I am happy to introduce a new guest author today who has been in the field of personal development for many years.  I was asked for several writers to describe what impact personal development has had on their lives and Anita provides us with her account of it in her life below.  Please we’d love to see any comments and discussion on the topic and feel free to connect with her using her contact info at the end of the article.

I have engaged with personal development for over 20 years now.  On the one hand it saved my life. At the other end of that spectrum it has been the making of me, in terms of living with purpose and joy. The two areas of major impact were:

• enabling me to survive tragedy
• then to rediscover  that place beyond survival called living

This process was certainly not an overnight one, but I often think we find the true power of personal development when our back is against the wall, and we open our hearts.

Beginning in Personal Development

Personal development saved my life because at the time of first embracing it in my life, I was actually lucky to be alive, but having survived major family tragedy, I was not thankful to be alive initially.

It is something of a paradox that one can be alive yet dead on the inside, or die being alive on the inside.  Had I physically died at the time I would have died being dead on the inside. However my challenge in surviving tragedy was to move beyond and resurrect the life within me from that lifeless state.  Up till that point I had trained in psychiatry, yet my knowledge of psychiatry alone was insufficient for the journey I needed to complete.  Psychiatry was very much about helping people become functional and compus mentus, able to cope and manage situations.  That type of survival mode was not enough for me.  I write more about this in my book ‘Breaking Free From The Prison Of Survival – how I went from survival to living following major personal tragedy’

The difference that personal development made initially was to help me become more aware of my true nature, and that seed had been sown during my years as a psychiatric nurse. As I awoke to that I became more aware of my potential to change my life, something I had previously felt powerless or constrained to do.  The more I read about this aspect and listened to those who had  done likewise the more I started to feel inspired that these same processes could help me.  The next thing I started to grasp was about how my past conditioning had led me to feel so dis empowered and robbed of joy.

The Domino Effect

So my learning then involved reconditioning myself in the areas that felt greatly affected.  What I noticed then was that the questions I started to ask myself led to self awareness, as I observed my responses without judgement, and new solutions started to present themselves.  The increased self awareness led to a domino type effect. Insights led to seeing new possibilities. New possibilities bred new choices. New choices led to a feeling of empowerment with a new hope and confidence to change things.  This enabled me to identify the areas I wished to experience growth and change in, and then to draw up a plan of personal development that addressed each of those areas.

It was very much a case of practicing till new habits formed in my mind, emotions, body and spirit. This process of self awareness, new choices and skills acquisition was what enabled me to go from not being happy to have survived  major trauma, to surviving well.  However the journey felt far from complete at that point as being one of life’s survivors no longer felt such a noble destination point.

The key growth area for me now was learning to develop a deeply loving relationship with myself.

So many people have their identity invested solely in external things which can make for an inconsistent sense of joy and self-esteem. I replaced that with loving myself without condition and experiencing the joy that comes from genuine gratitude for all that I uniquely am and have. I added coaching and mentor-ship into the mix, as I had learnt about the power of these processes, and needed to form new habits.

Things  started to crystallize the more I grew as a person.  In truth whilst I had survived near death, it took me a while to move from managing my life to embracing my creative power.  The realization that I could start to design my life from here on in, rather than create by default, was one that filled me with a new lease of life, yet took constant exposure to start to grasp

Brain Tools

Two particular tools that helped me were applied kinesiology and brain wave entrainment. Kinesiology has several applications.  In principle Kinesiology works with the human energy field beyond the mere conscious level through muscle testing, to check alignment across a number of issues.

Through this process I was able to gain more accurate insights where my conscious and subconscious were giving conflicting information.  I was able to progress more rapidly with this tool in my hand and I had one of the country’s best practitioners, which was equally important.  I incorporate this in my coaching business now.  I thoroughly recommend kinesiology to assist you along your path too.

Brain wave entrainment provided a more passive form of meditation where my concentration was deficient, and enabled me to access deeper levels of relaxation and capacity to process change.

Finally intuition has played an enormous part in the doors that have opened up to express the value I bring to the world. I used to be very left brain dominant, yet as I developed intuition, the insights gained caused opportunities to present quickly.

Conclusions

Now as I look to publish my book which has already received top industry endorsement, I am left in awe and amazement at the processes described above that took me from mere survival to living, with a sense of purpose and vision I know I can realize.

I leave you with some tips to turn your life round or take it to a new level:

1.  Ask evaluative questions of your life and answer them honestly
2. Use kinesiology to check out your alignment
3. Learn to ask empowering questions of your life.  They will give shape to your life
4. Develop a deeply loving relationship with yourself as you would a best friend.  This will result in great joy and provide a powerful platform from which to create with intent.
5. Identify the areas of growth needed and identify those who have sufficiently mastered those areas that you can learn from
6. Cultivate your intuition.  It will be priceless
7. Constantly expose yourself to these processes till the areas you wish to see growth become second nature

Anita Narayan is a highly endorsed author, speaker and coach with specialities in reducing cardiovascular aging , accelerated learning and sports performance.  She is soon to release her book ‘Breaking Free From the Prison Of Survival – how I went from survival to living following major personal tragedy’ which has received top industry acclaim. You can find out more at www.mypersonalbestcoaching.com

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