Tag Archive | self esteem

WWN™ Reflections: Redefining Beauty in Today’s ‘Photo-Shopped’ World!

Aug26

When it comes down to it, no amount of make-up and exercise can mask an ugly character. Perhaps it’s time for us to revisit/redefine our notions of beauty.

Jennifer Livingston, a news anchor with CBS WKBT, stood up for herself and by extension, for all women who have been ridiculed, maligned, hurt, bullied because they did not fit into stereotypical images of beauty.

On behalf of all of us at WWN, I salute her courage and confidence. Enough of the unhealthy stereotypes about beauty, by the media, fashion industry and society in general. To Jennifer, we give a well-deserved salute: You go girl!!

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DAY 27: Take ACTION and Transform Your Life!

Nov28

Today’s reflection is focused on the power of ASKING QUESTIONS. Sometimes, it is not the answers that we find that give us the biggest shifts and transformation. Often, it is the questions that we ask ourselves or are asked by others that open up our hearts and minds to possibilities we never imagined. The act of seeking the answers becomes a metaphor for the journey of life.

Begin to pay attention to the questions that keep you awake at night, the questions that never seem too far from your mind, the questions that you run away from confronting. Those are probably the questions that have the biggest relationship with your life purpose and destiny.

WWN Reflection DAY 27: Take ACTION and Transform Your Life!

Here are some questions to reflect upon as you enjoy the rest of the week:

1. This mid-week, reflect and ask yourself: Am I on the ‘WOE me’ or ‘WOW me’ axis of life’s equation?

WOE ME= Making excuses and having reasons to blame others for the drama and crap in your life! You are an expert at pointing fingers outwards, talking about other people’s limitations and never yours. You play the victim card. Failure and stagnation are guaranteed states in this zone.

WOW ME=You take ownership and responsibility for both your awesomeness and your crap! You understand that you are a co-heir and co-creator with God. You focus on the learning in any situation, you seek to provide solutions and to add value. You are at cause for your life. You are in control of your results. You look inwards for answers. Success and purposeful living is guaranteed here.

Note: You get to choose only one side at any given time….you cannot be in both! And if you’re in neither, you may be sitting on the ‘stuck’ fence, where life seems to be ‘happening’ to you. It is important to also note that as human beings, we will definitely find ourselves hanging out in the ‘woe me’ quadrant once in a while. The key is not to stay there for too long and also to celebrate the awareness of your lessons and learnings while you’re there or after you get out! So, be gentle with yourself and others, we’re all doing the very best we can with the resources we have.

2. Did you know that there’s a behavioural link between Self-Esteem, Over-Eating, Over-Spending, Over-Complaining and generally feeling ‘out of balance’ in life? They often have a common root and if you destroy the root cause, every thing else crumbles and life RE-ALIGNS back into shape! Are you aware of what your root cause is? Sometimes the manifesting ‘problem’ is simple a symptom of something deeper.

3. “Do you want a successful career or a close relationship with your family? Both! Do you want a focus on business or have fun and play? Both! Do you want money or meaning in your life? Both! Do you want to earn a fortune or do the work you love? Both! Unsuccessful people always choose one, successful people choose both. Do you realize that you always have options and indeed, by God’s grace and through hard work/working smart, you can have it all.” ~T. Harv Eker~

4. “Are you stressed? Do you take time to relax? Do you take things so seriously? Laugh as much as you can! Play! When we’re adults, sometimes we forget to play and or we think we shouldn’t be wasting time on play when the opposite is true – PLAY! PLAY! PLAY! That’s where our true joy stems from, the most innocent part of who we are, our inner child that’s so excited about life and all its blessings! Are you letting your inner child out?” ~Patricia Grace Tomasi, Life Coach~

5. Do you suffer because you think you do not have enough OR because you’ve accepted a fallacy that you can never have enough, and so you suffer? (Re-read this and ponder on it for a few minutes) 🙂 Do you realize that you have an innate ability to co-create everything you desire, want or need? Do you understand that you are enough and you always have enough? Do you play the compare and contrast game? Do you compare yourself against others or compare the present to the past or an imaginary future? Do you comprehend that this is the root cause of most unhappiness? Are you always looking at the other side and thinking the grass greener? Are you celebrating the beauty of NOW and looking inwards to find solutions unique to you or are you blindly following the dictates of the external world around you?

6. What if your problem is not YOUR problem? What if your problem is simply just a problem? What if you stopped taking  your challenges and problems so personally? What if you could ‘remove’ yourself from your problem and look at them through someone else’s eyes? What if you took a new perspective, an ‘eagle-eyed’ overview of the problem and became open to new ways of ‘seeing’ them? What if the whole essence of the problems is to make you grow and transform into someone who resources creatively to resolve and solve said problems? What if all your problems have solutions and you role is to simply explore new ideas, perspectives and be open to others around you, in order to find the answers you seek?

7. What’s your purpose? Are you living in alignment with your purpose? What are your most important values in different spheres of life? What kind of life would you rather be living if you had an abundance of money, time, energy? LIVE IT NOW! Do you have the faith to believe in the formless and not in the formed physical reality? Are you speaking, feeling and living your truth? Do you realize that in order to manifest your dreams into reality, you MUST become the person who is capable of achieving those goals and dreams? WHAT you have and do flow directly from WHO you are BEING. The equation for the law of manifest ion is this: BE-DO-HAVE!

Warmest Regards, Blessings & Cyber-hugs,

-Juliet ‘Kego Ume-Onyido, MBA

Poet | Master-Certified Leadership Coach-Trainer -Consultant|

~Take empowered ACTION towards a Healthier, Sexier, Wealthier YOU!~

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Blogger Bio:

FB PIC High RezThe preceding is a guest post from Juliet Ume, MBA –Co-Founder and Executive Director at Whole Woman Network. Juliet is the author of the upcoming books: “UN-Locking Your HeArt of Leadership”  and “Today, I Will Not Bow”.  A self-described Life-Connoisseur, who loves life and the whole human experience, Juliet was nicknamed a ‘reminderist’,  [one who reminds us of that which we already know; that we are not fractured or broken and NOW is the perfect time to replace that fallacy with a new, beautiful truth: we are worthy, empowered, complete, whole creatures and our life journey is to return to wholeness]!

She is a passionate advocate of WomEntrepreneurship, Leadership, Investment & Financial Literacy for women and youth (especially girls). Her mission is simply to engage, educate and empower women, regardless of their levels of income or background, to return to ‘wholeness’ and live Healthier, Sexier, Wealthier Lives using Faith-based, Scientific and Universal (Common-Sense) principles! Follow her on Twitter: @wholewomaninc, @julietumeinc. Enjoy some of her portfolio of poems on her Floetry Blog and follow her daily reflective posts on Facebook.

Her message is simply: “To use the power of written-spoken-sung WORDS to connect, heal, empower, change and transform our inner and outer worlds. Words have power in the meaning and interpretation we choose to give them and all of life is synchronistic poetry in motion! Are you telling empowering stories about yourself and others?” 

DAY 16: Take ACTION and Transform Your Life!

Nov17

BeautifulQuestions of the day: Everyday you wake up, ask yourself these very simple questions-“How do I become the story I want told?”, “What must I do today to BE the person I’ve always dreamed of becoming?”, “How do I become the person who accomplishes my goals?”, “If I had only today, how will I live today to reflect my gratitude and appreciation for the gift and miracle of life?”, “How do I fulfil my purpose and serve my God and creator, myself, my family, colleagues, community, country, continent and planet?”

WWNetworkAfrica™ Reflection DAY 16: Take ACTION and Transform Your Life!

Today’s focus is on key reflective posts that I’d shared on WWN’s Facebook page over the last few weeks. They engaged our members and led to interesting conversations on our forums and weekly conference training calls/webinars. I hope that by reflecting on them and taking action, your life is better elevated, enriched and empowered! These posts are all excerpts from my upcoming book: UN-Locking Your HeArt of Leadership. Enjoy!

1. “Your purpose in life is not to ‘GET’, your purpose is simply to ‘GIVE’ and share your God-given talents, abilities and essence. Your life should reflect an integrated ‘value-exchange’ with the world around you.

In the pursuit of your purpose, there will be pain, mistakes and storms, that’s merely life happening. It is in these oscillating patterns of highs and lows that your character is formed. Pay particular attention to your ‘lows’, if you allow it, phenomenal growth happens during these periods. Life is not meant to be perfect.

Life is meant to be LIVED! Bask in the sacredness, mystery and beauty of life. Pay attention to your PAINS and MISTAKES, they exist and happen to teach you something very important to your purpose. If you are willing, patient and courageous to own them, embrace them and solve them, WISDOM shows up at the other end.”

2. “The beauty with love is that every time you open your heart to love, you also take the risk of getting your heart-broken, and you may experience agonizing hurt, disappointment and pain in the process. Love takes courage, that ability to share all that you are and also, the faith that you’re better off for having experienced it, regardless of the outcome. To live is to love, unconditionally. Love is freedom, it gives you fire to create, to share, to heal! May love always find you ready, open and willing!”

3. “It is amazing what incredible things begin to happen, as soon as you step out of the shadows into your light and actually SHOW UP and start living YOUR life and not someone else’s version of your life. Until we own our awesomeness and our crap, we run the danger of living a life of denial, anguish and pain. Suffering disintegrates in the face of acceptance and forgiveness. The moment we stop resisting and choose to start living, we unlock our hearts to the fullness of life all around us.

4. “Whatever you seek in your relationships, have clarity on what you want! Then, simply surround yourself with people who depict and live it. If you seek love, surround yourself with people who are IN love and LOVING to each other. Everything and everyone is energy! Their essence slowly rubs off on you. Monkey see, monkey do, so find the monkeys doing it the way(s) you aspire to and then learn from them!

Take the time to analyze all the relationships you’ve been surrounded by from childhood till now. Whether you believe it or not, they affected your perspective. You may need to UN-Learn certain traits, behaviours and characteristics. We’re like sponges, we soak up past experiences, consciously or unconsciously, and sometimes live it in our present lives, often, outside of our own awareness.

We are often predisposed to and soak up good or bad things in our culture, upbringing, education, religion, environment, career…Become more aware of the choices you make and the belief systems you hold. Ask yourself key questions. Develop a mindset that reflects who you are and what you value. Face and resolve your ‘stuff’ and your ‘crap’. Begin to replace undesirable behaviours and strategies with healthier ones. You can create the relationships of your dreams. Not perfect yet perfect for you! Take ACTION today!”

5. “Have the courage to succeed and also have the courage to fail. Have the courage to celebrate the highs and also embrace the lows. There’s duality in nature. Our lives follow  synchronistic patterns of mountains, plateaus and valleys. Your gratitude should flow and grow in ALL seasons.

EVERYTHING happens to move you in the direction of your purpose. Feel all your feelings. Accept the totality of who you are, ONLY then will your heart truly break open to ‘see’ others as a reflection of you and finally experience yourself as a true reflection of God!

Suffering ends when we stop fighting our reality and we begin to practice the beautiful principles of Surrendering, Allowing and Accepting that we are ENOUGH! We already have ENOUGH! And that we are WHOLE. The purpose of life, therefore, becomes the healing and transformational journey of ‘Returning to Wholeness’ and embracing who we always were and always will be: beloved children of a loving God, created to love and be loved, UNCONDITIONALLY!”

6. “A simple formula for getting what you want? Simply ASK! If that fails, try this instead: ASK AGAIN! (Not necessarily of the same person(s)). And do it with more preparation and reflection, a little better and wiser each time. Soon, that shut door will be opened.

Develop the skill-set of humble, purposeful, diligent and joyous ASKING irrespective of the outcome. Celebrate the truth that what you need will manifest exactly when it should and not a moment sooner or later. It is who we become in the process that is more important.”

7. “Little things can shift the trajectory of our lives. Do good! Look good! Feel good! Dare to ‘see’ yourself in a beautiful, brand new light. Enough of the ‘woe me’ stories, it is finally time to tell yourself and the world new ‘WOW me’ stories! You are the director of your life’s movie. If you don’t like what’s playing out in your reality, simply yell: “CUT!”

Then use the power of imagination, re-write the script and re-shoot. Every day is a new opportunity to play out the scenes you want. Give it your best shot today because you never know when the higher DIRECTOR will say “CUT” to your life! Everyday you wake up, is a day you may have died. Don’t waste your time. LIVE life to the fullest, all you really have is NOW!”

Join the conversation on Twitter: www.twitter.com/WWNetworkAfrica

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The preceding is a guest post from Juliet ‘Kego, MBA –Poetess, Strategic Interventionist, Wealth Management, Development  & Leadership-Consultant at Whole Woman Network. Juliet is the author of the upcoming book: ‘UN-Locking Your HeArt of Leadership.” Her mission is to raise a new generation of Transformational, Ethical & Creative African Leaders.

She is an avid Life Connoisseur and a passionate advocate of WomEntrepreneurship, Leadership & Human Potential Development, Investment & Financial Literacy for WoMen. Her mission is simply to engage, educate and empower WoMen & Youths, regardless of their levels of income or background, to return to ‘wholeness’ and live Healthier, Sexier, Wealthier, Daring & Meaningful Lives using Faith-based, Scientific and Universal (Common-Sense) principles! Follow her on Twitter: @julietkego

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