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I don’t know about you, but for me, the technological age in which we’re living seems to have increased the speed of life. If we are properly programmed, there is not a minute of our life that we are out of communication. As a result, the world has put us on notice to be available On Demand.

The ridiculous thing is we respond as if it were true. Pagers, email, text messaging, Instant Messaging, cell phones, call waiting and call forwarding may have been intended for convenience, but we let them create a very false set of urgency in our lives. At one time, when the fax was a new invention, if you received a fax you acted upon it immediately. It didn’t really matter if the content was urgent, the delivery system made us think the message must be very important, IT WAS FAXED.

We can trace each new technological invention and see the false sense of urgency that each conveys in it’s own way. Don’t you just love the feature on your cell phone that lets your caller page you? As if you don’t have a busy enough life, thank you very much. Your callers, invited or not, can now demand your attention at whim.

The electronic static in our lives has short-circuited our true power. True power only comes from being silent. Connecting to God and the source of the Universe only happens by still waters. When was the last time you had quiet?

There are two words in language that summon power beyond our human comprehension: I am, Ik ben, Je suis, Ich bin, Είμαι, Sono, Eu sou, Soy. When we speak I Am we open a vortex, both on the earth and in the heavens. “I Am” places us at the helm of responsibility for our lives. I Am shuts the backdoors we usually leave, “just in case”, which always lead to failure. I Am creates our world, good or bad.

In a worldly way, I Am, creates our experience of life. Try some of these phrases on:

I Am Tired

I Am Angry

I Am Sick

I Am Poor

I Am Struggling

They don’t feel very good, do they? Well that is your clue that you are creating the very thing that you don’t want

Now, try these on:

I Am Committed

I Am Honored

I Am Beautiful

I Am Sexy

I Am Funny

I Am Smart

Isn’t it wonderful how you can just feel your power surging!

In a more esoteric way, I Am, speaks to our power to create and manifest from our words on the invisible plain. Jesus understood the power of I Am as he spoke:

“I Am the way, the truth and the life.” John. 14:6

Is there any doubt? Of course not, it is a declaration not open for debate for millions of Christians around the world. In other cultures and religions, the aah sound is the name of God.

In the Sanskrit language, Diva means “the light of the Divine”. If we carry within us the light of the Divine, and are the children of God, there is nothing for us to do to get good enough to create and live a life we love. We are “Good Enough” just the way we are. Accepting it makes all the difference.

Starting from this place, build on your power and set the wheels of the universe in motion for your good and the good of all. When you speak, I Am, you are making a statement of fact, defined as knowledge or information based on real occurrences: You are in the NOW, not the future. Most of all you are speaking the truths that live in our hearts and spirit. All there is to do is let your conscious minds hear it. That is why affirmations of I Am are the most powerful.

To support your journey into the I Am world, I have created a worksheet of 10 I Am statements for you. Just follow the link to www.distinctivelydiva.com/index2a.html and click on the I AM link. You’ll be able to print the list and decorate your life with the only power and urgency that counts–YOURS!

Maureen O’Crean is the Founder and Publisher of http://www.DistinctivelyDiva.com, an international online community of women, for women. Maureen is the co-author of I Am Diva, Every
Woman’s Guide to Outrageous Living (Warner Books) and speaks
on issues of self-acceptance and self-esteem for women. Maureen can be contacted at maureen@distinctivelydiva.com

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Are you looking into ways to help you to gain more confidence? Have you a lack of self-belief? Do you think that you are a weak person? Would you like to be more care-free person? If you have answered yes to any of these questions, this article may well be worth a read. I am going to write about how people can go about increasing their self-confidence. This advice is what I have used to help myself turn from an often depressive person to a now happy and relaxed young man.

My name is Steve Hill and I have to admit that for the first twenty-two years of my life, I did not exactly live life to the full or in the correct manner. I was basically like a scared rabbit, I worried about almost all aspects of life and was a very negative person. I needed to change this approach as I was not exactly a happy chap. Ten years ago I went about making this change by reading literature about self-confidence and by trying to learn how other people coped with their problems compared to me.

One of my many weaknesses was that I was very paranoid about what other people thought of me. I was desperate for people to like me and would easily get upset if people criticised me or made fun of me etc. In a way, I tried to hard to earn this type of respect and would do things and attend functions which I did not really want to, just to please other people of course.

I have now realised and accepted that it is important for me to be truthful to myself. I should be doing what I want to do and if people do not like me for whatever reason, then that is fine, I have enough people who do.

I have also decided to stop worrying about things like the future, money, relationships and work. Stressing about these and other things does not make life an easier, in fact it makes it a lot harder. There is no time in life for this type of fear, I should be spending this time trying to improve and enjoying my life. If something goes wrong which of course it will from time to time, I will deal with it when it happens, in a very positive and dynamic way.

As an example of my new found inner confidence was something that happened during a recent evening out I had with some friends of mine. We were all drinking quite a lot of beer and it was clear that most of my friends were intent on becoming very drunk. I like a drink but not half as much as what other people seem to. At around nine o’clock I had basically had enough of drinking alcohol and started to drink diet coke. My friends gave me some funny looks and made some comments, they were suggesting that I was not a true male. I did not care what they thought of me and told them so. If I want to drink diet coke then I will.

I am happy with my latest approach to life and am determined not to go back to the way I used to think and live. I do stress at times but quickly attempt to snap out of it by thinking in a more positive way.

Stephen Hill helps to promote a number of websites including:

lower mobile bills

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How would you like to have a closer relationship with your teen again?

Your ability to communicate effectively with your teen is one of the most precious skills you can develop to achieve this goal.

When we think of communication, we tend to think only of the way we can express ourselves. This is certainly important, but listening is the single most crucial of all communication skills.

As a mother of two teenage boys I know that
it isn’t always easy to communicate well with your teen.

It’s particularly frustrating when they aren’t talking to you. However, when I started applying these techniques to our lives, I found that we started getting along better almost immediately. There was less arguing between us, and our relationship became stronger.

1. Make Your Teen Your Focus

Give your teen your full attention. I know that this is a toughie, because we tend to be so busy. It seems like we are always multi-tasking. However, it is important in clear communicating that you make a point of stopping what you are doing and really listen to your teen (rather than just hearing them).

When you give your teen your undivided attention they will know that you care, because you took the time to listen, and it will increase the chances that they will listen to you.

2. Get the Details

Hear what your teen is really saying! Teens tend to give terse answers to questions, leaving out details that may be important. It’s
up to you to be able to get them to open up and draw them into a conversation.

Here is an example:

Teen: “I hate my teacher!”

Parent: “Oh, you don’t really mean that!”

Teen: “Yes, I do, I double hate him!”

Parent: “Well, I don’t want to hear that kind of talk. I am sure you don’t really hate him!”

Teen: “Yes, I do so, I hate all teachers!”

Parent: “Do you think hating your teachers is going to get you a good mark?”

And on and on the arguing goes….

Here’s an alternative:

Teen: “I hate my teacher!”

Parent: “Wow, you don’t normally hate anybody. What did he do to get you talking like that?”

Teen: “A couple of kids didn’t have their homework finished again today, so he decided to punish all of us by giving us a math test tomorrow!”

Parent: “That doesn’t sound very fair!”

Teen: “No, it isn’t fair at all. I wanted to go over to Rachel’s tonight to hang out and listen to music. Instead I have to study for that stupid test. I am so mad at my teacher! He ruins everything!”

Parent: just listening…….

This teen was able to express herself and felt validated by her parent.

You will notice that the parent didn’t argue about the feelings the teen had. You don’t have to agree with your teen’s feelings; just acknowledge them. There is no such thing as a wrong feeling. We can’t help what our teens may feel, however, we should set limits on behaviors that don’t satisfy what we consider appropriate behavior.

Expressing one’s feelings is a healthy thing; although negative expressions of one’s feelings should be avoided; like screaming or name calling. A good way to avoid this is using ‘time outs’ - wait and continue the conversation when everybody has calmed down.

3. Open-Ended Questions

Questions can be crucial to communicating with your teen. Ask them questions that they can’t just answer with a “yes” or a “no”.

For example in the above scenario the parent could ask the teen, “What could you do to help your teacher change his mind about the test?”
Teen: “I am not sure - this guy is so stubborn!”
Parent: “If you talked to him and came up with better ways for him to deal with the kids that aren’t doing their homework?”
Teen: “Mmhhh, maybe I could give it a try….?”

4. Criticize Behaviors, Not Your Teen

Now, let’s move from the listening to the talking part of communication.
When you want to see a change in your teen’s behavior, use the “when you…I feel…because…I need …” sentence. Using this wording (known as ” I ” message) doesn’t attack your teen’s personality; it merely talks about their action and that you’d like it changed and why.

Here is a scenario you might relate to: The chores haven’t been done and your teen went out instead. This example shows not the best way of communicating by attacking them as a person and making statements you may not stick to anyways.

Parent: “You didn’t do your chores! You are such a lazy slob! You never do your chores and I always have to do them for you. Next time you don’t do them I am going to ground you for a week!
Teen: feeling pretty lousy…

Now here is an example with using the: when you…I feel…because…I need - technique:

Parent: “When you didn’t do your chores before going out, I felt really mad. We had an agreement about chores being done before going out and I need you to do
your part of the chores or I am stuck doing them for you.”
Teen: thinking - “I guess that makes sense.”

Remember when you start a sentence with
“You are such and such”, you aren’t
communicating. You are criticizing!

5. Let the Consequence Fit the Action

A fairly big problem that parents run into is looking for suitable punishment for broken rules. However, the penalty applied usually isn’t related to the teen’s action. As parents, we need to show our teens that each choice they make has consequences.

Parents tend to punish their teens by taking away something the adolescent enjoys; for example, no TV for a week. Take the above example of the unwashed laundry. It would be more beneficial to the development of your teen if you base the penalty on a natural connection between his action and the punishment. A good way of showing the consequences to his action in this instance would be having your teen do your chores as well as his next time, since you had to do his this time. When following this step you are practicing “silent communication” with your teen. Letting your teen experience the natural consequence of his actions speaks louder than any words ever would!
It illustrates to them that they will be held accountable for what they do.

As they grow teens tend to get more privileges from parents. It is important for them to realize that with the extra freedom there is more responsibility that goes along with it.

6. Using Descriptive Praise

We all praise our teen sometimes. We tell them “You are a smart kid” or “You are a good piano player” etc. We mean well, but unfortunately this kind of praise doesn’t get the desired effect of making your teen feel good about himself. Why is that? It is because what we are doing is evaluating their actions. With this type of praise, we
aren’t giving evidence to support our claims, and this makes the praise fall flat, and seem empty and unconvincing.

We need to describe in detail what they are
doing and as your teen recognizes the truth in your words they can then evaluate his actions and credit themselves.

Here is an example (evaluating praise):

Teen: “Hey Ma, I got a 90 on my geometry test!”

Parent: “Fantastic! You are a genius!”

Teen: thinking - “I wish. I only got it ’cause Paul helped me study. He is the genius.”

Descriptive praise:

Teen: “Hey Ma, I got a 90 on my geometry test!”

Parent: “You must be so pleased. You did a lot of studying for that test!”

Teen: thinking - “I can really do geometry when I work at it!”

Describing your teen’s action rather then
evaluating them with an easy “good” or “great” or labeling like “slow learner” or “scatterbrain” isn’t easy to do at first, because we are all unaccustomed to doing it. However, once you get into the habit of looking carefully at your teen’s action and putting it into words what you see, you will do it more and more easily and with growing pleasure.

Adolescents need the kind of emotional
nourishment that will help them become
independent, creative thinkers and doers, so
they aren’t looking to others for approval all
the time. With this sort of praise, teens will trust themselves and they won’t need everybody else’s opinion to tell them how they are doing.

Another challenging problem is when and how we criticize our teens. Instead of pointing out what’s wrong with your teen’s actions, try describing what is right and then what still needs doing.

Example: Teen hasn’t done his laundry yet.

Parent: “How is the laundry coming?

Teen: “I am working on it.”

Parent: “I see that you picked up your clothes in your room and in the family room and put it in the hamper. You are half way there.”

This parent talks with encouragement, acknowledging what has been done so far rather then pointing out what hasn’t been done yet.

“Parents need to fill a child’s bucket of self-esteem so high that the rest of the world can’t poke enough holes in it to drain it dry.”

- Alvin Price

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For more helpful information and examples on good communication with your child I highly recommend the book by Adele Faber & Elaine Mazlish called: How to Talk so Kids Will Listen and Listen So They Will Talk,
Publisher: Harper, ISBN:0380811960.

Also, in the Fall 2005 a new teen version of the book is scheduled to be published -
“How to Talk so Teens Will Listen” -
ISBN: 0060741252.
Keep your eye out for it!

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Is your teen going through a difficult time?

Sign up yourself and tell your teen about the FREE Teenacity Guide 4 Teens: 6 Tips to increase your teen’s confidence and help her achieve her goals not matter what her life is like now!

Visit http://www.teenacity.com/parents.htm

TEENACITY - HELPING YOU HELP YOUR TEEN

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