Using relationship self help is a great way to conquer your fears, and win back your ex. Helping yourself with relationship self help advice also puts you in control of your own situation…How? Keep on reading and find out how to win back your ex.

Relationship Self Help Advice – How To Win Back Your Ex – 1

You can use relationship self help to win back your ex, by using it to control your fear of losing your ex boyfriend/girlfriend. This is accomplished by using techniques to implant positive encouraging thoughts in your mind, to replace the negative one’s. The sooner you can do this, the faster you’ll be winning back your ex boyfriend/girlfriend, wife, or husband. You can use relationship self help together with relationship advice for quicker results.

The cheapest way of using relationship self help is affirmations. Like “I will get (exes name) love back” look into a mirror, and into your eyes and repeat this out loud for 5 minutes. Do this in the morning when you wake up, and in the evening before you go to sleep. If you’re really serious about using relationship self help to win back your ex. You won’t be afraid to use this technique.

Relationship Self Help Advice – How To Win Back Your Ex – 2

Another great way to implant good relationship advice into your mind using self help to win back you ex, is to use subliminal tapes, or CD’s. All you do is follow the directions and listen to them overnight, or for at least one hour a day without interruptions. This will get you closer to winning back your ex than you know. They will replace the negative limiting thoughts with positive enabling thoughts, and your doubts and fears will soon melt away.

This method will work well together with a plan to get your ex girlfriend/boyfriend back, very well. Relationship self help doesn’t have to be hard or scary. Using the right plan, and tools you can very easily win back your ex in 30-60 days. You will be at a great advantage over the people who refuse to use these self help techniques, because you will stay true to your plan to win back your ex. This is especially true when using the no contact rule. The biggest problem people have with the NC is controlling their emotions, and this with help you with that. If you’re really serious about getting your ex back, then I suggest you use relationship self help, along with a good plan to win back your ex.

Relationship Self Help Advice – How To Win Back Your Ex – 3

All the relationship self help advice in the world will not help you if you do not take action. Remember, the sooner you take action, the sooner you’ll win back your ex, and your pain will go away. Getting back your ex, or anything in life is not as hard as you may think right now. The biggest obstacle you have is yourself, and those damn limiting beliefs and fears. Take some action and use this relationship self help advice, and go win back your ex.

Most people can not do this all by themselves. That is why it is wise to find someone who will help you take on this battle. If you are emotionally unbalanced you need someone or something to keep you in balance…Right? You need a plan, a plan that works. If you’re serious about winning back your ex you’ll need help.

If you do not have a good plan I do, and it works. I’ll be happy to help you, and to support you. Just contact me and start learning how to win back your ex. Do It Today! Learn from your mistakes before you make them, and survive this break up. What can I do to help you win back your ex? Write me and let me know…OK?

Until next time,

S. Williams

~I know that “love hurts” but with my help you will get strong enough to kick love’s ass~

http://www.howtogetyourexbackfast.com

Self-Help is a label which we are all very familiar with in this day and age. We walk into a book store and discover that the “self-help” section now stretches over an ever greater portion of the overall store. Self-help books abound. And there are too many self-help methods to even attempt to try and count them. Every magazine has a self-help section and even television programs are veering in the self-help direction.

For someone who is seeking help, it is all too easy to become completely confused as to which way to turn; which self-help method is right for you? The answer, in my opinion, is to go for the one which you have the greatest belief in. What you believe in and what you expect to work will indeed tend to do just that. Your expectations, in the majority of things in life, result in creating your reality. Your health, both emotional and physical, is no exception to this rule. We are, all of us, aware of the placebo effect, although few of us realize the extent to which it moulds our behavior and our lives.

The placebo effect demonstrates unequivocally the power of our own mind. Your mental attitude should always be taken into account when dealing with something which has become an issue to you. It doesn’t matter what happens to you in life, it is how you choose to respond to it which counts.

I think that many people who seek “self-help” look in the wrong place for it. They are not really looking for self help; rather, they are looking for help from the outside, hoping that something outside themselves will help, that something out there will “do the trick”. But as the title “self-help” implies, to help oneself it is necessary to look within, to examine one’s own beliefs and expectations.

True self-help requires you to take responsibility for your own thoughts, beliefs, expectations and every other aspect of your current existence. Up until the age of eighteen you can heap some of that responsibility upon your parents or carers; but once you reach this age, it is important to remember that this is YOUR life; it is your responsibility to live it to the full, to rise up to challenges and grasp at every opportunity. If you do not respond to opportunities, you will never be lucky in life.

The first place to look for self-help is in your own mind. Then you can look around you to see what may assist. Change always comes from within. Unless you are willing to examine your own inner thoughts and beliefs, you will find that change will not take place in your life. This is why I am so awe-struck by the opportunities which hypnosis presents to every single individual who is seeking to change, no matter what it is that you may wish to alter in your life. Whether it is something big or small, deep rooted or superficial, you have to GET YOUR MIND AROUND IT or nothing will change.

Hypnosis allows access to your inner mind, and so it allows you to get into the very place which powers your ability to change. Hypnosis enables you to access your own unique “power house”. With hypnosis you can get your mind around the things which you wish to change. Hypnosis is undoubtedly the most important self-help tool you could ever acquire. Hypnosis allows you to take control and to change from the inside out.

Not only this, hypnosis is complementary to every other self-help method you could contemplate as it can be used to focus your mind and build your expectations of success. (Hypnosis is also a very important complementary therapy to main-stream medicine, but this is subject matter for a different article.) You can learn to use hypnosis with the help of hypnosis downloads quickly, easily and inexpensively in the comfort of your own home.

Roseanna Leaton, specialist in hypnosis downloads for health, well-being and success.

http://www.RoseannaLeaton.com

For More Free Information visit On Self Help Books

“I am successful,” “I am a wonderful person,” “I will find love again,” and many other similar phrases that students, the broken-hearted and unfulfilled employees may repeat to themselves over and over again, hoping to change their lives. Self-help books through the ages, from Norman Vincent Peale’s The Power of Positive Thinking all the way to the latest, The Secret, have encouraged people with low self-esteem to make positive self-statements or affirmations.

New research suggests it may do more harm than good to many people.

Canadian researcher, Dr. Joanne Wood at the University of Waterloo and her colleagues at the University of New Brunswick who have recently published their research in the Journal of Psychological Science, concluded “repeating positive self-statements may benefit certain people, such as individuals with high self-esteem, but backfire for the very people who need them the most.”

The researchers asked people with and low self-esteem to say “I am a lovable person.” They then measured the participants’ moods and their feelings about themselves. The low-esteem group felt worse afterwards compared with others who did not. However, people with high self-esteem felt better after repeating the positive affirmation–but only slightly. The psychologists then asked the participants to list negative and positive thoughts about themselves. They found, paradoxically, those with low self-esteem were in a better mood when they were allowed to have negative thoughts than when they were asked to focus exclusively on affirmative thoughts.

The researchers suggest that, like overly positive praise, unreasonably positive self-statements, such as “I accept myself completely” can provoke contradictory thoughts in individuals in individuals with low self-esteem. When positive self-statements strong conflict with self-perception, the researchers argue, there is not mere resistance but a reinforcing of self-perception. People who view themselves as unlovable, for example, find that saying that are so unbelievable that it strengthens their own negative view rather than reversing it.

These findings were supported by previous research published in 1994 in the Journal of Social Psychology, showing that when people get feedback that they believe is overly positive, they actually feel worse, not better.

Dr. Wood goes even further. In her Psychology Today blog, she says that most self-help books advocating positive affirmations may be based on good intentions or personal experience, but they are rarely based on even one iota of scientific evidence. She cites psychologist Sonja Lyubomirsky’s The How of Happiness as an exception.

Does that mean positive affirmations are of absolutely no value. Not according to Dr. Wood and her co-researchers. They say they positive affirmations can help when they are part of a broader program of intervention. That intervention can take place in a number of forms such as cognitive psychotherapy or working with a coach who has expertise in the behavioral sciences.What kind of intervention is best to use to make positive affirmations most effective?

That’s where we encounter even more controversy.

Traditional cognitive psychotherapy may not be the best intervention according to Dr. Steven Hayes, a renowned psychotherapist, and author of Getting Out of Your Mind and Into Your Life. Hayes has been setting the world of psychotherapy on its ear by advocating a totally different approach.

In an article in Time magazine, John Cloud describes Hayes’ work. Hayes and researchers Marsha Linehan and Robert Kohlenberg at the University of Washington, and Zindel Segal at the University of Toronto, what we could call “Third Wave Psychologists” are focusing less on how to manipulate the content of our thoughts (a focus on cognitive psychotherapy) and more on how to change their context–to modify the way we see thoughts and feelings so they can’t control our behavior. Whereas cognitive therapists speak of “cognitive errors” and “distorted interpretation,” Hayes and his colleagues encourage mindfulness, the meditation-inspired practice of observing thoughts without getting entangled by them–imagine the thoughts being a leaf or canoe floating down the stream.

These Third Wave Psychologists would argue that trying to correct negative thoughts can paradoxically actually intensify them. As NLP trained coaches would say, telling someone to “not think about a blue tree,” actually focuses their mind on a blue tree. The Third Wave Psychologists methodology is called ACT (Acceptance and Commitment Therapy), which says that we should acknowledge that negative thoughts recur throughout our life and instead of challenging or fighting with them, we should concentrate on identifying and committing to our values in life. Hayes would argue that once we are willing to feel our negative emotions, we’ll find it easier to commit ourselves to what we want in life.

This approach may come as a surprise to many, because the traditional cognitive model permeates our culture and the media as reflected in the Dr. Phil show. The essence of the conflict between traditional cognitive psychologists and psychotherapists is to engage in a process of analyzing your way out your problems, or the Third Wave approach which says, accept that you have negative beliefs, thinking and problems and focus on what you want. Third Wave psychologists acknowledge that we have pain, but rather than trying to push it away, they say trying to push it away or deny it just gives it more energy and strength.

Third Wave Psychologists focus on acceptance and commitment comes with a variety of strategies to help people including such things as writing your epitaph (what’s going to be your legacy), clarifying your values and committing your behavior to them.

It’s interesting that that The Third Wave Psychologists approach comes along at a time when more and more people are looking for answer outside of the traditional medical model (which psychiatry and traditional psychotherapy represent). Just look at a 2002 study in Prevention and Treatment, which found that 80% people tested who took the six most popular antidepressants of the 1990’s got the same results when they took a sugar pill placebo.

The Third Wave Psychologists approaches are very consistent with much of the training and approach that many life coaches receive, inclusive of Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP), and many spiritual approaches to behavioral changes reflected in ancient Buddhist teachings and the more modern version exemplified by Eckhart Tolle (The Power of Now). The focus of those approaches reinforces the concepts of acceptance of negative emotions and thoughts, and rather than giving them energy and fighting with them, focus on mindfulness, and a commitment to an alignment of values and behavior.

So what can we learn from all this? Two things–first, just engaging in positive affirmations by themselves, can do harm to people with low self-esteem, and provide only little benefit for those with high-esteem, if those affirmations are not part of a comprehensive program of self-growth, preferably with a knowledgeable professional; and second, the traditional cognitive psychotherapeutic approach at trying to change people’s negative thinking through logical processes may actually be counterproductive, compared to an approach that has people accept their thoughts, not resist them and give more energy to them by thinking about them, but rather engage in positive behaviors and thinking.

On the next post, I’ll be interviewing Stephanie Frank, President of Success IQ University, a Master NLP Coach and Certified Hypnotherapist, who has worked with hundreds of individuals practicing the concepts and ideas in this blog, and achieved huge success with her clients. She’ll tell us how.

For More Free Information visit On Self Help Books

Self-help for motivation plays the key role as a person knows more about himself than others. It is not mandatory that self-help relies on taking ideas from others while performing some tasks. There are adequate books to encourage and practice self-help for motivation.

Books such as `The Secret` of Rhonda Byrne have created a buzz in the media and are marketed well as it promises abundance of happiness. This book focuses on thinking positively, desiring for a goal like a magnet and using the law of attraction to get closer to your dreams. Rhonda Byre is a hit and is worth reading as it has skillful numbers of self-help gurus as well as motivational speakers who contribute their positive thinking. Though, these ideas may have appeared in thousands of other books, The Secret has presented it in such a way that the reader will understand the need of self-help for motivation clearly.

The book `Inspiration: Your Ultimate Calling` of Wayne Dyer gives an insight of looking inside for self-help for motivation other than looking outside. This book encourages its readers to seek the non-physical self for motivation and to work goal oriented. Motivation is the result of the inspiration coming from inside, the self-help and this has an infinite power to shower peace and to remain contented with the current life. Wayne Dyer takes down to the path of spirituality, but yet promotes self-help for motivation and is enjoyable to read.

The book `A New Earth: Awakening to your life`s purpose` of Eckhart Tolle is highly popular and million of copies keep selling daily. This can be read by anyone as Tolle discusses about ego, body pain, self and awakening to meet the purpose of life. He points out that intense self awareness brings positive changes and this book offers some practical solutions to reach the hopes and dreams. A New Earth fills the reader with ideas and induces to work to self-help for motivation. This book unconsciously enhances the identity and with this association the object is reached easily.

The `Power of Now` is another book of Eckhart Tolle that reveals an honest spiritual awakening to attain peace and happiness. He focuses the concept of now in the book and suggests to stop thinking about the happenings of yesterday or what will happen tomorrow and to only consider now, that is real and this will be a great escalation to self-help for motivation. This book is easy to understand and encourages the reader to think of now.

The book `Awaken the Giant Within` of Anthony Robbins covers various topics and goal setting, besides personal finance as well as relationships. This book tells how to control mind, emotion, physical as well as financial destiny. This book is entertaining and informative and makes positive changes on the reader. He states that even a tough decision may take a great time, but a person feels tremendous relief on taking it and this helps self-help for motivation to accomplish any challenge.

Just look at the bookshelves in a bookstore or in any library, it should not surprise you that you are going to find a number of books, which are going to be talking about self-help. And why not, self-help is a sure fire way to make a large number of profits, for publishers. These books are written by self-proclaimed experts and gurus, who know everything about one particular subject and are going to tell you everything about how you can help yourself be more beautiful be more healthy be more fit, be more peaceful, manage to tackle stress, be an expert financier or cook in 90 days, or in any other subject, which takes their fancy. This comes under the category of self help eBooks, when you have to make the decision to help yourself and have enough of self-discipline to do that.
Self help eBooks have all the information, which you can find a normal hardcover book but it is present in the form of downloadable book. The only difference is that you are not going to hold the book in your hands and turn over the pages, whenever you have reached the end of the line. You are going to be reading your self help eBooks on the computer or on an electronic e-book reader, as these are available as downloadable book format. These self-help books are definitely not going to be attacked by silverfish nor are they going to get dog-eared. You can also see little content in that cheap eBook before opting to buy it.
Self help eBooks are not restricted to the printed word; they are going to have a number of training videos embedded in it as well as pictures, graphics, animation, and even soundtracks embedded in them. That is the reason why a large number of people are going online to look for self help eBooks and other cheap eBook which are going to tell them how they can get healthy and fit in a proper manner or any other how to information they need on some particular subject of their choice in these downloadable book. The best thing about self help eBooks written by really expert professionals is that you are also going to find a number of embedded links, which are going to allow you to find more information about the subject matter, on the Internet, while you are reading cheap eBook of your choice.
One does not have to be a techno-savvy person to download self help eBooks from the Internet. All you have to do is go online, and look for downloadable book of your choice. After you have downloaded a cheap eBook on your computer, you can browse through that book, whenever you want.
Summary — This article gives you plenty of information about self help eBooks and why people are downloading them ever so often from the Internet.

Go to bookstore and get overwhelmed.

All because you want to help yourself get better.

The self-help section’s groaning at the weight of all the self-help books out there on every subject imaginable. And every one of those books promises it’s the final, be-all end-all cure to whatever it is that ails you. Whether it’s feeling stuck, procrastinating, overeating, or not Getting Stuff Done, all you have to do is buy the book and do the 10-step system and you’re golden.

At least, that’s how it worked for the book’s author. For you? Your mileage may vary. It can get a little frustrating.

I want to propose today another be-all, end-all self help technique. Yet I don’t want to offer it because it helped me and I have a book to sell. Instead, it helped me and I am absolutely convinced it can help you too. I’ve gone so far as to all it the “Key Secret of Self-Help,” one that can underlie ANY self-help program you wish to undertake.

Looking back at them, those are some big claims. How can I back them up?

Simple. With self-hypnosis.

Hypnosis, a recognized therapy for treating everything from overeating to relationships, has an unfortunate veneer that masks its ability to create lasting change in a willing subject. Partially, that’s the fault of Hollywood. The movie hypnotist, with his laser eyes and unfortunate goatee, stands far removed from the world of real hypnosis.

All hypnosis is, is a way of using a relaxing state of trance to install positive ideas into your mind. In particular, they’re installed into your subconscious mind, the part that underlies out actions and decisions. We usually decide things based on emotion, controlled by the subconscious. Then we justify those decisions with the conscious, logical mind. It’s a funny balancing act, one that self-hypnosis can use to its advantage.

When you self-hypnotize, you first decide on one small project you’d like to improve. Perhaps it’s your exercise habits. Perhaps it’s your work habits. Fix in your mind the specific way you want to improve, then go into self-hypnosis. You will become relaxed, following a countdown of 10 to 1. With each number, feel yourself growing more relaxed. At one, you are in a mild trance state. And you’re highly suggestible. Now you can repeat to yourself the positive suggestions you want to act on. After you’ve enjoyed this state of relaxation, count from 1 to 3 and come out of hypnosis with a snap of your fingers.

This probably sounds far afield of a typical self-help program. There’s no charts, no affirmations, no complicated forms of self-assessment. Yet it offers a real hope when most other self-help systems have failed outright. Because with self-hypnosis, you’re not working to make a change in yourself from the outside. It’s coming from the inside, with your subconscious moving you along the entire time. What’s more, self-help and self-hypnosis come from the same source.

One of they first books to launch the entire self-help movement teaches what’s fundamentally self-hypnosis. In “Psycho Cybernetics,” the plastic surgeon Maxwell Maltz spoke of making positive, lasting change in himself and others using a part of the human mind known as the “automatic success mechanism.” He would program it with the changes he wanted to make by repeating certain phrases to himself every day for a 21 day period. If we change “automatic success mechanism” to “subconscious mind,” then it’s starting to look a lot like hypnosis. And your outlook is starting to look a lot better. When you start to use self-hypnosis, you will find that you will be able to succeed easily.

Automatically, even.

Self Help has come a long way in the past several decades. It used to be that “women’s issues” weren’t even thought of let alone specialized in Universities, counseling centers and books all over the world. In just a few short decades, self help for women has burgeoned into a major industry and a worldwide movement. Entire countries that used to promote traditional cultures where women were expected to be submissive to their husbands are now taking up new values and becoming part of a globalization of equality.

Women’s issues were traditionally overlooked in the past largely because of the fact that the jobs were simply held by men and the economy and industry of publications and counseling were exclusively male driven. Today, things have changed and there is plenty of self help available for specific women’s issues as well. Women have issues that they still face concerning self esteem, sexuality and even “the perfect body image” but they can now face these issues out in the open and learn to grow and change just like men are doing. As human beings, we all have issues to contend with and none of us are perfect. It is a great step that we can now recognize this together and learn to grow spiritually regardless of our genders.

Some of the women’s issues which are constantly challenged by the media and by product advertising today concern objectification and marginalization. These are issues that concern women individually and often require a person who has already “been there” who can help. One great program which has pioneered the movement against the marginalization of women is the Oprah Winfrey Show. Setting herself apart from many other self help guru’s, Oprah avoids much of the negative language aimed against men and instead focuses on the solutions that women can use to overcome in society. The Oprah Winfrey Show also raises awareness of many other issues outside of just women’s self help and thereby makes itself accessible to an even wider audience. This places the struggle for women’s self esteem and self empowerment into a larger context of world issues rather than cutting it off from its connection to all issues that face humanity. Greater self esteem for women means greater self esteem for everyone and the Oprah Winfrey Show has been a great benefit to humanity because of this fact.

Self help books for women are widespread but some of the earlier works are especially notable for those who wish to get a foundational understanding of the issues. Interestingly, Anna Freud, the daughter of Dr. Sigmund Freud actually contributed to the work of psychoanalysis in a very profound way when she wrote the famous work The Ego and Mechanisms of Defense. This is one of the classic works of psychoanalysis which actually brought together many of her father’s ideas in a more succinct and clear fashion thus making them more easily identifiable for all people. Another great book which is part of the classic works on women’s issues comes from Nancy Friday and is entitled My Mother Myself. Here, Nancy Friday investigates the core issues which involve women in relationship with their mother’s and uncovers the common reasons for self esteem issues in women. She leads the reader to a deeper understanding of herself so that she may identify her issues more readily and find a way to move ahead in her life. Although a third book has been largely left behind in terms of the women’s movement, Carol Gilligan’s book In a Different Voice was a groundbreaking work decades ago in terms of the women’s movement and is still offered in many University courses today.

Wherever you choose to start, there is a wellspring of information on women’s self help today. Women have taken the lead in terms of personal growth in many areas and have caused men to stand up and take notice as they lead the way into a better future for all of us.

Self Help has come a long way in the past several decades. It used to be that “women’s issues” weren’t even thought of let alone specialized in Universities, counseling centers and books all over the world. In just a few short decades, self help for women has burgeoned into a major industry and a worldwide movement. Entire countries that used to promote traditional cultures where women were expected to be submissive to their husbands are now taking up new values and becoming part of a globalization of equality.

Women’s issues were traditionally overlooked in the past largely because of the fact that the jobs were simply held by men and the economy and industry of publications and counseling were exclusively male driven. Today, things have changed and there is plenty of self help available for specific women’s issues as well. Women have issues that they still face concerning self esteem, sexuality and even “the perfect body image” but they can now face these issues out in the open and learn to grow and change just like men are doing. As human beings, we all have issues to contend with and none of us are perfect. It is a great step that we can now recognize this together and learn to grow spiritually regardless of our genders.

Some of the women’s issues which are constantly challenged by the media and by product advertising today concern objectification and marginalization. These are issues that concern women individually and often require a person who has already “been there” who can help. One great program which has pioneered the movement against the marginalization of women is the Oprah Winfrey Show. Setting herself apart from many other self help guru’s, Oprah avoids much of the negative language aimed against men and instead focuses on the solutions that women can use to overcome in society. The Oprah Winfrey Show also raises awareness of many other issues outside of just women’s self help and thereby makes itself accessible to an even wider audience. This places the struggle for women’s self esteem and self empowerment into a larger context of world issues rather than cutting it off from its connection to all issues that face humanity. Greater self esteem for women means greater self esteem for everyone and the Oprah Winfrey Show has been a great benefit to humanity because of this fact.

Self help books for women are widespread but some of the earlier works are especially notable for those who wish to get a foundational understanding of the issues. Interestingly, Anna Freud, the daughter of Dr. Sigmund Freud actually contributed to the work of psychoanalysis in a very profound way when she wrote the famous work The Ego and Mechanisms of Defense. This is one of the classic works of psychoanalysis which actually brought together many of her father’s ideas in a more succinct and clear fashion thus making them more easily identifiable for all people. Another great book which is part of the classic works on women’s issues comes from Nancy Friday and is entitled My Mother Myself. Here, Nancy Friday investigates the core issues which involve women in relationship with their mother’s and uncovers the common reasons for self esteem issues in women. She leads the reader to a deeper understanding of herself so that she may identify her issues more readily and find a way to move ahead in her life. Although a third book has been largely left behind in terms of the women’s movement, Carol Gilligan’s book In a Different Voice was a groundbreaking work decades ago in terms of the women’s movement and is still offered in many University courses today.

Wherever you choose to start, there is a wellspring of information on women’s self help today. Women have taken the lead in terms of personal growth in many areas and have caused men to stand up and take notice as they lead the way into a better future for all of us.

It is true that self-help seminars and workshops can do a lot to help you get a better self esteem. It is also true that going to a life coach or a counselor or psychologist for training can work well for some.

However, the only thing that can accompany you wherever you go is self-help books, and there are many available on the market by renowned authors. Since the problems of low self esteem are not predominant in America alone, but all around the world, it should not be too hard for you to get your hands on a good self-help book, wherever you may be.

Self-help books need not always be on increasing self esteem directly. One look through a book shop’s self-help section will show that you can buy books on hobbies like photography and cooking, and on personal help like doing better at relationships and at work. All these will however help you with better self esteem in the long run. So, there is a self-help book for you, whatever the goals that you set for your self may be.

As human beings, we are superior to all other living things on the planet and one of the things that prove this is our ability to effect change on our surroundings. So do get a self-help book on whatever it is that you would like to change, and put what you learn from these books into affect.

Soon you will see a positive change in your life, and the feelings of accomplishment that come with this can work wonders for your self-image. So many self-help books have been published to date that it is not a problem finding one on whatever topic you may have in mind. In fact you may face a bigger problem selecting one or two books out of the dozens to choose from.

Self-help books are a great thing to carry if you travel a lot. Not only do they help you pass your time constructively they are easy to carry and store. As sophisticated and miniature that palmtop computers have gotten today, the feel of a good book in your hands can never be replaced by a computer, and any one accustomed to handling books will confirm that.

We may get so preoccupied in our day to day problems that it is not always easy to take out the time to attend a self improvement seminar or lecture. But we can all at least take out the time and money to get a good self-help book. After all, it is for our own improvement that we do this, so do take the time and effort to get your hands on a book of this sort.

Copyright (c) 2009 Willie Horton

I recently read an article on the BBC’s International News website – Self Help Makes You Feel Worse. The article cited new Canadian university research and stated that people with “low self-esteem actually felt worse” as a result of what the article’s author obviously considered to be practicing self-help. The article went on to explain that the University of New Brunswick and the University of Waterloo had measured research participants’ moods after they had repeated “I am a lovable person”. The researchers’ conclusion was that “self-help” only works for people with high self-esteem and, in fact, makes people with low self-esteem feel worse.

The problem is that repeating “I am a lovable person” to yourself – when the facts of your daily life suggest otherwise – is not self-help, it’s self-delusion. It’s just like the magical illusion where the magician saws his beautiful assistant in two – we all see it happen but we know in our heart and soul that the theatre isn’t littered with bloodied body parts!! The researchers in question appear to me to have been a little naive.

If you don’t believe your own self-worth in your heart and soul, no amount of trite self-affirmation will fix you up. Of course you’ll feel worse for the experience because you’d tried to convince yourself that you were a “loveable person” (or whatever other nonsense you might repeat to yourself) and not only have you proved that such nonsense doesn’t work – you’ve proved yourself right, all over again, that you’re not, in fact, a “loveable person”!

So, self-affirmation is, indeed, a scam – but it’s got very little to do with true self-help that can, to quote from Nelson Mandela, “liberate us from our own fears” and enable us “shine our light” for all the world to see. First things first – as I’ve just said, self-affirmation is a scam, smoke and mirrors that make no difference to the quality of your life, your self-image, your success or happiness. Why? Because self-affirmation is addressed to the conscious mind – the part of our mind where we do our thinking. But it’s our subconscious mind where we do our doing. Seventy years research proves conclusively that your subconscious mind creates your behaviour and reactions and, as a result, creates your life and who you think you are. It’s in your subconscious mind that you hold your beliefs – in your heart and soul, so to speak.

So, if you don’t believe, in your heart and soul, that you’re a “loveable person”, no amount of self-talk will convince you otherwise. You need to get to the very heart of the matter – in your subconscious mind. Before we explore how to do that, it’s important to understand that your current limiting self beliefs are there because, as young and impressionable children, things were impressed on our subconscious mind. If something happened us in our formative years that made us feel uncomfortable or inadequate, our subconscious mind’s replaying of that event continues to make us feel that same way many years later.

You need to by-pass your subconscious mind’s proven obsession with the past. And, when you stop to think about it, the solution to your perceived problems is absolutely and obviously found in the present. You simply need to re-learn how to focus in the here and now. I say “re-train” because, as children, we were all expert at paying attention to the present moment – we didn’t worry about next month’s mortgage, whether we’d get that promotion or why our neighbour had a bigger car than ours – we simply went about our business in the here and now.

If you want to improve your life, your “self-esteem”, your happiness, your success, you need to become like a child all over again – childlike, not childish. You need to train your subconscious mind to focus in the present moment – the more you do this, the less your subconscious mind can focus in the past. Your past “programs” won’t go away but as you give them less and less energy, they will hold less and less power over you and your life will begin to change.

You retrain your mind to focus in the present by using your five senses – by training yourself to pay detailed attention to what you see, feel, hear, smell and taste only in the present moment. For starters, this should be done in the privacy of your own home – otherwise normal people will think you’re mad (by the way, all the evidence points to the fact that it’s the normal people who are, in fact, mad). Or you could deliberately choose to go for a stroll to practice using your five senses. If you like working out or jogging, you could use these activities as an opportunity to pay full attention to what you’re feeling in your body, in the muscles and muscle groups that you’re using – it means you’ll have to unplug the iPod!!

Little by little, day by day, we can all recreate our lives through bringing our attention into the only place and time that we have – the here and now. Little by little we will realise low self-esteem for what it is – another illusion, this time created by subconscious snapshots we took of events long gone. Little by little anybody – and that includes you – can create the life, happiness, success, relationships that your heart desires. But it’s something that’s done little by little – every day – and the little by little will give rise to startling results.