Articles by Holistic Perspectives

Self Sabotage & Weight

Siljoy Maurer — Tue, 11 Sep 2012 21:23:20 +0000

Once You decide to learn something new or to create a change, such as reducing your weight, pay attention to the words and statements You use. If we fill our thoughts with self-sabotaging words, we could face difficulties in achieving your goal.

For example, think of the statement “I am trying to lose weight.” It is a doubly self-sabotaging sentence. Our subconscious is trained to believe that “losing” is not good for us, such as losing keys or a wallet. We all learned that “losing something” means we need to find it again — welcome to the famous “yo-yo effect” in dieting by having to find the “lost weight” again!

Secondly, the word “trying” implies failure. By saying that You are trying, You are telling yourself that You will or can not do it. The word “trying” is applied appropriately only to true past failure “I tried and failed” and to trying on clothes in a store. I’d like to suggest a different statement: “I am on the path of dropping or reducing weight.” Or even better, healthier: “I am gaining muscle weight and shedding excess body fat.”

With love ~ Siljoy

© Copyright 2012
Siljoy Maurer, MS, MSW, CHT, CMT is a Mentor & Healer with over 30 years professional and international experience. Her passion, gift and skill is to help people move beyond just “being ok” and into thriving, in whichever area of their lives they feel dissatisfied or are aware of un-lived, un-filled Potential. Check out her websites: www.HolisticPerspectives.com and www.InvoluntaryChildless.com
Siljoy was trained in holistic concepts decades ago in Europe and developed the “Holistic Mobile™” as the foundation of her holistic approach. She works worldwide by phone & skype and is also one of few experts in the world in enhancing and complementing fertility treatments and/or mentoring her clients into being at peace with their childlessness.

WORRYING DRAINS YOUR STRENGTH – TRUSTING BUILDS IT!

Siljoy Maurer — Thu, 28 Jun 2012 00:14:07 +0000

I have written about this topic before – and I keep encountering people who worry a lot or even all the time. It is so important to unlearn to worry and to get really good at replacing it with thinking about what we want to have happen – it is like a muscle that needs to be exercised!

When we worry, we focus negative energy on ourselves or whomever or whatever we might be worrying about. In the first place that makes us feel miserable and secondly, it actually supports in a negative way to have “the bad thing happen”. How? Think about a moment in which You thought about your best friend and a second later, that friend called You. Or You drive with your partner in the car and it is quiet and suddenly your partner starts talking about exactly what You had been thinking about. These examples explain how we are all energetically connected. So when we think with worry about someone, that is the energy we are sending toward him/her!

If You are already concerned about a loved one, why would You want to “beam worry” over to him or her? That makes You feel worse, because You think about something negative that You fear will happen and – it does not help the other person! And it is a powerful habit that is not so easy to change. And yet You can! Whenever we want to make a change in our lives, we need to actively replace the old pattern with a new one (I will explain that more in another blog).

So what can You do instead of worrying? Worrying drains your strength, trusting builds it! And trusting is an activity…we need to practice it, moment by moment, just like You exercising your muscles! Trust is something we need to continuously reach for and that is not a bad thing.

Wanting to trust, struggling to trust (which means it is TRUST, You are focusing on, not worry!), all that sends your Self or your Beloved a very different energy… the energy of trusting that all will be alright, all-right, even if You really cannot see any hope yet.

Trusting is only meaningful in the face of the unknown!

With love ~ Siljoy

A Mentor’s take on “Giving up versus knowing when to stop”

Siljoy Maurer — Fri, 08 Jun 2012 19:49:08 +0000

Being on the journey of fertility treatments often means encountering those torturous times when You might be very confused about what to do and how long to continue treatment … feelings of wanting to give up, maybe even paired with guilt for thinking that … the emotional roller coaster of hope and despair … ignorant comments of “the people who have children”… the medical voices at the doctor’s office and then the wishes of your partner… so what to do?

Most importantly, just as a reminder, there is no “right or wrong”. There is only what is true for You and your partner – You two get to decide, no one else!

“Giving up” is never a good place from which to stop. We usually relate it to being a victim – and even though You might have often or mostly felt like a victim of this unfair experience called “Infertility”, we have a much better chance to find peace inside when we feel empowered. So You need to make a decision, a conscious choice – either to continue fertility treatments, to pause them for a while, or to stop treatments and let your life take its course while giving your Self permission to grieve. Yes, even when You make the decision to stop, You have the right to grieve that You were not able to have a child!

In those wanting to give up moments – sense into whether You would possibly regret later that You did not continue. If there is a chance for later regret, it is not the right time to stop. And it is perfectly ok, to want to give up and honor that feeling – until it passes. And it will pass, unless You have a true knowing inside that it is time now to focus on accepting being without child and to grieve being either a childless woman or – like I consider myself now – an un-childed mother.

Well You could say: how do I get that true knowing? For some it feels like Divine guidance, for others it is a voice in their heart, gut or head. Some get help from a Mentor/expert in ‘Involuntary Childlessness’ (www.InvoluntaryChildless.com) like me or they see a counselor. For all, it helps to sense into “whether it strengthens or weakens You to continue treatments”. You might feel weakened financially, but overall strengthened in your big commitment to do all You can to have a child. For some it becomes clear that physically and emotionally the fertility treatments have become an unbearable drain on your health or your partnership.

It is often impossible to figure out whether something is “right or wrong, good or bad”. When You look at it from a very different, holistic perspective, and assess your situation in regards to how You are strengthened or weakened on each level (physical, emotional, spiritual, relational, financial, professional, social) and then in the “big picture”-perspective for your life, it often becomes clear. If You need help figuring it out – it is a sign of strength, not weakness to go get your guidance!

With love ~ Siljoy

Energy plus Thought becomes Feeling

Siljoy Maurer — Mon, 12 Dec 2011 13:58:55 +0000

Consider this:

We actually do have power over what we are feeling! Think of your energy as a neutral force – it is us who add the thought that will then translate into a feeling.

So when we think concerns, our energy might turn into fear or anxiety. When we anticipate something good to happen, our resulting feeling will be excitement.

Wanting to overcome fear or anxiety, You need to shift your thinking from worry-thoughts to the assumption that something INTERESTING will happen – and You will end up with the powerful feeling of curiosity!

With love ~ Siljoy

Siljoy Maurer, MS, MSW, CHT, CMT is a Mentor & Healer with over 30 years professional and international experience. Her passion, gift and skill is to help people move beyond just “being ok” and into thriving, in whichever area of their lives they feel dissatisfied or are aware of un-lived, un-filled Potential. Check out her websites: www.HolisticPerspectives.com and www.InvoluntaryChildless.com

Siljoy was trained in holistic concepts decades ago in Europe and developed the “Holistic Mobile™” as the foundation of her holistic approach. She works worldwide by phone and is also one of few experts in the world in enhancing and complementing fertility treatments and/or mentoring her clients into being at peace with their childlessness.

From Conundrum to Clarity

Siljoy Maurer — Fri, 23 Sep 2011 16:53:46 +0000

Allow for the right time… create space for clarity to emerge… consider resistance or confusion to be information about something relevant to your issue… trust the process… know that all will be clear when the time is right for it… be curious and actually enjoy not-yet-knowing… breathe and feel your feet…
With love ~ Siljoy

5 Tools for your Path into Thriving

Siljoy Maurer — Mon, 27 Jun 2011 19:07:51 +0000

1. Don’t believe all You think.

What if You believe something that is not true anymore, that You have outlived?

2. Choose to think only what makes You feel better.

Why would You want to think something that makes You feel worse?

3. Risk giving yourself three appreciations every day.

What better thing to do while brushing your teeth or waiting at a red light?

4. As often as You will remember, be grateful to your feet for carrying You.

It is okay, to also thank your eyes, hands, heart, colon, etc…

5. Live every moment, as if this is your last day in this body.

When if not now, do You want to live yourself authentically?!

Beyond Success and Failure

Siljoy Maurer — Sat, 01 Jan 2011 19:26:51 +0000

In thinking about your New Year’s Resolution, I invite You to step out of the familiar goal setting and give something entirely different to your Self. Rather than going after something outside of now & You, strengthen what is …
Choose, as often as You can remember, to give your Self some appreciation. Appreciate anything which is true about You.

Your honesty about feeling vulnerable;
the good friend/spouse/parent/child/professional You are;
your efforts to do something for You or others;
your struggle when You haven’t been perfect;
….

Appreciate your Self for remembering — when You forgot to acknowledge your (lovable) humanness.

Risk loving your Self more … just as You can. Appreciate your slightest effort to contradict those sabotaging inner voices. There is no one better suited to support You in achieving your goals than You are!

Feel the gentle yet powerful effects of your own appreciation. Go beyond the imprisoning of success-failure-thinking in your life and start strengthening your Self by loving You, just as You are …

Siljoy Maurer, MS, MSW, CHT, CMT is a Holistic Life Mentor & Healer with over 30 years professional and international experience. Her passion, gift and skill is to help people move beyond just “being ok” and into thriving, in whichever area of their lives they feel dissatisfied or are aware of un-lived, un-filled Potential.

Check out her websites:www.HolisticPerspectives.com and www.InvoluntaryChildless.com

Siljoy was trained in holistic concepts more than 30 years ago in Europe and developed the “Holistic Mobile™” as the foundation of her holistic approach. She works worldwide by phone and locally in Tucson, AZ and is also one of few experts in the world in enhancing and complementing fertility treatments and/or mentoring her clients into being at peace with their childlessness.

A Recipe for Wellbeing

Siljoy Maurer — Mon, 27 Dec 2010 19:45:53 +0000

Ingredients: Thoughts, Attention, Appreciation, Compassion

Tools: Mind, Body, Heart, Spirit, Soul

Preparation Time: Lifetime

Cooking Time: Present Moment

Result: A Whole, Healthy, Authentic “You”

Process:
(1) Consider that ingredient determining all human experience — thinking. Our thoughts create our attitudes, birth our will, lead us through any endeavor. We can choose to use our thinking to sabotage or to wisely support ourselves.
** Experiment, replacing “X happened to me” with “I chose to experience X”…

(2) Next, allow attention — courageously looking into the mirror of reality; evaluating needs; seeing our potential rather than beating ourselves up for not being perfect.
** Assume your situation holds something positive. Choose to discover it — let yourself be rewarded by your curiosity…

(3) Well-being requires a lifetime commitment. Our struggles prove us to be normal, fallible, lovable human beings. Appreciation can help us discriminate what serves us best.
** Appreciate yourself daily for one week, for anything, for trying, even for noticing that You did not appreciate You. Thus strengthen yourself…

(4) Our hearts need to guide us toward greater wholeness. Adding compassion — as much as we can muster right now — we will feel more alive. We can reach into the depth of our humanity, that heartfelt place where we are of both earth and sky.
** Think of the former child in You, sensing your compassion with her/him. Feel that compassion for yourself…

(5) For easier thriving, add your own choice of spiritual guidance. My experience as a Holistic Life Mentor and Healer has shown me that when someone stays stuck, unable to resolve an issue, it is often because the spiritual, or its absence, has not been addressed.
** Your longing for wholeness is your connection to the spiritual…

(6) We have as many opportunities to care for ourselves as there are moments— present moments — thinking, noticing, feeling compassion, experiencing guidance, with/in our body, rising to as much humanity and awareness as we can tolerate.
** Knowing your true needs in any moment, gives You the freedom to choose your actions. Graced with the compassion of living authentically — You can celebrate growing whole and well…

Siljoy Maurer, MS, MSW, CHT, CMT is a Holistic Life Mentor and Healer with over 30 years professional and international experience. Her passion, gift and skill is to help people move beyond just “being ok” and into thriving, in whichever area of their lives they feel dissatisfied or are aware of un-lived, un-filled Potential. Check out her websites: www.HolisticPerspectives.com and www.InvoluntaryChildless.com

Living with a curious attitude

Siljoy Maurer — Sat, 09 Oct 2010 21:02:26 +0000

Here is an observation from my current travel experience in Europe: it is amazing to watch German evening news and notice how my blood pressure is the same after as it was before. So what is the difference, as the world events are the same? The way the news are approached and presented, with calm and as a reporting of facts, without much emotions, hype and hardly any judgment. Isn’t it interesting how a similar approach to our own life, looking at it with a curious attitude and an open mind, provides us with a life experience of “taking what comes with confidence”… …when we take the drama out, we are left with essence and truth and it is quiet enough to hear our inner voices guiding us. So we can let ourselves be led by truth instead of fear.

With love ~ Siljoy

Siljoy Maurer, MS, MSW, CHT, CMT is a Holistic Life Mentor with over 30 years professional and international experience. Her passion, gift and skill is to help people move beyond just “being ok” and into thriving, in whichever area of their lives they feel dissatisfied or are aware of un-lived, un-filled Potential. Check out her websites:www.HolisticPerspectives.com and www.InvoluntaryChildless.com
Siljoy was trained in holistic concepts more than 30 years ago in Europe and developed the “Holistic Mobile™” as the foundation of her holistic approach. She works worldwide by phone and locally in Tucson, AZ and is also one of few experts in the world in enhancing and complementing fertility treatments and/or mentoring her clients into being at peace with their childlessness.

Don’t Believe Everything You Think

Siljoy Maurer — Sun, 22 Aug 2010 23:17:01 +0000

Imagine a dark room with a candle burning in it – where will your eyes go? To the candle, yes, just as your soul is drawn to the light. If You had the choice of having the candle in this dark space or not, wouldn’t we all choose to have that little light?

In those moments, when our lives seem very dark, having a beacon of light makes a difference, doesn’t it? The beauty of life is that we can actually have some control over that. The famous psychologist Victor Frankl was one of the first to teach: that in our minds we can be free! He helped many people survive the concentration camps in Europe, mentoring them into controlling their thoughts instead of collapsing into victim-hood in the face of the overwhelming onslaught of brutality that people faced.

So how can this apply to You and your life? Even in our darkest moments we still have a choice, the choice what we want to think. Most people experience themselves as “thinkers on auto pilot” and it has not occurred to them that they can actually choose which thoughts they give energy to. Just as in meditation, we can observe our thoughts and let those that do not serve us, float out of our brain like clouds moving along the sky.

How do we know whether a thought serves us? We might be so used to thinking how useless we are, how we don’t deserve, how unfair life is, etc that it can seem impossible to come up with alternatives.
In my many years of mentoring clients/mentees as a Holistic Life Mentor, I have found the following most useful:

“Don’t believe everything You think”, is one of my favorite quotes. May I suggest an experiment, just for one day? Don’t believe everything You think! And whatever thoughts You find floating in your head, maybe even harassing You in their effect, I want You to question them and their validity! How about You use the following question for that: does it strengthen me or weaken me to think this thought? Leave the judgments of “good or bad” and “right or wrong” behind You, as they make everything very complicated. Those words are overwrought with complex memories and the moral implications of our upbringing and what parents, schools and society taught us. That is very difficult to sort through and rarely do You come out at the other end with YOUR truth!
When You simply — and I mean simply — ask yourself in regards to whether it strengthens or weakens You, You will find that the answer comes very quickly. And should your thought strengthen You, then You will feel even stronger and assured to be on an authentic track. Should your inner response be that You have been weakening and self-sabotaging your Self, then You will naturally be inspired to re-think and find a better option. By utilizing this tool, You add a powerful life skill to your daily life. It has the power to change your life experience. I invite You to experiment with it and please let me know how it is working for You in creating the life You want.

Don’t believe me – prove me “right or wrong”!

Siljoy Maurer, MS, MSW, CHT, CMT is a Holistic Life Mentor with over 30 years professional and international experience. Her passion, gift and skill is to help people move beyond just “being ok” and into thriving, in whichever area of their lives they feel dissatisfied or are aware of un-lived, un-filled Potential. Check out her websites: www.HolisticPerspectives.com and www.InvoluntaryChildless.com
Siljoy was trained in holistic concepts more than 30 years ago in Europe and developed the “Holistic Mobile™” as the foundation of her holistic approach. She works worldwide by phone and locally in Tucson, AZ and is also one of few experts in the world in enhancing and complementing fertility treatments and/or mentoring her clients into being at peace with their childlessness.