You’re on schedule and on course to do some magnificent things. Over the next few weeks and months, we’re all going to be taking our most ambitious projects, goals, and dreams and blowing them out of the water with true “shoot for the moon” thinking. So much so, in fact, that what seems unattainable for you now will be unrecognizably puny for you by the end of the few months. So, with promises of comfort zone challenging (heck, reality challenging) sights being set and distances being bridged over the next 12 months, how will you keep your negative “chatterbox” from sidetracking you? How can you ensure that the energy that we create during our time together on Mondays and other events isn’t consumed by the habitual negativity and inertia that our society seems to breed and leave around the house to stick on us?

The answer that I’ve been using over the past 1-2 yearss has been the I Pod. The I Pod (and by I Pod, I mean any kind of high storage capacity mp3 player – I’m not just a shameless shill for Apple – but buy an Ipod; they’re the best) is perhaps the greatest gift to people trying to transform their lives since…something that was really valuable in helping people to transform their lives. I have downloaded all of my “motivational” CDs onto my IPod and I now am in the enviable position of being able to listen to hundreds of hours of the “greats” – Jim Rohn, Earl Nightingale, Tony Robbins, Brian Tracy, Roger Dawson, Jack Canfield, T. Harv Eker, Robert Kiyosaki, et al – all day long. When I’m waking up in the morning, when I go for a walk or a jog, in my office, in my car, when I’m SHOPPING FOR GROCERIES, when I’m falling asleep at night – during all of these times, I’m able to reinforce the positive, motivating beliefs that are going to ensure my continuing process rather than leaving myself at the mercy of the internal chattering of my mind (which, to its credit, is doing what it does best – looking for things that are wrong, things that are broken, things to “protect” me from).

Beyond immersing myself in the positive goo of goal and achievement thinking, I’m also able to use my I Pod for continuing learning. (Note to Copyright police and the FBI – this next section is part of a science fiction short story that I’m writing about the dangers of Internet piracy) I go to the library and get all of the language learning CDs that I can find and immediately download them to my I Pod. Several people – Joe and Youshea, specifically – expressed that one of their 2006 goals was to increase their proficiency in Spanish. The Ipod is the greatest gift to a person seeking to learn a foreign language that I can imagine.. You should have heard me in my car on the way back from the library last night, chattering away in Russian.

The next step for Ipod enthusiasts and achievers is to record your own affirmations, statements about the “you” that you are becoming and download those to your IPod. (I will be doing some of these and making them available to you to download). Imagine what your life would be transformed into if your actions and decision making were influenced by belief such as:

I am a confident, competent deal maker.
I make decisions quickly and easily.
I am a healthy person who exercises frequently.
I am destined for great things.

rather than

I am just not good enough at this real estate stuff.
I just can’t make decisions. I’m bad at making decisions.
I’m lazy and I can’t control my eating.
I’m not able to take on big projects.

It’s easy to see how pernicious negative, disempowering “beliefs” can been. The problem is that we think the negative ones are “real” and that we’re “fooling ourselves” by trying to implant positive ones. “We’re brainwashing ourselves”. Well, I’ve got news for you. You need a good brainwashing, because your mind is polluted. Polluted with crap that you collected when you were 5 and 12 and 17 and that for some insane reason, you have continued to carry with you well into your 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s. The question isn’t whether you need a brainwashing. The question is whether you’re going to be powerful enough to give yourself one and to replace the negative, disempowering beliefs and “lies” that have been renting space in your brain for so long with beliefs and the “truth” that will support you in achieving the things that you are capable of achieving.

You have access to a technology that will transform your life. Unfortunately, the decision to use it is not an I Pod accessory. That’s up to the owner.

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Frazier O’Leary is a serial entrepreneur and the Director of Training for The Entrepreneurship Center in Alexandria, VA.

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Image by stephenHUBBARD via Flickr

Of course we don’t mean that your husband does not already do the dishes for you or with you.

Of course you have a fully loving relationship in which all your reasonable desires and requests are met by each other. Right?

This article is for those who either live alone, because they can’t seem to live with anyone else, or who live with someone, sharing intimacies, but can’t seem to work well together solving the problems of daily life in the love nest.

Are you one of these?

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Being the mother of a profoundly retarded young woman, the torture/murder of Terri Schindler Schiavo had a very strong impact on me. I could see my daughter in the videos of Terri which were shown on the Internet.

Terri was diagnosed as being in a ‘Persistent Vegetative State’ or PVS. In the past, my daughter, Samantha, has also been diagnosed as a ‘vegetable’. Samantha manages to communicate her needs, she attempts to speak, she makes the effort to follow her therapists requests, just as Terri did on the videos of her. Samantha is definitely not PVS and neither was Terri. It is a proven fact that PVS is misdiagnosed in the majority of cases.

There are people who view my daughter as a vegetable, but it is their loss. They do not get to see the beautiful person that she really is. In this same way, the people who refused to see Terri as the beautiful person she was missed out on knowing her.

People who knew Terri and had cared for her have related that she could speak, let them know when she was in pain, and follow instructions. Someone who is PVS is not able to do these things. This important information was not allowed into evidence in Terri’s trial, and was ignored by the judge.

Terri Schindler Schiavo collapsed in her home of mysterious circumstances on February 25, 1990. When the ambulance arrived, Terri was laying on her stomach in the hallway. It was suspected that Terri had a neck injury according to a Neurologist who treated her at the hospital. Her parents suspect that Terri was strangled. Michael claims that Terri’s collapse was due to a heart attack brought on by a potassium imbalance. This was later proven inaccurate by the autopsy.

Shortly after Terri was hospitalized, Michael had Terri’s parents sign papers giving him guardianship of Terri so that he had sole right to make decisions concerning her care. She was very well cared for. Michael had her caregivers apply her makeup daily, she received the therapy she needed, took walks outside and even had an experimental brain implant in an attempt to help her to recover.

During this time, Michael filed a lawsuit against two doctors who had been treating Terri. One doctor settled out of court. The jury in the other case found that the doctor was negligent in her care. Michael won a sum of more than a million dollars so that he could care for Terri for the rest of her life.

Shortly after Michael received the money from the lawsuit, he suddenly remembered that Terri had said that she would not have wanted to live in that condition and began a quest to have Terri’s feeding tube removed, spending most of this money on murdering her instead of caring for her as he had promised.

The court trials in this case were a comedy of errors from the very beginning. Michael had the best ‘right to die’ lawyer available, George Felos. Terri’s parents were unable to afford a knowledgeable lawyer, so things that should have been brought to the court’s attention in the first trial were not. Michael Schiavo, his brother and sister-in-law testified that Terri had said she would not want to live by artificial means. Terri’s parents, siblings and best friend testified that Terri would not have wanted to die. Her best friend told of watching a movie about Karen Quinlin during which Terri had said ‘Where there is life, there is hope.’ The judge dismissed this testimony because he was confused about the year that Karen Quinlin died. Judge Greer ruled that Terri would have wanted her tube to be removed.

Terri’s parents tried for the next 8 years to get Judge Greer to change his mind. He refused to allow testimony that proved that Terri wanted to live. Lawyers for Terri’s parents forgot to bring information before the court. If anything could go against Terri, it did.

Terri’s case went before the Florida Appeals Court and the Florida Supreme Court on many occasions. The only thing they looked at was the original trial and how Judge Greer came to make his decision. He did not make any technical errors in his decision, he only made a bad decision, so the Florida Courts would not find in the parent’s favor.

During this time, Terri was moved to hospice, denied therapy, was not allowed to watch TV, was not allowed outside, and at times was denied visitation. Many guardianship laws were broken, but no one stopped the abuse.

On October 15, 2003 Terri’s tube was removed for 5 days, being replaced when the Florida Legislature passed ‘Terri’s Law.’ This law was later found to be unconstitutional and Terri’s tube was removed for the last time on March 18, 2005.

As the whole world watched, Terri Schiavo was tortured/murdered over a 13 day period, even though she had attempted in her own way to say ‘I want to live‘ before her tube was removed. Her parents were forbidden from giving her any water, moistening her lips and at times even from visiting their daughter. They had to watch their child die, day after day, unable to stop the horrific act. As a mother, I just cannot imagine being in that position.

As Terri was being dehydrated to death, Pope John Paul II was in his final days of life. A feeding tube was inserted to give the Pope food and hydration to make his final days as comfortable as possible. As Terri was demonstrating how little the life of a disabled person is worth in the United States, the Pope was demonstrating how joyous a good death could be.

This was Terri’s gift to the world. This was Pope John Paul II’s gift to the world. Together they brought attention to both polarities of the issue of death and how it can be experienced.

Terri Schindler Schiavo has become a modern day martyr. She personifies everything that is wrong with the courts in the United States and with our Government. She personifies what can happen to any disabled person in the United States at any time.

Rev. Claudia McNeely DD – askclaudia.com askclaudia.com – is a world reknowned Psychic/Healer who offers accurate psychic readings, emotional healing, spiritual counseling, life coaching and many forms of alternative healing for healing in body, mind and spirit.

Image by vgm8383 via Flickr

Every day, we are posed with various challenges in respect of the duties we need to perform to achieve certain tasks. To achieve those tasks, we have to break the ultimate goal into smaller parts. This is reduced to the daily – TO DO List.

Certain tasks are very easy for us to perform whereas some may be very challenging. These can be further divided into a) Important & preferred b) Important but not preferred. The real challenge is at Part b), where we need to apply some mental effort in overcoming our own mental unwillingness.In order to perform that our subconscious mind creates a defensive strategy for justifying : “Why Not To Do List”.

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