Would you travel to a foreign country without any preparation or without doing any research? Most probably your answer will be “of course not”. Yet, most people embarking on a spiritual journey or quest of some sort are poorly prepared for what awaits them.

Today I spoke to Mena Baines who has travelled many different paths herself and found that one of the most important things is to “find our confidence”. Once we found our confidence we can explore different concepts, join different groups or follow particular teachers in relative safety. Deep down we will know what is right or wrong for us, what suits us and what just doesn’t fit with our beliefs. Having confidence will enable us to question, research and work out what best suits us.

Mena raised the following points:

• Body, Mind and Spirit often are not treated wholistically
• The body is relegated to the “bottom rung” – yet profound learning or spiritual information is received through the body
• Confidence is very important when embarking on spiritual development – things can occur that might be frightening, might seem absurd, or simply are unbelievable – it takes strength and confidence not to let fear take over
• it takes confidence to embark on any journey – some people never do simply because it is too stressful – they stay in familiar terrain

Mena runs a number of workshops to help people develop confidence to they can embark on their journeys in a safe manner.

The are three core workshops:

1. Chakra Spinach – Body and Soul
2. Chakra Spinach – Start Where You Are
3. Chakra Spinach – Living in a Conscious Universe

Visit Mena’s website today.

Mena is also a psychic medium and a gifted Venusian astrologer. As a special offer for our listeners she will do an astrology reading for the special price of $50 (normally they are $80).

She is also prepared to do a psychic reading online for our listeners for $50 (instead of $80).

Both of the above offers are only valid during April 2010 and you need to mention the Stretch Your Mind and Body Blog Talk Radio Show when contacting Mena. Visit her website today.

Listen to this fascinating  interview by pressing the button on the player below:

The fear of public speaking – people’s biggest fear, often quoted as being more powerful than the fear of death – can be overcome. In today’s world a lot of careers include public speaking of some sort. There are lots of books and courses that teach how to present a “winning presentation” or deliver a “dynamic speech” and the majority of them focus on how to organise and deliver great content. Some might also teach you how to “dress for success”.

Saskia Shakin has been a coach for the past 30 years teaching people how to become an exciting keynote speaker. Her clients have worked in the White House; appeared before Congress; run global corporations; written Broadway plays;managed prestigious law firms; and held chairs at major universities.

She shared some great insights with us during our interview. Especially when you are an expert in your field and spend a lot of time within your area of expertise or your area of knowledge is very technical you need to consider the following points:

• start from square one (beware: what you consider square one might be square 5 for your audience)
• get crystal clear on what you want to get across to your audience – define your message and your mission
• separate any “fluff” from your “mission”
• treat your audience with respect and ensure that they feel smart
• when you try and show off your knowledge you may come across as arrogant
• make sure you have fun when delivering your talk – your audience will have fun too
• remember that your audience only retains about 7% of what you say but 93% of your non verbal messages
• your non verbal messages are extremely powerful and include things like body language, tone of your voice, attitude etc.
• you may not be aware or conscious of your non verbal messages
• your words and your body language have to “mesh”, in other words be congruent

All of the above points are crucial when you want to become a successful and sought after keynote speaker. You need to know your content really well so you can become relaxed with your audience. When you are relaxed you can relate to your audience and think about connecting and not lecturing.

Saskia shared a lot more insights with us, click on the player below to listen to the interview.

Saskia’s book “More Than Words Can Say: The Making of Inspired Speakers” is a collection of stories and wisdom taken from her vast experience as a coach to speakers in positions of leadership. It will not only help you to become a better speaker but also a better communicator in general.
You may want to look at her book today.

One final thought: Remember that everything that comes from you – you can control. We create our world by the way we speak and think. Anyone can become a great speaker – if you can speak to one person you can speak to 100. It is all about how you view yourself and the expectations you hold.

Read the rest of this entry »

Sound Therapy is a very powerful tool and healing modality for a huge variety of seemingly unrelated problems. The beauty of sound therapy is that it has been evolving and growing over the past 25 years or so. Therefore a large amount of testimonials and empirical evidence is available that show its effectiveness. A lot of the original work was done by Dr. Tomatis and you may have heard about the Tomatis Method.

Rafaele Joudry is one of the world’s experts on sound therapy. She has been involved with sound therapy and studied it over the past 20 years. You can find her at:

www.stretchyourmindandbody.com/blog/soundtherapy

It all started many years ago in Paris when she met one of the doctors who studied under Dr. Tomatis.

Rafael’s mother had problems hearing in a crowded room and was extremely sensitive to noise. When sound therapy was established in Canada her mother was one of the first clients and had great results.

Most of us are what is called “right ear dominant” because the sound travels faster along that pathway than from the left ear (the heart is “in the way” so to speak).

Left ear dominance leads to all sorts of auditory processing problems. This difficulty in processing or making sense of sounds and what is being said leads to things like stuttering, difficulty expressing thoughts or feelings, dyslexia and it also seems to play a role in Asperger’s syndrome and autism.

Due to some technical difficulties we only spent half our call with Rafaele. She has a lot more to share and we have invited her back.

The first half of the call is a discussion amongst Charly, Lenore from www.outrageouslyhealthy.com , Liz from www.thewaytoblissnow.com and myself about mindset, how to get it right, what works for managing our emotional state and how to stay in control even when things are not going so well.

The second half of the show is our interview with Rafaele Joudry. Click on the player below to listen.

You find Rafaele at:

www.stretchyourmindandbody.com/blog/soundtherapy

Make-up, perfume, lip stick, shampoo, bubble bath – we all have our favourites and most of these small items make us feel happy, give us a sense of indulgence and boost our self confidence as we step out into the world. They are also guilt free as we don’t put on weight using them unlike chocolate!

Unfortunately most of the commercially available cosmetic items contain “nasties”, a vast array of chemicals that should never touch our skin. Remember – whatever touches your skin will eventually end up in your blood stream and find its way into all the nooks and crannies of your body.

Robin Adler has made it her mission to educate whoever is willing to listen about the dangers of chemical ingredients in beauty products. Go to www.stretchyourmindandbody.com/blog/beautifynaturally to get Robin’s free ebook “Beautify Naturally: 10 Non-Toxic Ways to a More Beautiful You.

Toxic ingredients on cosmetics are nothing new. In ancient Egypt lead was used as an ingredient. It made the colours look more vibrant and had an added bonus – it protected the user from particular eye, nose and ear infections which were very common and problematic.

Nowadays the use of toxic chemicals usually is due to commercial reasons – they are cheap, easy to produce and give the product the desired quality. We are conditioned to expect particular qualities – like lots of foam when shampooing our hair, lots of lather from our soaps and detergents, lots of bubbles from our bubble baths.

Natural products do not necessarily act the same – they still do the job they are designed to do but they may not be as frothy or bubbly.

The list of toxic chemicals used in cosmetics is long – to find out more abolut the products you are using right now and better alternatives you might want to visit www.cosmeticsdatabase.com

Luckily for us, lots of organic and much healthier products are available nowadays. Robin has some great recommendations on her site www.toxicbeauty.com

To find out more and listen to our interview with Robin click on the player below:

The first thought that might come to your mind after reading the heading of this article might be something like: “Yes, I know- but how?”or “Why are thoughts so important?”

Kim Ades from www.frameofmindcoaching.com has worked with a large number of clients and came to the conclusion that your thoughts, thinking patterns and beliefs create both your successes and your failures.

As with a lot of things in our lives we are often “blind” to our own patterns, beliefs etc. Kim found a unique way of unearthing and bringing to light these patterns and beliefs. She uses journalling with all her clients.

I have to admit that I had a rather narrow view of journalling before talking to Kim. I thought it was all about describing what happened during your day.

How can journalling help you?

• thinking drives results
• behaviour patterns fllow from thought
• we have about 60,000 thoughts a day
• journalling shows up our beliefs
• journal becomes a mirror of our thoughts and beliefs
• journal tells us where to go next
• coach can look with you at the “mirror” side by side
• the journal is focussed – you write to answer a particular question you were asked or about a particular topic
• journal is like an x-ray – helps you and your coach to see faster and more accurate

To find out more about this fascinating topic listen to our interview with Kim here:

Interested in getting started with this type of  journalling go to: www.frameofmindcoaching.com

Have you ever really thought about how your mind works? How much power does your mind really have? 

“Your mind is merely a response mechanism” and “feelings run our lives” are only a couple of quotes from our fascinating session with Sherrie Hatfield.

This blogtalkradio interview is different from what we have ever done before. Charly was brave enough to volunteer and have a live Mace Energy session during the call. It will be well worth your time listening to this call if you are interested in clearing some of your mental and emotional “roadblocks”.

Sherrie also has made a very generous offer for our readers and listeners. She is offering a 15% discount if you book a session with her. Cick here to book your Mem Session 

As you will hear there is no personal disclosure necessary and will learn how to remove your negative identities. We all have created some of them, often long ago during childhood and over time they become very powerful and run your live. A session with a Mace practitioner will help you to shed or “dis-create” (as Sherrie calls it) your negative identities step by step.

Imagine that you are a computer. Your body is the keyboard, your mind is the monitor and your harddrive is your being.

Make a start and erase all those nasty viruses from your computer so you can function at your full potential.

We all know how important it is to take long, slow deep breaths. The  mental and physical benefits are great and yet most of us get so caught up in our everyday life, the stress and busy-ness of it all, that our breathing becomes shallow and much more rapid than is good for us.

Jim Efthimiou has invented a very handy little gadget called the “breatheaeror” that takes the guess work out of learning to breathe deeply, effectively and to our full capacity.

In case you are wondering: It is the little gadget around his neck, not the large Olympic torch he is holding! Have a look at www.breatheaeror.com

We interviewed Jim on our blogtalk radio show – listen to the whole show to find out more. Jim has also made a very special offer for our listeners, if you buy one of the Breatheaerors together with his book entitled the “Energy Airflow Training Manual” you will get a free training T-shirt. Mention the code: “symab” to make use of this very special offer.

Listen to the show to find out more:

When I first came across the word “techno stress” during our conversation with Doris Helge my mind conjured up images of tight bodies, sore necks and shoulders, overload from loud music and simply having too much stimulation and being inundated by technology. I also thought about the frustration that  a non-tech person experiences when things go wrong and the feeling of powerlessness that goes with that experience.

After our discussion with Doris I came to see ”Techno Stress”  in quite a different light. See for yourself whether you fit into some of the categories or you recognise some of the behaviours. Watch out for:

• being a personality type that is ambitious, high achieving, competitive and takes on lots of responsibility
• mental fatigue
• eyestrain, neck pain, shoulder pains, wrist problems, back problems
• always expecting “yes-no” responses from people
• becoming impatient when people elaborate or weigh up different points of view
• becoming intolerant to long winded information or stories
• expecting everything to be instant
• expecting others to perform on command (like a computer)
• forgetting that others can see things that we can’t see and that reality is not black and white
• expecting everyone to perform like a computer (usually without even realising it)

I am sure the list could go on. One of the big “aha” moments for me was that technology and computers affect not only our bodies but more importantly our behaviours and the way we interact with others. I suspect as time goes on and  more people spend more and more time behind computer screens some of these behaviours might become acceptable or “mainstream”.  I already now can see the beginning of  a chasm opening up between people who live in the cyberworld most of the time and those who don’t….

How to stay happy and joyful despite spending a lot of time in the cyberworld? How can you combat “Techno Stress”?

Consider the following points and take action!

• nurture your inner needs
• when irritated and abrupt create a buffer between computer time and  interacting with a human “Mirror” (remember – what we dislike in others is something we need to work on ourselves within our own personality)
• bond with others
• look after your “real life” friends
• spend quality time with others
• take real breaks from the “screen” – even it is only 30 seconds at a time
• limit the total time you spend with your computer
• stretch and yawn
• get out into nature

Make a start and implement at least one idea. Do you want to know more and get some of Doris’ free ebooks? Please go to:

free ebooks about happiness at work

 Doris also provides unique Mastermind Groups that empower her clients

To listen to the full interview during which we discuss many other things, click on the player below:

The first month of 2010 has nearly passed and I am guessing that by now some of your New Year’s resolutions are already starting to look shaky. We had a most interesting guest on our blog talk radio show this morning, her name is Doris Helge, nicknamed the “Joy Coach”. She gave some great insights about New Year’s resolutions. Here they are:

• the word “resolution” implies that there is a problem
• in an attempt to solve the problem we focus on the problem
• intention and focus are pure power
• what we focus on we perceive
• by focusing on the problem we magnify it
• we attract more of what we focus on – in this case the problem

The answer to this dilemma is NOT to just give up and setting no goals. Instead of looking for a “resolution” set a positive intention. Then start asking yourself a number of questions:

• How can I have fun accomplishing this goal?
• How can I enjoy getting to where I want to be?
• How can I enjoy doing what I do?
• Is this a stepping stone? (useful question when problems arise of obstacles start to appear)
• What is the smallest step I can take right now to improve my situation and lead me to my goal?
• What is the tiniest thing I can do to turn this around?
• Say to yourself: I am starting right now to….and take some action, however tiny it might be

The questions above might seem really simple, but they will lead to some great insights and solutions. The power is (as always) in applying this knowledge and taking action. It is fun to look at the theory but only by doing can we grow, learn and gain experience.

If you want more guidance from Doris, go and download her free ebooks from:

http://www.freejoyonthejobebooks.com

Doris’ own everlasting supply of joy springs from her own personal growth, so she’s a natural at assisting her clients as they transform emotional pain into peace and personal power. They discover happiness at work and relish the rich rewarding relationships they’ve been craving. They learn how to use chaos, uncertainty and “mistakes” to their advantage. Doris also provides unique Mastermind Groups that empower her clients

Listen to the full interview here:

There aren’t many Giveaway events that focus on Self Improvement products.  Whichi is why we wanted to share information on the Self Improvement site that will allow you to download 100’s of self help gifts. And the best part is that it is absolutely FREE!

If you’ve had enough of plodding along year after year and you want to improve yourself to make 2010 your BEST ever year, then you need to go to Self Improvement Gifts 4

Self Improvement 4 will be open only for a VERY LIMITED TIME from January 5th to January 19th 2010. When you go there you’ll find a multitude of products – all FREE – provided by Self Improvement and Internet Marketing experts from all over the world. Here is just a small sample of what you will find: Read the rest of this entry »