How to sell more

Dear Energy Lady,
I sell for a big company.  They just upped our goals, and for the first time, I'm falling behind.  Any energetic suggestions?

Signed,
Eager to make my numbers

Dear Numbers,
It's hard to tell from your letter what the definition of "falling behind" is.  In other words, were you the #1 salesperson before the goals were raised?  Or were you just a member of the pack, doing the same as everyone else and now they're ahead of you?

Either way, here are a couple of questions that might help unblock you energetically:

--If you've never been top salesperson, have you always wanted to be?  If so, you will need to break through the pattern of believing you're one of the pack.   However, if doing so would somehow make you lose the closeness you felt with the rest of the team, you might be resistant to breaking out ahead of everyone else.  That resistance would make it difficult, or even impossible, for new or bigger opportunities to reach you.

--If you were the top salesperson before but have now fallen behind, then ask yourself two questions:  1) what others are now doing differently that is helping them connect with more clients and/or 2) what has changed in either your own belief and behavior?  These are very left-brained, logical questions, but sometimes energy flow is blocked by something as simple as a few habits that just need to be aligned with the new reality.

Here are some other things that might help:

--Meditation.  Relaxing completely--letting go of thoughts and feelings--can open doors of possibility that you could never even imagine.   So if you have simply been stumped by who you might need to contact, this approach could help enormously. 

--If your thoughts are too wild for meditating, try exercise or doing any other activity that allows you to forget about work for a while.  Again, taking your attention off what isn't happening is a good way to release the blocking energy around it.

--If you want to use your thoughts productively, try visualizing.   Imagine yourself shaking hands with your clients.  See the signed contract in your in-box.  Hear yourself telling your manager about how the deal came about.  Taste a drink or the meal you'll have to celebrate your success.   In other words, bring the experience of success to life in your imagination until it becomes so real to you, you know it instinctively.  That's when you'll likely see it materialize.

--You can also stop making this about you.  If you reach the goal, what will be true in the world?  You didn't say what you sell, but if it helps your clients be safer, save money, save lives, make the world more beautiful or has any other positive purpose, then forget about the numbers and start thinking about the opportunity you're being given to improve life for others.  

--Finally, realize that life gives us situations that allow us to release our deepest fears, which are often that we are inadequate and unlovable.   If this rings true for you in any way, then maybe it's time to let this go.  And if it's not true, see if you can find whatever underlying fear is holding you back at this time.   There likely is something there, or you would have embraced the larger goal with open arms and reached or surpassed it with ease.  It would have excited you with its potential, not intimidated you.

I wish you renewed success!

Love,
EL

Dear Energy Lady,
It seems as if the world is getting more and more filled with hate.  Every time I turn on the news, someone is getting shot or blown up because of their religion or race or just because someone went nuts with a gun in a public place.   It's getting to the point where I'm afraid to go out of the house. 
Do you have any energetic advice for me?

Signed,
Scared

Dear Scared,
It's easy to see why you might think the world is filled with hate, because pain and suffering make people pay attention, and that sells papers and draws advertisers and blog hits.   Also, getting angry and upset make some people feel more powerful and alive, at least temporarily.  In the end, all hate and anger is exhausting, as it is not our true nature.

Here's a little challenge for you:  every time you hear or see something that feels like hate coming alive, look around you and ask, "Where is the love in this moment?"  You might find it in your own heart, but you are just as likely to see something beautiful, kind or extraordinary in other people or the environment. Sometimes, a door will open for you to perform an act of kindness in that moment, even if it's just giving away a smile and having someone return it (have you ever noticed that it's almost impossible not to smile at someone who's smiling at you?).

The other thing you can do is to lessen the amount of time you spend watching and pursuing the news--at least the front pages and headlines.  Newspapers are also filled with lots of happy news about people who are making a positive difference for themselves and others in business, sports, the arts, science, health and more.   The comics are always good for a laugh, too. 

As for your own personal safety, do what you can to be aware of your surroundings and make smart choices.  But if you find your fears growing too large and limiting your choices, you may want to seek professional counseling to help you unknot them.

This said, you can also increase the protective energy around you by 1) setting the intention to be safe;  2) saying--out loud--"I choose safety" whenever you leave the house; and 3) staying present in the moment and making safe choices.    Remember, however, that it is how you feel, not what you say or intend, that determines your life experience, so if you continue to feel challenged emotionally, you might want to look into tapping, The Sedona Method, The Work (by Byron Katie) or meditation to help you let go of the thoughts which are creating the negative feelings you are experiencing.

In the end, remember this:  there is much more love than hate in the world.  The proof is that throughout time, good always wins out in the end, even if it takes decades or  even centuries.    Also, if there was no darkness in the world, it would be impossible for us to both create and appreciate the light.  Just make sure you notice that on balance, good far outweighs evil, and that there is evidence of that everywhere.

Love,
EL

Monday Blues

Dear Energy Lady,
I hate Mondays.  I mean HATE them.  I just don't want to get up and go to work.  My job's ok; it's just that it feels like I'm being punished for taking the weekend off, because Mondays are always filled with a gazillion emails and problems, and it seems like everyone is on edge. Got any tips?

Signed,
Wish it were Friday

Dear LCH,
How wonder-FULL!  You have a delicious, delightful, clear and unequivocal negative.  Those are rare in this world--most people are willing to be a little bit frustrated, a little unhappy and a little disappointed every day.  But not you.  Nope.  You HATE Mondays.   So let's play with that a bit.

--When you have a nice clear negative like this, be grateful for it.   It definitely points to a desire for the opposite--LOVING Mondays.   So what does that look like for you?  What would have to be true?

--Start by making a list of every single thing you hate about Mondays.  What would your day be like without these?  For instance, if you didn't have a single problem to solve, what would you be doing instead?  (You might actually be bored if you weren't dealing with problems, by the way)

--What would a perfect start to the week look, sound, and feel like?  Have you ever experienced such a beginning--even as a child?  

--What do you love about the other 6 days of the week?  Do none of these things exist on Mondays?

--What word, sound, image or aroma would give you the sense that Monday was going to be a good day?   Try starting this week with that, and see if everything doesn't change for the better.

If you're reading this and still feeling very negative about Mondays, you may not be ready for going at them from a positive standpoint.  So consider staying with the negatives for a while.  Consider:

--You may be someone who has a very sensitive energy field, and you easily pick up on the vibes other people are giving out.  Since, as everyone knows, people do tend to be more stressed on Mondays, it could be that you're more attuned to that than others are.  In other words, you're an energy sponge, picking up the energy sludge around you.  One of the things you can do to reduce the problem is to protect yourself is to imagine a bubble of pink light surrounding you everywhere you go at work.  As you imagine it,  make it impenetrable to everyone except the people or things that are compatible with its softness and smoothness.  That might not cut down on the number of problems or emails, but it's likely that their content, tone or size will change. Try it--this really works!

--Instead of feeling that you shouldn't hate Mondays, consider the relief (comic or otherwise) that you might feel simply by recognizing that you do, and that's just the way it is.  Anything you feel you "should" do/feel/think causes blocks in your energy field, and getting rid of them not only makes you feel better, it elevates the level of your vibrational field and allows better things to come to and through you.    So go ahead.  Hate Mondays.  Sit in a chair for 15 minutes and consciously, deliberately HATE them.  Changes are good that you won't be able to do this for more than about a minute or two, since the avoidance of pain is a primary human motivation.   You may find yourself laughing at the junk that's currently rolling around as your thoughts.  You may realize that you really do need a new job.  Or you may realize that you may be struggling with something medical (like depression) and need to talk to a professional.  Either way, you'll get a sense of what you can do to improve

--In the same vein, you may be thinking that you should love your job and be happy to return to it each week.  It's more likely that unless this is a new job, there are aspects of it you enjoy, and aspects of it you don't.  Take away the energetic barbed wire of feeling that you should be eager to race to the office on Mondays, and the relief you feel at losing the burden of that guilt will likely make it easier to go in to the office.

--Another way to move the energy is simply to isolate what you hate, and what you don't.  If you hate absolutely everything about your job, then obviously, it's time to start looking for another.  But if you only hate certain aspects, then let those only occupy the percentage of your thoughts that they deserve.  Often, that's under 20%.  But as I like to say to my coaching clients, if you hit your thumb with a hammer, the fact that your kidneys are working perfectly at that moment will not concern you. So sometimes, our tendency is to put too much attention on the few things that are bothering us, not the 80% of things that are going just fine, thanks.

--Finally, give yourself a "word of the week."  Set the tone for everything that is going to happen for you energetically during the week, regardless of which day it occurs.  Choose your focus, and you'll start finding evidence of it everywhere.  This is quantum science at its best-whatever we pay attention to expands.  And the more you put your attention on what you want, the more you withdraw it from what you don't, starving the latter of the energy it needs to stay in your field.    In other words, pay more attention to the positive, and you'll likely find there are far fewer negative things to be unhappy about.

Happy New Week!

Love,
EL

Avoiding Temptation

Dear Energy Lady,
I am determined to look good in a swimsuit this summer, so I'm working out and dieting.  The problem is that there seems to be temptation everywhere!   Fresh cookies in the kitchen at work; bags of Big Macs and fries at my brother's house;  a big display of my favorite chips at the grocery store; a big window display of gorgeous chocolates on my walk to the dry cleaners.  It's like the whole world is out to sabotage my success!  What am I supposed to do?

Signed,
Salivating

Dear Salivating,
You are experiencing an energetic phenomenon that you might call "the law of contrast."  When you decided to lose weight, you created an image of yourself as thin.  In order to keep up your energy and enthusiasm to achieve this, you need to have its opposite so you can have the satisfaction of experiencing yourself as what you are NOT any longer. 

Think of it this way: if there were no contrast, you wouldn't know you were fat or thin.  You'd just be, and what's the fun in that?  Contrast is there so you can keep creating.   Without it, you'd soon lose interest, and you also wouldn't feel the joy of stepping on the scale and seeing the numbers go down, or holding your waistband away from your belly as your size shrinks. 

This is the way energy works.  As soon as you make a choice, you bring it--and its opposite--into being.   So when you created an image of yourself and took action to become thin, you simultaneously also created the conditions to keep you fat.  So it's not surprising that you should feel "surrounded" by the foods you love--you created them as much as you created the new, thinner you.

But here's the best part:  you don't need to resist them.  Our bodies don't know the difference between a thought and an actual experience, so if--for instance--you really want a donut and find yourself thinking about it, wishing for it, mentally tasting it--your body has the same physical reaction as it would if you actually ate it.  You release insulin at just the thought of eating sugar, and if there is no actual sugar for it to work on, it does the other thing insulin does:  it stores fat.  So the more you resist the donut, the more you are setting up your body to store fat, which makes it even harder in the future to lose weight.

Does that mean you should eat all the junk food you want?   Only if you want to spend every waking hour burning it off--calories in means that eventually, you need to get calories out.  But you can--and likely should--allow yourself to have a piece of a donut and savor it.  Eat it slowly.  Enjoy every morsel. 

When you don't deny yourself, your energy flows more naturally.  But again, "not denying" does not mean gorging yourself.  It means allowing yourself to be in charge of your thoughts about food. Select the foods you want, enjoy them in reasonable portions, and then use their energy to fuel the activities in your life that truly make you happy.  Let life tempt you, not just something in a window, a bag or on a plate. 

Start thinking of ALL foods as "tempting" for you.  Start looking past some of your old favorites and expand the banquet of what you enjoy to the greater bounty of what is available.  This will likely include lower fat choices as well as the higher ones.  Eat both, according to what makes you feel good about yourself.   Then go spend your calories on activities that make you feel happy and connected to life.

Enjoy!
Love,
EL