by Tara Joyce | Nov 11, 2015 | Self/Business Growth
We, as humans, have a tendency to use our mind to negate our emotions. We use our mind as a tool to abandon how we feel.
I know, personally, I often use my mind to abandon my negative feelings, especially when they are directed at someone I love. In these moments, I’d rather pretend the feelings aren’t there… than explore why they are. The result of doing this, of locking up my sensitives in my logical mind, is that I disown my feelings and my emotional needs.
For some of us, we negate our feelings or emotional needs because we feel the expression of them is dangerous. Our emotions feel too vulnerable and the sharing of them feels to risky. Rightfully, risks are present when we share our most vulnerable self — but hiding our feelings from others is far more dangerous. For it leads us to mask our feelings, not only for others, but from our self. Rather than feel what we feel, we learn to abandon ourselves emotionally. We learn to negate what we feel and to lock it up in our mind. This lack of emotional self-awareness, and this mental overemphasis, further disconnects us from our self — and others.
We owe it to our emotional self to break our cycle of self-abandonment.
Emotional self-abandonment may feel safer — but it is no less painful than our own emotional truth — and it is all the more detrimental. For in not being present to our selves, we become slightly lost.
However, by acknowledging our logical desire to negate our feelings, we begin to break this cycle. Simply in seeing our abandonment, we cease our pattern of turning our back on our feelings. For recognizing our neglect enables us to be present to our emotional self once again, and within this awareness, we find we no longer need to leave any part of ourselves out again.
photo credit: gingher
by Tara Joyce | Oct 27, 2015 | My Journey | What's On My Mind, Self/Business Growth
Despite how we talk about it, reality isn’t one thing. One stream. One truth. Reality is defined and designed by you, the individual. And, by design, you get to decide how “real” you want your reality to be.
You are given the possibility, and the imperative, of being able to bring into reality the things that are truly real, and truly healing for you.
If you decide that your reality is full of lies and half-truths—or even a casual ignoring of the truly real—then this is your reality. Your detachment from your truth is a critical aspect of your reality.
What is real anyway? Perhaps what’s truly real is what feels most like our authentic truth.
This is my desire: for anything other than my truth to be the uncomfortable place. I want to learn to sit comfortably uncomfortable in the beauty and messiness of my truth. I want to feel that anything less than it is a trap I am creating for myself. For I know — and have learned — inevitably, the truth will catch up with me. I can’t outrun it, though I can deny it. Yet no matter where I look, it will still be there.
The denying of our truth adds pressure and pain to our lives. It’s the pressure to re-frame everything; to re-frame our reality so that it painfully fits into the limited perspective we’ve deemed acceptable. It’s a carefully crafted noose that will eventually hang us.
Instead, why not bring into reality the things that are truly real, and truly healing for you? Trust it’s your imperative as its designer.
photo credit: Alison J-B
by Tara Joyce | Oct 8, 2015 | Pay What It's Worth Pricing
Recently, there was an interesting experiment conducted in not setting prices and charitable giving, by UC San Diego Rady School of Management and Disney Research. Conducting their experiment at a popular roller coaster, using post-roller coaster action photos as the item to be valued, they found not setting prices to be a viable pricing strategy and social responsibility strategy for companies–when the customer’s willingness to give is stimulated.
While the study focuses on stimulating generosity in a charitable setting, the study’s findings can be applied to any relationship and experience-based business. The researchers found when a customer feels more connected to what they are giving to—and in choice about what/how much they are giving—the more willing they are to give. When buyers know their money and generosity will benefit something specific, such as a charity, or someone specific, such as the business owner, they feel a more tangible and human connection to the value their giving is creating, and in turn, the more open they are to giving—and giving generously.
The study concluded not setting prices could be a tool for creating opportunities for “shared social responsibility” and this shared responsibility may provide the critical sustainability component that is often lacking in current social responsibility strategies. Fascinating.
photographed in my hometown of Toronto by Toban B.
by Tara Joyce | Oct 2, 2015 | Cultural Creativity
There is a time and a place for everything, and this includes how you present yourself. For knowing how to behave properly in a variety of situations and doing so, rather than limiting you, gives you a choice in the presentation you create.
When you know your audience and manage your behaviours with them, you’re able to choose how best to get your message across in order for it to have the greatest impact. Knowing how to best present yourself connects you with your right people. For your knowledge is power—and knowing how to sell yourself is powerfully magnetizing.
To have presence, you need to be present to your audience.
If you aren’t present to your audience and how you behave with them, you’ll likely find yourself in an extended process of trial and error, unable to connect your goals with your audience’s. Rather than playing this marketing game, you can instead, by understanding and playing your roles at the appropriate moments, skillfully navigate your way through the obstacles of communication, and consistently reach your goals—and your right people.
Knowing how to present yourself is knowing how to communicate. Your ability to sell your goals through the strong presentation of them is a crucial skill—as it provides you with a choice in the roles you take, and the presence you create. When you’re present to your presence, you know the time and the place for everything in your life.
photo credit: Chris Florence
by Tara Joyce | Sep 11, 2015 | Cultural Creativity, Self/Business Growth
Luxury can be a trap. It can be so comfortable to live in—that it can be so very hard to leave… Hard to stretch yourself beyond the sumptuous and secure life you’ve come to know. Most of the world isn’t as comfortable as you are, and living with this truth can make it hard to leave your protective and pleasant container.
Luxury is a trap—if you let it be. For when you have the ability to live self-indulgently, you also have the ability to not challenge yourself with the realities of life. You have the means to avoid the uncomfortable and, often times, the ability to find someone else to take on their responsibility.
Money—and the power it offers—can be used and abused like anything else that affects your energy. Like drugs and alcohol, it can be an escape—a means to numb the pain. Your richness can keep you separate and shielded. It can keep you trapped—in a luxurious life.
Like you’re in the womb, the privilege of abundance provides you with the opportunity to remove yourself from the undesirable. You have the means to create a world where you do not have to deal with the uglier truths of life. Insulated and cared for, you are afforded the luxury of having a choice.
The problem with abundance is how you can trap yourself in its comfortability—keeping yourself small and shielded. Living in this gilded space, you can’t see your abundance as a thing of beauty—and a gift of grace.
Abundance is beauty. Stay mindful to the richness of your life, it’s here to expand you—but it can do the opposite. It can contract you—if you let it. This is the only true money trap—and no matter your stage of wealth—you have the choice to not fall into it.
photo credit: Mike Bitzenhofer
