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A Taste of Enchantment - September 15, 2003

 

"Dedicated to helping you attain joy, happiness and well-being."

Produced by Dr. Barbara Becker Holstein, Psychologist, Steps-to-Happiness Coach,

and Originator of THE ENCHANTED SELF®

  

 

Welcome to the mid-month publication of The Enchanted Self's e-newsletter! This month, I would like to share an article about past experiences with you.  Enjoy!

 

Remembering Our Past as a Positive Gateway to Our Future
Dr. Barbara Becker Holstein

Do you realize that your past experiences hold the key to a better future! Each of us can learn to unlock the door to a better future by understanding
the promise that exists in our own unique memories.  Many times in life we struggle between hope and hopelessness. One place to find hope is in the
promise of your own past. No matter how difficult your childhood may have been or how busy or anxious you felt, the jewel of your own potential still
showed through at times. Maybe it was what kept you going. Perhaps you loved dance class as a little girl or singing songs with grandma, or cooking, or
growing vegetables, or taking care of a pet. Maybe you had a rock or coin collection that meant a lot to you. No matter how gummed up your earlier days were, you lived them and within them was the promise of your own potential. Sometimes your potential may have shown through just because of dysfunction or difficult times. For example, if your family was fighting you had to find a way to escape. You may have connected with yourself by climbing up into a tree house that you had built and decorated with your own hands. Problems at home may have pushed you to study harder, or to learn to do something better, so that you could spend more time with your studies or your hobbies, and less time thinking about your problems.

If you can get back to your own sense of promise--then hope can reemerge as you see ways of reinventing yourself. Of course, as we get older and evolve, some dreams are gone forever in terms of being practical. For example, we may not be able to be a commercial airline pilot if we never learned how to fly, or a conductor of an orchestra if we have not pursued music theory. Although we can't make all our own choices in life, we can make a lot of them. We often decide where we will live, whom we will marry, how we will live, how we will spend our leisure time, etc. Also, as we get older we have more options to work out, a compromise between our dreams and what might be a practical reality. We have more capacities to resolve a situation and creatively find a way to bring forth one's promise from childhood into a new form.

Is making a positive future easy? I wouldn't call it easy, but having a future with meaning, hope and joy is obtainable. That's the beauty of your own
promise. It's obtainable if you are willing to be practical and very specific. It is crucial to learn how to look back into your own past, to discover
unique enhanced states of well being. As you begin to recognize these positive states of well being, i.e., THE ENCHANTED SELF, you can become a better expert at understanding what made them heightened joyful times. It may not be enough to remember a wonderful day that you spent at the circus with your uncle. It's pleasant to recall but it may not teach you enough in order to help you find your own promise. You have to be more specific. Why did you like that day? Was it the weather conditions? Was it the way you felt that day? Was it being with this particular uncle? Was it something you saw at the circus that excited you? Was it something you purchased? Was it something you ate? Was it the way the air smelled? And so on. The more you can specifically isolate what made the memory enchanting, the more you can practice positive states of well being.

Please give us the pleasure of sharing your responses.  They may be posted on the web site or in future issues of the newsletter.  You can also chat about this topic or create your own in The Enchanted Self e-group at the following URL: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/encself

Announcement!

Please stop by my newly designed web site at www.enchantedself.com. I would love to get your feedback.  You can email me at encself@aol.com. Enjoy!

How to Order

 

How about some autographed copies of 'Recipes for Enchantment' with a free copy of The Enchanted Self's paper newsletter and a bookmark?  Perhaps you would be interested in my first book, 'The Enchanted Self', which is also available on audio tape?  Here’s how to order:

Tip: When shopping online use keywords "recipes for enchantment" and "enchanted self" to locate the books.

 

Forwarding & Reprinting

 

(C) 2000-2003 Copyright The Enchanted Self – All rights reserved.  Please feel free to pass this issue on to someone who might enjoy it.  The Enchanted Self Newsletter is copyrighted but may be quoted, reprinted, or distributed in whole or part without prior permission, provided the content is not changed and attribution is given including:

 

Dr. Barbara Becker Holstein

THE ENCHANTED SELF®

 

I also encourage you to include this material in other publications, such as self-healing and professional psychology newsletters. However, I do ask that you contact me beforehand for permission and send a sample issue.

 

 

Have an "enchanting" month.  I wish you all many enchanted moments!