I had not heard it…until I met Deborah Nelson, author of From Rainy Days to Sexy Nights Cookbook: Simple and Inspirational Recipes to Fit Your Mood.

Deborah is the spunky – fiery? – owner of SaucyWellness.com – with the tagline “healthy living one juicy bite at a time”. Her cookbook  is really about living a juicy life – savoring all aspects of your life – with a healthy eating twist.

Food affects everything – from self-esteem to happiness to your level of confidence.

Food creates the environment in your body – an environment of stress or an environment of peace. There are many other factors affecting stress, of course, but food is one that many of us turn to. Deborah’s goal is to help people turn to it in a way that serves their goals and soothes their souls, rather than a short term relief that creates longer-term challenges.

The recipes are divided into 4 categories: Rainy Days, Summer Sensations, Heal Me, and Sexy Nights. In the interview below she explains what these categories mean and how to use the food we select to alter our mood. She says that “food creates who you are – you choose your mood in the moment by choosing your food.”

Below is an interview I conducted with Deborah a couple of weeks ago. She has also generously agreed to provide a set of 5 recipes to members of PersonalGrowthPrincess, as well as a free complimentary consultation session. If you want some support on how your eating habits affect your mood, energy levels, weight and also your libido, I encourage you to take her up on it right away! Info is available on the Members page. (Please note, this is an additional fabulous bonus – on top of your regular monthly bonus tools.)

Here is one of my favorite recipes from From Rainy Days to Sexy Nights – in fact, almost everyone in my family has asked for a copy!
Black Bean Salad With Pineapple! (muy delicioso!)

One of the funny and paradoxical things about Deborah is that she says she isn’t really a cook. She’s obviously does cook, and she is a certified health and wellness coach, but her mission expands far beyond the kitchen. Her passion is really about helping people live truly SAUCY lives…whether it be your personal or professional life. When people are living a saucy life, they are more relaxed, more passionate, and have less stress – the biggest element of disease (and the biggest impediment to losing weight – a subject we talked about quite a bit).

You can order the book directly from her website – Saucy Wellness.com.

Be sure to leave a comment below and let me know what you think about the interview, the recipes, or the concept of a cookbook as a self-help book…

Related posts:

1. Self-Doubt – 2 Causes – 2 Solutions
2. Famous Failures…how do you deal with adversity?
3. Princess Expectations: How to Raise Your Expectations of Yourself

The frustrating paradox is that self-doubt actually creates unwavering certainty – certainty that you cannot do/say/be what you want, that you aren’t good enough, or that the risks far outweigh the possible gains.

This is because of the nasty self-perpetuating cycle self-doubt creates. You doubt yourself in a particular area so you hold yourself back from doing/saying/being something. This in turn gives you evidence that you don’t “have what it takes”, which usually gets translated to “See? I’m not good enough”.

When asked about what affects or feeds their self-doubt, readers generally pointed to two things. Given the commitment to personal growth and self-improvement members and readers at PersonalGrowthPrincess.com have I wasn’t surprised at the insight. But because this seems to be a fairly universal issue, I also was not surprised that there were very few suggestions for what to do about it.

The first element feeding self-doubt is not trusting your inner guidance, your intuition. Or perhaps it would be more accurate to say the problem is not knowing whether what you are experiencing is really inner guidance, or a fear or anxiety speaking.

We often “know” something but don’t trust that knowing. After all, how do you know when you know? This is usually a result of not practicing using this information, but can also come from trusting your intuition and ending up with negative consequences. That can magnify self-doubt.

The key distinction is that inner guidance always brings relief (sometimes coupled with excitement), almost always whispers, and never criticizes. If you hear a yelling voice in your head – and you aren’t in imminent physical danger – chances are it’s your fear talking, not your intuition.

Inner guidance can have a strong and assertive voice, but will not have an ounce of self-judgment in it.

The second element feeding self-doubt is that of being overly influenced by other people – letting their opinions – or what you imagine their opinions might be – outweigh your own perspective.

It’s important to note that there is a significant difference between seeking input from someone who has experience and skill in an area you are not familiar with, and altering your behavior or feelings about yourself based solely on what someone else thinks – or what you imagine they will think.

In fact, the imagination is often the crux of the matter. Research by Thomas Gilovich, Justin Kruger and Victoria Medevec (Journal of Personal and Social Psychology), found that most of us exaggerate the perception others will have about us – both positive and negative – or even what they will remember about us at all. We don’t just exaggerate it a little, we double it. In other words, people are half as likely to have a judgment about us as we think they are.

Talk about setting ourselves up for failure…

But wait, there’s even more…if we are contemplating someone’s opinion of us just after experiencing a failure or poor performance (in our own assessment), we exaggerate the perceived judgments even more. As if it weren’t bad enough that we are not pleased with our performance, add to the intensity of our self-doubt by imagining others’ judgments far, far beyond what is true.

Can you see how this distorted judgment can add to the slippery slope of self-doubt?

It may be hard to believe that other people actually think about us very little, but that’s the truth. So how do you change this?

Knowing you do this can provide some relief from self-doubt. People who are overly anxious about how they will come across will tend to hold back from taking action. This is generally followed by regret about not taking the action, and we’re back at the same self-perpetuating cycle. (Sound familiar?)

Just recognizing this is part of the path to greater self-confidence and self-esteem. Instead of over-exaggerating what you think people’s perceptions will be, intentionally reduce what you think they will think by at least half. Probably more. Don’t worry – you aren’t likely to underestimate.

So quit worrying about what others think about you – chances are they haven’t even noticed.
And start listening to the quieter, calmer voice when looking for inner guidance.

Put these two strategies into action and you will begin to see a shift in your self-doubt almost immediately.

If you have ideas or suggestions you can share with others, please share them in the comments section below!

Related posts:

1. Being a Personal Growth Master
2. Taking Action – Do Deadlines Really Work?
3. Famous Failures…how do you deal with adversity?
4. Is Dr. Phil a Personal Growth Princess?

HAVE YOU EVER NOTICED how some people discount compliments?

“My, that’s a lovely dress you’re wearing today.”

“What, this old thing? I’ve had it for ages. I really should give it to Goodwill.”

After that you want to say, “Gee, I’m sorry; I guess you’re right. It does look a little tacky, now that you mention it. In fact, I bet you could search the world over and all the stars of the universe, and never in a billion, trillion years find a dress quite that tacky.”

Once in a speech class I conducted, I told a student that he had a beautiful speaking voice. “It has great depth and resonance,” I announced.

The student grimaced and looked at the floor. “Huh? Oh, yeah, I’ve got a cold,” he grunted.

“Wait a minute,” I said, launching into my lecture mode, “listen to yourself. You just discounted a perfectly good compliment. You denied yourself the pleasure of a little recognition, and at the same time gave me a kick in the teeth. That’s not good for either of us.”

When someone does receive a compliment gracefully, it can be bewitching. That’s how I felt speaking to a clerk in a ski shop in Vail, Colorado. When it came to beautiful eyes, she was in the Guinness Book of Records. They were light green, the color of Listermint-you could swim in those eyes for weeks and come out a Jesuit monk.

“I hope I don’t embarrass you,” I said, “but you have the most beautiful eyes I’ve ever seen.” Then she really disarmed me. She looked straight at me, smiled sweetly, and said with all the poise of a confident, mature woman, “Why, thank you so much. How kind of you to notice.”

When she said that I got this dopey, lovesick look on my face. My lips parted in wonder-just enough to form a classy spit bubble. All my moral fiber wadded up into a useless hairball. In an instant I fantasized the perfect speech. “Oh, please let me take you home with me. My wife is an understanding woman. Or maybe I could just hide you in the garage; where does it say she has to know every little thing anyway?” (Of course, that would never work. My wife would find out and say, “You put that thing right back where you found it.” Oh-hum.)

People sometimes get the idea that receiving a compliment with confidence is egotistical. I have a three-word response for that: BUNK, BUNK, BUNK. Receiving a compliment with grace is simply saying that you value yourself as a person. To ignore, reject, or discount a credit is nothing short of self-abuse. It is saying, in essence, I am not worthy of your attention.

Accepting compliments is important for another reason. By extending your thanks, you are returning the tribute. You are, in a small way, praising your friend’s good judgment.

I believe that loving oneself is a prerequisite to loving others. Who would want to give a shabby, unwanted gift to another? Moreover, who would want to receive it?

The next time someone gives you a compliment, look them straight in the eyes, flash the old pearly whites, and offer a gracious thank you. You don’t believe in yourself enough to do that? Pretend. It will be good for you and good for your friend.

I’m curious…what do you think? How has accepting, or not accepting praise affected you? Let us know in the comments below.

*****

About the guest blogger:

Allen Johnson, Ph.D. is the author of This Side of Crazy: 54 Lessons from Someone Who Should Know Better but Keeps Messing Up Anyway.

© Copyright 2003 by Allen Johnson and Selfhelpbooks.com. All rights reserved.

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There is an important distinction that needs to be made in order to have a more helpful understanding of jealousy, one which can actually raise your self-esteem…

Jealousy is a mental uneasiness about something or someone, usually triggered by seeing or experiencing something you wish you had or wish you could do. It is an awareness of difference, and a wishing for something similar to be in your own life.

Jealousy has developed a negative connotation in part because of general cultural perspectives, but also because of the inappropriate behavior that sometimes follows. We tend to get emotion and behavior mixed up, but, jealousy, as a feeling, does not have to be negative. In fact, it can be quite positive and empowering if you look at it the right way.

Resentment, on the other hand, has a bite to it. It involves a sense of indignation, of having been wronged by the other person, and even the belief that when they have something you do not, whether it be a skill, a relationship, or a tangible item, that it has somehow made you “less than”.

Words, and therefore feelings, are defined by other words. How you define something gives it its meaning. The word “resentment” is often used to define jealousy, but that doesn’t have to be so.

If you were to choose to eliminate the word “resentment” from your definition, and experience, of jealousy, what might be different?

If you believe that you are “less than” someone who has what you do not yet have, or if you believe their having it reduces your chances of ever having it, then you are experiencing Resentment, not jealousy. Resentment has a definite self-esteem lowering quality. Not only do you feel bad about yourself because you don’t have what the other person does, you may even feel guilty for feeling resentment, setting off a downward spiral of lower self-esteem.

What if jealousy were just a signal to you about something more you want to be, do, or have? The actual person who triggered the jealous response is not as important as the desire it brings up in you. Jealousy can give you clarity about what you really want. It can help you define precisely what you want to create in your life or business. The more clear you are about what you want, the easier it is to take productive action – and one of the greatest self-esteem boosters is taking effective action.

If you believed this about jealousy, how much more gentle would you be with yourself? How much more understanding would you be of other people? How much more likely would you be to get into action because you have a “possibility” mentality versus a “lack” mentality? How much higher could you raise your self-esteem by defining jealousy in a positive way, rather than trying to eliminate it?

Leave a comment below – I’d love to know what you think!

Related posts:

1. Princess Expectations: How to Raise Your Expectations of Yourself
2. Big Bowl of Self Esteem
3. Self-Doubt – 2 Causes – 2 Solutions
4. Limiting Beliefs – how do you change them?

Some might think that a woman who is vibrant and full of herself (as a Princess is naturally) would not have any issues about self-expectations. They might actually think her expectations are too high. In my decades of leading personal growth seminars I have found that sometimes it is the person who appears the most “together” and “accomplished” who needs some help dealing with her expectations of herself. She may look and be successful, but have some gaps in her levels of fulfillment.

You may remember that I personally named 2010 as The Year of Fulfillment. I did this in order to put Fulfillment front and center as the most important thing for me to focus on. (I invite you to do the same.)

Why am I focusing so much on fulfillment?

There are many things in this life we have no control over. Fortunately, fulfillment IS something we have control over. Fulfillment is a feeling, not a deed or action. And the great news is that you get to define what fulfillment means to you – your personal “conditions of satisfaction” for fulfillment.

The trick is to learn how to lead yourself to greater heights and deeper fulfillment without pushing yourself over the edge. It can be a fine balance, but one a Personal Growth Princess is up for. And, yes, you can feel fulfilled even when you didn’t “achieve” what you set out to.

While having greater expectations opens you up and make you more vulnerable to failure, there are big rewards too. It’s worth it in the end because a negative experience is still an experience that you can learn from. A positive experience may provide you with one of those life-defining moments that make you happy to be alive.

Here are some excellent ways for any princess to raise her expectations of herself:

1. Do difficult things. Contrary to popular opinion, princesses do not take the easy way out. Pushing your limits can only be achieved by doing difficult things. You might not find success right away, but when you do, it can be the starting place for doing even bigger and better things in the future. Accomplishing difficult tasks, particularly meaningful, difficult tasks, can’t help but raise your self-esteem, and by association, your expectations of yourself.

2. Expand your comfort zone. We princesses are all about treating ourselves luxuriously. But that’s not what we’re talking about here. Staying comfortable is another way of continually playing it safe. When you expand your comfort zone, you open yourself up to new and exciting things. You’ll then come to expect more from yourself just because you’re comfortable with more.

3. Challenge yourself. Set yourself up with a specific challenge or make a dare with yourself. If you’re dared to do something, you pretty much have to do it!

4. Take a survival course. Taking a survival course can show you how to get back to the basics. These courses are not just about basic survival, they can also teach you about yourself. You can learn more about your abilities and strengths, and then continue to challenge yourself in the future.

5. Learn new things. This is a natural for all Personal Growth Princesses. By definition, we love to learn new things. That’s why we buy all those books, isn’t it? Using your self-help book summaries is an easy way of broadening your horizons, and with new knowledge and skills under your belt, you’ll be able to raise the expectations of what you can do.

Having higher expectations for yourself raise your self-esteem. What you think you can achieve is very important because it decides what you WILL achieve. When you raise the bar, you enable yourself to do more and be more than before.

Try these strategies to help you raise your expectations of yourself and enjoy the pride and fulfillment that come with doing great things!

I’d love to hear what you try and how it works for you. Just leave a comment below!

Related posts:

1. Can Jealousy Raise Your Self-Esteem?
2. Music, Expectations, and your Brain
3. Is Dr. Phil a Personal Growth Princess?
4. Are you a personal growth enthusiast, or merely a junkie?

If being half of a couple means you have to be less than all of who you are, the cost is too high.

– Dr. Phil

The mission of Personal Growth Princess, in basic terms, is to help women be completely full of themselves.

Princess Dr. Phil?

Not in a smart-alecky, “you’re too big for your britches” way, but in a “who else would your rather be full of?” sort of way. Women spend a lot of time squelching who they are – their greatness, as well as what they perceive to be weaknesses.

Showing up as less than who you are is always a disaster. And quite frankly, it’s dishonest and disrespectful – to yourself and to the other people in your life. That doesn’t mean you have to be perfect. Au contraire! Being FULL of you, all of who you are, means showing up, frizzy hair, warts and all.

I doubt Dr. Phil would ever think of himself as a princess – and would probably have a great folksy quip in response – but it’s obvious he is a prince after our own hearts.

What do you think?

Know of any other unlikely (unsuspecting?) Princesses out there?

Related posts:

1. Personal Growth on National Puppy Day!
2. It’s a Cowgirl Way of Life…using personal growth techniques that work
3. Personal Growth Princess featured on WordPress review site!
4. You don’t have to be a girly-girl to be a Princess

Adversity is a peculiar thing. For some people it is the call to action, the call to step up and do the unexpected. To others it is the slap that knocks us flat.

Which is it for you? Chances are it’s a little bit of both, depending on what else is happening for you. If your environment is an invalidating one, you’ll lean toward the being-knocked-flat side. If it’s validating and empowering, you may feel like you can leap tall buildings in a single bound.

What this video demonstrates is that it’s what inside YOU that matters. You get to choose what you pay attention to and what influences you.

I know you’ve heard that before, yes? Perhaps all you need is a compelling picture.

Related posts:

1. Validation – a basic human need few of us get enough of…
2. New Year Calls for New…What?
3. Finishing Strong – getting back up when it’s impossible
4. Can Jealousy Raise Your Self-Esteem?

You might feel invalidated in your relationship by a partner who doesn’t appreciate you…or by your boss who always points out what you do wrong, not what you do right…or by your kids who feel entitled and let you know on a regular basis that you aren’t delivering to them…

Wherever it comes from, it hurts.
On the flip side, Validation can be just as powerful, in positive ways.
Here is a great video about the power of validation, the struggles everyone has with being invalidated, and how you never know how or where you’ll be blessed as a result of validating others. It’s cute and fun, and packs a wallop of a message.

So where do you get your validation from?
And who have you validated recently? Hmmm….

Related posts:

1. Video Flip Cam Goes Princess-style!
2. Famous Failures…how do you deal with adversity?
3. Nina’s Inspirational Video
4. Princess Ring…a royal gift from Alicia Smith [video]

But if you are really like most people, then you also have a whole bag full of beliefs that get in the way and hold you back…otherwise known as “limiting beliefs”.

Most of us know what at least some of our limiting beliefs are, though there are always some we haven’t become aware of. Sometimes our best approach is to focus on the beliefs we know about. The trick is in how to change those limiting beliefs so that they not only don’t get in the way any longer, but also actually transform into beliefs that help us.

I had a personal encounter with this very issue today.

Like you, I’m a personal growth enthusiast, so I’m always seeking new experiences and greater self-understanding. To help with that, I’ve been working with a coach who is helping me look specifically at self-esteem – my self-esteem. I wish I could tell you it has all been fabulous and fast, but it seems that shifting some of those long-held and hidden beliefs can take more than a little bit of nudging and nurturing in order to shift.

My coach and I believe that language plays a significant role in how we make meaning and interpret events. So, at my coach’s suggestion, we were brainstorming phrases/affirmations/incantations I could use to help shift some of the low self-esteem beliefs.

What happened was very interesting, and a tad bit disturbing.

My coach suggested I use the phrase “I’m wonderful just the way I am.”  

Innocent enough. Maybe even inspiring.

It’s certainly a lovely thing to say to oneself, right?

However, what happened for me let me know it wasn’t the phrase for me. As soon as I said “I’m wonderful just the way I am”, another voice inside began pointing out the reasons why that wasn’t always the case.

The purpose of affirmation is to change our default way of thinking – a sort of re-wiring process. The idea is that through repetition, eventually you begin to wear a new groove in your brain, create a new pattern, so that it becomes automatic.

What people sometimes misunderstand, though, is that emotion plays a critical role. Anything you repeat over and over again, in an emotional state, digs a deeper groove. This is true whether it is a positive emotional state or a negative one.

When the other voice in my head started telling me that my affirmation wasn’t true, it was doing so from an emotional place. Like many people raised in the United States, I had stronger emotional connections to “not” being good enough, than to being wonderful.

In other words, this exercise in using language and though repetition in order to gradually open up a new perspective, was actually having the reverse effect. Each time I said the affirmation, I also ran through a litany of anti-affirmations.

This experience reminded me of one of my clients.

My client had a habit of saying “I don’t know” whenever I asked her something about herself. She realized she did this, and knew from her own study of personal growth, that the more she said it, the more it would always be true for her. Obviously we needed to come up with a sentence to replace the habitual “I don’t know.”   

Together we came up with the phrase “I’m figuring it out.”

At first we thought this was a strong replacement. It didn’t have the same doubt or negativity of “I don’t know”, and it left things open to possibility. It also gave her permission to “not know”.

But after a few trials of it, she realized that she was coming up with negative responses. She realized she just simply didn’t believe she was figuring it out.

So we needed to back up and design a phrase that was believable, but also made room for possibility, as well as making it OK if she didn’t know quite yet.

The phrase she landed on was “I might be figuring it out.”

The words “I might” were exactly what she needed to make it believable. After all, there was always the chance that she might be figuring it out.

After a week of “I might be figuring it out”, she was able to transition to a slightly more empowering statement – “I am figuring it out most of the time.” And eventually she believed that she was figuring it out.

By stair stepping her affirmations, making sure she could absolutely believe what she was saying, she was able to shift her thoughts, and ultimately her behavior and her results.

In case you’re wondering what new affirmation I came up with, here it is:

“It’s healthy to believe I’m wonderful just the way I am.”

Silly study in semantics? Perhaps.
Negative consequences? Not a one.

I can totally believe it, and I know that soon it will make way for the next stair step.

Related posts:

1. Limiting Beliefs – all self-imposed?
2. The Trophy Effect: You are not your mind – 55 minutes that will change your Life!
3. Jessica’s Affirmations – can you do this?
4. What is a self-rescuing princess anyway?