I was at a family get together recently and following a conversation with a close relative I had known for years, was amazed to discover that she had suffered all her life with debilitating anxiety attacks. It had always struck me in the past how bubbly, outgoing and confident she had appeared but it also explained the number of times she had been absent from previous family gatherings. I guess when you look below the surface it is surprising just how many people do suffer from anxiety to some degree. During the conversation she explained to me how this condition had affected her over the years and how it was only recently that she had found a method of mastering it.  Once she had told me her full story I was so impressed by her enthusiasm I asked her to put it down on paper for me to publish, as this could be a way of helping other fellow suffers.     

The following is a précis of what she told me:

“Over many years I have suffered terrible anxiety in situations that most people would consider almost day to day living.  Not in any particular order this included social eating, travel of any description whether by road, rail, sea or air. Suffering claustrophobia in lifts and locked rooms, (not wanting to lock the door can be a bit of an issue when visiting the ladies room in public places!). Then there was the ever present fear of straying too far from home. This became even worse when on holidays. Although holidays were supposed to be highlights, they were also unknown territory and just became places I wanted to leave to get back to the security of my home.

I would always have excuses ready for not attending when asked out for a meal.  I avoided going on holidays by saying “we can’t afford it”.  Even short breaks that were not far from home were major trials for me. On the occasions I actually managed to attend I would be counting the days until I was safely back at home.

Travelling on motorways or being held up in traffic was a waking nightmare.  I would take a lot of time planning my journey so that if possible I avoided any motorways or dual carriageways, anywhere where I couldn’t turn around to get home.

I also planned my journeys to avoid rush hour traffic. At work I was always the first to arrive and would take a short lunch break in order to leave before the rush hour traffic commenced.  If I was caught in a traffic jam I would become so agitated and stressed that on several occasions I made dangerous manoeuvres trying to get away from them.

The turning point came when on a journey in a taxi to the airport for a holiday to Switzerland (which I desperately wanted to go on). We didn’t even reach the airport but had to turn back due to my suffering a massive panic attack.  I realised at this point that I had to do something.

In the past I had been to see ‘cognitive therapists’ and a ‘hypnotist’ but these did not cure me of the problem.  It sometimes eased for a few months but would then come back with a vengeance. I googled the problem and it came up with various sites which I looked at.  One of them I became quite excited about, it seemed to understand what I was going through and their results were phenomenal.  I signed up immediately and my pack arrived, with support, within 3 days.  Off I went….

I now have been on 3 cruises and numerous breaks both in the UK and abroad.  I love going out for meals and entertaining at home. Like everyone else I have been caught many times in traffic but unlike in the past have coped with it admirably.  All this came about because I stuck rigidly to the system.  At times it seemed hard but the support I received kept me going.  Even when I occasionally wavered I went back to listening to the CDs and they brought me back on track.

I now enjoy my life and have quality where before I didn’t.  My life was ruled by fear, not any more.  If I can do it, anyone can”. 

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How the Subconscious Mind Works
We have all heard about the subconscious mind, yet very few of us know how it really works. The fact is that it's almost as if the subconscious has a mind of its own which makes us act in ways that we just don't understand. A perfect example of how it works takes place when we are driving. Think about how many times you have been behind the wheel and your mind drifts to other things happened earlier or are about to come in the future. When you snap out of that reverie, you aren't entirely sure how much time has passed, or worse yet, how you made it to this point in the road unharmed. What occurred was that your subconscious mind took control of the wheel while your thoughts traveled elsewhere. You will never remember it, but you expertly obeyed every light and road signal in the same way that you would have had you been full focused on the road. That is actually somewhat similar to the way in which your subconscious mind will lead you through life. You will find that you make decisions that may seem based on impulse, but are actually suggestions based on a lifetime of experience stored in your subconscious. It also explains why so many people have difficulty making major personality and life changes, because the behavior that they have grown so accustomed to is completely ingrained in the subconscious. Even when you know that you want, or even need, to make changes, the subconscious will trip you up every time you try to do so. It may sound strange that your mind would get in the way of you doing the right thing, but it happens every day, and the only way to change that is to re-program the subconscious so that it will work in your favor. While hypnosis has often been used to access the subconscious mind in an effort to affect change, subliminal messaging has actually proven to be even more effective. It also helps that subliminal messages can be absorbed into the subconscious while you work on your computer. The positive images and messages will flash, unseen by the naked eye, on your screen as you work. The subconscious mind will soak up those images and the re-programming that is required will start to take place. If you can control your subconscious mind, rather than letting it control you, it will enable you to take control of those areas of your life that have always seemed out of reach. Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Tony_Dosanjh By Tony Dosanjh

Why Do Some People Have All The Luck? By John Ryan

Do you really see yourself as being lucky or unlucky? Most of us see ourselves somewhere in between the two. So just why does luck seem to favour some people while it abandons others? There's no real simple answer to this query however, if we delve into the matter further we will start to see some traits & patterns that happen to be quite common to each side of the equation. Some say that luck posseses an uncanny knack of favouring those who don't rely upon it. Think about it for a minute. Do lucky people need luck to begin with? No of course they don't and so they don't even think about it, it simply happens. Maybe this is actually the problem for most of us, we think a lot in regards to the lack of rather than being grateful for what we have. Being grateful for what we've got in life irrespective of how small is usually one of the better ways we can attract good luck into our lives. When we're grateful we're letting the universe know that we're open to more good things. When we're not grateful we transmit the wrong message and in fact are looking for more negative circumstances to turn up in our lives. It seems ironic, doesn't it? To get luck into our lives we need to do a form of reverse psychology on the universe itself. We need to convince ourselves that we are literally very lucky individuals even if we aren't yet. This will open the doors to more prosperity and finally positive things will come our way. It may sound weird I realize but this is the way it works. Pretending to ourselves that we have got all the cash we could ever need will actually bring more opportunities to make even more of it. This is exactly why some people never have an issue with money mainly because they don't worry about it to start with. Up to now we've discovered that worrying about the lack of can create more negative things and can in fact make matters worse. We've learned that when we're in a constant panic about our situation we generate a kind of bad luck cycle which we can't manage to get free from. We've learnt that the solution to this problem is letting the universe know that you're grateful for those good things & opportunities, in spite of how small that have been presented to you in past times. To speed up the process of attracting good luck we will need to use several other techniques that are very easy to put into practice. We are talking about good luck affirmations which will help you to make the change from attracting no luck to attracting only great things within just a matter of weeks. By utilizing affirmations we can easily direct our thoughts right to our own subconscious which should affect the way we view things and will eventually start whole process of attracting good luck. There's two main ways to use good luck affirmations one of which is much simpler than the other. The first way would be to grab a long list of good luck affirmations and start repeating these to yourself very first thing every morning and last thing at nighttime. However many of us will have a problem with this strategy as we're not always alone & we are really not always in a position to rant off affirmations. Therefore if this is you then listening to good luck subliminal affirmations may just be for you. All you need to do is listen to these good luck recordings twice a day if not more for two weeks. You'll notice after a while that lucky things start happening for absolutely no reason. About the Author Awaken your mind and alter how you think. Find the life you've always wanted by utilizing Affirmations.Click Here To Learn More About How To Get Good Luck Or Visit http://www.subliminalcd.net/how-to-attract-good-luck

Anthony Robbins Live in London

Anthony Robbins invites you to a weekend of powerful immersion in the finest strategies, tools and resources available for creating an extraordinary quality of life - where you not only achieve your ultimate goals but you also experience the profound fulfillment you desire and deserve.
Transform Your Life in One Extraordinary Weekend

UNLEASH THE POWER WITHIN is a weekend event with world-renowned results coach Tony Robbins, who has impacted the lives of more than 50 million people from over 100 countries. Robbins invites you to a weekend of powerful immersion into the finest strategies, tools and resources available for creating an extraordinary quality of life, where you not only achieve your ultimate goals, but you also experience the profound fulfillment that you may have only dreamed about in the past.

UNLEASH THE POWER WITHIN is about seizing the power that is already within you and using it to lead a life of your own design, rather than one that's been scripted for you by your environment, your history, society, or anyone else. It's about not settling for less than you can be - in all areas of your life.

"Tony's incredible understanding of the world, people and human nature makes him the ultimate life coach. He knows what it takes to make people excel... and win!"

André Agassi, U.S. Open, Australian Open, and Wimbledon men's tennis champion

The Success Decision - Will You Make the Cut?

It has been said that success is a decision.

Okay - but what is a decision?

The word 'decision' derives from the Latin root verb, scindere, which means to cut. Other words that we will recognise which make this more obvious are in-cision and circum-cision (both of which involve cutting). The word scissors also derives from this verb.

In making a real decision then, we make a judgement between a number of options and 'cut out' / eliminate all but one of the options, which we then fully commit to. So often however, we tell ourselves or others that we have 'decided' on a particular course of action, when in fact all we have done is expressed our preference at a point in time. Classic examples of this would be so-called 'decisions' to lose weight, quit smoking or change careers - all things that we frequently hear that our acquaintances have 'decided' to do, but have not achieved because they mentally left the option open NOT to follow through. We should view decisions as 'turnstiles' through which we pass; non-return events - no going back.

It has also been said (and is an observable fact) that successful people make decisions. Does this mean that more of the decisions they make are correct? Not necessarily. What it does point to though, I suggest, is that successful people are comfortable making decisions - even if they prove to be wrong ones. They know that a wrong decision is better than no decision at all! Indecision is a recipe for confusion and mental overload. Great organisations are built by leaders who make decisions. In the absence of decision making, an organisation quickly falls into a state of paralysis.

On our road to success, we often seem to face the same decisions over and over - why is this? Is it because we did not make a proper decision in the first place and therefore, in our minds, we have left other options open on the matter? We agonise over making that mental 'cut' with some of our available options - believing that they may offer us some security if we make the 'wrong' decision.

Decision making is like a muscle. Exercise it and it will be sore initially, but it will grow new tissue and become stronger. Eventually, you won't even notice that you are exercising it regularly. This is when you have learnt to trust your instincts, given yourself permission to make mistakes but above all - decided to succeed.

Article source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Jeremy_Wisner

Five Simple Effective Ways to Blast Through Anxiety and Explode your Self-Esteem

One of the best ways to build confidence, self-esteem and overcome anxiety is to just do it. You're caught in a vicious circle and the only way to break free is to do what you're afraid of.

You need to build your self-esteem and confidence level. The only way to do this is by doing something you're petrified of but you can't do it because you're petrified of it. Round and round you go and your self-esteem and confidence never increase.

You must feel the fear and do it anyway. It's the only way to break free of the perpetual circle of low self-esteem and zero self confidence.

Now you want to know how you're going to achieve it. Well there are a myriad of ways of doing it but it could take you years of searching to find them.

Here's 5 tips to get you started on breaking the perpetual circle or downward spiral and turning it into an ever increasing spiral of higher self-esteem and increased self confidence.

1) Put yourself in a resourceful state. Think of all the times when against all odds you've succeeded. I don't care who you are everybody has had times like these at some point in their lives. Think of at least five and when you're feeling great just go for it. Do whatever it is you're afraid of.

2) Rationalize it. Think about it logically not emotionally. Is there really anything to be afraid of or is it just in the mind. If it's in the mind which 99% of fears are then why are you afraid of it.

3) Change the pictures. When you're scared you make pictures in your mind. These pictures will be big, bright, colorful, detailed, clear and moving. You can probably here whatever sounds are happening around you at the time when you are fearful and just the thought of it makes you scared.

Take these pictures and sounds and change them. Close your eyes and see the picture, make it black and white, fuzzy and undetailed, still and small. Make to sounds dull and unclear, almost inaudioble with a hiss over the top. Now take picture and move it far away into the distance so that it no longer bothers you.

The fear will now be almost no existent.

4) Start small. When you want to overcome a fear don't go straight for the largest one unless you know you can handle it, in which case it's not really that big and never should have been a problem. Start will something small, just outside what you normally feel comfortable with.

Once you've done this your self-esteem and confidence will increase and so will the boundries of what you feel comfortable with. Now do something else and something else. Soon what you thought was an insurmountable obstacle will be a walk in the park. And your new found confidence will permeate throughout the rest of your life.

5) Chunk it down. Sometimes a feeling of fear can be caused by seeing whatever it is you're afraid of as too large to even attempt. Break it down into smaller hurdles and do one hurdle at a time. Congratulating yourself at the end of every hurdle. Before you know it you'll have overcome the fear and you'll be wondering why it ever bothered you.
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Discover Secrets Of Acquiring Self Confidence

Self-confidence is one attribute every person should have in order for him or her to assert himself or herself. Many kids and even adults suffer from lack of confidence.

There are people who lack the ability to make strong decisions in life. Others are unsociable and are almost left alone often, while still others are too reliant on outside opinions and lose the independence of decision making. All these result from a lack of self-confidence.

That is why some parents of children who are exhibiting signs of lack of confidence are taking the problem very seriously. They immediately send the child to a therapy or to a behavioral treatment program.

Self-confidence is a really important for everyone, and lacking it should be treated as a serious problem. A person's future and career certainly depends on whether that person has trait of self-confidence in how they present themselves and solve problems.

Starting to build self-confidence:

People are not born with self-confidence. That trait is developed as a person learns more about the world from infancy to childhood to adulthood. Remember, without confidence, you would not have been able to learn how to walk, talk or do other necessary activities.

People with good self-confidence are those who have a belief that everything in life is achievable if there is proper motivation. Usually, these people are those with positive and cheerful disposition in life. Some observations also indicate that those lacking self-confidence are usually those who have experienced sad or traumatic events in the past. A dysfunctional family life in childhood can fail to provide the modeling needed for a child to emulate.

A simple disappointment can be considered a major event in a child's life, especially if the ill feelings that came along it were not properly addressed. Thus, simple embarrassment can be a major and serious cause of lack of self-confidence in a person. Shame can easily develop. 

To start building up self-confidence, it is advised that the person gain and have a positive outlook about life. He should be cheerful and fun-loving and must have a good outlook.

Tips on gaining self-confidence:

Through the years, behaviorists and experts have been sharing some basic and helpful secrets that surely and effectively help people gain and develop self-confidence. Here are some of those simple tips:

Just feel good.

People with confidence are usually those who feel good about themselves. If you feel good about yourself, confidence is a natural occurrence. It makes it easy to talk the talk and walk the walk.

If you find it hard to feel good, there is a simple tip to help you out. Think of good and fun memories, think of a fun activity, or think of a person who really makes you feel happy. Redirect your thinking and use some positive self talk, Some experts advise that thinking of a favorite celebrity or an idol could also help build good confidence and disposition.

Overcome self-consciousness.

The most potent factor in sustaining lack of self-confidence and staying stuck is self-consciousness. Why do people not feel good about themselves? Because they think they are inferior to other people. When people think they are ugly or are less desirable, they start opting to withdraw. When we judge others with our own yardstick we often come up short. Why? Because we are our own harshest critic.

Another tip is to think of other people and how they get things done, then motivate yourself to doing the same. If you want to be a millionaire do what millionaires do.

Keeping busy and productive helps. Remember, idle minds are the workshops of the devil. If you are too bored because you don't have much to do, chances are that you would start noticing yourself and then develop a sense of self-pity and affliction.

Don't criticize yourself.

Criticisms surely are constructive, but often when they come from yourself, they have adverse effects. Self-criticism could lead to too much focus on self and eventually, to the feeling of inferiority, which could lead ultimately to lack of self-confidence.

Lastly, the most effective secret to building up a firm self-confidence is a belief in self, and motivation to succeed. If you keep on comparing yourself to others, you would certainly end up feeling less confident, so stop the habit and focus on the things you can accomplish, and then just do it.
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Reprogramming The Brain To Succeed

Let me start by describing the two key areas of your brain - the conscious mind and the subconscious mind. The conscious mind is the one responible for daily thoughts and tasks. You may think it is the part of the brain behind the steering wheel, but surpisingly it isn't a great multi-tasker. It's your subconscious mind that runs most of your life as if it were on auto pilot. The first time we perform a simple task the conscious mind takes has to learn it. Once we can do that task, the subconscious takes care of it from then on. To put it simply, the subconscious learns whatever it is fed by the conscious mind. It also learns to associate things that happen in close proximity to each other, such as the need to get out of bed when we hear an alarm clock, or to feel a certain emotion when something happens.
So if we can feed suggestions to the subconscious then we become a product of our thinking. Negative people program themselves to be that way. To achieve confidence, self esteem and the will to achieve our dreams we must start to reprogramming our brains. Here are 3 simple steps to start you in the right direction.
1. Replace negative statements with positive ones.
For example, don't say "I lack confidence." Say, "I'm a very confident person." Now, in case you're thinking that's obvious and you've tried it, may I point out that there's a right way and a wrong way of doing this. The wrong way is to say it, but not believe it. The subconscious isn't fooled by this. The right way involves finding your inner voice - the one that your subconscious believes.
2. State affirmations in the positive.
This is not quite the same as the first point. For example, saying "I used to be worse at this", may seem positive, but it feeds negative words like "worse" to the brain. Instead say, "I've become really good at this".
"What you practise, you become"
3. Use your body as if you were already confident.
In the music business they simply say "Act as if". The idea being that to be big you must first think big!
These three tips are a great start. If you want to know more, then I can email you  some free ebooks to give you a more in-depth look at personal development. Just fill in the box in the top right of the page.