mindset Mentor & Coach who teaches people how to be the hero of their opportunity instead of the victim of circumstance so they can fully invest themselves in their creative endeavors. Clients also learn how to root out self-sabotaging behavior that can land them in the National Enquirer! Empower the Wizard Within http://www.InnerWizard.com Free tips!

Oops I Did It Again:The Zombie Tune of Repeated Unwanted Experiences

2009-11-12T07:24:00.000-08:00

Starting to think life is a merry-go-round? Have you lost or quit a job every couple of years with the excuse that your boss is a jerk or you're bored out of your mind? Have you noticed a revolving door-like structure to your personal relationships? Do you move your residence from place to place never satisfied with where you are? Is life slipping by through a set pattern of behavior that just isn't working out for you, just keeping you stuck on a treadmill of repeated experiences that you'd rather not have - again?

If so, you may have forgotten to take off your Halloween Zombie mask several years, or decades, ago. A zombie is a creature that is dead but robotically walks the walks the earth like a living person. A Zombie is a person on auto-pilot, unconscious to the masterful life-affirming creative power within. Going through life as a zombie isn't all that bad; except that things never really work out the way you want them to. The Zombie life will leave you feeling stuck or frustrated that you aren't living the life you had imagined. As a Zombie, you may be bitter about how life has treated you yet not understanding that only you can change your circumstances.

You are not alone. Plenty of Zombies walk among us. Some of your friends and co-workers are Zombies. You can bump into Zombies at the grocery store. Some are seen at seemingly normal and innocent places such as the spa, gym, empowering conference, workshop and the Barney's Warehouse Sale. Zombies everywhere! Whether you're a Zombie or not, you walk among them.

If you want to get out of a Zombie haze you have to take responsibility for all of your life experiences, good and bad. In taking responsibility, you are not beating yourself up with blame, shame, and guilt for creating the outcomes you'd rather forget. Instead, you examine each of these instances to discover what, specifically, led to the undesired incident.

All events begin with a thought that leads to a feeling that evokes a choice that calls for an action that creates the consequence.To remove the Zombie mask to wake up to your life, see clearly, and trace the occasions of your life back to the thoughts that generated the subsequent events. Think of it as much like peeling an onion. As you strip away the layers you'll realize how you unknowingly set yourself up for the results you experienced.

That's powerful information. In order to change the outcomes you do not want you have to change the way you think, reach for new perspectives. To continue to create more of the milestones you enjoyed continue to hold the thoughts and perspectives that created those wonderful happenings.

To the extent that you feel tired, unfulfilled, anxious, stressed or frustrated is where you show up in your life wearing a Zombie mask. Deliberately and objectively dissect the events that created unwanted circumstances to reveal the originating thoughts. Vigorously question the truth of those thoughts. Look for evidence to the contrary. Frame a new perspective. With this new outlook, identify what a better choice would have been and apply that new thinking to your life as you move forward. No longer living life as a Zombie you become the hero of your opportunities instead of the victim of your circumstance.

Valery is an Inner Wizard Mindset Mentor & Coach who teaches people how to be the hero of their opportunity instead of the victim of circumstance so they can fully invest themselves in their creative endeavors. Clients also learn how to root out self-sabotaging behavior that can land them in the National Enquirer! Empower the Wizard Within http://www.InnerWizard.com Free tips!

Stuck? You May Have Eyes Wide Shut Syndrome

2009-11-10T07:21:00.000-08:00

I was enjoying a lovely dinner last night at a little French restaurant at The Farmer's Market in Los Angeles last night when I overheard a neighboring conversation. Ok, I was deliberately eavesdropping. I admit it. Those who know me already know that listening to how other people think is a favorite pastime of mine. In a not so covert attempt to hear better, I scooched my chair a little closer and ran smack into the void of quiet desperation.

A writer and a director were discussing, or rather dissing, that which is known as The Biz in this town. The focus of their entire conversation was how impossible it was to get anything produced, let alone distributed, in this town. Piling on one limitation to success after another, the diatribe was peppered with all that is bad, all that is restrictive to the successful expression of their creative endeavor.

Ok, so the tenor of their desperation was not so quiet. This is not a new or unusual conversation in Hollywood. A lot of creative people are desperately looking for a break. Thousands flock to Los Angeles every year hoping to make it, see their name on the credit roll, achieve recognition and respect among peers.

As I continued to listen to their discourse I realized that the illness that preys upon creative professionals who often face rejection and brush-off is "eyes wide shut" syndrome. I get that only a very select few ever make it, achieve their deepest dream, here in tinsel town. It is not a hidden secret that the journey to success here is a road filled with rejection and heart ache. The eyes of opportunity are shut due to the challenges, pitfalls and possible hazards of this pursuit.

"A lot of directors don't want the pressure of a movie the size of Pearl Harbor. But I love it. I thrive on it." - Michael Bay, Director

While many will tell you it's an arduous, even tortuous, pursuit most people do not realize that they have chosen the path of least resistance instead of the thoroughfare to accomplishment. Their eyes are shut to the choices they make that hold them back from the next rung, and the rung after that on the ladder of success. Everything a person shuts his or her eyes to, resists, dislikes, complains about or runs away from is a blind alley. Every aspiration chased, every authentic expression withheld or self-denied darkens the pathway to actualization of what the heart is longing for.

"I`ve been told that I`m incompetent, socially retarded, maladjusted. I still know that I couldn`t function in reality. Los Angeles is a good place for me." - Diablo Cody, Writer, "Juno"

What seems painful, limiting or defeating can become a source of strength and inspiration if viewed from a different perspective. You can focus upon and give energy to all that is not working for you or you can choose to see what is viable for yourself and others. Do you turn your attention to all the failures and rejection in your life and in the lives of others who are after similar goals? Or do you actively seek shining examples of what is and can be done to deliver the ultimate experience you are working so hard to achieve. Simply put, you can become a victim of your circumstance or the hero of your opportunity.

Open your eyes. Form and embrace a new perspective, one that is founded in possibilities instead of impediments. Speak in the direction of your dreams; in your head and in the conversations you have with others. Take action on the intuitive inspired idea that may come to you in the middle of the night. Keep those eyes open and ready for what you have the talent and ability to create when you awake in the morning.

"I don't believe in pessimism. If something doesn't come up the way you want, forge ahead. If you think it's going to rain, it will. " - Clint Eastwood

Valery is a Superstar Mindset Mentor & Coach who teaches people how to be the hero of their opportunity instead of the victim of circumstance so they can fully invest themselves in their creative endeavors. Clients also learn how to root out self-sabotaging behavior that can land them in the National Enquirer! Empower the Wizard Within http://www.InnerWizard.com Free tips!

Fakin' It? Not Really Makin' It?

2009-11-05T07:17:00.000-08:00

As I was driving along the Malibu coast Paul Simon's "Fakin' It" blared through the radio. I had the volume cranked because I had the top down and was singing loudly and badly along with the song. It's such fun to let go and sing, especially if the sound of your voice could turn wine into vinegar, but I digress.

When I screeched the verse:

"I've just been fakin' it,
I'm not really makin' it.
This feeling of fakin' it-
I still haven't shaken it."

It occurred to me that "this feeling of fakin' it" was a running theme among my clients in the entertainment industry. Many of the people who come to me believe, at their deepest core, that it's only a matter of time before the people who can make or break careers will discover that the artist or executive hired is not really talented, smart, good, pretty, young, passionate, thin, whatever enough. Even someone who has climbed up several rungs on their ladder of success can still feel like he or she is still just fakin' it, not really makin' it.

Often people are told by well-meaning yet misguided advisers to 'fake it until you make it'. The trouble is, you can't fake it. Your Higher Being (what I playfully call the Wizard Within) will know you are faking. Faking it is the realm of that other part of you, the voice of your self-doubt, your Inner Critic. This part of you that wants to keep you small to be safe will serve up messages of fear and admonition to hold you back.

There is a clear distinction between merely faking something and believing in your potential. If you show up in your craft, and in your life, faking it you give your power, your personal strength and courage, over to your Inner Critic who will lie and tell you that you really aren't good enough to want what you want, be who you want to be, do what you want to do. Know this, if your heart passionately calls you to pursue a dream it does so because this is who you are and what you are meant to do. By this very definition, you are talented, good, smart, whatever enough to reach your goal, achieve your dream. Unless you get in your own way by listening to that misguided Inner Critic.

Instead, return your power over to your Higher Being and hold the presence of a person fully in touch with their potential and allow yourself to boldly pursue your creative endeavors. Imagine yourself as having already reached your goal, and beyond, and hold all the feelings associated with what that experience will deliver. Stay present with those feelings as you express yourself in every aspect of your life each and every day. Before you know it, what you imagine has turned into reality. You have to see it in order to believe it. You have to believe it in order to be it. It's that simple.

Even if you fall flat on your face a time or two you will move closer to realizing your dream in the lesson that can be learned by that experience.

It must have been an oldies sweep because the next song played was "Brass In Pocket" by The Pretenders, Chrissie Hynde and James Honeyman-Scott. Oh, yeah!

"Got brass in pocket
Got bottle I'm gonna use it
Intention I feel inventive
Gonna make you, make you, make you notice

'cause I gonna make you see
There's nobody else here
No one like me
I'm special so special
I gotta have some of your attention give it to me"

Valery is a Superstar Mindset Mentor & Coach who teaches people to tap into their inner power & wisdom, get out of their own way & fully invest themselves in their creative endeavors. Clients also learn how to root out self-sabotaging behavior that can land them in the National Enquirer! Empower the Wizard Within http://www.InnerWizard.com Get Free tips!

Life Stinks? How To Detach From Your Garbage Truck

2009-11-03T07:20:00.000-08:00

Life stinks.

If that statement bubbled up in your thoughts recently then you may be attached to life decaying garbage truck thinking. Simply put, if you stuff your mind with garbage you will create stinky outcomes. If you focus upon all that is bad in your life you will only add to the garbage dump that is becoming your daily experience.

Garbage in, garbage out.

Let's say you're rushing to get to work on the 405 freeway when another driver cuts in front of you and slams on the brakes. You toot your horn forcefully to give him a warning as you avoid a whopper of a fender bender. He responds with a slew of obscenities and the ubiquitous finger punctuator. It happens - a lot - if you live in a busy metropolis such as Los Angeles.

In that moment you have a choice. You can raise your fickle finger of fate in response or smile and count your blessings that you're not that guy. Yikes, what a miserable way to live. By smiling you kept negative feelings and energy right where it came from - from that guy. If you responded with your own favorite flip off gesture you would have taken on his garbage as yours. Pissed off, your focus is negatively directed. You will cloud your vision with so much dust and dirt and wonder why you cannot see.

"You can complain because roses have thorns, or you can rejoice because thorns have roses." - Ziggy, Tom Wilson comic strip panel

Where focus goes, energy flows.

Some people are like garbage trucks. They run around packed to the hilt with garbage. Their life energy is full of anger, frustration and disappointment. Their conversations are filled with complaints. They find excuses and reasons why they can't be, do or have what they want blaming others for their misfortune. The acronym for Finding Excuses And Reasons is FEAR and when you're in fear you Fight Everything And Reek of stinky experiences.

With a mind full of garbage these car wrecks waiting to happen will constantly seek places to dump their load. And they will dump it on you. They can dump all they want. It is up to you whether or not you take on their garbage for yourself. If you take on the garbage that can be found in the misguided lives of many people and events in your life then you, too, become a stinky garbage truck creating rotten experiences spreading your trash and stinking up your life. What's worse is as queen of your own compost heap you'll get used to the smell.

Be mindful of your thoughts. Pay attention to the words that come out of your mouth. Are you a trash talker? I'm not talking about using a four letter word or two to add a little color to your expression - as long as it's positive. Are you focused upon what's not right in your life and in your world? What you lack instead of what you have? Are you finding a lot to complain about? If so, you're attached to a stinky garbage truck life perspective picking up and dumping more trash every where you go.

“Thoughts are things; they have tremendous power. Thoughts of doubt and fear are pathways to failure. When you conquer negative attitudes of doubt and fear you conquer failure. Thoughts crystallize into habit and habit solidifies into circumstances.” - Bryan Adams, Canadian rock singer-songwriter and photographer

To let go of the garbage bags you've been carrying around to stink up the place, find the value in every experience, good and bad. This gem is often disguised as a life-affirming lesson to be learned. Take the note and apply the lesson to clean up your act or create more of the good stuff. Speak and act in the direction of your dreams and your days will reflect the sweetest smelling rose in the garden of life.

Valery is a Superstar Mindset Mentor & Coach who teaches people to tap into their inner power & wisdom, get out of their own way & fully invest themselves in their creative endeavors. Clients also learn how to root out self-sabotaging behavior that can land them in the National Enquirer! Empower the Wizard Within http://www.InnerWizard.com Get Free tips!

The Best Halloween Costume Ever!

2009-10-30T13:09:00.000-07:00

I love Halloween. It is perhaps the most empowering holiday of the year. For fun, think of the person you admired most when you were a child. It could be Spiderman (or any other movie character - animated or not). It could be a favorite character in a book, a celebrity, a favorite Aunt or Teacher. Think back to when you were able to complete this sentence: "When I grow up I want to be _______."

Create a costume for whatever answer popped into your mind. Wear the costume on Halloween and really get into the part. Act as if you were that person. Have fun in that role.

"The thing about performance, even if it's only an illusion, is that it is a celebration of the fact that we do contain within ourselves infinite possibilities." - Daniel Day Lewis

When the evening comes to an end take off the costume. As you put the costume away think of the attributes of the person you embodied over the course of the evening. For example, if Madonna rocked your world when you were little, consider the attributes of confident, authentic, self-assured, talented, adored by many, unique, strong, comfortable in her own skin, controversial - or whatever it was about her that impressed you as a child. Whatever attributes you identify as meaningful, hold onto them as you show up expressing those attributes the next day and every day after that.

The truth is, whomever you aspired to be when you were little is a reflection of who you are. You love a reflection of you! If there are parts of you that you do not like know this is your conditioned self, your nurture not your nature. This is the egoic coping mechanism and what I playfully call the Inner Critic, that you invented to stay safe and loved in your formative years.

"People often become actresses because of something they dislike about themselves: They pretend they are someone else." - Bette Davis

Acknowledge, embrace and honor the attributes that make your heart sing and are your birthright. Show up in your life as the person you aspired to be. Soon the role won't feel like a costume as you become comfortable in your own skin!

I'd love to know who you wanted to be when you grew up! Use the comment box to tell me how you are showing up in your life today as the person you dreamed of becoming.

"Therapy? I don't need that. The roles that I choose are my therapy." - Angelina Jolie

Valery is a Superstar Mindset Mentor & Coach who teaches people to tap into their inner power & wisdom, get out of their own way & fully invest themselves in their creative endeavors. Clients also learn how to root out self-sabotaging behavior that can land them in the National Enquirer! Empower the Wizard Within http://www.InnerWizard.com Get Free "Empower the Wizard Within tips"!

Stuck in WTF? How to Unstick and Flow

2009-10-29T07:42:00.000-07:00

You've worked long and hard at developing and honing your craft. You've put your fears aside and went to audition after audition even for roles you knew you didn't have much of a chance of landing. You've struggled yet managed to keep a roof over your head and food in your belly. You even got some recognition as an "artist to watch". And just when you think you're finally in a position to finally get a break - one that will catapult you into the career and lifestyle you've longed for - the industry seems to have lost its love affair with you. With its back seemingly turned against you the powers and media that be in Hollywood is abuzz with the deafening news that:

The economy tanked! Studios have no money! The independent creative just doesn't stand a chance anymore against the big corporation! The networks are only interested in buying reality shows! It's a man's world - a woman can't get to the top in this town. Add whatever other doom and gloom statements and projections you've heard that permeate the air in this town.

WTF? Why is this happening just when you thought you had a glimmer of a chance to really make it?

And you sit there stuck in fear, worry and desperation - oh my! Every door of opportunity that was once open and inviting is now slammed shut. Helping hands that were once offered are now out of reach. Serving fries at Mickey D's is now starting to look pretty good to you.

WTF?

Have you forgotten that you know how to open a door? Have you forgotten that whatever you've already achieved in your career to date has been because you went out there and got it for yourself! You didn't let anything stand in your way then, so why are you buying into the friggin excuses and reasons everyone is serving up for their own failures? The acronym for Friggin' Excuses And Reasons is FEAR! When a person is frozen in a state of fear she will find a way to blame something or someone else on her sorry state of affairs.

"I don't believe in pessimism. If something doesn't come up the way you want, forge ahead. If you think it's going to rain, it will." - Clint Eastwood

Know this: Any time you allow someone or something outside of yourself to control or dictate your life circumstance you become its victim. If you're stuck in victim-land it's time to take back your power by focusing upon what you can do instead of what you cannot do. Yes, times are tough and there are a lot of people who aren't making it. Fine, whatever, irrelevant. Why spend your time and energy adopting their circumstance for yourself? Instead, look at the people who are successfully going after what they want despite the woeful laments of those around them. What do these people have, what do they do that others who are stuck in the land of WTF don't do?

"When I was producing on my own, I was doing it in order to - in a very patriarchal entertainment industry, let alone planet - very much hell-bent on trying to prove to myself, if nothing else, that I could do it as a woman." - Alanis Morissette

People who continue to speak and act in the direction of their dreams empower themselves to rise above any challenge, any obstacle, that is thrown in their way. Nothing stops them in their passionate pursuit of what will make their heart sing. You will not hear these people complaining and blaming outside forces for their misgivings. They are too busy making their dreams come true.

The next time you find yourself buying into the stuck beliefs of the WTF crowd know that you have pointed yourself away from your dream. Turn yourself around by refusing to participate. Instead of focusing upon the gloom and doom news and gossip of the day, look to the actors who are landing roles, studios funding production, independents crossing the perceived corporate barriers, networks backing scripted dramas, and women in leadership positions. There is plenty of evidence to support your success out there. All you have to do is turn your focus towards that light as you allow your words, choices and actions to flow in alignment with your deepest desire.

"I believe there's an inner power that makes winners or losers. And the winners are the ones who really listen to the truth of their hearts." - Sylvester Stallone

Valery is a Superstar Mindset Mentor & Coach who teaches people to tap into their inner power & wisdom, get out of their own way & fully invest themselves in their creative endeavors. Clients also learn how to root out self-sabotaging behavior that can land them in the National Enquirer! Empower the Wizard Within http://www.InnerWizard.com Get Free "Empower the Wizard Within tips"!

Actress Emily Blunt - A Power of Intention Wizard

2009-10-27T08:01:00.000-07:00

Actress Emily Blunt walked into her audition and firmly announced "I'm here to play Queen Victoria and I'm not leaving until you give me the job". She then focused and commanded every scrap of energy and talent within her to deliver her best performance possible and did not leave that audition until she was awarded the role.

That, my friends, is the power of intention and a shining example of the secret to superstar success. Know what you want and put every part of your being - your thoughts, feelings, choices and actions into alignment with that desire. Speak and act in the direction of your dreams. Let no one and no thing stand between you and that which will make your heart sing.

The common denominator between those who do not make it or those who have achieved some success but can't reach the next rung on the ladder of achievement and those who rise above the competition to reach superstar success is a self-focused commitment to a burning desire. A self-focused energy is not about stomping over everyone else to get what you want. It is about acknowledging and honoring who you are and what you want and allowing yourself to have that.

"I love more than anything looking at a movie scene by scene and seeing the intention behind it." - Jodie Foster

Allow the child within your heart, what I playfully call the Wizard Within, to rise above. In your heart of hearts, you know what you long to do. However, the child within your head, what is called the Inner Critic, will hold you back by Finding Excuses And Reasons why you can't have what you want, why you can't do what you want to do and be who you want to be. The acronym for Finding Excuses And Reasons is FEAR. And when you're in fear you turn your back on yourself and retreat, often by taking a path of least resistance.

“Fear is the enemy of logic. There is no more debilitating, crushing, self-defeating, sickening thing in the world--to an individual or to a nation.” - Frank Sinatra

It takes chutzpah to walk into an audition and declare a leading role as yours. What's the worse that could happen? If you don't get the part you're no worse off than you were when you walked into the audition. Any thoughts of failure by not landing the role and what that means for you is stuff you just made up. Doesn't make it true. There will always be another role, another opportunity - unless you get in your own way through fear. What's the best that could happen? You get what you want!

In order to get what you want you have to first know what you want. Then focus all of your thoughts and actions in a way that will support getting it. That self-focus is the first, and essential, intentional step required for superstar success. With each succeeding step you take as you move closer and closer to your goal continue to focus in that direction with the same power of intention. You'll begin to marvel at how your life experience shifts from struggle to seemingly effortless flow as you fully invest yourself in your creative endeavors.

"Only one who devotes himself to a cause with his whole strength and soul can be a true master. For this reason mastery demands all of a person." - Albert Einstein

Valery is a Superstar Mindset Mentor & Coach who teaches people to tap into their inner power & wisdom, get out of their own way & fully invest themselves in their creative endeavors. Clients also learn how to root out self-sabotaging behavior that can land them on tabloid covers! Empower the Wizard Within http://www.InnerWizard.com Get Free "Empower the Wizard Within tips"!

Tap Into Creative Flow Through Humor

2009-10-22T07:37:00.000-07:00

Childhood is often referred to as a carefree and playful time enjoyed without a thought of responsibility. However, a more accurate look at the average youth experience reveals that children experience quite a bit of emotional and sometimes physical pain. Many children who live such a stressful childhood reach for humor as a coping mechanism.

A group of researchers at Texas A&M found that humor can significantly increase hope and that hopefulness helps people cope with stresses in daily life including illness. At professor at Canisius College in Buffalo, NY demonstrated in a medical setting that humor helps both patients and physicians cope. It is true, laughter is often the best medicine.

"Laughter gives us distance. It allows us to step back from an event, deal with it and then move on." - Bob Newhart

Many people who have had painful childhoods became masters at humor. Watch most any James Lipton interview with an actor on Bravo's "Inside The Actors Studio" and you will recognize the common thread of talented actors who have turned to their craft to cope with a difficult childhood. It is frequently assumed that comics and comedians used humor to deal with stressful childhood environments, particularly with parental conflict or a distant mother.

"Nobody became an actor because he had a good childhood." - William H. Macy

Rodney Dangerfield, was one of the funniest comics and actors who was raised by his mother. Growing up with a painful childhood found escape through humor. As a child, comedian George Lopez never felt like it was great to be part of a family. When first performed, at age 18, he made the audience roar with laughter. He felt like he was flying. It was the first time he ever felt complete acceptance and love.

Jim Carrey knew hardship as a child. His mother was often ill and Jim spent many hours near her bedside spontaneously performing funny routines to make her laugh, make her feel better. Chris Rock based his show "Everybody Hates Chris" on his painful childhood memories growing up as the only black student in an all-white school in New York City. After comedian and talk-show host Ellen DeGeneres' parents divorced she helped her mother cope with depression by making her laugh. A surprising number of comics have such faced hardships as children, yet managed to find their personal salvation through laughter. They continue to cope with childhood memories, and provide our entertainment, by making us laugh. Often this laughter helps us cope with our own painful memories.

"I found I could make her happy, and she wouldn't be crying anymore," When you're a kid you don't usually have that kind of control over your parent, but I could change her emotion, and that was amazing." - Ellen De Generes

"Life can be a bummer -- full of hurt and pain and sadness. It's part of it, and important to put it in perspective. Have a sense of humor as much as you can." - Ellen DeGeneres

We express laughter through the body, through emotions and with our spirit. Laughter evokes an internal flowing that is life-affirming. A hearty guffaw can improve blood flow, according to a study from the University Maryland. When you enjoy a good laugh, your body relaxes and triggers endorphins that promote an overall sense of well-being and can even temporarily relieve pain. Laughing also helps to break down stress hormones and build up hormones associated with happiness.

So if you're having a day when your frustrated, stressed out, anxious or just plain stuck, watch a few funny YouTube videos, go to a Comedy Club or spend some time with people and things that make you laugh! Get your blood flowing, your heart beating and step back into the rhythm and flow that is the essence of the playful creative spirit.

You can turn painful situations around through laughter. If you can find humor in anything, even poverty, you can survive it. - Bill Cosby

Valery is a Superstar Mindset Mentor & Coach who teaches people to tap into their inner power & wisdom, get out of their own way & fully invest themselves in their creative endeavors. Clients also learn how to root out self-sabotaging behavior that can land them on TMZ! Empower the Wizard Within, http://www.InnerWizard.com Get Free "Empower the Wizard Within tips"!

How Risk Unleashes Creative Expression: Successful Actors Give Life Lessons

2009-10-20T08:20:00.000-07:00

What is risk and why is it something to be feared, to be avoided?

To risk is to be exposed to the possibility of a loss or harm. To be risk adverse is to say to yourself, "If I do this thing I might lose something I value or something bad could happen to me. Better to stay right where I am or take a safe route, follow the path of least resistance." Remaining stagnant sucks the life energy out of the creative person. To churn out safe, predictable work that will elicit familiar and expected responses is unfulfilling to an artist, a creative person in any endeavor, who yearns to express his or her full potential.

"The thing is doing it, that's what it's all about. Not in the results of it. After all what is a risk? It's a risk not to take risks. Otherwise, you can go stale and repeat yourself. I don't feel like a person who takes risks. Yet there's something within me that must provoke controversy because I find it wherever I go. Anybody who cares about what he does takes risks." - Al Pacino

Risk involves opening yourself, being vulnerable, to change and growth. To risk is to stand centered in the truth of who you are, what you wish to express as your life purpose using the full potential of your unique gifts that are your birthright. To risk is to have ability to ignore your need for other's approval in order to take the most appropriate action for you to achieve that expression.

It is often this loss of approval that people fear most. They would rather remain small, locked in by the chains of conformity to the expectations of others, than shine the light on what their heart is yearning to express. But risk must be taken, because the greatest hazard in life is to risk nothing. The person who risks nothing, does nothing, has nothing and is nothing.

If as a baby you chose not to risk falling you never would have walked. You risked appearing the fool by laughing at what tickled your funny bone. You loved another person by risking losing that love. You expose your feelings and expose your self to criticism and rejection. You grew and evolved. Where you struggle is where you have held back your authentic expression.

Actors learned how to tap into their own inner power and wisdom to take risks, go beyond the comfort zone of safety and expose themselves to criticism, loss of favor among the public and their peers in order to expose the range of emotions and feelings that will bring truth to the character, their role. One cannot express truth without risk. To withhold truth is to show up inauthentically in your life.

"I completely take on the risk, the poker game, which being an artist means, and I'm going to try to make a film which honestly reflects what I have in my head." - Antonio Banderas

To remain safe, people will Find Excuses And Reasons (F.E.A.R.) not to take a risk. These fears will be rooted in the following egoic needs:

1. Approval
2. To avoid guilt
3. To be right
4. To avoid conflict
5. To avoid responsibility
6. To avoid failure
7. Certainty
8. Expectations to be met
9. To remain safe in status quo, negative or positive.
10. To affirm self-identifying beliefs, negative or positive.

"Actors are trusting souls, and we must go by gut-level instinct, even after our agents and business managers weigh all the odds." -Anne Archer

Some people forget that to risk is to also open up the possibility of a favorable outcome. Risks based in inspiration will always have a favorable outcome even if that outcome isn't realized immediately. A failure can lead to new knowledge, a new awareness, that will create unprecedented success at a later date. Risk, or an aversion to risk, base upon fear will always have a negative outcome. Not venturing into the unknown will limit the discovery of new ideas, new approaches, new perspective. To be creative is to actively think non-linearly and to let go of expectations while being open to new possibilities.

"Its fun to be on the edge. I think you do your best work when you take chances, when you're not safe, when you're not in the middle of the road, at least for me, anyway." - Danny DeVito

Only a person who risks is free. Taking risks grounded in what comes from the heart rather than the egoic mind sets the creative person free to explore beyond the boundaries of what is already known. To the inspired risk-taker there are no limitations, no boundaries on what can be expressed, brought forth unto experience. Anything is possible.

"I'm a firm believer in taking risks in life, because you`ll never get anywhere unless you do, and the more risk involved the greater the outcome - or the worse, but you never know so you've got to go for it." - Famke Janssen

Learning to see differently, learning how to reach for a new perspective, is the spark that ignites the creative spirit. The willingness to look through a new and different lens requires removing the rose colored glasses of safety. Allow yourself to break free of the chains of limitations imposed upon you by others and by yourself through your own fearful Inner Critic who works hard to keep you safe, right where you are now. Be willing to move beyond the convention and conformity of those who hold themselves and try to hold you back from moving beyond the here and now and what has always been. Honor your authenticity, trust your intuition.

"I've always taken risks, and never worried what the world might really think of me." - Cher

When you live life and approach your work inspired by your truth you will always be safe. You will always be fulfilled by this alignment with what you are here to express and your purpose in life. You will effortlessly invest yourself in your creative potential and enjoy the ride, the thrill of a lifetime.

"Risk is really an essential part of being a creative person." - Kevin Bacon

Valery is a Superstar Mindset Mentor & Coach who teaches people to tap into their inner power & wisdom, get out of their own way & fully invest themselves in their creative endeavors. Clients also learn how to root out self-sabotaging behavior that can land them on TMZ! Empower the Wizard Within http://www.InnerWizard.com Get Free "Empower the Wizard Within tips"!

Where Emotional Fear Comes From And How to Move Beyond It

2009-10-15T08:19:00.000-07:00

Fear.

Fear is THE source that holds you back, how you get in your own way, from fully and successfully investing yourself in your creative endeavors. You may have found excuses and reasons that are external to you to explain why you can't do what you want to do, have what you want to have and do what you want to do. It's the economy, the glass ceiling, the proverbial boys club. You "can't because" you're not young, old, pretty, smart, rich, savvy, talented, connected, whatever - enough.

Balderdash. The acronym for these Found Excuses And Reasons is FEAR. So, where does this fear come from?

I am not talking about the natural fear of a real danger such as a fire or any other real life threatening situation. Those occurrences are normal. In real danger, the body naturally prepares itself for a fight or flight response. All fear is an uncomfortable strong emotion evoked as a response to an awareness of a perceived danger. Unrealistic fear is rooted in an individual when he or she recalls past fears or events and projecting them into a current situation. This type of emotional fear is often how people cope with conflict. What is feared is voiced by the Inner Critic within who misguidedly holds you back to keep you safe. The thing is, you are in no real danger. The perceived threat is imaginary, not real.

“If you're frightened of leprechauns, the best thing to do is to get yourself a little leprechaun outfit and see how big they are. And then you'll go, 'Well I see. That's like bein' frightened of a hampster." - Craig Ferguson, Actor, Comedian, Talk Show Host

Irrational emotional fear is a response to a perceived threat to your security, safety or survival. Fear manifests in feelings of anxiety, nervousness, procrastination, insecurity, lack of confidence, worry, shyness, stress, panic or terror. People fear pain and suffering of any kind. Death, conflict, failure, humiliation, the unknown, invalidation, and exploitation are some of the many fears people hold. Fear impacts physically and mentally. It influences your thinking and actions. Reacting to and acting on irrational fear is akin to yelling "Fire!" in a crowded theater when there is no fire. You miss the movie and piss off a lot of other people.

Much of what is unrealistically feared developed before the age of six. You came into this world fearless and bathed in love and attention as an infant. Every little move you made was notice, acknowledged, honored and applauded. As you got older - not so much. Your first step was celebrated but not your hundredth. Instead of all your demands being met you began to hear the word no. What happened? How and when did you begin to lose the love and acknowledgement that was once abundantly given to you? Perceived loss of loved is often the first fear that develops in a young person.

Parents, teachers and other influencers projected their own fears onto you and, as a young naive student of the world, you never questioned what you were told. Often, you misinterpreted what you were told or what you saw and heard. "Don't talk to strangers" could have been interpreted as "People you don't know will hurt you" and now you have a fear of speaking in front of or being with a lot of people you don't know. A belief in "No one likes a fool" can turn into a fear of doing anything that might embarrass or humiliate you. People with this fear have difficulty communicating freely with others of exposing what they believe to be weaknesses. Many will avoid building professional and personal relationships in fear of being exploited. A parent's casual comment of "money begets evil" will work against a person if they fear that if they become wealthy they will also become evil.

Fear is a coping mechanism to keep you safe and comfortable. And what is safe and comfortable to you is right where you are now. You may not particularly like your current circumstance but its what you know and so it is safe. Stretching, growing, moving beyond this zone into the unknown area of greater achievement in any area of your life is downright scary to that Inner Critic who works very had to keep you safe. Any move you make that will take you out of this zone of comfort will be fought against by the voice of this inner six year old who is still very frightened.

Ok, that's where fear comes from. How does one move beyond it?

It's not as hard as you might think. First and foremost, be mindful of your emotions. Your emotions are indicators of how you feel. If you notice feelings such as physical and mental tension, a knot in the stomach, stress, anxiety, restlessness, heart palpitations, lack of initiative, low self-esteem, indignation and resignation know that you have moved into fear. In that moment examine the event that triggered the emotion. Events in and of themselves do not create stress and other fear-based emotions. What triggers the emotional response is the meaning, the interpretation, you give to that event.

For example, someone who agonizes, worries, feels sick, etc. before a presentation or meeting that could advance their career may have made the event mean that their career will be ruined forever if the outcome doesn't happen as hoped. This person may think that they will be criticized, laughed out of the room and end up starving, begging for food, on the streets of Los Angeles. Whatever is going through the mind of someone in fear needs to be identified and examined for its validity. Is what is feared, real?

Fear is faith that it won't work out. Yes, it is within the realm of possibility that someone could ruin their career with some unimaginable and freakish display of behavior during a meeting. Is it likely that the person who is in a state of fear and anxiety over the meeting will behave in this manner? No. Even if they did turn their career into a train wreck is it life threatening? No. So, consider what really would happen if the presentation did not go well? Does that outcome create actual pain and suffering? No. Whatever pain and suffering that may occur after a dismal presentation is brought upon a person by themselves - again through the meaning they have attached to the undesired outcome. Who knows, the crash and burn of one career opportunity may open the door to a career move the results in unprecedented success!

"I have not ceased being fearful, but I have ceased to let fear control me." - Erica Jong

In the examination of what is feared it is also beneficial to consider what would happen if the event went as desired or even beyond expectations? What would you have, who would you be, what could you do? Feel the emotions that come with that desirable vision. Feels good, doesn't it. Good feelings are not fear based. It is when you feel bad that you are likely in a state of fear. Notice, too, whether or not there is any trigger or anxiety over your vision of a good outcome. Look for meanings you have placed on the positive outcome.

For example, some people fear success because they believe that it only a matter of time before others discover that they are not good, talented, worthy, whatever enough to have such success. Or, a successful person may fear they won't be able to maintain this level of success and will be ridiculed when they fall back a rung or two or ten down the ladder of achievement.

Is the fear universal? In the above example, can you think of anyone who blew an opportunity big time and went on to enjoy a successful career? There are plenty of examples. All you have to do is read the entertainment tabloids to read tales of those such as Robert Downey, Jr., Mickey Rourke, who behaved really badly and later went on to create masterful performances that catapulted them back into award winning stardom. You will be able to find similar examples in any industry.

You are not the sum of your fears. You are not whatever you think you lack or are not enough of. Those thoughts and feelings embody the Inner Critic part of you, the ego, the voice of your self-doubt and fear. You are not the sum of your strengths. You are not just what you are passionate about and whatever you know you're really good at. Those thoughts and feelings embody your Higher Self, or what I playfully call the Wizard Within, the voice of your intuition and truth. You are all of those things integrated into a whole. And your first responsibility in this life is to honor, acknowledge and unconditionally love your self as the integrated whole.

The shift is in what parts of you do you give your power to. If you let the egoic part of you choose how to react to the events of your life then you become a victim to it. If you hold your power within your Higher Self you will listen to that calm, wise part of you that observes and examines your emotions and initial reactions and chooses to act in alignment with your higher values and greater good.

The bottom line is that whatever holds you back from the life experience you desire and do not have is rooted in egoic fear. That's ok. It is natural to react to fear. Just examine your fears, identify whether they are real or imaginary. If they are real, run! If they are imaginary, instead of the knee jerk response of "eFF Everything And Run (FEAR)" remove the scary trigger by taking a deep breath and taking one baby step in the direction of your fear. Instead of looking at what you fear as something to avoid, see it as an opportunity, perhaps an adventure. And take another baby step. Before you know it you will have moved beyond your fear to discover that what you feared is what your heart was calling you to become.

It's the heart afraid of dying, that never learns to dance;
It's the dream afraid of waking, that never takes the chance;
It's the one who won't be taken, who cannot seem to give;
And the soul afraid of dying, that never learns to live.
- Bette Midler “The Rose"

Valery is a Superstar Mindset Mentor & Coach who teaches people to tap into their inner power authentically so that they can get out of their own way and successfully invest themselves in their creative endeavors. Clients also learn how to root out the kind of self-destructive behavior that can land them on TMZ.com. Empower the Wizard Within http://www.InnerWizard.com Get Free tips!

Twitter Fights - A New Medium for Celebrity Self-Sabotage

2009-10-13T08:09:00.000-07:00

HA!

That's often my first reaction when I open up the daily Calendar Section in the Los Angeles Times in the wee dark hours of each morning. This Monday morning's edition was no exception. Matea Gold reports that celebrities are taking their egoist rants about each other to the public stage and often rue the day they ever discovered Twitter. No longer do we need the paparazzi to hide in the bushes hoping to get a shot of celebrity self-sabotage. Superstars and those seeking superstardom have now cut out the middle man and publicize their own misguided emotional reactions to the events of their daily life. And they're getting quite good at self-destruction within 140 characters or less!

The latest celebrity feud to emerge out of the Twittersphere is the battle between Perez Hilton and Demi Moore. The two are duke-ing it out on Twitter over two posts by Hilton about Tallulah Willis' wardrobe. Perez thinks it's inappropriate for a 15-year old and showed photos to illustrate his point. Moore vigorously came to her daughter's defense claiming Perez is violating child pornography laws. Perez attacks Moore personally with a barb about menopause and Moore pushes Hilton again on his inappropriate exploitation of underage tushies threatening legal action. The spat goes on from there. The article shines light on other outbursts on the Twitter stage from Kirstie Alley, Ryan Seacrest, Mark Cuban and others.

What makes for an entertainment today, whether it be in the LA Times, Twitter, TMZ, Access Hollywood or any other media that follows the celebrity life is often a spotlight on a star acting badly. If the behavior leads to a personal train wreck, all the better. Why is that? Why do stars publicly act out and why does the public love to see it? Why do they jeopardize their public image with these public outbursts and temper tantrums?

Ego.

Self-destructive behavior of any kind by anyone is rooted in the ego defending itself against threat usually based in some sort of feeling of being victimized, being made "less than". Perez Hilton has his power to embarrass and publicly humiliate celebrities because these very same celebrities, including Demi Moore, and the general public gave it to him. Moore added force to Perez's power by giving his Tweet more energy and distribution with her response saying that he does not take violating child pornography laws very seriously. Perez responds to this a by attacking back with personal insult.

Events in and of themselves hold no power. A tushie shot is a tushie shot. Period. What a person has an event mean is what fuels the reaction, that will result in a good or bad outcome. Having a tushie shot taken in a public place mean that Perez Hilton supports child pornography is of Moore's own creation. Perez having Moore's response mean that she is menopausal, needs medication and lessons in parenting is all of his own creation. None of these meanings are true. These attached meanings and assumptions that are given to events are the fabrication of the ego to make itself feel better, to feel less victimized.

Truth is, you are a victim to no one and no thing unless you allow yourself to be. If Demi viewed the photo of her daughter as just a shot of yet another young girl wearing short shorts instead of child pornography involving her daughter there would be no power in Hilton's Tweet. If Demi didn't like Tallulah's butt hanging out of her shorts she could have addressed the wardrobe issue with her daughter, in private. Instead, there are now threats of a law suit that will also give more steam, energy and attention to the story and to the continued publication of the young tushie.

If Perez took Demi's reaction to the Tweet as that of a protective parent rather than a personal accusation that he is a child pornographer his ego would not rise to personally attack Demi Moore to hurt or embarrass her rather than have anything to do with the photo itself. There would be no pending lawsuit, no more energy given to the dispute. That would also mean that Perez would pass on an opportunity to engage a celebrity in a public fight that only he can win. Whether Perez is right or not is irrelevant. His ratings, viewership, will rise no matter what outcome results. Perez wins because the public's ego loves to see rich and famous celebrities acting badly to feed their own egos, feelings of inferiority, and to boost their own self-esteem. "See, these superstar people aren't any better than me!"

The minute you think any one or any thing (the economy, the glass ceiling, etc.) has power over you, you become its victim. Most often, people are the victim of their own ego, their own Inner Critic. Guess what, your Inner Critic lies! When you get that fearful, panicky, blood-boiling, feeling inside and you react from that state know that you are following the lead of your frighten Inner Critic who is misguidedly fighting for your own sense of self-worth. When you are should-ing all over someone or judging (telling others that they should do or be this or that), your ego has your power. You are no longer in control. Whenever you act in the state of an empowered ego you will not achieve the outcome you desire. All you can do is add 'evidence' to support your feelings of being victimized.

A teenage butt peeking out of short shorts on a public street is not child pornography and Moore's reaction is not the result of hormone imbalances or bad parenting. What is being fought over is a bunch of made up stuff by the very people who are feuding in the public arena.

To turn self-destructive behavior into life-affirming behavior just wake up! Wake up to how you feel. Your emotions are indicators of whether you are listening to that higher power within you, what I playfully call the Inner Wizard, or that frightened four-year old, the Inner Critic, who is having a temper tantrum. In that moment, mindfully monitor your thoughts. Are you giving up your power, allowing yourself to become a victim of the incident? If you are, reach for a new perspective. Take action that will result in what you want to achieve, no more publicized daughter's tushie shots, instead of what you do not want to achieve, more daughter butt shots spread over even more media outlets.

And to those who salivate over celebrity self-sabotage, take note over what you have the public outburst mean about you. If you feel better about yourself, more superior, as a result of someone else's bad behavior, know that you have given your power of personal self-esteem over to the celebrity and to those who report the irrational antics of these stars.

Valery is a Superstar Mindset Mentor & Coach who teaches people to tap into their inner power & wisdom, get out of their own way & fully invest themselves in their creative endeavors. Clients also learn how to root out self-sabotaging behavior that can land them on TMZ! Empower the Wizard Within, http://www.InnerWizard.com Get Free "Empower the Wizard Within tips"!

Your Body Talks To You. Do You Listen and Flow or Ignore and Struggle?

2009-10-08T08:27:00.000-07:00

Your body talks to you all day long. What you feel in your body is an indicator of whether or not you are moving towards or away from achieving what you desire. Your gut instinct will tell you what steps to take, what choices to make, that will get you what you want. Your stomach will tell you if you're headed in the wrong direction.

Are you listening? Are you paying attention, tapped into what your body is telling you?

If you struggle in any area of your life, it is an area where you are not listening to your body. You are not in tune with the guidance of your inner resources that are your birthright. Think for a moment. Can you recall a time when you followed a hunch, a gut instinct, and acted in a way that resulted in a great outcome? Perhaps you were offered a career move or even a social date and 'something told you' that it would not be a good idea to pursue this opportunity. Or, you may have experienced a calm inner knowing in your gut that inspired you to act on an inspired idea that delivered great results. Those inner bodily feelings and emotions were guiding you in the direction of your dreams, what your heart calls you to become.

"Seek the wisdom that will untie your knot, seek the path that demands your whole being." ~Rumi

Have you ever felt a bit scared, perhaps even sick to your stomach, when faced with a choice to do or not do something? Did you Find Excuses And Reasons (F.E.A.R.) to go ahead and do it anyway? What were the results? Not good, or at least not optimal, I assure you. You may have invested in something that you really didn't want to yet feared that you would be left out or feel 'less than' if you didn't go ahead and make the investment. Perhaps you stayed in a dysfunctional relationship a lot longer than you wanted to because you didn't want to be alone again. Was there a career opportunity that you passed on because you thought that you really weren't smart or talented enough to succeed? If so, know that all of those choices were based in FEAR.

Any choice, any act, based in fear will have a negative outcome. Any choice, any act, based in inspiration will have a positive outcome. Period.

It is important to notice the distinction between a calm, knowing, gut feeling and a fearful sick-in-the-pit-of-your-stomach pang. The former will move you forward, the later will move you farther away from what you wish to create for your life experience.

When you stand at the crossroads of choice and are not sure what road to take look within. Ask yourself what your inner being would want? Listen. Is the response based in intuition - a gut feeling or fear - a sick feeling in the pit of your stomach. Follow your intuition, question your fear. Remind yourself of a time when you faced your fear and experienced a good result. Whenever you face your fears you will discover that what you feared was not real. Give yourself permission to follow your gut instinct instead of your fear voiced by your Inner Critic who misguidedly tries to hold you back to keep you safe in the comfort of an old, tired, comfort zone.

A fulfilled life begins when you go beyond the outer threshold of your comfort zone. - Wizard Within Wizdom

The answer to what the right path is, what the best choice to make is in any moment is intricately tied to your individuality and can only be answered optimally by you. The good news is that you already hold all of the answers, within you. All you have to do is pay attention, acknowledge and honor what your body communicates to you. When you show up in life centered in the truth of who you are you evoke the Wizard Within. Wizards are alchemists after all. They know how to turn dreams into reality!

"I was always looking outside myself for strength and confidence, but it comes from within. It is there all the time." ~ Anna Freud

Valery is a Superstar Mindset Mentor & Coach who helps people get out of their own way so that they can overcome the struggles in the life of an actor, artist, performer & creative entrepreneur. Clients learn how to tap into their inner wisdom, get out of their own Inner Critic way; transform self-sabotaging behavior. Empower the Wizard Within http://www.InnerWizard.com Get Free tips!

Rip Off The Bandaid and Take The Note: Sage Advice From A Hollywood Wizard

2009-10-06T07:13:00.000-07:00

I was sitting at my table enjoying the pile of fruit on my plate at an early morning breakfast meeting when all of a sudden I recognized a Wizard before me. I was there to listen to guest speaker, Krista Vernoff, Emmy-nominated, Golden Globe-winning head writer and executive producer of the television show “Grey’s Anatomy” talk about her road to success. I had been to many such gatherings over the last several years and while I've learned a lot from the various successful people I've listened to and met at these events, it is always a wonderful delight when I'm in the presence of someone who is fully centered in the truth of who they are, firing on all cylinders, joyfully creating the art and life they've always known would be theirs.

As I was munching away at juicy strawberry I witnessed Krista's magic. I knew within three minutes of watching and listening to her speak that she was a person who knew how to fully express the Wizard within. She started by apologizing for being a bit late and disjointedly started to ramble about her early childhood beginnings moving from one place to the other as a child of divorced parents. You could see her mind struggling for what to say next.

And then it happened. Clear as the big lucite pendant that hung from my neck, Krista stopped for a brief second, centered herself, tapped into her inner power and spoke directly from her heart to reveal the Wizard within her. The words did not come from her, they came through her - effortlessly. As if she shape-shifted right in front of me her face took on a different light and her voice a different tone.

There is nothing more authentic, more engaging, than the fullest expression of your truth. Inner knowingness comes from the heart not the mind. Animated and comfortable in her own skin, Krista delivered her secrets on how she became an enormous success while others continue to struggle. She learned how to acknowledge, value and honor her natural gifts as a writer. Krista learned the confidence and power that allowing yourself to pursue and do what you love instead of what those who love you say you should do.

"When I was trying to be a successful actress in local theater I was always desperate for validation and positive feedback. I never could get to a feeling that I was good enough. When I gave myself permission to be a writer, do what I love to do, I didn't give a shit what anyone thought about my plays." - Krita Vernoff

Wizards such as Krista hold the wisdom, the knowingness, of what is possible for them and magically know how to turn their deepest dreams into vivid reality. They know that where energy and focus goes, experience flows. They devote all of their energy and stay focused upon that which makes their heart sing. Greatness, for a Wizard, comes not from fighting for position up the ladder of success but from being in complete alignment with who you are and what you really want to create for your life experience. It's showing up in life from a place of personal power swimming in the flow of life instead of fighting uphill battles against the stream of self-doubt and fear.

“Throughout my tortured childhood I was comforted by the quiet knowing, a voice that told me I would be wealthy, sane and successful. I knew that every difficult experience I had purpose and would give me the ability to provide value for myself and others.” – Krista Vernoff

A Wizard's life is magical. Krista got a big break at a time when she wasn't even in the room! She was going to attend an event that was also frequented by big entertainment industry movers, shakers and influencers. It was an opportunity to get in front of people who could make, or break, the career of an aspiring writer. Krista didn't show up. She couldn't. She was home sick in bed. For many this would be a tale of a missed opportunity. Not for a Wizard. While Krista was sniffling in her kleenex, Krista's boss was talking to one of the big honchos about this talented writer on her staff and suggested he take a look at Krista's work. That's how Krista got her agent. In Hollywood, many people pound the pavement day after day exhaustively searching for an agent who will help become a success. Krista got one seemingly effortlessly without having to lift a finger, let alone knock on one agent's door after another in a desperate search.

"Take the note - especially the one that pisses you off." - Krista Vernoff

If Krista discovers that she is in a circumstance that isn't working, is sucking the life energy out of her, she "rips off the bandaid", detaches and moves on to something that feeds her soul. If her work is criticized, if she is told that a story line doesn't work in some way she takes the note. Criticisim, to a Wizard, is a wonderful opportunity to stretch and learn. Krista takes a lot of notes and rewrites what doesn't work in her scripts and in her life. Not willing to waste her energy on what delivers a veil of darkness, she prioritizes the moments in her life by what will shine light upon herself and others. Having met Krista, I can tell you that there is an aura of light upon her that takes the breath away of those who are blessed with her presence and captivated by her work.

After the talk, I bought Krista's recent book "The Game On! Diet: Kick Your Friend's Butt While Shrinking Your Own" and walked up to her to introduce myself. After a our conversation she took my book and wrote: "Dear Valery, Play to Win! - Krista

Exactamundo! Those a Wizard words. To a Wizard, work is play-time if you're doing what you love. Life is a game. If you want to win you have to play! Playfully follow your heart, honor your truth, rip off the bandaid when it's not working and take the note that will help you create excellence in every area of your life. Wizards love games and play with what they love to create magic.

Valery is a Superstar Mindset Mentor & Coach who helps people get out of their own way so that they can overcome the struggles in the life of an actor, artist, performer & creative entrepreneur. Clients learn how to tap into their inner wisdom, get out of their own Inner Critic way; transform self-sabotaging behavior. Empower the Wizard Within http://www.InnerWizard.com Get Free tips!

Drew Barrymore's Secret to Success: Parent Your Self

2009-10-05T07:21:00.000-07:00

Everywhere you look; in magazines, newspapers, online and televised articles and bios of people who face challenges are examples of people who have moved beyond their challenges to create extraordinary lives. There are also plenty of examples of those who have literally and figuratively destroyed everything they have achieved. In every inspiring success story lies the common denominator of an examined life and a recapture of personal power, authenticity. In every disappointing story of self-sabotage lies the common denominator of the victim mentality, a giving up personal power and life experience responsibility over to others. And there are stories of people who have turned a life of self-destruction into a fulfilling life of creative endeavors that enriches their own life and the lives of those they touch through their presence and their work.

I woke up one recent morning and read Parade Magazine's article "In Search of the True Drew" by Kevin Sessums. Delightfully, this is a story of a stunning turnaround in what could have easily been a sad story about what could have been. It is commonly known that this "ET" child star led an early life of drug and alcohol addiction, rehab and a series of short failed marriages. Today Drew is an accomplished actress and film producer. With her new film, "Whip It", Drew is adding Director to her credits. Her production company, Flower Films, has produced ten movies including "He's Just Not That Into You", "Charlie's Angels: Full Throttle", "Donnie Darko" and "Never Been Kissed". Nancy Juvonen is Drew's partner at Flower Films.

"I never regret anything. Because every little detail of your life is what made you into who you are in the end." - Drew Barrymore

How did Drew make the transition from a has-been washed out child-star following a path of self ruination to an award winning highly recognized power in Hollywood? Drew discovered that life experiences are not events that happen 'to you', they are the direct result of choices made. This new way of thinking about her past experience and what she wanted to create for her future is the result of a shift from "I am a victim of my circumstance" to "I have the power to create the life I want to experience". Drew moved from being a victim of circumstance, a child born into a dysfunctional yet famous Hollywood Family recreating the same destructive life for herself that her Mother experienced to taking deliberate charge of her personal and professional choices.

"There is a joy that's earned by failure or triumph. All those things add up to teach us, if we are open to it." - Drew Barrymore

Drew realized that there is purpose in every experience she had in those difficult early years. Each experience came with a gift in the lesson that could be learned by it. Drew looked for the lesson, learned and applied it. Today she makes different choices, choices that will take her in the direction of her dreams instead of further away from what she desires most.

"I aspire to be that, to be a voice of reason one day." - Drew Barrymore

Instead of continuing to act as a mirrored reflection of her Mother's misguided influence, Drew acts as the Mother who guides her child, herself, in a positive and supportive method of parenting. Acting as her own Mother, Drew parents herself by mindfully speaking and behaving in a way that empowers her to create a lot more of the good experiences and fewer of the, shall we say, less than optimal experiences. And with each experience that could have resulted in a better outcome, Drew looks for the gift, learns the lesson and applies it the next time around thus creating a newer and better outcome!

With this trust in her own internal guidance system Drew's life is now the shining example of a story well told. With her willful intention to live a life well lived, we look forward to seeing what Drew creates next in her work and her life.

"I used to look in the mirror and feel shame, I look in the mirror now and I absolutely love myself. - Drew Barrymore

Valery is a Superstar Mindset Mentor & Coach who helps creative people get out of their own way so that they can overcome the struggles in the life of an actor, artist, performer & creative entrepreneur. Clients learn how to tap into their inner wisdom & get out of their own Inner Critic way; stop self-sabotaging behavior. Empower the Wizard Within, inspire the Inner Muse. http://www.InnerWizard.com Free "Empower the Wizard Within tips"!

Michael Jackson: An Unfortunate Example of "What You Resist, Persists"

2009-09-29T06:54:00.000-07:00

I was not surprised to learn in recent interviews with Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, former close confidante to Michael Jackson, that Michael lost the will to live. He was embarrassed to go out in public. He had mutilated his face so much through unnecessary plastic surgery that he thought he looked like "a lizard". All of his face enhancement procedures were in a desperate desire to look like someone who could be loveable. The more he resisted his misguided feelings of inadequacy the more inadequate he felt about himself.

"What you resist persists." – Carl Jung

As phenomenally talented as he was, all he saw when he looked in the mirror was ugliness. What he wanted most was to be loved. Oh, he was idolized by fans, then criticized and finally, laughed at for being "Wacko Jacko". In the taped conversations between Rabbi Boteach and Michael Jackson, Michael reveled that he wrapped his self validation around his physical appearance. Here again, he completely discounts his natural talents and tremendous gift to the world. For Michael, if he didn't look like his warped definition of what was lovable, love would be fleeting if not impossible to achieve.

There isn't a plastic surgeon, adoring fan or intimate relationship in the world that can make a person feel lovable and loved if they don't hold love for themselves within. Period. Add several exclamation points for extra emphasis. Since Michael didn't think that he was someone who could be loved for who he is, he feared that he would enter into his elder years alone and lonely. This self-loathing and fear was so intense that Michael, perhaps unknowingly, found a way to make sure that dreaded state of existence never became his reality. He didn't live beyond 50 years of age.

That's the sad truth of it all. If you hold a belief about yourself - good or bad - you will make sure that your thoughts, actions and outcomes justify, support and validate that belief. If you think you are unloveable you will make it hard for anyone else, let alone yourself, to love you. If you think you're not smart/talented/rich/lucky/good/worthy/ or "whatever" enough to experience your deepest desires you will work hard to make sure to create evidence to validate that belief. You bought into that belief and, by gosh, you'll do whatever you have to do to justify that purchase.

"We don't see things as they are. We see things as we are." Anais Nin

- Not smart enough - you'll hold yourself back from challenges that require a higher level of intelligence than you think you have.
- Not talented enough - you'll hold yourself back from pushing beyond where you think - Not worthy enough - you'll make sure that you don't acquire (or keep if acquired) possessions, career positions or relationship that you think are beyond your worth.

"Argue for your limitations, and sure enough they're yours." -Richard Bach

When you see or read about someone who seemingly has everything - a fabulous career and all the abundance that can come with it - self-destruct in public humiliation there is a good chance that their self-sabotaging behavior is rooted in a belief system that does not support all they have achieved. Usually the fallen friend, celebrity, or politician will Find Excuses And Reasons (F.E.A.R.) to explain their erratic behavior. The truth is, they often just fear that it's only a matter of time before the public finds out the 'truth' about them. This truth is the misguided belief.

Know this, if you discover that you're complaining (resisting) that someone doesn't love, value, respect, consider, appreciate, or whatever you think they don't give you enough of, what is really going on is that you do not hold this same belief about yourself. You don't love, value, respect, consider, appreciate, etc. yourself. If you held those things within you for yourself you would not be looking to others to feel loved, valued or respected. You would have it whether anyone else gave it to you or not. And as presented earlier, you cannot receive what you don't already have within.

So, stop resisting! Be willing to accept and embrace all parts of your. Where you feel "not enough" look for evidence to shine light on experiences where you were most certainly, enough! For example, if you think you are not smart enough, look at all the things you've learned! If you think you're not pretty enough, let the beauty that is within you shine through. There is nothing more stunning than a person who carries beauty and grace within them.

Be willing to let go of your resistance. Notice how your energy shifts and increases as you show up in your day going with the flow instead of pushing against it. If you don't believe me know that your unwillingness to consider this possibility is a form of resistance. All you have to do is turn your focus upon that which you want instead of what you do not want. Just 'try it on' for a couple of days and see if your experiences shift a bit as you create this new perspective.

"Life is the color you paint it." ~ Sophia Elise

Valery is a Superstar Mindset Mentor & Coach who helps creative people get out of their own way so that they can overcome the struggles in the life of an actor, artist, performer & creative entrepreneur. Clients learn how to tap into their inner wisdom & get out of their own Inner Critic way; stop self-sabotaging behavior. Empower the Wizard Within, inspire the Inner Muse. http://www.InnerWizard.com Free "Empower the Wizard Within tips"!

2 Ways to Discover Your Raison D'Etre - Reason For Being

2009-09-24T08:28:00.000-07:00

Raison D'Etre is French for reason, or purpose, for the existence of someone or something. Each and every person comes into this world with a purpose, unique talents to achieve that purpose and the inner wisdom to guide them along the way. This is a birthright. Without exception. Since everyone walking this Earth exists, you would think that everyone knew his or her purpose in life. Unfortunately many people are disconnected with their Raison d'etre and are plodding along, successfully or not, spending their life energy and time doing something that may feed themselves and their family yet starves their soul.

We do not live in an either/or world. We live in an "and" world. You can do both. Simply put, the reason you are here is to express your full potential using your unique qifts. You are here to tap into the intuitive driven passion that achieves the purpose of bringing forth your unique gifts out into this world - expansively. For those that feed their soul, do what makes their heart sing, work is play and each day is an opportunity to express to the world who they are, what they are here to do. Life flows seemingly effortlessly. Even with the ups and downs, twists and turns, life is fulfilling and worth the ride!

For those who live off-purpose, doing what they think they 'should' be doing, live can be exhausting and unfulfilling even if successful. Those who have turned their back on their raison d'etre feel like something is missing and will sometimes joke that they "still don't know what they want to be when they grow up" well into adulthood. If you struggle to find joy, energy and satisfaction in your work and in your life you are living off purpose. You are not living a life in alignment with who you are at your deepest core. Chances are you don't even know what your unique talents are let alone use them. The funny thing is, many people don't see what their special gift is because it comes so easily for them. They find it so easy and effortless to do what they excel at naturally that they think everyone can do it. It doesn't occur to them that this unique talent is theirs as a birthright with which to express themselves and build their life around.

"Seek the wisdom that will untie your knot, seek the path that demands your whole being." ~Rumi

There are two simple ways to get a glimpse at who you really are and what your unique gift is to share with the world:

1. Think back to when you were a child. Who did you admire or aspire to be? Was it a famous person, a character in a book or movie, a relative or teacher? Who awed you, made you stop and pay attention? Once you have identified this person, what attributes of this person impressed you? Were they brave, funny, larger than life, strong, loving, free, giving, smart? What was it about what this person or fictional character did that called out to you? List as many attributes and actions as you can.

For example, as a child I was awed by a character I saw in a movie on TV, "Auntie Mame". Auntie Mame was a woman who was eclectic, fun, fashionable, surrounded herself with wonderfully odd creative and talented people, traveled around the world and experienced fun and fascinating events in her life. She lived this rich in experience life and mentored others to do the same. Oh, how I wanted to be Auntie Mame! However, I didn't see myself then as being extroverted enough to put myself 'out there' as she did, take risks and stand up for who she is and what she believed in. As an adult, I reconnected with my truth and now live a life centered in the truth of who I am, enjoy rich delicious experiences, am surrounded by a wonderfully eclectic group of talented people and mentor others to live their lives as richly whatever that means to them.

Who you aspire to be, what speaks to your soul as a child, is a mirror of who you are. You love what you see in that person or character because it is a reflection of you! Show up in your life expressing your Inner Auntie Mame, Ninja Warrior, your hero.

2. What energizes you? Think back to a time when you were 'in the zone'. You were totally present, in the moment, doing whatever it was that you were doing, enjoying it fully without any sense of time and space. You were totally focused and bursting with creativity. These 'in the zone' experiences are windows to see your special gifts, your unique talents. You are energized, firing on all cylinders. These are the moments that you are expressing YOU fully.

"The best thing you can do is get good at being you!" - Denis the Menace

As an example, here is an anecdote about Krista Vernoff, Head Writer and Emmy Award nominee for the television show, "Grey's Anatomy". Even though she loved to write, Krista thought she was supposed to be an actress. She held a belief that one had a better shot at making a living as an actress than as a writer. Bar-tending was suggested to her by many well meaning relatives worried about her career choice. She got quite good as an actress and was making a living at that craft. Still, she couldn't tear herself away from writing. Writing came so easy for her that she didn't give herself much credit as a writer. "You have to work hard for a living" and she was definitely working hard to be a working actress. For Krista, being an actress was exhausting! Writing was playful, what she did for fun, what she did to feed her soul. Success as a writer was always a certainty.

One day a fellow actor in a play noticed that Krista would run to her dressing room to write whenever she wasn't needed on stage. Most actors lived to be on stage where Krista lived to be offstage where she could write. Once this fellow actor commented on this upside-down state of affairs, Krista realized that if she was going to live a fulfilled live she must acknowledge and honor who she is - a writer. At the end of the play's run, Krista devoted her life to expanding and express her raison d'etre - to write!

When you commit, give your full attention and energy to standing firmly centered in the truth of who you are, life is magical. You have fed your soul, you are whole. As a complete person, you have the inner resources to give to others whether that be through your craft or through your presence in their lives. You have the energy and desire to share you with the rest of the world. You live life on purpose, in the zone, and tapped into the passion and wisdom that is yours and yours alone. This is what you are here to do. Find a way to spend more time doing what gets you ‘in the zone’.

If you are not satisfied or fully engaged in your life you have a choice. Will you remain committed to this unfulfilling life or will you discover and commit to your raison d'etre. A fulfilled life begins when you go beyond the outer threshold of your comfort zone. The choice is yours.

"Be who you are and say what you feel. Those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind." - Dr. Seuss

Valery is a Superstar Mindset Mentor & Coach who helps creative people get out of their own way so that they can overcome the struggles in the life of an actor, artist, performer & creative entrepreneur. Clients learn how to tap into their inner wisdom & get out of their own Inner Critic way; stop self-sabotaging behavior. Empower the Wizard Within, inspire the Inner Muse. http://www.InnerWizard.com Free "Empower the Wizard Within tips"!

Struggling-Anxious-Procrastinating? Stop Telling Your Inner Being to Shut Up!

2009-09-22T07:51:00.000-07:00

How much time and energy do you spend treading the proverbial waters of the stream of creative expression and meaningful experience? How often do you ride the roller coaster of two progressive steps forward and two steps back in your efforts to expand beyond your current unfulfilling comfort zone? What do 'over the rainbow' masterfully successful people have that you don't have?

The answer is simple.

The people who awe and inspire us with their brilliant performance in any area of their life listen to, acknowledge and honor the intuitive inner guidance that knows their truth and is their birthright. You've heard this voice of wisdom before. It was that calm, knowing, gut instinct that you ignored that resulted in an experience you rather not have had.

"You, my friend, are a victim of disorganized thinking. You are under the unfortunate impression that just because you run away you have no courage; you're confusing courage with wisdom." - The Wizard of Oz, Frank Baum

Those who continuously struggle to get ahead, express their full potential, have Found Excuses And Reasons (F.E.A.R.) to tune out the voice of their Inner Being, Higher Self, or what I playfully call the Wizard Within. Instead they listed to their Inner Critic, the egoic voice of their self-doubt and fear who works very hard to keep them safe right when they are. Even if unsatisfactory, the comfort zone is what is known and therefore safe. Anything beyond, over that rainbow, is unknown and downright scary.

To drown out the voice of the Wizard Within the Inner Critic serves up excuses and reasons to devote focus and energy to unproductive habits. Addictions to alcohol, drugs, Internet gaming or surfing, over eating, excessive shopping and chronic over sleeping are some of the ways people turn their back on what their Inner Being is calling them to become. Struggling anxious procrastinators have become experts at say no to who they are, what they are here to express, at their deepest core.

Fulfillment is experiencing the full expression of your potential. Whether it be struggles with your career, craft, relationships or finances when you allow yourself to show up in life out of alignment with your truth and purpose know that any excuse or your Inner Critic delivers is meant to keep you stuck right where you are -right where you no longer want to be.

Your Inner Being knows that you will always be safe. Your Inner Being knows that already within you is the wisdom to turn your dreams into reality, achieve your purpose in life. Your heart would not long for an experience that does not express the real you and what you are here to express. The only one stopping you from achieving that reality is you!

So you have a choice. You can tap into and empower the Wizard Within or you can remain committed to drowning yourself out, keeping yourself small. One choice leads to a life well lived, a story well told. The other leads to a life of quiet, or not so quiet, desperation. Which will you choose?

"The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. What is called resignation is confirmed desperation." - Henry David Thoreau

Valery is a Superstar Wizard Mindset Mentor & Coach who helps creative people get out of their own way so that they can overcome the struggles in the life of an actor, artist, performer & creative entrepreneur. Clients learn how to tap into their inner wisdom & get out of their own Inner Critic way; stop self-sabotaging behavior. Empower the Wizard Within, inspire the Inner Muse. http://www.InnerWizard.com Free "Empower the Wizard Within tips"!

Are Outrageous Outbursts Now an Effective PR Tool? Oh My!

2009-09-17T10:14:00.000-07:00

"Lions and tigers and bears, oh my!" - Dorothy in the Wizard of Oz

The media is filled with bizarre tales of rude and downright bizarre behavior that was once exhibited by self-loathing attention seeking narcissists and now may be used as a clever inexpensive tool for massive publicity. In the age where 'all publicity is good publicity' are high profile outbusts a result of an emotional dysfunction or a clever media attention grabbing ruse? One has to wonder.

The bad behavior we have seen fill our newspapers, Internet and television screens recently indicate that as a publicity tactic, acting out in appropriately is a very effective and economical public boost in awareness tactic. Apparently there are little or no negative consequences anymore for public displays of injury and insult to others in order to promote an egoic agenda. It seems that the more outrageous the behavior, the higher one moves up the ladder to fame and fortune.

Oh my!

Not many people ever heard of Rep. Joe Wilson before he barked "You lie!" at President Barack Obama during his televised address to the nation. Singer Kanye West's star status rose dramatically when he grabbed the microphone away from Video Music Award winner Taylor Swift to announce to the world his preference for Beyonce. Still this week, tennis great Serena Williams didn't like a call made against her by a line judge in a tennis match to she engaged in a diatribe of profanity. Again, all of these incidents were televised over and over again to the masses increasing the visibility and popularity of the individuals who committed what was once humiliating potentially career ending actions.

Those who exhibit offensive behavior then get to enjoy a media frenzy of interviews, articles and re-broadcasts of their attention grabbing moment. The offender gets to apologize on every media platform available, further increasing public awareness. Even those who never heard of these celebrity now talk about them around water coolers, dinner tables, blogs and chat rooms. Copycats seeking fame are now inspired by emotional outbursts instead of a compelling performance.

I get that I am adding to the attention by writing on this subject. What disturbs me enough to devote energy to the topic of how bad behavior has become an effective publicity stunt is that, as a deliberate PR tactic, these events have dramatically increased in frequency. At the number of incidents has increased the stardom of those who commit such public temper tantrums has risen even more dramatically. Irresponsible behavior is now rewarded. Irresponsible behavior, public attacks on other people, now results in furthering a personal agenda. What kind of life-affirming lesson is that?

"If you come to fame not understanding who you are, it will define who you are." - Oprah Winfrey

It will be interesting to see if the long-term results of such misguided behavior. The self-loathing narcissist who thinks any attention will make him feel better about himself will eventually either get that he is spiraling downward in an ocean of self-sabotage and seek more positive ways of making his star shine or he will continue to expand upon his erratic behavior until it becomes his ruination. For those who end up completely bankrupt, repeatedly in jail or dead of a drug overdose no amount of attention can fill the void, the emptiness, felt within. Those who decide to get off the roller coaster of self-defeat often awe us with stunning comebacks. Robert Downey, Jr. and Mickey Rourke are two shining examples of such an inspiring turnaround.

Those who act out as a publicity stunt will continue to behave inappropriately for attention until the media and the public tune them out or respond with our pocketbooks. If we no longer pay attention to or support those who seek to move up the ladder of fame through stomping all over other people then we send the message that we endorse positive energy and move away from negativity. How we react to such social dysfunction is our responsibility and mirrors what we value. So, it is your choice. To what behaviors will you model and devote your energy? I will tell you this, where energy and focus goes, experience flows. Be mindful of your choice. Will you speak and act at the expense of others or positively in the direction of your dreams?

"But once I acclimated and really used fame for what it was offering me as a tool to serve my life purpose of inspiring and contributing, then it started to get fun again." - Alanis Morissette

Valery is a Superstar Wizard Mindset Mentor & Coach who helps creative people get out of their own way so that they can overcome the struggles in the life of an actor, artist, performer & creative entrepreneur. Clients learn how to tap into their inner wisdom & get out of their own Inner Critic way; stop self-sabotaging behavior. Empower the Wizard Within, inspire the Inner Muse. http://www.InnerWizard.com Free "Empower the Wizard Within tips"!

Cowardly Lion? Tap Into the Wizard Within To Transform Fear

2009-09-15T07:36:00.000-07:00

If you are at all familiar with the story of Dorothy and the Wizard of Oz you know that among Dorothy's fellow travelers along the yellow brick road to find the great and powerful Wizard was the Lion. The Lion wanted the Wizard to give him courage as he was afraid of nearly everything he faced in his life. Here he was the king of beasts yet he cowered and hid from any ever so slightly perceived threat to his survival. The Lion believed that if he had the gift of courage he would be able to step into his role as the almighty king and ruler of the forest, respected by all.

"If I were King of the Forest my regal robes would be satin, not cotton, not chintz. I'd command each thing, be it fish or fowl. I'd click my heels and the trees would kneel and the mountains bow and the bulls cow-tow and the sparrow would take wing. If I were king, each rabbit would show respect to me, the chipmunks genuflect to me. If I were King, just King." - The Lion in Frank Baum's "Wizard of Oz"

The Lion's self-worth and esteem was entirely wrapped up in and identified with a forceful title that would deliver respect.

The Lion believes that force commands subjugation. Force, to the lion, means the ability to threaten and prevail through physical strength and determination. Such commitment comes from having the courage to stand centered in the truth of who you are. The lion is scared to show up in his life powerfully as King of the Forest. And even as king he does not feel or act like much of a king because he lacks inner courage. When he does try to exhibit courage he resorts to threats and physical harm to others. Force is an act spawned out of fear, not power. Real power is a presence, a state of mind, that can only come from an authentic presence.

"Put 'em up, put 'em up! I'll fight ya' both together if you want. I'll fight ya' with one paw tied behind my back. I'll fight ya' standin' on one foot. I'll fight ya' with my eyes closed." - The Lion in Frank Baum's "Wizard of Oz"

Those a brave words that came from the lion who would run away with his tail between his legs if someone actually took him up on his threat. As we continue to observe the Lion throughout the story, we realize that the only thing that scares the lion is himself, an event of his own doing. He lives in fear. He Finds Excuses And Reasons (F.E.A.R.), blames others for his shortcomings, and believes the world, the forest and everything in it, is out to get him; do him harm.

"Ow!" - the Lion
"What happened?" - the Scarecrow
"Somebody pulled my tail!" - the Lion
"You did it yourself!" - the Scarecrow
"Oh....." the Lion
- "The Wizard of Oz"

The lion does not believe he is brave or forceful enough to be a king and, therefore, must get his courage from someone else - the Wizard of Oz. People who live with "I'm not good/smart/brave/talented/rich/pretty/whatever enough" will often become shop-a-holics hoping that the next Prada bag or Ferrari purchase will give them the self-esteem they lack. After the momentary adrenaline rush after the purchase, these people quickly seek yet another status purchase to try, yet again, to feel better about themselves. There isn't a handbag or luxury car in the world that can give anyone the self-worth they lack within. Purchasing luxury items because you enjoy them is one thing. Acquiring things because you seek your identity through them is quite another experience. Shop-a-holics with low self-esteem do not enjoy or even use many of their purchases.

When the Lion finally gets an audience with the marvelous Wizard of Oz he finds out that the Wizard isn't really a wizard after all. What this simple man tells the lion is that he's always had courage within him. All he had to do is acknowledge and honor that which is his birthright. No external thing can give a person what they believe they lack within them. What you yearn for is who you are, what longs to come forth from within you. That's why you feel 'less than' when you are not expressing your full potential; who you came into the world to be, do and have.

You already have, within you, everything you need to be do and have what you want in life. All you have to do is tap into the Wizard Within, the voice of your truth and intuition. This internal resource of wisdom and personal guidance is your birthright. As your Muse, it will always guide you safely and effortlessly as you turn your dreams, your desires, into real experiences.

"You are under the unfortunate delusion that simply because you run away from danger you have no courage. You're confusing courage with wisdom." - The Wizard in "The Wizard of Oz", Frank Baum

Valery is an Artist Mindset Mentor & Coach who helps creative people get out of their own way so that they can overcome the struggles in the life of an actor, artist and performer. Clients learn how to tap into their inner wisdom to get out of their own Inner Critic way & stop self-sabotaging behavior. Empower the Wizard Within , inspire your Inner Muse. http://www.InnerWizard.com Get Free "Empower the Wizard Within tips"!

How Actress Courteney Cox Empowers the Wizard Within

2009-09-10T08:49:00.000-07:00

Hardly a day goes by when I don't read or hear of some celebrity or politician publicly humiliating themselves in an unconscious act of self-sabotage. Some get up, brush themselves off, learn a few life lessons and go on to reach even higher levels of achievement. Others take a few steps back towards recovery only to rush head first into the desperate wall of self destruction again and again. It is disheartening to see someone who takes the dream that they've passionately pursued for so long and slam it hard against the wall.

Therefore, I was delighted to read the article by Kate Aurthur in last Sunday's Los Angeles Times newspaper about Courteney Cox "Courteney Cox: 'Cougar Town's' Really Normal Hollywood Star". Courteney enjoys a happy home life with her husband and daughter and actively surrounds herself with friends and activities in and outside of her work that enrich her life experience. That is the Courteney Cox of today. In the article, Courteney describes an earlier life filled with self-doubt and frustration over the fact that someone else hadn't trusted her enough to hire her for a role that would make her a success. I encourage you to find the article online and read the full text.

"I don't know how I thought all of these things were going to happen without really going for stuff. I don't know whether I didn't think I deserved it or whether I was just shy. I'm not sure." - Courteney Cox

Courteney realized that sitting, hoping and waiting for someone else to create her success for her only served to place her life experience in the hands of someone else. She discovered that in order to achieve the life of her dreams she would not only have to star in that role, she would have to mindfully write the script and direct the action. Not willing to live her life as such a victim, Courteney would have to be responsible for her life experience, stand centered and confident in the truth of who she is and what she wants in order to create the magical life she is enjoying now.

"You can live a very normal life if you don't actually look for things." - Courteney Cox

Courteney has also learned that where focus goes experience flows. She directs her attention on what she wants to bring forth, whether it be on the many homes she renovates and redecorates to the challenging roles and projects she and her husband create with their production company. Instead of regularly scanning the tabloids for gossip about herself and others she knows in the entertainment industry, Courtney devotes her time to what ignites her passion and inspires her Muse. This constant flow of positive energy has given her much of the serenity and peace that is not lost on those who know her.

"She is the most down-to-earth real human being - probably in Hollywood." - Marta Kaufffman, "Friends co-creator on Courteney Cox

Courteney continues to shape her life and expand her career with grace. Once a rebellious teen, Courtney now uses that energy to lend her support for numerous charities including "Stamp Out Violence Against Women in the Congo" and to her friends in their time of need. Sheryl Crow credits having a good friend like Courteney Cox as a force that helped her get through her recent battle with breast cancer. With her new show, "Cougar Town" premiering later this month Courtney flows knowing that she has the personal internal power to create the roles she wants to portray and the life story that is the fullest expression of her potential. I, like many, are looking forward to the next chapter.

"Now I'm much more confident. And I believe that things are exactly the way they are supposed to be." - Courteney Cox

Valery is an Artist Mindset Mentor & Coach who helps creative people get out of their own way so that they can overcome the struggles in the life of an actor, artist and performer. Clients learn how to express their full potential to get out of their own way & stop self-sabotaging behavior. Empower the Wizard Within , inspire your Inner Muse. http://www.InnerWizard.com Get Free "Empower the Wizard Within tips"!

Don't Believe Everything You Think - How To Change Misguided Thoughts

2009-09-08T07:53:00.000-07:00

Right now, in this moment, you have everything you think you deserve. You are living the life you believe you are worthy of. Your life experience mirrors your internal self-esteem. If you have an unhealthy low self-esteem you will never enjoy the life you dream of. Even if you achieve success in the accomplishment of a desired goal you will self-sabotage until you are back at a level, a comfort zone, that reflects how you feel about yourself. If you have a healthy high self-esteem you will allow yourself to achieve and enjoy what you want and know you deserve. Even if you experience a dramatic financial loss or traumatic experience you will rebound. You will again create wealth and create newer and better experiences. It's as simple as that.

Know this: The mere fact that you are here on this Earth indicates that you are worthy whether you believe it or not. Each and every person is blessed with a unique talent, a passionate purpose, and the wisdom to express their full potential. This is your birthright. Wherever you are disconnected with who you are at your deepest core is where you will struggle. Wherever you are out of alignment with your truth and what your heart calls forth for you to become is where you will find dissatisfaction, frustration, and desperation.

"The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation." - Henry David Thoreau

All you have to do is spend some time at the check-out lane in your local grocery story and read the headlines on the displayed tabloid magazines to see examples of celebrities who seemingly "have it all" throw it away in a self-destructive act. You shake your head in amused amazement and wonder "What was he thinking?!"

Chances are the inner thoughts of a person who crashes and burns irrationally are something like:

"I don't deserve all the good stuff that I am experiencing."
"It's only a matter of time before 'they' find out I'm not good/talented/smart enough to have what I have or do what I do."
"This (good stuff) won't last."

We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them." - Albert Einstein

Self-destructive behavior doesn't have to be done on a big scale to be damaging. You self-sabotage when you say NO to who you are, No to what you want to have and do. You toss your opportunities away when you resist what will bring you closer to your aspirations. You limit yourself when you find excuses and reasons (F.E.A.R.) why you 'can't' what you 'want'.

If you're a person who realizes that you have had a roller-coaster pattern of self-sabotage you are being run by what I call your own internal Inner Critic who reminds you day in and day out of what you can and cannot do, do and do not deserve. Know, too, that this Inner Critic - the voice of your self-doubt and fear - means well but is woefully misguided. The job of the egoic Inner Critic is to keep you safe, and what will keep you safe is to stay right where you are. You may not like your current circumstance but if it's what you know, it is safe - and comfortable.

If you're a person who can't seem to get out of your own way realize that you are holding yourself back, keeping yourself safe. You've bought into the fear and self-doubt served up by your Inner Critic and your unsupportive thoughts and actions are merely attempts to justify your purchase. You've invested heavily in time and effort in these erroneous thought patterns and you're not willing to toss them out into the garbage bin where they belong. You're not going to buy into a newer, better, belief system.

"Whether you think you can or think you can't, you're right." - Henry Ford

The first step in getting and keeping more of the good experiences and less of the bad is to be willing to not believe everything you think. Stop the insanity by examining your experiences and questioning the thoughts behind the errant behavior pattern. If you fall on your butt take a look at how you slipped up. What were you thinking? If the thoughts behind the actions that ended up in a bad experience were based in self-doubt or fear shine some light upon those thoughts. Ask yourself the following questions about the thoughts you've let run you:

- Are they true, absolutely?
- How do you know?
- What evidence do you have to support this truth?
- Can you find any evidence to the contrary?
- What is holding onto this belief costing you?
- What are you getting out of holding onto this belief?
- Who would you be, what would you do, what would you have if you did not have this belief?

Instead of focusing upon that which you believe you are not, what you cannot be, do or have, turn your attention to who you are, what you have and what you have done that is positive. You'll discover that what you have achieved far surpasses what you have not. You'll realize all the good you have done for yourself and others. Create a new belief, a new perspective about who you are and what you deserve and can experience.

"Many people die with their music still in them." - Oliver Wendell Holmes

Boost your self-esteem by honoring yourself and your dream. You deserve your dream, that's why you have it! Notice when your thoughts, comments and actions take you away from that dream. Mindfully think, speak and act in the direction of what makes your heart sing.

Valery is an Artist Mindset Mentor & Coach who helps creative people get out of their own way so that they can overcome the struggles in the life of an actor, artist and performer. Clients learn how to express their full potential to get out of their own way & stop self-sabotaging behavior. Empower the Wizard Within , inspire your Inner Muse. http://www.InnerWizard.com Get Free "Empower the Wizard Within tips"!

Develop Your Inner Actor to Get Out of Your Own Way

2009-09-02T07:53:00.000-07:00

It's a funny thing. Actors are driven to perform, to take on roles that bring a world of imagination, fantasy and mirrored life reflections into believable existence. In order to achieve the performance of a character well told, the actor has to commit to the unknown, get out of their own way, and be in the present moment. This power of presence and authentic self-assurance in the role create the charisma that draws us to actors and the stories they tell.

"I just let the work speak for itself. An actor is not afraid to take risks; to put on different hats; to be a good guy, a bad guy, a victim, an abuser. There are all kinds of people in the world, and playing them is what acting is all about." - Kevin Bacon

Why is it, then, that so many actors forget the skills and tools they've worked hard to develop over a life-time when it comes to how they show up in their own life story? Why are so many actors insecure, in their own way and out of alignment with their own power and authenticity?

Actors are brilliant at saying YES to the authenticity of a character; saying YES to the story told, saying YES to the performance. Yet they leave this power to take risks, ability to trust their instincts, and willingness to stretch way beyond the comfort zone in their own lives. Often they hold themselves back in the choices they make or self-sabotage in a big way making tabloid headlines. They leave their personal power that is their birthright and the force that inspires them to be an actor at the door as they say NO to the life experience they dream of.

An actor in performance is able to leave the Inner Critic of self-doubt and fear behind. If an actor can disarm the Inner Critic of its power during a performance, she has the ability to disarm the very same Inner Critic in her personal life. What is it that an actor is able to do during a performance that is not being done in an unwanted life experience? The answer is simple. An actor is highly skilled in showing up in the present moment while in character and forgets to apply that same talent in life. When you show up in life in the present moment you are fully engaged, focused, unaware of time passing and 'in the zone' of intentional creativity.

You create your life experience in every moment of every day. If your thoughts, feelings and actions are based in the perceived events of the past you will continue to create similar experiences to your past. For example, if some incident in your past brings forth a belief system, a 'rule book of life' that you're not talented/good/smart/rich/pretty/young "enough" for what you want to achieve you will continue to create experiences which 'prove' that you are what you thought - not enough! Often an actor who inwardly believes that 'it's just a matter of time before they find out I'm not whatever enough' will unconsciously create drama in the form of self-destruction to justify this belief!

"A man is not old until regrets take the place of dreams." - John Barrymore

If you spend your time in the past you miss your moment of now, the present moment. The only time you can deliberately, intentionally, create the future you desire is in the present moment. In the present moment you are awake, aware, ready and available for whatever is 'next'. You are firing on all cylinders and tapped in to your Higher Self, Inner Being or what I playfully call the Wizard Within - the voice of your intuition, truth and authenticity. This inner wisdom and guidance is your birthright. Actors know how to tap into this powerful resource in character. The presence to extend the use of that magnificent tool in their own life is the recipe for their own story well told, an authentic passionate life well lived.

"To be a good actor you have to be something like a criminal, to be willing to break the rules to strive for something new." - Nicolas Cage

Break the tired old belief system, rule book of your past. Mindfully and fully express your full potential as an authentic and intentional creative being in the present moment, fully engaged, ready and available for the Oscar winning performance that is your life.

Valery is an Artist Mindset Mentor & Coach who helps creative people get out of their own way so that they can overcome the struggles in the life of an actor, artist and performer. Clients learn how to express their full potential to create more passionately, profoundly, productively & profitably. Empower the Wizard Within to actualize and express your full creative potential. http://www.InnerWizard.com Get Free "Empower the Wizard Within tips"!

Creative Inspiration - Open A New Window

2009-08-28T07:27:00.000-07:00

I was thinking about what I wanted to express for this morning's blog when a song from the Broadway play and movie, "Auntie Mame", magically popped into my head. I haven't thought about this song and it's powerful message in years yet here it was, right there, the words ringing louder and stronger beckoning me to share them with you. I've learned to listen to that intuitive voice so you'll find the poignant lyrics to "Open A New Window" below. May they guide you as you masterfully create your artistic expression and life experience.

My favorite version of this movie was filmed in 1958 and starred Rosalind Russell in the title role.

Mame: (to her nephew Patrick)

Open a new window,
Open a new door,
Travel a new highway,
That's never been tried before;
Before you find you're a dull fellow,
Punching the same clock,
Walking the same tight rope
As everyone on the block.

The fellow you ought to be is three dimensional,
Soaking up life down to your toes,
Whenever they say you're slightly unconventional,
Just put your thumb up to your nose.
And show 'em how to dance to a new rhythm,
Whistle a new song,
Toast with a new vintage,
The fizz doesn't fizz too long.
There's only one way to make the bubbles stay,
Simply travel a new high way,
Dance to a new rhythm,
Open a new window ev'ry day!

If you follow your Auntie Mame
I'll make this vow, my little love,
That on the last day of your life
You'll be smiling the same young smile
You're smiling now, my little love,
If you wake up ev'ry mornin'
And you pull aside the shutter,
And you promise me that these'll be
The first words that you utter...

Open a new window,
Open a new door,
Travel a new highway,
That's never been tried before,
Before you find you're a dull fellow,
Punching the same clock,
Walking the same tight rope
As everyone on the block.

The fellow you ought to be is three dimensional,
Soaking up life down to your toes,
Whenever they say you're slightly unconventional,
Just put your thumb up to your nose.
And show 'em how to dance to a new rhythm,
Whistle a new song,
Toast with a new vintage,
The fizz doesn't fizz too long.
There's only one way to make the bubbles stay,
Simply travel a new high way,
Dance to a new rhythm,
Whistle a new love song,
Toast with a new vintage,
Open a new window ev'ry day!

"Live, live, LIVE!" Life is a banquet and most poor suckers are starving to death!" - Auntie Mame

Valery is an Artist Mindset Mentor & Coach who helps creative people get out of their own way so that they can overcome the struggles in the life of an actor, artist and performer. Clients learn how to express their full potential to create more passionately, profoundly, productively & profitably. Empower the Wizard Within to actualize and express your full creative potential. http://www.InnerWizard.com Get Free "Empower the Wizard Within tips"!

Case Study - Use Intuition As Your Personal GPS

2009-08-26T07:21:00.000-07:00

You were born with a personal guidance system set to always lead you in the direction of your dreams, what your heart calls you to become. This internal GPS is your intuition, the voice of your Higher Self, your Inner Being or what I playfully call the Wizard Within. Wizards are alchemists, after all. They know how to turn dreams into reality.

When you tap into, listen and follow this inner wisdom resource you will always speak and act in the direction of who you want to be, what you want to do and all that you desire. When you are detached; when you ignore your intuition you will veer off course, without question.

"Know thyself." - Socrates

When I lived a life full of self-doubt and fear I would always second guess myself, my own intuition. I grew to hate and fear tests of any kind. Misguidedly believing that I was just not smart enough to have the right answers I often changed my intuitive knowing answer to what ultimately proved to be the wrong answer. I had difficulty maintaining a decent grade average throughout school that only served to give energy and 'proof' to my thought that I just didn't have the smarts everyone else did. Truth is I was absolutely smart enough. My original answers were most often correct yet I doubted my own intuition. Teachers would lament that I was not living up to my potential and they were right.

Firmly believing that I wasn't smart enough or good enough at anything to score well on an exam of any kind, I avoided them as if they were some dreaded disease. As in my youth, I struggled with tests I had to take and often had to retake these tests in order to achieve a passing grade. Visits to the DMV were dreaded because the written test loomed large. Thankfully I didn't have to take that awful test very often. Until today.

"Every man, through fear, mugs his aspirations a dozen times a day." ~Brendan Francis

I recently moved back to California and had to register my car and get a state drivers license. I had long since learned that I'm not merely smart enough, I am actually very bright. I learned how to tap into and trust my intuition and it had served me very well over the last few years. Yet on the way to the DMV I felt that old sick feeling in my stomach when I thought about the test I would have to take and pass in order to get what I wanted - a California drivers license.

The sick feeling in the pit of my stomach was the first sign that I had started to veer off course, move away from what I wanted to achieve. I wanted a California drivers license and know I was entertaining thoughts filled with doubt and fear. Tapping into that wise Wizard Within, I reminded myself of all the things I had done well in my life; things that if I didn't have a brain in my head I could not do. It began with learning how to walk! Heck, if I thought to myself that I was just not smart enough to learn how to walk the first time I fell on my butt I would still be crawling around on my hands and knees!

I was feeling more confident as I took the test, read each question for clarity, made my choice and marked my answer. As I stood in line to turn my exam in to be graded I started to hear the voice of that old Inner Critic serving up doubt that I made the right choice, got the right answer. Ignoring the fact that I know how to drive, have managed to drive for decades without losing my license and had passed the test (ultimately) before, I was about to make a few changes to my test answers when I mindfully stopped myself. I took a deep breath and reconnected with my GPS who reminded me that choices made from fear and self-doubt would always lead me in the direction I did NOT want to go. Choices made centered in the truth of who I am, confident and tapped into my unlimited internal resource of wisdom and intuitive guidance will always deliver that which I seek. I made no changes to my test as I once had in the past.

I aced the exam. Got every question right and I hadn't even read the California Driver's Handbook! Woo-Hoo!

It's a seemingly small example of how everything you need to be, do and have what you want in life is already within you. Never doubt your ability to create the life experience you long for. What your heart longs for is what you are here to do, your purpose in life. It is why you were given your very own, unique, GPS to guide you to fully express your fully potential. Tap into this wisdom that is your birthright and you will always be guided well as you turn your dreams into reality!

"The unconscious is our best collaborator."- Director Mike Nichols

Valery is an Artist Mindset Mentor & Coach who helps creative people get out of their own way so that they can overcome the struggles in the life of an actor, artist and performer. Clients learn how to express their full potential to create more passionately, profoundly, productively & profitably. Empower the Wizard Within to actualize and express your full creative potential. http://www.InnerWizard.com Get Free "Empower the Wizard Within tips"!

Fear And Loathing = Celebrity Self-Sabotage

2009-08-24T07:13:00.000-07:00

What is it about celebrity that often results in a pattern of self-sabotage and public humiliation? What drives the crash and burn of those who seemingly have everything going for them? Celebrities have success, fame and the financial resources to live a rich delicious life. Why, then, are so many famous people unhappy, addicted to drugs or on a downward spiral spinning out of control as they destroy everything they desire and worked so hard to achieve?

Some will say that the media that shines so much attention on a rising star then engages in a feeding frenzy to knock the celebrity off the very pedestal they placed her on. It is true that in the days of competitive 24-hour news channels and entertainment tabloid television shows the media is hungry for scintillating celebrity stories that will pull in ratings. However, the media did not take the drugs, pick up the hooker, have a public temper tantrum or end up in jail for one reason or another. The celebrity behaved badly; made bad choices that resulted in unwanted or even humiliating outcomes.

“If it's never our fault, we can't take responsibility for it. If we can't take responsibility for it, we'll always be its victim.” - Richard Bach

The choices you make in life are based on your perception of yourself, your world and what's possible for you in that world. The egoic behavior often exhibited by famous people is often a means to hide inner insecurity. Some celebrities feel like a imposters, feel like they are frauds and it's only a matter of time before the public and their peers find out that they really aren't good, smart or talented enough. Or they don't believe that they deserve all the attention and wealth thrust upon them. What the public sees as arrogance, then, is often masked low self-esteem. Self-loathing guarantees a path of self-destruction. You only have to look as far as the lives of Michael Jackson, Anna Nicole Smith, Mariah Carey, and Mel Gibson to see examples of stars crumbling their careers and reputations with their bizarre behavior.

"Whether you think you can or think you can't, you're right!" - Henry Ford

Simply put, if you think you are a fraud; if you think you are not worthy, you will unconsciously work very hard to bring yourself back down to a level of experience that matches who and what you think you are. You will Find Excuses And Reasons (F.E.A.R.) that will justify even the most bizarre incidents of behavior. "What was I thinking?" you will lament. Exactly, what were you thinking? What was the thought that resulted in the action that created the incident of self-sabotage?

Once you examine the thoughts that create your outcomes you will be able to reframe these thoughts to turn them into a structure that supports rather than undermines you. If you think you are a fraud with little or no real talent focus upon your moments of brilliance, when you have creatively expressed your full potential. Those are those enjoyable moments when you are 'in the zone' firing on all cylinders in the throws of doing what you love to do. If you think you do not deserve the abundance of wealth and/or opportunity you have, focus upon all that you have achieved. Just getting up every day and following your dream is an achievement! Learn how to love yourself unconditionally so you can accept the love and adoration shone upon you.

“Don't become a victim of yourself. Forget about the thief waiting in the alley; what about the thief in your mind?” - Jim Rohn

Valery is an Artist Mindset Mentor & Coach who helps creative people get out of their own way so that they can overcome the struggles in the life of an actor, artist and performer. Clients learn how to express their full potential to create more passionately, profoundly, productively & profitably. Empower the Wizard Within to actualize and express your full creative potential. http://www.InnerWizard.com Get Free "Empower the Wizard Within tips"!

How to Transform Performance Anxiety

2009-08-21T08:30:00.000-07:00

It's a funny thing. Life provides an abundance of timely lessons often delivered in unexpected ways that can easily go unnoticed if you're not paying attention. Once you're tapped into the messages presented to you to guide you in the direction of your dreams life becomes a whimsical series of out-of-the-blue events that propel you to move beyond what holds you back. And the truth of it is, the only thing can hold you back from living the life you dream of is Yourself!

I have learned how to remain tapped into my conversation with the Universe, my Higher Self, God, or whatever you want to call it. I playfully call this voice of wisdom, intuition and inspiration the Wizard Within. Here's how I experienced a profound transformational lesson that catapulted me beyond my current comfort zone and into a large public speaking opportunity. Oddly enough, the lesson was delivered to me as I observed the different behaviors my two cats exhibited during my recent move into a new house.

My cats, siblings and rescued as kittens from Hurricane Katrina, have lived together in the same environments with the same set of circumstances throughout their entire lives. Yet they are vastly different from how they show up in their day. This difference creates two completely different experiences resulting from the very same events. Dak loved the move. She had such fun. Each day there were boxes to explore, wrapping paper to tear apart, new cubby holes to crawl into. There were new people to greet as the movers came in an out of the house loading and unloading furniture and new windows to explore the outside world. Every day for Dak was a new opportunity to learn, grow and have some fun!

Willy, on the other hand, experienced the very same event with a different perspective. She did not enjoy the move one bit. She showed up each day terrified of what new change she would have to face and what new person would come into the house that could harm her. She didn't explore her new surroundings. She found the first 'hidey-hole' and hid there - for days. Terrified. Her world shrunk to the size of a tiny space behind the washing machine and she certainly did not have any fun.

Where Dak saw opportunity for fun and adventure, Willy saw a threat to her very survival. Same event, two different perspectives resulting in two different experiences.

"Be able at any moment to sacrifice what you are for what you can become." - Maharishi Mahesh Yogi

The same is true in your life. Events in and of themselves do not cause stress. It is how you view these events, what you have the events of your life mean for and about you that creates your anxiety. Simply put, You create your anxiety. If you don't like experiencing anxiety every time you are faced with an opportunity that requires you to "put yourself out there", do something that stretches beyond your comfort zone, then reach for another perspective. Look for ways the experience can help you learn, grow and have some fun.

I had a pattern of crawling into my proverbial hidey-hole when given an opportunity to speak in front of any kind of an audience. Oh, I Found Excuses And Reasons (F.E.A.R.) why I absolutely could not speak on that day in front of a particular audience but the truth was I was terrified. What if I fail? What if I completely embarrassed myself? My career, my life would be over! I'll never be able to show my face in this town again!

I viewed this opportunity from the perspective that the worse thing that could possibly happen to me if I spoke in front of this audience would, indeed, happen. If I ran and hid when I fell on my butt trying to learn how to walk I would still be crawling around on my hands and knees. It never occurred to me that people crash and burn in front of audiences every time and live to tell the tale. Hugh Grant crashed and burned in a public way when he picked up a Hollywood hooker and got caught. What did he do? He went on Jay Leno's show and lovingly laughed at himself and the audience embraced him. He has not been caught picking up a hooker or publicly humiliated since. Grant went on to continue a very successful career.

Others have publicly humiliated themselves and blamed everyone and every thing else on the planet for their misstep. These people continue to humiliate themselves regularly providing scintillating fodder for the newspaper tabloids. Instead of being embraced by their audience they are ridiculed, publicly. They learn nothing from the event. Their world of opportunity shrinks and they certainly are not having any fun!

So, if you noticed that you are anxious, in fear, of doing something know that this very thing is what your heart is longing for you to become. Do the thing that makes you anxious to transform your anxiety, whether it be public speaking, auditioning for a major career enhancing role, or attempting to give a dinner party for twelve when all you know how to cook is a hard boiled egg. Learn, grow and have some fun!

"Live, live, live! Life is a banquet, and most poor suckers are starving to death!" - Rosalind Russell as Auntie Mame, 1958

Valery is an Artist Mindset Mentor & Coach who helps creative people get out of their own way so that they can overcome the struggles in the life of an actor, artist and performer. Clients learn how to express their full potential to create more passionately, profoundly, productively & profitably. Empower the Wizard Within to actualize and express your full creative potential. http://www.InnerWizard.com Get Free "Empower the Wizard Within tips"!

How to Unclog Artist Block

2009-08-19T08:31:00.000-07:00

It’s a devastating thing for an artist to feel they’ve lost their inspiration, to encounter a creative block. But suffering from artist’s block doesn’t mean you’ve lost your artistic ability. Artist block can be overcome.

Invariably it will happen. It's something that happens to all creative beings and all beings are born to create something. Within each purpose beats a heart that longs to be, do and have in this world. When a creative person suffers from an artist block or has lost their inspiration to create it is a devastating experience. Life energy is seemingly drained and the person is left empty in desperation.

Then fear takes over. Fear that there is no longer purpose in life, no reason for being, no hope for the future. Someone who suffers from artist block will Find Excuses And Reasons (F.E.A.R.) why she cannot possibly create that day or 'should' give up the dream to pursue some other, inauthentic, vocation. Or, she will despair day in and day out over the inability to create and the lack of inspiration. In this despair she will further drive that which she longs for even further from her reach. It can become an agonizing and soulfully vicious cycle of existence.

"Men occasionally stumble over the truth, but most of them pick themselves up and hurry off as if nothing had happened." - Winston Churchill

If your heart literally aches from artist block then know this: your truth is that you are an artist. That's why your heart aches. You are not expressing who you are at your deepest core. You were born to fully express your artistic potential. Anything short of this achievement will leave you feeling a little less whole, striving to reach for an expansion of your artful communication to the world.

In that moment, the moment you are awash in this truth you have a choice. You can choose to ignore this truth, give up in fear and go find some other life to live; creating someone else's truth. You can beat yourself up over your lack of inspiration further driving you away from what your heart is calling you to become. Or you can take a deep breath, center yourself in the truth of who you are, and ask your inner being what it wants to express. Then pick up your script, your paint brush, your instrument, your pencil, seat yourself at your computer - place yourself in a position where you can begin whatever it is you wish to create.

"To know how to choose a path with heart is to learn how to follow intuitive felling." - Jean Shinoda Bolen

If inspiration doesn't present itself immediately that's ok. Every bit of inspiration that you long for is already within you. All you have to do is allow it to flow. The more you resist your block the more power and energy you add to this block. Allow yourself to be blocked for the moment and begin anyway. Try a new approach to the character you're portraying, put some paint on the canvas, write the next line in your book even if the line is "I have no idea what comes next" and then take another step until the expression flows. Allow those first few forward movements to be real stinkers if that's what needs to get out of the way so your creativity can flow again. Let go of any judgment that what you create has to be good. Sometimes it is the woefully errant advancement that will lead to the opening of your creative resources once again.

Let go. Know that blocks are inevitable and that you have all the power you need within you to fully express your artistic potential. Honor your truth and your will be and act in the direction of your dream. You will live in alignment with your purpose in life following your own inner wisdom, the voice of your intuition, your higher being, your muse.

"There is neither painting, nor sculpture, nor music, nor poetry. The only truth is creation." - Umberto Boccioni

Valery Satterwhite is an Artist Mindset Mentor and Coach who helps creative people get out of their own way so that they can overcome the struggles that often come packaged with the life of a visual & performing artist. Clients learn how to express their full potential deliberately & responsibly to create more passionately, profoundly, productively and profitably. Empower the Wizard Within to actualize and express your full creative potential. http://www.InnerWizard.com. Get Free "Empower the Wizard Within tips"!

The Key to Creative Flow: Learn the Four C’s To Enhance Your Creativity

2009-08-17T07:44:00.000-07:00

Just as learning your ABC’s are fundamental to a basic education, learning the Four C’s of Creativity are essential to life as a powerful and deliberate creator of your art and your life experience. If you are not living a life abundant with new inspiration and enthusiasm for your creative challenges then it is likely you are missing one of the C’s, a key ingredient to the recipe for boosting your creative flow.

The four C’s of Creative Flow are:

1. Centering

”The tragedy of life is what dies inside a man while he lives.” – Albert Einstein

When you are centered, in alignment with the truth of who you are, life flows effortlessly. Your moments are largely spent “in the zone” of your creative spirit. You are engaged, unaware of the passage of time and firing on all cylinders of your artistic expression and life potential.

When you are un-centered, not in harmony with your authenticity life becomes a tiresome and often anxiety ridden struggle. You work exhaustively trying to fulfill the inauthentic expectations, the ‘shoulds and must do’s” demanded of you by yourself and others. Your heart longs to express and create one thing yet you hold yourself back to pursue another, often perceptively safer, path.

You may get brilliant at creating these false expectations but they will leave you unfulfilled, living a life of desperation.

2. Choice

“How you choose to respond each moment to the movie of life determines how you see the next frame, and the next, and eventually how you feel when the movie ends.” – Don Childre

Once you acknowledge and honor your truth, stand centered in the truth of who you are, it is necessary to base the choices you make and the actions you take upon this truth. If you step off your center, make a choice that is not in alignment with your center then you will struggle. Your creative flow will be blocked leaving you frustrated and unable to fully and effectively express yourself in your work and in your life.

If your choices are not grounded in your center, your core of being, you will not create the outcomes you desire. A choice acted upon and based on your truth will deliver the outcome, and experience, you want to create. A choice to take a different path, limit yourself and your possibilities in any way will create “less than” or even a train-wreck of an experience.

Choices that speak your truth feel good. Choices that belie your truth feel bad. It’s as simple as that.

3. Commitment

“The quality of a person's life is in direct proportion to their commitment to excellence, regardless of their chosen field of endeavor.” - Vince Lombardi

If you show up in your life centered in your truth, making choices that honor that truth you must commit yourself to honoring the choices you make. If you quit or hold yourself back in any way then you have made a new choice that is not in alignment with your center. You have strayed from your path of authenticity and the road to creating the art you wish to express and experiences you desire.

Staying committed to yourself requires trust in and love of yourself. What you long for is your birthright. It is what you are here to create. It is your purpose in life, that is why you feel its calling deep within your soul. Even if the journey is a bit arduous, if you are committed to YOU the experience will be exciting and fulfilling.

4. Challenge

“Life’s challenges are not supposed to paralyze you, they’re supposed to help you discover who you are.” – Bernice Johnson Reagon

It is a challenge to stay committed to your choices and center of truth. You will be called upon time and time again to stretch beyond your current comfort zone. Moving beyond what you know is unknown and, therefore, scary. In your fear you may Find Excuses And Reasons (F.E.A.R.) to step back from your commitment, your choices and your core of being.

You may not like your current comfort zone and say you want to achieve certain goals but if you discover that you are serving up excuses why you, others, or circumstance prevent you from maintaining your commitment then know that you are in a state of fear. Just take a deep breath. Breathe out. Center yourself. Listen to what your inner being wants. Let go of the voice of that incessant Inner Critic who works hard to keep you safe. Keeping you safe to this well-meaning yet woefully misguided egoic part of you is to keep you right where you are. It’s what you know so it’s safe.

There you have it, the four C’s of Creative Flow. As with learning how to ride a bicycle, you may fall on your butt a time or two as you apply these lessons in your life. That’s ok. Just brush yourself off and get back on your bike! Enjoy the ride.

Valery Satterwhite is an Artist Mindset Mentor and Coach who helps creative people get out of their own way so that they can overcome the struggles that often come packaged with the life of a visual & performing artist. Clients learn how to express their full potential deliberately & responsibly to create more passionately, profoundly, productively and profitably. Empower the Wizard Within to actualize and express your full creative potential. http://www.InnerWizard.com. Get Free "Empower the Wizard Within tips"!

How To Tell If Your Choices Are Good or Bad

2009-08-12T07:54:00.000-07:00

"The unconscious is our best collaborator."- Director Mike Nichols

Did you know that you have a personal GPS system within you? It will tell you whether or not the turn, the choice, you are about to make will lead you to your destination or not. It will tell you whether you are on the right path to achieve all that you dream of or on the road to a life unfulfilled, a dream never achieved.

This GPS system is your birthright. You experience this GPS system every day of your life yet you may not know how to use it. If your life is not going in the direction you desire, perhaps you are reading its indicators upside down. Maybe you've done a good job of ignoring or justifying the alarms it sends off. You just may not be paying any attention to the darn thing at all!

"To affect the quality of the day, that is the highest of arts." - Henry David Thoreau

Your personal guidance system is your emotions. Emotions are indicators of whether or not you've made, or are about to make, a good choice. Your emotions are served up by your Inner Being, Higher Self or what I lovingly call the Wizard Within. Wizards are alchemists. They know, precisely, how to turn dreams into reality. Your Wizard Within is there to guide you every step, every turn, on your way to the fulfillment of all experiences you desire.

"Advice is what we ask for when we already know the answer but wish we didn't." - Erica Jong

Simply put, the Wizard Within will serve up a bad feeling if you're headed in the wrong direction. Similarly, if you're headed towards achieving your aspirations you will feel good! Your emotions artfully guide you every moment of every day. As a creator of your life experience, you are a masterful artist! The question is, what is guiding what you chose to create?

"Love the art in yourself, not yourself in the art." - Konstantin Stanislavsky

Use your GPS to guide you as you make all of your choices, big and small. I paid attention to my Wizard Within last Sunday. I was at Home Depot buying plants for the home I just moved into. I paid for my selections and was putting my plants in my car when an uncomfortable feeling came over me. "Gee, I bought a lot of plants for $33.89!". I 'felt' that something was wrong. I looked at my receipt and saw that I was not charged for the two rather large hanging plants that were hooked onto the back of my shopping cart.

Here I was, in the parking lot, clearly getting away with my freebies yet I didn't feel good. In that moment I had a choice. I could hop in the car and go on my merry way knowing that I cheated the system or I could march back into the store and pay for my hanging plants. Which choice would make me feel good? To the sales clerk's shock and awe, I went back into Home Depot and paid for what was overlooked. I felt good again.

Why didn't I feel good about getting away with not having to pay for my purchases? It would be one thing if I were not aware that I wasn't properly charged. However, I did know. In that knowing I could choose to be a cheat and a thief or I could choose to be an honest person. As an honest person who stands centered in the truth of who I am there could only be one choice I could make that would be in alignment with that truth. Being in harmony with your truth feels good! Inauthentic choices do not feel good.

That experience was a simple example of how your emotions are GPS indicators of what life direction you are headed towards yet you can expand upon its simplicity and use it for all of your life choices, personal and professional. Use your GPS and Happy Journeys!

"Human beings, vegetables, or cosmic dust, we all dance to a mysterious tune, intoned in the distance by an invisible player." - Albert Einstein

Valery Satterwhite is an Artist Mindset Mentor and Coach who helps creative people get out of their own way so that they can overcome the struggles that often come packaged with the life of a visual & performing artist. Clients learn how to express their full potential deliberately & responsibly to create more passionately, profoundly, productively and profitably. Empower the Wizard Within to actualize and express your full creative potential. http://www.InnerWizard.com. Get Free "Empower the Wizard Within tips"!

How to Tap Into Your Greatest Talent

2009-08-10T10:42:00.000-07:00

It's a funny thing. What you excel at, what is your greatest gift, may not be obvious to you. You may believe that what you do and create so effortlessly is easily achieved by anyone and everyone. It comes so naturally for you that you think it comes just as naturally for everyone else. Therefore, you may be oblivious to your special talent, your unique gift that is your birthright and purpose in life.

"Actors are dependent on being validated by other people's opinions. I don't understand what it is I do that people want. I don't know what an actor does. I have no credentials. I don't know what I'm doing. To my mind, talent doesn't really exist. Talent is like a card player's luck. It is motivation, ambition, and luck. I think acting is a con game." - Shia LaBeouf

One way to identify what is your special talent is to examine your energy level. When you are "in the zone" in the present moment of being and doing, full of energy without regard to time and space you are fully expressing your true potential, your gift. You are engaged. Your energy level is abundant and unlimited. The more you do, the more energy you generate. Your experience flows effortlessly. You experience joy.

If you are tired, possibly to the point of exhaustion you are not in alignment with your authentic and unique talent. You can get really good at what you're doing but it takes extra joyless effort to achieve a level of excellence. Perhaps you are working hard to achieve someone else's vision of what you are supposed to, or should be, creating for your life's work. You may even reach the top in your career yet you feel like something is missing, feel unfulfilled. Even with success, your emptiness is grounded in your unexpressed gifts.

"Nobody ever encouraged me in this business. I encouraged myself. I was a very dull and shy child. I was the last person you would expect to be a success in this business. But I always felt if I kept going something would happen. But I even surprised myself at times. When I was doing ensemble theater and comedy work, I felt I had some talents. But when I started doing my shows in Berkeley and found that I could be funny on my own, I was shocked." - Whoopie Goldberg

When you recognize and acknowledge your individual and extraordinary talent you stand centered in the truth of who you are. Your energy and self-esteem emanates from that state of being. You are present and fully available for what comes next. Your talent expands and flows effortlessly from your center, your heart. Your gift is vital to the positive and ever expanding life experience of all that you touch. This is your purpose in life. Own it. Embrace it. Shine it upon your personal stage, your life expression.

"You have to leave the city of your comfort and go into the wilderness of your intuition. What you'll discover will be wonderful. What you'll discover is yourself." - Alan Alda

Valery Satterwhite is an Artist Mindset Mentor and Coach who helps creative people get out of their own way so that they can overcome the struggles that often come packaged with the life of a visual & performing artist. Clients learn how to express their full potential deliberately & responsibly to create more passionately, profoundly, productively and profitably. Empower the Wizard Within to actualize and express your full creative potential. http://www.InnerWizard.com. Get Free "Empower the Wizard Within tips"!

Stuck in a Creative Rut? You May Be Following Fools Rules

2009-08-07T07:52:00.000-07:00

Life is a game. Whether you enjoy life or not depends upon the rules - your own personal rules of life.

Whether you realize it or not you guide your life, make your choices, based upon a set of rules you selected for yourself in early childhood. These rules were based on misinterpretation or complete unchallenged acceptance of whatever was seen or heard. A well-meaning relative who tells a child "Don't be stupid" as she is about to put mustard on the cookie dough becomes Rule #1: I AM STUPID. A teacher's remark that a child is not performing to her potential becomes Rule #2: I AM NOT GOOD ENOUGH. A well-meaning parent's warning "Don't talk to strangers" becomes Rule #3: STRANGERS WILL HURT ME.

“Any fool can make a rule, and any fool will mind it.” - Henry David Thoreau

The rules you have taken on for yourself that do not support you hold you back. If you believe you are stupid you will not attempt creative challenges that require intelligence. If you think you are not good enough you won't allow yourself to reach for what you desire to achieve in your craft. If you think strangers can inflict harm you may resist public speaking.

Your Inner Critic, often the fool, is the manager of these rules. Since you adopted these rules, you can change them. You can take away the power your Inner Critic has to shape your choices and possibilities around these rules. You have the power to create NEW RULES!

“You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself in any direction you choose. You're on your own. And you know what you know. You are the guy who'll decide where to go.” - Dr. Seuss

Be mindful of the thought patterns and internal belief systems (your rules) that form the decisions you make, the direction you take in life. If you discover that they are negative and unsupportive take note. If, for example, you recognize the "I am stupid" rule being served up by that Inner Critic of yours, look for evidence of a new rule - "I AM SMART". Examine your life and look for experiences where you made a choice that benefited you and others. Look for examples of the opposite. Create a newer, better, rule to believe in.

“The rule which forbids ending a sentence with a preposition is the kind of nonsense up with which I will not put.” - Winston Churchill

Project this exercise out into other areas in your life. For example, if you believe that women over 40 years of age cannot get a good role in a movie look to the many women over 40 who are, indeed, getting great juicy parts in major motion pictures. Meryl Streep, Heather Locklear, Diane Lane, Michelle Pfeiffer, Cindy Crawford, Glenn Close, Ellen Barkin, Marcia Cross, Helen Mirren, Sarah Jessica Parker, Diane Keaton, Lauren Graham, Mary-Louise Parker, Frances McDormand, Laura Linney, Dame Judi Dench, Sally Field, and Emma Thompson are just a few of the many women over 40 who are actively working and enjoying successful acting careers.

“Life is like music, it must be composed by ear, feeling and instinct, not by rule. Nevertheless one had better know the rules, for they sometimes guide in doubtful cases, though not often.” - Samuel Butler

Your Inner Critic whispers your old misguided set of rules to you when you are about to stretch beyond your current comfort zone. This frightened little child within works hard to keep you safe although it is very misguided on what will keep you safe. It fears change of any kind. Change is unknown and therefore frightful. Rely on the power that you have within you that is your birthright. I playfully call this internal resource of self-esteem and wisdom the Wizard Within. When in doubt, ask what your Wizard Within would choose to believe and do. Change your rules to change your life!

“We all know, from what we experience with and within ourselves, that our conscious acts spring from our desires and our fears. - Albert Einstein

Valery Satterwhite is an Artist Mindset Mentor and Coach who helps creative people get out of their own way so that they can overcome the struggles that often come packaged with the life of a visual & performing artist. Clients learn how to express their full potential deliberately & responsibly to create more passionately, profoundly, productively and profitably. Empower the Wizard Within to actualize and express your full creative potential. http://www.InnerWizard.com. Get Free "Empower the Wizard Within tips"!

Your Self-Worth - Is It Measured by Your Stuff?

2009-08-04T11:12:00.000-07:00

People often associate self-worth to worldly attachments and achievements. During your life, you are always trying to get something, be it education, job, money, or other material pleasures. You feel these things represent your value. The stuff (or lack of stuff) is evidence of how successful or unsuccessful you have been in your life. When you were little you wrote in your “Rule book for life” that more and better stuff meant that you were “more better”.

Time for a New Rule: “I am not my stuff.”

You can have, enjoy and cherish stuff. Good stuff, cheap stuff, luxury items, trinkets, baubles, and bling. No problem there. Where you do run into difficulty is when you use the stuff to define who you are.

“I am a person to be valued. I am as good or better than you! Just look at my Rolex watch or my Prada bag!” This is an internal belief pattern that someone with low self-esteem, low self-worth would have.

A person with high self-worth has the Rolex watch a Prada bag because she likes the design, has a use for a watch and bag, can easily afford such luxury items. The items don’t define her. She knows, with certainty, that she is a worthy person with or without having high-end designer accessories.

Material achievements do not indicate your true self-worth. How you feel about yourself is how self-worth, or self-esteem, is valued. Unfortunately for many, shopping for stuff is what they think will get them from who they think they are to who they want to be. There is not a dress, luxury automobile, or piece of jewelry that can ever make you feel better about yourself at your deepest core. Oh, you may experience a brief ‘high’ when you purchase the item and the boost is momentary at best.

The Inner Wizard within you, the voice of your intuition and inspiration, knows your value. You are the most worthy, most important being in the world to your Inner Wizard. Everything it does is to help you get everything you really want in life, including luxury experiences.

The Inner Critic within you, the voice of your self-doubt and fear, doesn’t recognize your value. It thinks you have little value so it tells you that if you have things that other people think are valuable you will be thought of as valuable too. Your Inner Critic has good intentions, it is just woefully misguided. Nothing outside of you can make you feel better about your self. Self-worth comes from within.

Some people tell me that their Mommy or Daddy never said they were good at anything when they were children. “Woe is me. I never got any positive feedback when I was little. It’s their fault I have low self-esteem.” First of all, you were born with a healthy self-worth. You valued yourself as the most wonderful and most important thing in your world. As a baby, whenever you wanted something you never questioned whether you were worthy enough to have it. You freely asked for it. Demanded it sometimes.

Whether it’s true or not that your parents didn’t give you positive feedback to help you maintain high self-esteem is irrelevant. You can now be your own parent. You can give yourself great feedback. Learn to see and acknowledge all of the good, the value that you bring, to the world each and every day. Every time you smile at someone, you brighten that person’s day. Find things, little and big things, about which to pat yourself on the back as a habit.

The connection between stuff and self-worth is a connection only made by your Inner Critic. Disarm this voice within you and empower your Inner Wizard who has always known your tremendous value. Value yourself as you would have others value you. It begins with you.

I encourage you to eat positive feedback for breakfast! Give yourself a healthy dose each and every morning.

Valery Satterwhite is an Artist Mindset Mentor and Coach who helps creative people get out of their own way so that they can overcome the struggles that often come packaged with the life of a visual & performing artist. Clients learn how to express their full potential deliberately & responsibly to create more passionately, profoundly, productively and profitably. Empower the Wizard Within to actualize and express your full creative potential. http://www.InnerWizard.com. Get Free "Empower the Wizard Within tips"!

Creatively Stressed: Anxiety is NOT the Enemy!

2009-07-25T18:35:00.000-07:00

You're obsessed. You're obsessed with your work, your craft. You think about your art, your character, painting, sculpture, upcoming tour, or screenplay seemingly every waking minute of every day. Heck, you even dream about it!

This fiendish infatuation with your craft, the passion that drives you to get out of bed in the morning is a wonderful gift. Why is it, then, that this fixation on what makes the earth move for you can also stop you dead in your tracks? Cold. Left abandoned by the "What if's" or "I'm not enough's" or any version of "I can't because".

What starts as a life-affirming energizer bunny within you becomes a taunting dragon that tortures you day in and day out. You feel like there is no escape. If you walk away from what your heart is calling you to become you trade desire for a lifetime of despair. Anxiety.

What is anxiety? Anxiety is worry, anticipation for a future misfortune. Anxiety is irrational fear. Rational fear is real. You fear fire if you're in a burning house because fire will deliver great harm to you if you just sit there. Irrational fear is worry that your house might burn to the ground as you sleep when there is no sign of fire, no observable hint of a pending fire, as you rest your head on your pillow. Irrational fear is despair over potential bad reviews of your work. You spend your days in desperate anxiety over what you think will be a career, or life-ending, dose of criticism. You believe that your future will be ruined if your performance or creation doesn't meet with high approval and reward. You think your life will be meaningless; you will have no value or purpose.

And, in your anxiety, you are stuck. You're frozen on your path like the proverbial deer in the headlights. You Find Excuses And Reasons (F.E.A.R.) to put off moments of judgment. You never finish your painting, screenplay or composition. You blow off your audition because you think your boss won't let you have the afternoon off. And then you beat yourself up over your procrastination and missed opportunity. And what you fear becomes even more real to you.

Nonsense!

Your anxiety can work for you! Anxiety is just a signal. It is a signal to your Higher Self that you are about to stretch out of your current comfort zone; about to grow. You are about to enter into unknown territory and that ego within you, the Inner Critic, is spooked. Just observe. Notice when your Inner Critic, the voice that delivers your self-doubt and fear, is freaked out. Know that in that moment you have a choice. You can give your personal power over to your Inner Critic, let him lead your choice and stay right where you are where it is 'safe'. Or, you can recognize that you are about to take one giant step closer to the actualization of your dream.

Remind your egoic Inner Critic that whatever happens, you will be safe. If you are booed off the stage, publicly humiliated by an art critic or your screenplay is tossed in the round file you are still you. You still have meaning and purpose. And you get to learn something from that experience. These lessons are gifts for they are what ultimately deliver what you desire - the masterful expression of your full potential. Look around you. Those you admire got to where they are through a path of stretching, learning, growing, and mastering their craft. So can you.

Choose to maintain your personal power. Know that what you fear is also what you are here to do. There is only one way to mitigate your anxiety and that is to do the thing that makes you anxious!

Valery Satterwhite is an Artist Mindset Mentor and Coach who helps creative people get out of their own way so that they can overcome the struggles that often come packaged with the life of a visual & performing artist. Clients learn how to express their full potential deliberately & responsibly to create more passionately, profoundly, productively and profitably. Empower the Wizard Within to actualize and express your full creative potential. http://www.InnerWizard.com. Get Free "Empower the Wizard Within tips"!

How to Get A Grip on Your Inner Critic

2009-07-21T07:54:00.000-07:00

Ever want to tell someone to get a grip? Tell them that they have run amok in their minds and are not facing reality? Stop them from completely 'losing it' and self-destructing? How often have you told yourself to get a grip only to later serve up more and more justification for your misguided thinking and emotions? Your very own self-sabotage?

How do you achieve a centered calm presence when your life experience is flung in scattered directions, randomly, leaving you with anxiety, fear, depression or utter confusion? Or worse yet, your frozen in action; completely stuck. Trapped in the mire of your own monkey mind.

You get a grip on your Inner Critic by letting go of the grip it has over you.

"People become attached to their burdens sometimes more than the burdens are attached to them." ~George Bernard Shaw

You create your experience through the expression of the essence of what you think about, whether it is something you want or something you do not want. Your Inner Critic is often the originator of what you think about. If your focus and attention in upon that which you have and do not want, you will create more of what you do not want. If you allow your thoughts to be occupied with worry then you will create an experience that reflects what you fear.

Your Inner Critic serves up these seemingly automatic thoughts of worry, fear and other anxiety to hold you back and keep you safe. He has you in his grip as if you were a child about to run into the street. He holds onto in fear of your safety for if he were to let go you would surely die. And you live, frozen in place or creating more evidence to support the stronghold the Inner Critic has over you.

To release the Inner Critic grip tell him "You're not the boss of me!" Reclaim your power. In that powerful you stand centered in the truth of who you are and committed to your passion, your gift that you are here to bring forth into the world. You will remember that there is nothing that you desire that you cannot achieve, and there is nothing that you do not want that you cannot release from your experience.

Recognizing the connection between what you think and feel and what you create for your life experience weakens the fearful grip you hold upon yourself. You can release the grip by taking responsibility for generating the thoughts and feelings that will deliver more of the experiences you desire and less of what you do not want to occur in your life.

What is your dream, your deepest desire?

Speak and act in the direction of that desire. Any thoughts, feelings, emotions you have that run contrary to that desire is the work of your Inner Critic. He in then in control of the decisions and choices you make moving forward. It's easy to tell if your Inner Critic has a grip on you or not. When you are victim to his power, entrenched in his grip, you do not feel good. It is as simple as that. Uncomfortable feelings are clear indicators that your thoughts are not in alignment with your dreams, your desires. The choices you make based on those thoughts will not result in the experience you want to create. Fear based thoughts will lead to self-sabotage. Without exception.

"Every speaker has a mouth; An arrangement rather neat. Sometimes it's filled with wisdom. Sometimes it's filled with feet." - Robert Orben

Whatever you are paying attention to, whether it be remembering the past, observing the present or thinking about the future, you use to plant the seeds for what you will experience in that future. How you show up in your life is what you create. Do you show up in the clenched fist of your Inner Critic or will you present yourself standing firm in your own power, speaking and action in alignment with the fullest expression of your authenticity, your truth?

Release the Inner Critic grip to free yourself to create from your heart instead of your Inner Critic monkey mind. With this freedom comes expanded possibilities and unlimited potential.

"To affect the quality of the day, that is the highest of arts." - Henry David Thoreau

Valery Satterwhite is an Artist Mindset Mentor who helps creative people get out of their own way so that they can overcome the struggles that often come packaged with the life of a visual & performing artist. Clients learn how to express their full potential deliberately & responsibly to create more passionately, profoundly, productively and profitably. Empower the Wizard Within to actualize and express your full creative potential. http://www.InnerWizard.com. Get Free "Empower the Wizard Within tips"!

Is Creative Block Just Part of Your Process?

2009-07-13T05:01:00.000-07:00

Blocked!

Words are not spilling onto the page; color choices elude you; you can't embody the character you've been chosen to portray. Simply put, you're stuck! It's not the first time you've been stuck and certainly not the last if you're a creative being. In your stuck-ness you beat yourself up, and often others, in your frustration and anxiety over your creative blocks. You worry that you may not have another creative thought, an inspired moment, ever again! Your life will be over! Argh!! And you resist your stuckness only to give your power over to it allowing the struggle to grow large blocking your vision, your expression, your talent, your gift to the world. Double ArrrggghhhH!!!

"Being true to yourself is what feeds creativity, not self-doubt and criticism." - Diane Arenberg

Did it ever occur to you that you were trying too hard to get over your artist, your creative, block? What if your seemingly blocked moments were just pauses in your creative process? What if the pause is a call to you to replenish your energy, feed your creative soul, with what it enjoys, what it plays with? What if this pause was opportunity calling?

"An inconvenience is an unrecognized opportunity." - Confucius

Instead of resigning to the possibility that you're washed up as an artist, consider that you are merely making a pit stop. Pit stops are essential to any Formula One race champion and you are absolutely a champion! You are a master, endowed with unique gifts and talent, here to express your full potential. Pull into the pit stop and refuel!

I can hear your Inner Critic screaming now! "If I stop, pull out of the race even for a moment, others will pass me by!". Nonsense! Others will require pit stops as well. Besides, they're not running the same race you are. They're not creating YOUR masterpiece. They are in the process, the race, to create theirs as you are yours. The only one you're racing against is your very own Inner Critic who has no idea where he's going or how to get there. He is hopelessly lost begging you, your Higher Self or what I playfully call the Wizard Within, to take over the lead.

"Creation is such an elusive thing, for the more we think we are in control, the more we remove ourselves from the actual creation." - Betty Jean Billups

Recognize that you've paused and allow the pit stop experience to unfold. Let if flow naturally without restraint. What you resist, persists. If you resist being blocked, your block will persist. If you embrace where you are in the process the process will continue to move forward, you will naturally replenish your energy that serves your intuition and inspiration. Before you know it you will pull out of the pit stop inspired and firing on all cylinders!

"The creative act is not hanging on, but yielding to a new creative movement. Awe is what moves us forward." - Joseph Campbell

Valery Satterwhite is an Artist Mindset Mentor and Coach who helps creative people get out of their own way so that they can overcome the struggles that often come packaged with the life of a visual & performing artist. Clients learn how to express their full potential deliberately & responsibly to create more passionately, profoundly, productively and profitably. Empower the Wizard Within to actualize and express your full creative potential. http://www.InnerWizard.com. Get Free "Empower the Wizard Within tips"!

Your Exhaustion is Really Inner Critic FEAR

2009-07-10T00:44:00.000-07:00

Many people come to me complaining that they're tired, exhausted, unable to find balance in their life. Some have incredibly busy schedules and others live a life of casual leisure. Yet, both are exhausted. I also know people who have either busy or leisurely schedules who are not tired, they are full of energy and rarely, if ever, tire. What's the difference?

I've discovered that those in the chronically tired camp live 'should be' lives. They fear they are not good, smart, talented or whatever enough to live life centered in the truth of who they are, on their terms so they adopt a way of life that meets with who they think they're supposed to be, what they're supposed to do and have. One can get very good at living a 'should be' life but it is exhausting. I takes a lot of work to live contrary to your natural preferences and talents; against your purpose. It is a life spent swimming upstream - and that's exhausting!

"Fear is static that prevents me from hearing myself." Samuel Butler

Those who live authentically, aligned with their purpose, enjoy a seemingly inexhaustible source of energy. Aligned with purpose, energy is always there to do whatever inspires you. You never get tired, and each day is met with a sense of joy. No matter how busy, days unfold effortlessly, a flow with the stream of life.

If you are exhausted, too tired to create you are really stuck in Finding Excuses And Reasons (F.E.A.R.) why you cannot honor and give voice to your authentic self, your purpose and unique abilities that are your birthright. If you are giving power to that monkey minded Inner Critic chatter telling you that you cannot do or express what your heart is calling you to create you deplete your energy source, your Inner Being, Higher Self or what I playfully call the Wizard within. If you think too much and fail to take action, fear makes its home within you. You become exhausted as you work against your natural flow. You stand still in your journey to actualize and express your full potential.

"The more you lose yourself in something bigger than yourself, the more energy you will have." - Norman Vincent Peale

Go from tired to inspired by giving power to the Inner Being voice within you. This is the voice that knows you by heart, knows your personal passions and greatest desires. Ask what your Inner Being wants to do and create and take one step in that direction. Then take another step. And another. Soon you will be living your life authentically, in alignment with what you are here to be, do and have. You will have turned around to flow easily with the stream instead of paddling exhaustively against it.

“I'm so tired, but I can't sleep...standing on the edge of something much too deep...funny how I feel so much but cannot say a word...we are screaming inside, oh, but we can't be heard...so afraid to love you, more afraid to lose...clinging to a past” - Sarah McLachlan

Valery Satterwhite is an Artist Mindset Mentor and Coach who helps creative people get out of their own way so that they can overcome the struggles that often come packaged with the life of a visual & performing artist. Clients learn how to express their full potential deliberately & responsibly to create more passionately, profoundly, productively and profitably. Empower the Wizard Within to actualize and express your full creative potential. http://www.InnerWizard.com. Get Free "Empower the Wizard Within tips"!

How to Drop Your Creative Resistance

2009-07-08T04:22:00.000-07:00

The simple truth is creativity functions best when you let go of resistance to the creative flow. Resistance comes in many forms. Anxiety over a creative block is a form of resistance. Finding Excuses And Reasons (F.E.A.R.) for why you cannot or aren't whatever enough to come up with the vision or the energy to create is another face of resistance. Worrying about how you're going to pay your bills or how the critics will view your work is nothing but resistance. Resistance is saying NO! to YOU. It is saying NO to what your heart is calling you to be, do and experience.

Let go of your resistance. Trust. Trust that you can, are 'enough', will be able to keep a roof over your head and handle criticism of any kind. Just drop the baggage of resistance that you've been carrying around with you that makes you too exhausted to get your creative juices flowing. Even if you give yourself permission to let go for only 1 day, just drop it! Drop out of the vicious cycle of artist block and stunted creativity.

"Drop out" suggested an elective, selective, graceful process of detachment from involuntary or unconscious commitments. It meant self-reliance, a discovery of one's singularity, a commitment to mobility, choice, and change. Unhappily my explanations of this sequence of personal development were often misinterpreted to mean 'Get stoned and abandon all constructive activity.'" -Timothy Leary

When you drop your creative resistance you change your structured path of least resistance. Your current path is mired with fear and self-doubt. When you drop your fear and self-doubt you create a new path; a path that is clear, free from the quagmire of restraints and limitations to your creative flow. You are open to new vision.

"It is the function of art to renew our perception. What we are familiar with we cease to see. The writer shakes up the familiar scene, and, as if by magic, we see a new meaning in it." - Anais Nin

It is very easy to drop your creative resistance. Just be willing. Take a deep breath and begin. It doesn't matter how you begin; just do anything. If you're a painter pick up your brush or knife and choose a color. Put some paint on a canvas and let go. If you're an actor, audition for a role that you think is impossible to win. If you're a writer, write a romantic comedy if your work is largely science fiction. Do something out of your ordinary, out of your comfort zone, and be willing to fall flat on your butt.

"Every man, through fear, mugs his aspirations a dozen times a day." ~Brendan Francis

If you do create a stink bomb, have a good chuckle over the experience and notice that the fall didn't kill you like you feared it would. In fact, you learned a thing or two about yourself and how you can improve your work. It is in the lessons learned from new experiences that your vision of what's possible for you expands. And laughter will give you distance. Laughter lets you to step back from an event, learn from it and then move onto bigger and better experiences.

Drop the resistant Inner Critic monkey-mind chatter filled with doubt and anxiety. Chuckle and hum a little tune.."I can see clearly now, the brain is gone..."

"The creative act is not hanging on, but yielding to a new creative movement. Awe is what moves us forward." - Joseph Campbell

Valery Satterwhite is an Artist Mindset Mentor and Coach who helps creative people get out of their own way so that they can overcome the struggles that often come packaged with the life of a visual & performing artist. Clients learn how to express their full potential deliberately & responsibly to create more passionately, profoundly, productively and profitably. Empower the Wizard Within to actualize and express your full creative potential. http://www.InnerWizard.com. Get Free "Empower the Wizard Within tips"!

Creatively Blocked? Let Go Of It Has To Be Good

2009-07-06T04:54:00.000-07:00

There you are again, staring endlessly at the blank canvas or page. Perhaps you are sitting at the piano, clueless as to where to place your hands. Are you struggling with how to develop your character in the role you've just landed? Are you frozen with a creative block, stuck in procrastination, scared that you've reached the end of your talent and will never have a creative thought ever again? If so, you are creatively blocked. You've reached a dead end and you're spent, depleted of all creative energy. Petrified, you struggle and struggle to come up with inspiration only to expand your fear into high anxiety. "If I were any good at this it wouldn't be so hard!".

Ah, there it is. You've Found and Excuse And Reason (F.E.A.R.) to hold yourself back from your creative flow. "I'm not good enough!" What is, exactly, good enough? According to whom? What does it mean to be good enough? Is it perfection? Is it a natural ability to create spontaneously at any given moment? Is it receiving awards and applause for your talent from associates and the public?

"You can't use up creativity. The more you use, the more you have." - Maya Angelou

There is no greater waste of energy for a creative person than to worry about whether or not one is good enough or talented enough. You are talented. Period. Sometimes you get in the zone of creativity easily and sometimes you don't. Sometimes you create a masterpiece, sometimes you create something that stinks up the room. All of it is part of the creative process. Every step in that process has value, expands your creative vision, talent and work flow. What you bring with you to the work in front of you is contained in the last piece and the ones before that - including the rotten eggs.

"The object isn't to make art, it's to be in that wonderful state which makes art inevitable." - Robert Henri

If you're mired in creative block just begin. Write, paint, emote, play anything. Let go of the notion that whatever you are developing has to be good. Be willing to create a major flop. Get silly. Get naked. Do something, anything, that will move you beyond the frustration and stress of having to create something good. Just get into the process and let go. Let the work unfold as it will rather than place limitations through the right or wrong, good or bad of it. Let go and flow.

"I tamed my personal art demon – the tendency to think about painting rather than actually painting – by throwing the stuff on the blank paper and telling myself I didn't care about the end result. I believed it and was saved." - Rich Hawk

Valery Satterwhite is an Artist Mindset Mentor & Coach who helps creative people get out of their own way so that they can overcome the struggles that often come packaged with the life of a visual & performing artist. Clients learn how to express their full potential deliberately & responsibly to create more passionately, profoundly, productively and profitably. Empower the Wizard Within to actualize and express your full creative potential. http://www.InnerWizard.com. Get Free "Empower the Wizard Within tips"!

How to Rise Above the Pecking Order

2009-06-29T04:28:00.000-07:00

Where are you in the pecking order of your life? Are you above or below the "measuring up to" rung you hoped to be on at this moment in time? Where are you in the heirarchy through which you define your life achievement; your sense of self-worth and accomplishment?

If you had answers to those question in the form of higher than or lower than you are on a ladder to nowhere fast. To map your place in this world, know where you stand, you constantly measure by means of more or less than what you believe to be the ideal, the model of who you 'should' be. From this vantage point you can make sense of the world. Nonsense!

Those who define themselves according to a self-imposed pecking order will never experience satisfaction and a life well lived. There will always be someone who seems to be better than, have a life richer than, they are. Like the dog chasing a car, life is a long exhausting chase. Even if the car is caught, the high rung achieved, there will be the search for what to do next.

"I can't get no satisfaction." - Mick Jagger

What is this pecking order anyway? It is an arrangement of things (objects, names, values, categories, etc.), in which the things are represented as being "above," "below," or "at the same level as" one another. Those who live by the pecking order are constantly fighting for a higher position or defending themselves against a lower position. Validation fluctuates depending upon the rung of the moment achieved. The heirarchy of other things and people determine one's self-esteem.

The truth is you are here to be you. Your purpose in life is to express your full potential, develop and expand your own unique gifts, your talent, what you bring forth into this world, without exception. This is your birthright. The only ladder, the only pecking order to consider in the expression of an authentic life is where you are, or are not, in integrity with your truth. The only place of measurement is within. Nothing external can deliver your unique voice, your creative contribution. Only you.

"The best thing you can do is get good at being you!" - Denis the Menace

To seek validation from the position of others is to hold yourself hostage, a victim, to the perceived 'rankings' of others. You give up your personal power, your truth, in exchange for the power you think others have and can give you. Think of the shopaholic who runs out to buy the latest Louis Vuitton purse or Rolex watch because she thinks that if she has that item she will move up a rung or two on the status pecking order. There is a moment of shear joy at the point of purchase but very quickly sights are set on the next bling that will deliver that elusive rung. Shopping is what people do because they think it will take them from who they are to who they want to be. More nonsense! There is a clear distinction between buying a Prada bag because you enjoy its beauty and utility and buying it to make you feel better about yourself.

You are you. You have always been you. If there is any part of you that you are unsatisfied with it is because you are not expressing your full potential in that area. You are holding yourself back and no one else. So stop all this measuring; looking outside of you to define yourself. Look within. Honor your authenticity; your uniqueness. Ask what your Higher Being would want to do and express and act positively upon that direction!

"Be who you are and say what you feel. Those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind." - Dr. Seuss

Valery Satterwhite is an Artist Mindset Mentor who helps creative people get out of their own way so that they can overcome the struggles that often come packaged with the life of a visual & performing artist. Clients learn how to express their full potential deliberately & responsibly to create more passionately, profoundly, productively and profitably. Empower the Wizard Within to actualize and express your full creative potential. http://www.InnerWizard.com. Get Free "Empower the Wizard Within tips"!

The One Step Remedy for Anxiety

2009-06-26T03:25:00.000-07:00

Anxiety! It has power. It has the power to stop you cold, in your tracks, as you freeze in your attempt to move forward in your life. Your anxiety gets in the way of you being, doing and having what you want in life.

What is anxiety? The dictionary will tell you that anxiety is a sense of apprehension and fear either real or imagined, resulting from anticipation of a threatening event or situation. Often states of anxiety are marked by physical symptoms such as sweating, tension, and increased heart rate.

Do you want to know the surefire way to relieve anxiety? Do the thing that makes you nervous!

Events in and of themselves do not cause stress. It is the meanings you attach to those events that creates your stress and anxiety. Worrying about some event is nothing more than adding layers upon layer upon layers of made-up meanings, imagined possibilities (not probabilities) that might deliver an untoward experience. Even these seemingly unfortunate experiences are merely events that you will have or will attach meaning to.

For example, if you are anxious, stressed out over giving a presentation, auditioning, standing proverbially naked in front of someone who can sit in judgment of you, you have added several layers to the mere event of being in front of people showing yourself and your work. First, you assume that you and what you present are one and the same. Then you add a layer of what you present will not be received well. And you top it off with layers of certain humiliation or a life ruined. Bollocks! Made up nonsense!

Let's say your deepest fear is realized. You are booed off the stage. In that moment you have a choice. You can sink to the lowest pit in your stomach and remain there for eternity. Quit your dream of becoming whatever it was that you were seeking to accomplish with your performance and live out your life in quiet desperation or restless agitation filling your days with stress and anxiety over what could have been.

OR -

You can take a deep breath and embrace your humanity. You were born to fully express your potential. It's why you were given the tools of a burning desire, a passion, and unique raw talent. These gifts are your birthright. Developing these gifts takes a bit of practice. With practice comes trial and error. Errors, mistakes, and downright bellyflops are all part of the natural learning process. These 'events' can be perceived as disastrous, life-ending. Or they can be viewed as life-affirming opportunities to grow and expand your authentic expression, bring forth your passion into reality. The way you see the problem is the problem. Every morning you have two choices, continue to sleep with your dreams or wake up and chase your dreams. The choice is yours.

"A man of genius makes no mistakes. His errors are volitional and are the portals of discovery." ~ James Joyce, Ulysses

It is a painful thing to look at your own trouble and know that you yourself and no one else has created it. You can't shrink your way to greatness. What you fear, what you resist, is what your heart is calling you to become. If you have the courage to step outside of your comfort zone, you will not only be amazed by the new and inspiring possibility and potential of the world, but also with the wonder and amazing power that lays deep within yourself. Once this new vision and awareness has taken hold, it has to be trusted, it has to be given complete faith. To turn away from it and to engage in self-destructive acts of attached meanings, anxiety and stress is perilous. You don't have to get it right. You just have to get it going.

Let go of the hold you have on your own life through your anxiety. Stop getting in your own way of your success and life fulfillment. Let go of your attachment to the meanings you have created to become the ties that bind you. Let go and flow.

"When I let go of what I am, I become what I might be." -- Lao Tzu

Act and speak in the direction of your dreams. Don't just dream it. Be it. Put yourself out there. Do the thing that you resist the most. If you fall you will learn how to walk your walk better the next time. To reach your destination you must be willing to put one front of the other and take each step that will deliver you to your heart's desire.

Valery Satterwhite is an Artist Mindset Mentor who helps creative people get out of their own way so that they can overcome the struggles that often come packaged with the life of a visual & performing artist. Clients learn how to express their full potential deliberately & responsibly to create more passionately, profoundly, productively and profitably. Empower the Wizard Within to actualize and express your full creative potential. http://www.InnerWizard.com. Get Free "Empower the Wizard Within tips"!

Show Up Aligned With Your Dream to Turn it Into Reality

2009-06-24T06:30:00.000-07:00

"Eighty percent of success is just showing up." — Woody Allen

Showing up in your life is, indeed, an ingredient to success in any endeavor. How you show up, what your state of being is, defines what it is you succeed in creating, experiencing. Do you show up insecure, doubtful, full of fear or do you show up present, standing centered in the truth of who you are, fully engaged in your dreams, your desires? Both states of being succeed in creating an outcome. The former creates more experiences of your insecurity, doubts and fear. The latter creates the actualization of all that you desire.

"It's the vibes man!"

We live in a vibrational universe. As Albert Einstein said, "Nothing happens until something moves". Living things have a vibrational quality as do what you perceive to be solid, man-made. Put anything under a super duper microscope and you will see tiny atoms and molecules moving about. Energy. Everything is made up of this vibrational energy. Including you.

“The energy of the mind is the essence of life.” - Aristotle

Vibration is the language of this Universe. Sound is a vibration. Vibrate and there is a responding vibration. A communication; an understanding between vibrations. You've seen how this works. Put two tuning forks together, strike one to generate a sound and the other will begin to vibrate with a matching tone. Place two pendulums together, strike them randomly and they will soon begin to sway back and forth in unison in the same direction. If you've ever been to a concert and the audience applauds for an encore, it is not long before the entire audience is clapping in unison, matching the vibration of an imperceptible leader.

As the creator of your experiences you emit a vibration through your thoughts and feelings that reflects a matching experience back to you. Therefore, it is not what you say that delivers what you want, it's how you feel that manifests your outcomes. This is why affirmations do not work unless you believe what it is that you are saying. For example, in your best Stuart Smalley imitation (from Saturday Night Live) you affirm "I'm good enough, I'm smart enough, and gosh darn it, people like me!" and your next thought is "Yeah, right! Who am I kidding" and feel less than what you affirmed, what you are communicating to the Universe you want to experience is more outcomes that will continue to affirm your feeling, your vibration, of being less than good enough, smart enough and likable.

To show up in your day, in your life, in alignment with all that you desire you must hold the vibration of that experience. What would it feel like to accomplish your highest goals? Who would you be, what would you do, what would you have? How would you feel if you achieved all that? Feel it with every bone, every atom and molecule within your body and hold that energy within you. Focus your actions, your choices, on that vibrational energy. It is a way of acting as if what you desire has already been delivered to you and you are enjoying it at this very moment. This present moment.

It is in your moments of now that you create your future outcomes, whether it be one minute from now or ten years or more. Holding the vibration of your past experiences that you did not want will only serve to create more experiences of that which you do not want. Holding the vibration of what you worry for your future will create outcomes that match what you worry about.

There is an easy way to tell what you are emitting vibrationally. Check in with how you feel. If you feel rotten, reach for a thought, or a series of thoughts, that will make you feel better about yourself and your current experience. If you feel good, build and act upon that good feeling to create more experiences to feel good about. It's really that simple. Be mindful of how you feel, your vibration. Check in to focus and align your vibration so that it matches your deepest desires.

“Goals provide the energy source that powers our lives. One of the best ways we can get the most from the energy we have is to focus it. That is what goals can do for us; concentrate our energy.” - Denis Waitley

Valery Satterwhite is an Artist Mindset Mentor who helps creative people get out of their own way so that they can overcome the struggles that often come packaged with the life of a visual & performing artist. Clients learn how to express their full potential deliberately & responsibly to create more passionately, profoundly, productively and profitably. Empower the Wizard Within to actualize and express your full creative potential. http://www.InnerWizard.com. Get Free "Empower the Wizard Within tips"!

Let Go of Being Right to Get What You Want

2009-06-22T16:56:00.000-07:00

Your Inner Critic, that nagging internal voice of self-doubt and fear loves to be right! Being right, to that egoistic nagger, is associated with being worthy. In order to feel worthy you have to be right! At the expense of everything else you want in life. Would you rather be right or happy?

Being right is an either/or equation for most. “Either I’m right or your right? If you’re right then what does that make me?” And the Inner Critic responds with “not good (or smart) enough”. So you fight for your rightness to feel better about yourself. You see people fighting to be right in your personal and professional life. Heck, turn on the television and you’ll find lots of people pontificating on their rightness on talk shows and news programs. Much of the comedy programming you see is based on a character trying to prove he is right about some inane thing.

"Don't find fault. Find a remedy." - Henry Ford

The truth is, it isn’t an either/or world. It’s an AND world! You can be right AND let the other person be right too! You can get your viewpoint communicated effectively without making the other person wrong. This ability is one of the key secrets to turning your dreams into reality. Here’s an example.

A man runs to the local FedEx station with three golf clubs tied together, wrapped in brown paper, with a proper shipping label pasted around the middle of the package. He’s rushing because the last pick-up of the day is in another minute or two and he has to get these clubs to his brother in another state no later than tomorrow morning.

The FedEx employee says they can’t ship those clubs packaged this way and he will have to bring them back in packaged in a proper FedEx box. So the man screams and yells at the employee “These clubs are very securely wrapped and you can easily read the label to see where they have to go! You’re just wasting my time over your stupid rules! I’ve got to get these clubs to my brother tomorrow morning or he won’t be able to play in the tournament! You’re going to ruin his life! FedEx s*#ks!” Okay, that might be a bit of an exaggeration but you get the idea of where this conversation is going.

As the two men continue to argue, the last scheduled pick-up of the day comes and goes without the golf clubs. The man was right; it would be easy to ship the clubs as they were. So, who won? Nobody. The man didn’t get the clubs shipped to his brother on time. FedEx lost a customer that day.

How else could this scenario have played out that would still allow the man to be right AND get the clubs shipped out with the last pick-up?

When told that he needs to have the clubs packaged in a proper FedEx box he could have responded: “I understand (allowing the FedEx employee to be right) and here’s my problem. If I don’t get these clubs to my brother by tomorrow morning he won’t be able to play in the tournament he’s dreamed about his whole life!” With the acknowledgement that he was right, the FedEx employee now has good feelings about the man in front of him and wants to help him. People do want to help others when they can. He replies “I see, fill out this new shipping label while I run out back and tell the pick-up guy to wait a minute. I think we have an extra box in the back somewhere that you can use.”

FedEx employee is right. Man gets the clubs to his brother on time and is happy, goal accomplished!

“The first duty of a wise advocate is to convince his opponents that he understands their arguments, and sympathizes with their just feelings” - Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Let go of being right. It is your ego, your Inner Critic, that thrives from being right all the time. Focus on what you want. The man in the above example wanted to ship the clubs to his brother that day. Without making the FedEx employee, or himself, wrong he got what he wanted. He allowed them both to be right!

Try this approach in your daily life. See how letting go of being right by making others wrong delivers more of the good experiences you want to have and less of the bad experiences. Allowing others to be right, too, empowers you!

“Discussion is an exchange of knowledge; argument is an exchange of ignorance” - Robert Quillen

Valery Satterwhite is an Artist Mindset Mentor who helps creative people get out of their own way so that they can overcome the struggles that often come packaged with the life of a visual & performing artist. Clients learn how to express their full potential deliberately & responsibly to create more passionately, profoundly, productively and profitably. Empower the Wizard Within to actualize and express your full creative potential. http://www.InnerWizard.com. Get Free "Empower the Wizard Within tips"!

The Key Driver of Creative Success

2009-06-19T05:05:00.000-07:00

What drives you to succeed as a creative person? Is it the dream of fame, wealth and recognition? Is the thought of seeing your name up in lights what propels you out of bed in the morning? Having such a strong and clear goal is a definite motivator and, if you work hard and pay your dues, you can absolutely achieve that goal. However, if you want to be successful without the feeling that you are battling your way through life your motivation to get out of that comfy bed in the morning has to come from somewhere else. There must be an even bigger motivating driver.

To have ambition and want to be successful is a fine thing but it isn't enough. Ambition and want are just words that describe desire. To understand WHY you have such desires is quite another thing. True genius, true art in any form, comes from passion. Great actors aren't great because of their technique. Anyone can learn technique. They move an audience as great actors because of their passion. Passion is the driver that motivates every bone and breath in your body to achieve.

"My passions were all gathered together like fingers that made a fist. Drive is considered aggression today; I knew it then as purpose." - Bette Davis

If your desires are not in alignment with your passion you can be successful but you will not be fulfilled, satisfied. You will live a rich famous life and still yearn for the elusive thing. You will get up in the morning wondering what is wrong with you. You have all that you desired yet you feel that there is still something missing. You are missing the nourishment that feeds your soul, your heart.

Above all, be true to yourself, and if you cannot put your heart in it, take yourself out of it. Follow your heart, but be quiet for a while first. Ask questions, then feel the answer. Learn to trust your heart. When work, dedicated commitment, and pleasure unite to become one and you reach into that deep well where passion lives, nothing is impossible. Through the experience of devoted passion you will reap richer stores of knowledge than any text-book or course of study can give you.

"What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us." - Ralph Waldo Emerson

This dedication to authentic passion always and absolutely carries a demand and a responsibility. It is up to you to honor and stand centered in the truth of who you are. Speak and act in the direction of your innermost passions. If you do not, you are betraying your own authenticity. If you are Finding Excuses And Reasons (F.E.A.R.) why you cannot pursue your passion you are hiding your true estate. You are acting in bad faith. You are 'dissing' you.

Now it must be said that passion without action is just a dream. You actualize your passion, bring forth the dream into the world, you must do something! This is where the Inner Critic can, and often does, step in to hold you back. What if you really put yourself 'out there' and stood naked to the world boldly following your heart's desire and fail? What will happen then? Will you just whither and die? If not, who will you be? Very scary thoughts!

You will not die. Your commitment to your truth and passion will motivate you to respect your actions and your reaction to the opinions of others. Failure is just a stepping stone on the road to success. Your passion will motivate you to look at the proverbial rocks you tripped over, examine them, and overcome whatever obstacles that get in your way. You will love the process of making mistakes, learning and growing as you expand and fully express your passion and talents that are your birthright. Whatever struggles you encounter will be met enthusiastically for they are definitely worth the ride of your life!

“Our passions are the winds that propel our vessel. Our reason is the pilot that steers her. Without winds the vessel would not move and without a pilot she would be lost.” - Proverb

Valery Satterwhite is an Artist Mindset Mentor who helps creative people get out of their own way so that they can overcome the struggles that often come packaged with the life of a visual & performing artist. Clients learn how to express their full potential deliberately & responsibly to create more passionately, profoundly, productively and profitably. Empower the Wizard Within to actualize and express your full creative potential. http://www.InnerWizard.com. Get Free "Empower the Wizard Within tips"!

The Hidden Enemy of Talent

2009-06-17T04:24:00.000-07:00

"We have met the enemy and he is us." - Pogo

A great deal of talent is lost to the world for want of a little courage. When you act out of fear, you create what you fear. All of my clients have been praised and admired for their talent. You'd think that they have plenty of self-confidence and assurance in their abilities. Unfortunately the exact opposite is true. They believe that they are supposed to live up to some ideal image and whenever they don't think they've measured up to this self-imposed standard they suffer from shame, anxiety or depression.

You were born with a special gift, a unique talent that is yours and yours alone. Each person has this call of the power to do something magnificently and uniquely and no other person has this exact same gift. Nurturing, expanding and applying your talent seems effortless to you even if it appears arduous to others. Obstacles are merely playful invitations to use your talent more expansively to overcome them. And you do.

Your achievement is exactly proportioned to the extent of your trust and belief in the power of your talent that is your birthright. And since the skill comes easily for you, you think that it comes easily for everyone. You are blind to the fact that you have exceptional talent. Too often, brilliantly talented people live in fear that they will be found out for the fraud that they think they are. "It's only a matter of time before they realize I'm not as good, as talented, as they think I am."

"I believe that traditional wisdom is incomplete. A composer can have all the talent of Mozart and a passionate desire to succeed, but if he believes he cannot compose music, he will come to nothing. He will not try hard enough. He will give up too soon when the elusive right melody takes too long to materialize." ~ Martin Seligma

The world is filled with talented and gifted people who produce nothing. They are frozen in unwarranted and misguided fear. Too often the response to this internal fear comes in the form of self-sabotage, creative blocks or procrastination. When you fear you hold back your fullest expression of your talent. You say NO to who you are. You reject yourself. You start beating the drum of you're not whatever enough. This Inner Critic of yours loves to be right so he will create an experience, a self-imposed belly flop, to provide further evidence that, indeed, you are not enough! Ya See! I told you so! What were you thinking?

Yes, who are you to think that you are extraordinarily talented? And you shrink back into the safety zone of mediocrity where there are no expectations.

"Hide not your talents, they for use were made. What's a sundial in the shade?" ~ Benjamin Franklin

It's not whether or not you are talented enough. You are talented enough. There is no greater waste of creative energy than to worry about whether or not you've really got the chops in your craft. You do. Expressing this talent to your fullest potential is what you are here to do. You are passionate about your purpose in life. You become physically and emotionally ill when you disconnect from this purpose. So devote not another nanosecond to whether or not you are talented. You are.

The truth is, your deepest fear is not that you are incompetent or unqualified for the work that you do, the dreams and aspirations that make your heart sing. Your deepest fear is that you are, absolutely, the powerful and enormous talent that you know you are at your deepest core. With all of that power comes tremendous responsibility and that's enough to scare the living daylights out of most.

Acknowledging and accepting the responsibility to honor yourself is the key to your freedom. It opens the door to fulfillment, satisfaction and pure joy. Cherish your gift, embrace your talent. Honor yourself by saying YES to who you are. Withholding your talent doesn't serve the world. You are meant to shine your magnificent light.

And when you shine your light upon yourself, as you express your unique talent, centered in the truth of who you are, you are a shining example for others to do the same.

"When I stand before God at the end of my life, I would hope that I would not have a single bit of talent left and could say, "I used everything you gave me." ~ Erma Bombeck

Valery Satterwhite is an Artist Mindset Mentor who helps creative people get out of their own way so that they can overcome the struggles that often come packaged with the life of a visual & performing artist. Clients learn how to express their full potential deliberately & responsibly to create more passionately, profoundly, productively and profitably. Empower the Wizard Within to actualize and express your full creative potential. http://www.InnerWizard.com. Get Free "Empower the Wizard Within tips"!

Why Successful Actors Self-Sabotage

2009-06-15T02:56:00.000-07:00

I opened up Sunday's Parade Magazine and read an article about "The Mixed-Up Life of Shia LaBeouf" written by Dotson Rader. Shia is a 23-year old wildly successful actor who's latest film is "Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen". I saw the irony in the title of the article and the title of the movie.

Like many people, successful or not, Shia is searching to find his place in and the meaning of life. He is struggling with honoring his own authenticity and has no answers about who he is and what he is here to contribute. Already at such a young age Shia has achieved the holy grail of wealth and fame. So how can someone who has achieved so much, has the recognition and financial freedom most people long for, be in such emotional pain?

According to Rader, “I don’t handle fame well,” LaBeouf says. “Most actors on most days don’t think they’re worthy. I have no idea where this insecurity comes from, but it’s a God-sized hole. If I knew, I’d fill it, and I’d be on my way.” Already a self-proclaimed alcoholic, Shia says he doesn't know what he's doing as an actor or why people like him. Shia thinks acting is a con game of luck and ambition. Shia became an actor for the money only to discover that the money, abundant as it is, doesn't satisfy the deeper fulfillment that can only come from self-awareness.

Shia's total self-worth is wrapped in whether or not people on the street recognize him. He desperately seeks validation from the opinion of others. If the flame of fame is extinguished who would he be? If Shia believes that he is not worthy of the wealth and fame he has received then he will continue to self-sabotage until he has no more wealth and fame.

A person who self-sabotages has the mindset of a victim. If you're identity and self-esteem is dependent upon others in any way then you live the life of a victim. A victim's life can only be one of desperation and anxiety.

Victims do not take responsibility for their own life experiences. Victims surrender their personal power over to other people or other things. "It's the economy, the glass ceiling, or 'the system'" is a typical mantra of the victim. Something outside of them is the reason the victim lives a seemingly meaningless and often destructive life. Wallowing in feeling victimized can be appealing. Being a victim can be used to attract attention to oneself. If your self-worth is tied to the amount of attention you get from others then you have set the stage for a lifetime of victimization - mostly generated from yourself!

"I have never been contained except when I made the prison." - Mary Evans, 1888-1976, British Actress

The moment you give up your personal power to someone else is the moment you become a victim of rather than the creator of your life. Each and every person has the power to create what he or she wants to be, do or have in life. How you show up in life determines your life experience.

People with a victim mentality feel powerless to make changes in their lives because they think that the elements of their lives are out of their control. People with a victim mentality often self-sabotage to provide further evidence of their victimization. A victim points at someone else or some other thing as being responsible for all his or her pleasure and/or anguish. People with a victim mentality think their actions are justified because of what others have done to them. What a victim does not realize is that he is only a victim to his own thoughts and belief system, not anyone else.

The victim shows up in life as a victim and is, therefore, victimized. If not by others then by himself. He becomes victimized by his own woefully misguided Inner Critic. The Inner Critic is a byproduct of your conditioning, compulsions and secret agendas. People who self-sabotage surrender to this inner tyranny. Such a victim is unable to see objectively into the nature of reality and into the nature of his own authentic inner being. When you are not fully conscious to what you are experiencing you won't fully realize the extent to which negative impressions are infiltrating your life with which you are acting upon.

To transition from the life of a victim to the life of a powerful being who deliberately creates the life experiences she chooses you must discover and honor who you are at your innermost core. Your thoughts and actions must be in alignment with this truth. You must stand centered in this truth of who you are. Eliminating self-sabotage depends upon your integrity with your truth. You must end the internal war between what is often called your Higher Self and your Inner Critic with the Higher Self prevailing. You must take full responsibility for the life you live, appreciate the gifts in the lessons learned from your mistakes, and passionately pursue your authentic dreams for that is what you are here to do.

If you show up in your life in integrity and alignment with your authenticity I promise you a life of fulfillment and utter joy.

“Be who you are and say what you feel because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind.” - Dr. Seuss

Valery Satterwhite is an Artist Mindset Mentor who helps creative people get out of their own way so that they can overcome the struggles that often come packaged with the life of a visual & performing artist. Clients learn how to express their full potential deliberately & responsibly to create more passionately, profoundly, productively and profitably. Empower the Wizard Within to actualize and express your full creative potential. http://www.InnerWizard.com. Get Free "Empower the Wizard Within tips"!

The Key to Financial Freedom for Artists, Actors, Writers & Musicians

2009-06-12T05:47:00.000-07:00

Well-meaning, yet woefully misguided, advice from parents, teachers and other loved ones such as "You'll never make a living as an artist" has become the foundational belief and mantra of the artist's Inner Critic. What's worse is that this also woefully misguided Inner Critic loves to be right and will serve up proof and evidence of this belief and beat you up with it day in and day out to make sure that you do, or not do, what it takes to keep this foundational belief in place. Acting upon the Inner Critic mantra of "You'll never make a living as an artist." your thoughts and actions create the outcome of the starving artist. And the Inner Critic is pleased. This supreme inner entity, this 'knower of all', is doing its job of keeping you safe and small and right!

Except for one thing.......he's WRONG!

Think about it. Look around you. Instead of focusing upon your lack of desired financial resources look to all the actors, artists, writers and musicians who are making boat loads of money! Julian Schnabel, Bono, Annie Leibowitz, Steven Spielburg, Rita Ackerman, Tom Hanks, Julia Roberts, Stephen King, Dave Barry, Mick Jagger, Dave Matthews - the list of wildly successful and wealthy artists of every kind can easily go on and on and on.

What's the difference between the abundantly rich artist and the starving artist? One thing and one thing only: Self-Mastery.

Self-Mastery as the key to financial freedom is not some airy fairy metaphysical woo-woo concept. From the ancient Greeks to modern day philosophers to modern day celebrity icons, all have recognized that the key to whatever you want in life, including wealth, comes from within. How you show up in your life, what the foundational beliefs that motivate you are based upon, deliver the outcomes you experience.

From Socrates:

- "Know thyself."
- "The unexamined life is not worth living."
- "Give me beauty in the inward soul; may the outward and the inward man be at one."

From others throughout the centuries:

- "If money be not they servant, it will be thy master. The covetous man cannot so properly be said to possess wealth, as that may be said to possess him." - Francis Bacon, British Philosopher
- "All riches have their origin in mind. WEALTH is in ideas -- not money." - Robert Collier, American Writer/Publisher
- "I have about concluded that WEALTH is a state of mind, and that anyone can acquire a wealthy state of mind by thinking rich thoughts."- Andrew Young. Civil Rights Activist
- "Wealth is the product of man's capacity to think." - Ayn Rand, Russian Writer, Philosopher
- "All the breaks you need in life wait within your imagination, Imagination is the workshop of your mind, capable of turning mind energy into accomplishment and wealth." - Napoleon Hill

And:

"Wealth is the ability to fully experience life." - Henry David Thoreau

Where you hold back your fullest expression of your potential as an artist of any kind is where you struggle. Where you doubt your self, your dreams, your worthiness is where you create your poverty. Where you resist your purpose in life, the special gifts that are your birthright, is where you suffer your anxiety.

You are as free, financially and otherwise, as the extent of your ability to acknowledge, honor and master your authenticity and take full responsibility for all of your experiences, good and bad, rich or poor. Those who do not govern themselves are condemned to find other masters to govern over them, including their own Inner Critic.

“I stand for freedom of expression, doing what you believe in, and going after your dreams.” - Madonna

Valery Satterwhite is an Artist Mindset Mentor who helps creative people get out of their own way so that they can overcome the struggles that often come packaged with the life of a visual & performing artist. Clients learn how to express their full potential deliberately & responsibly to create more passionately, profoundly, productively and profitably. Empower the Wizard Within to actualize and express your full creative potential. http://www.InnerWizard.com. Get Free "Empower the Wizard Within tips"!

The Key To Expressing Full Creative Potential

2009-06-10T05:48:00.000-07:00

“Love is a force that connects us to every strand of the universe, an unconditional state that characterizes human nature, a form of knowledge that is always there for us if only we can open ourselves to it” - Emily Hilburn Sell

You were born with a magnificent gift. You came into this physical world bundled with all the wisdom and tools to create; create your life, create your artistic expression. If you are having any difficulty in expressing your full potential in any area of your life you have said NO to this gift that is already within you while at the same time desperately and often painfully search to find it elsewhere.

The life affirming gift that I speak of is unconditional love. Where you struggle, where you hold back your ability to create is where you have let go of unconditional love; unconditional love of self.

Yes, you were born as pure unconditional loving consciousness. As a child you had not yet learned to judge. A child's love of self is simple and pure. A child feels worthy of what she wants and needs. A child is exuberant in expressing love for others. To a young child, the world is an open door to all that is possible. And as a loving consciousness, he seeks to create that which he loves.

As you grew you took on ideas and beliefs largely based on past experiences. You developed expectations and placed conditions on love in ways that a child would never conceive of doing. Conditional love may come and go. You may love a hot dog or a friend today, but not tomorrow. Unconditional love does not come and go. It just is.

"The beginning of love is to let those we love be perfectly themselves, and not to twist them to fit our own image. Otherwise we love only the reflection of ourselves we find in them." - Thomas Merton

The minute judgment in any form enters the experience of a child, conditions are placed upon love. Without realizing that your very existence has value and is a critical cog in the ecosphere of the Universe you sought to identify your worth, your place, in the physical world. You measured yourself and your contribution as 'more than' or 'less than' others. You misguidedly rated other people and other creations in the same way. And you struggle.

Sometimes you treat yourself like you are an unworthy person taking up space, here slogging your way through your days, your craft, your relationships, in order to prove some sort of worthiness to someone else. It is a futile way of life. You can never feel worthy, good, smart, talented, creative enough if you hold back unconditional love for yourself. Where you judge yourself, you hold back unconditional love.

Your purpose in life is to express your full artistic potential using the bundle of talents, wisdom and tools that are your birthright. You are here to create your contribution to the enrichment and quality of existence. This creative contribution does not depend upon the approval of others. No fully expressed artistic potential will ever be achieved by seeking the approval of others for they all desire different things of you. Your fulfillment and satisfaction as an artist will come from the unconditional love of self that gives birth to and guides the purest actualization of You.

Yes, mistakes will be made. Bad choices will be met with unpleasant experiences. "Should-a, would-a, could-as" will abound. Undesired situations come with great gifts in the valuable transformational lessons that can be learned from them. In all of your trials and tribulations, you are always doing the best you can with the light you have to see.

"Life begets life. Energy creates energy. It is by spending oneself that one becomes rich." —Sarah Bernhardt

Unconditional love of self is the light source. Where there is darkness, unconditional love is withheld; judgment and admonishment has taken its place. Knowing and accepting, at your deepest core, that you are always at the perfect place even if you are experiencing any form of difficulty and anxiety powerfully shines light on any experience so that positive growth springs forth from that place. Shining light on yourself and your experience instead of beating yourself, and others, up in blame, shame and judgment is an act of unconditional love.

The way some people find fault, you'd think there was some kind of reward. There is no reward in judgment; only darkness. One cannot create where there is no light, no energy, no love.

The path to unconditional love of self is understanding that you are always doing the best you can. You do not get out of bed in the morning thinking about how you can screw up your, or other people's, lives that day. You do not deliberately create your bad experiences. You are doing the best you can based on how you view yourself and the world at the time. If you don't like the experiences you are having, if you don't like being stuck or struggling in any area of your life, examine your judgments and expectations of yourself and others. Where are you withholding love? Where are you cutting off authentic expression? Where are you holding back your full potential? Where are you denying, saying NO to you?

"Love is, above all, the gift of oneself." - Jean Anouilh

Valery Satterwhite is an Artist Mindset Mentor who helps creative people get out of their own way so that they can overcome the struggles that often come packaged with the life of a visual & performing artist. Clients learn how to express their full potential deliberately & responsibly to create more passionately, profoundly, productively and profitably. Empower the Wizard Within to actualize and express your full creative potential. http://www.InnerWizard.com. Get Free "Empower the Wizard Within tips"!

Empowerment Tips from George Michael - Pop Star

2009-06-08T05:05:00.000-07:00

Spending an entire day at an airport dealing with one flight delay after another was once a nightmare for me. I have since learned to look for the gift in every experience. My recent, and much anticipated, trip to Italy began with such an unexpected day. Instead of pouting thinking my entire trip was off to a bad start I decided to look for the gift; and found it.

It was in the music piped through the speakers that permeated every corridor and concourse. Lyrics calling out to me to remind me to stay centered in the truth of who I am, someone who enjoys life and can magically turn lemons into lemonade. This time the message came to me through the voice of pop star, George Michael.

"I think there's something you should know
I think it's time I told you so
There's something deep inside of me
There's someone else I've got to be."
- George Michael "Freedom"

I remembered the 'old me'. Well, it wasn't really me back then. As a child I put who I was so far on the proverbial back burner that I forgot I was there through a good deal of my adulthood. Many of you have been or are in that suppressed place now, pretending to be someone you are not. That state of being simply doesn't work. It doesn't feel good. It's exhausting.

Oh, like you, I was able to Find Excuses And Reasons (F.E.A.R.) why my life wasn't working out the way I wanted it to. It was because of things beyond my control such as the economy, a mad control freak boss, a jerk of a boyfriend, the glass ceiling, the good old boys network. Yeah, right. My life wasn't working out because I was not being true to who I was. I was pretending to be a shark of an analytical corporate executive when I was really a whimsical playful artistic spirit itching to create with my right brain instead of my left.

Facing each day wearing a 'false me' suit sucks the life force right out of you.

"Take back your picture in a frame
Take back your singing in the rain
I just hope you understand
Sometimes the clothes do not make the man."
- George Michael "Freedom"

The heart of the message is that at any time, in any moment, you can step back into your power and live your life authentically in alignment with your truth, your passions and in tune with what inspires you. You can simply tell that Inner Critic of yours who's been handing you marching orders since you were knee high that you are rewriting the game plan and are fully in charge from this second forward. The Inner Critic will grumble and complain and throw some drama in your way here and there to trip you up. But like the scared little imp it that it is, the Inner Critic will finally settle down and behave. It will grow up and learn how to serve you instead of hide you.

"All we have to do now
Is take these lies and make them true somehow
All we have to see
Is that I don't belong to you
And you don't belong to me."
- George Michael "Freedom"

From what I've read from time to time in the headlines, perhaps it's time for George Michael to listen to that voice deep inside of him calling to be something else. As a brilliant and talented singer and musician he has chosen to follow a pattern of self destructive behavior instead of channeling that energy into the magnificent gifts that are his birthright.

"I won't let you down
I will not give you up
Gotta have some faith in the sound
It's the one good thing that I've got
I won't let you down
So please don't give me up
Because I would really, really love to stick around."
- George Michael "Freedom"

Nearly eight hours later I was boarding my flight to Italy dancing down the airplane aisle having turned a lemon day into lemonade.

Valery Satterwhite is an Artist Mindset Mentor who helps creative people get out of their own way so that they can move overcome the struggles that often come packaged with the life of a visual & performing artist. Clients learn how to express their full potential deliberately & responsibly to create more passionately, profoundly, productively and profitably. Empower the Wizard Within to actualize and express your full creative potential. http://www.InnerWizard.com. Get Free "Empower the Wizard Within tips"!