Be Your Own Fairy Godmother

Zest is a culinary term for the rind of a citrus fruit, like lemons or oranges, which is often grated into a recipe to release the flavors of the oils that give the fruit its characteristic smell. Grating zest takes a bit of work, as the skin of the fruit is thin, and only the [...]

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Whenever you see a map for a mall or a trail or a fire escape, X marks the spot where you are. If you don’t know where you are, you can’t get anywhere else. Of course you have to know where you want to go as well, both physically and metaphorically, to map out a [...]

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Writing anything down makes it stay longer in your mental disk drive, which is why teachers expect students to take notes, and gurus encourage people to keep journals and to write affirmations. Think of the mental power it takes to write something. First, a large part of your brain is used to control the many [...]

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Vocalizing is giving voice with wordless sounds,a nd it can clear and raise your vibration to a more positive note. One way of raising energy, especially in a group, is to chant or tone. Vocalizing a sound, like AHHHHHH or AUM opens the airways to pump air through the lungs and into the blood system. [...]

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Stubborn? Resistant? Willful? Are these personality traits bad? Only when the person insists on continuing a behavior that hurts the person, and only the person in question can make a change. What is the difference in stubbornly choosing to eat junk food, and having the willpower to choose only what is on an eating plan? [...]

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Response-able does not mean taking the blame. Whenever someone is said to be responsible, he or she is the one who gets the blame when something goes wrong. No one wants that kind of responsibility, and we tend to see the person who takes that on voluntarily as a kind of heroic martyr. But each [...]

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Questioning authority and defying authority are two different steps. A person in authority has the power to make decisions on various choices and then has the responsibility to see that they are carried out. This person has his or her reasons for making the decision. Often this person has more information than you do. If [...]

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Every time you are faced with a choice, you have an opportunity. You can use that choice to give you more options, or you can build obstacles for yourself. If you look at every choice you made in the past that now seems like a mistake, go back in time to what you thought your [...]

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“No” is one of the first words a child learns. It’s a most powerful word, as the child quickly learns, and it is the word that the child uses to begin individuation from the parents. The child expresses his or her difference from the parent by saying no, even when yes would make him or [...]

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English is a wickedly twisted language. The word gift means a talent, a present,  in English, but it is a cognate to the word Das Gift in German, which means poison, both words coming from the verb to give. The many expressions about giving can be poisonous too: Never give in. Never give up. Never [...]

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