#through self doubt and anxiety and shame and fear of mediocrity

[bepoprotectionsquad]

Getting real tired of people I know in real life trying to spin the AI art theft shit as not only *not a bad thing*, but somehow A GOOD THING

[itsleafourie]

my vulnerabilities

Your words have an impact.

Lately, I’ve noticed how people start treating you differently when you’re succeeding in life. It is as if your success indicates the absence of their own. The amount of times I’ve stood in front of a mirror, comparing myself to your opinions of a body’s worth, is uncountable. The amount of times I decided what I should wear and what I should buy, according to what you classify as ‘stylish’, is over. Times where I would have rather bit my tongue than disagree with your harsh way of being cold and hard towards the world – which ate away at my inner moral values – made me realize that being negative is no way how I want to spend my energy. I am a very emotional person, and because of this, I experience other people’s emotions very vividly. I get way too attached and invested in feelings, relationships, hobbies and goals. You used this, to your advantage, and attacked my insecurities. Insecurities such as my shyness, weight, personality and hobbies – things that you disvalued in hopes of bringing my spirits and progress down. What did happen though? I learned to fight against your current of hate and came out stronger than ever.

It is funny how society works – in the beginning, my self-consciousness about my weight originated out of a fearful place of being too large. Back then, I noticed how some people viewed me because of my athletic and sport abilities. And, for that short period in time, I am forever grateful. It learned me valuable lessons on how to treat others, on how to appreciate the progress and the feeling of being strong and fit. It learned me that happiness is more than an outer appearance, and no matter how much you diet or exercise, you need to take the mental step to fix your inner voice, in order to really achieve pure health and balance. Later in my journey, after hearing my closest family members and friends tell me that I am too skinny, a new fear of being too small was born. And just like that, because of my fear of what other people might think of me, I was back in middle school with same mental perspective. I started to second guess people’s love and affection for me. I started to doubt others’ kindness and their smiles. In a way, I thought everything was just some kind of sick trick. I grew paranoid and anxious, not going to lie.

Growing through these time periods of paranoia and anxiety – from grade 6 and 7 to grade 10 – I realized that no matter what you weigh, if you’re going to be depended on stranger’s opinions of your ‘worth’, you’ll never find happiness and peace. People still body-shame me, maybe more than ever. Maybe it is because of my success or journey around losing weight, but I sometimes I hear I’m “too skinny”.  

Well, fuck that bullshit.

I enjoy how I work out; I don’t need to explain myself to anyone. On mother’s day, believe it or not, I ate almost a quarter of cheesecake. I enjoy being able to laugh loudly and carefree. I find it amusing and amazing when I slip up and say something idiotic – the growth from being self-conscious around fucking up when I was younger, until now, where I can comfortably say stupid shit, amazes me. I enjoy dancing and singing and acting, not because I am incredibly talented at these arts, but because it makes me feel alive. It makes me feel human. Those little awkward giggles and moments in my day-to-day is what makes me unique. From being shy in the gym to walking around as if it’s just another room at my house makes me feel powerful as fuck. Each day I wake up with the mental goal to define other’s negative connotations with my name, by proving that I am better and worth more than their simple gossip stories.

You see, haters are going to hate. There will always be someone who will say that you’re too healthy or too fat or too outspoken. The key in life, is to life it to the fullest. Love yourself, to the fullest. Work for your goals, to the fullest. Participate in social events, to the fullest. Make a fucking idiot of yourself, to the fullest. Whatever you do in life, do it vibrantly. There is no time and space for dull mediocre individuals who are only concern with the physical appearance of themselves and others. Be magical, be the most authentic person in the room. Love yourself as you would love a friend of lover.

And if you’re one of these individuals who spread hate around like it’s confetti, I hope and wish that you will somehow get out of any dark hole you might find yourself in right now. You’re stronger than your demons.

[dvbermingham]

Chapter 11: Senju pt. 2 (Interlude)

Early that afternoon, before he called in the hit, Senju called his reader and asked her to give him the name and number of the masseuse she recommended. She arrived within thirty minutes, a middle aged woman, barely five feet tall with big bear hands. She came to his office in the basement of his restaurant, set up her table, and within minutes her hands worked over his aching muscles. There was instant relief — he desperately needed to feel the hands of an anonymous person on his body, to be touched, to be sure he was still present and not some apparition that only people like Alonso could see and speak with.

To ease his mind he focused on her hands, how they felt on his bare skin, how they kneaded his flesh. He recalled the days when he worked with his hands, which was how he got his name. It happened when he was just a young man, a boy really, during a long apprenticeship at a popular ton-katsu restaurant where he gained the reputation of someone who could quickly master any kitchen task, and complete a multitude of them concurrently. His boss was reminded of an older worker at the factory in which he worked as a child who was called Senju — a thousand hands — and he thought it would be good name to pass down to a deserving boy. Though he never introduced himself as such, though he never wanted it or even liked it, the name Senju stuck. Soon everyone at the ton-katsu restaurant was calling him Senju. Even visiting cooks and chefs from other restaurants had heard of him, had developed an image of him in their minds based on his name and reputation alone. Customers too pointed and identified him from their stools at the counter. He eventually had to admit, reluctantly, that the name had taken over, that his identity was now something beyond his control. He stopped introducing himself by his birth-name that same year.

In the eyes of a customer, it makes sense that the chef of the kitchen should be the one who possesses the greatest palate: not just the ability to identify discreet flavors and to know how those flavors create interplay, but also to judge, aesthetically, abstractly, how by adjusting those ingredients and flavors a chef might improve the overall taste and succulency of the dish. And yet this isn’t necessarily the forte of the chef, because the chef wouldn’t necessarily never have the natural, inherently exceptional palate of even many of their customers. Success as a chef is as much, perhaps more, about technique, speed, diligence, and leadership, as it is about a heightened sense of taste. An apprentice will be promoted to cook and then beyond, to stations demanding higher levels of skill and technique, and further beyond, into leadership roles, without ever having to prove the exceptional qualities of their tastebuds.

And therein lies the source of every chef’s self-doubt, their imposter syndrome. The chef lives in a subtle state of fear and anxiety at being found out as a fraud. It doesn’t help that the underlying premise of taste is that it is subjective, that everyone’s palates are different, that they are often out of our control, are dulled and withered by time and self-destruction (two phenomena that often accompany a chef’s rise through the ranks, ironically), and that even if the chef prepares his dish identically each and every time, it might taste completely different to two different people based solely on what the patron ate only a few hours ago, or what they ordered as their drink, not thinking of how it might pair, upending the balance of flavors to a point that the entire dish might be seen, however unfairly, as mediocre.

Senju was no stranger to the anger and frustration of being discovered as an imposter during his time as a chef. It was the constant strain on his life’s work. But it was also the source of his tireless work ethic, his obsession with training his tongue to be more and more sensitive, his autocratic methods for maintaining his restaurant. Fear drove him like nothing else could, fear of being discovered, by others and by himself. It was the same fear of his parents at leaving behind that essential tradition in a burning nation, that same fear of not knowing his new identity, foisted upon him by strangers, Senju, a thousand hands. What would he be if they suddenly realized he was nothing, if his thousand suddenly turned to two?

The masseuse moved to his thighs, thick knotted muscles that cramped throughout the night. She pulled them apart with ease, and he realized he was nothing special, a human like any other, with muscles she had seen thousands of times before.

Decades later and he was never discovered as an imposter. In fact, he was lauded as a revolutionary in the kitchen. After receiving several national honors for his sushi restaurant, he was soon tapped by the Imperial Sushi Council as their newest member, an high honor for any chef operating at the time in Japan. They were a secretive group — no one knew who belonged to the Council or from where they operated — but their reach was extensive, their reputation legendary. What little information he himself knew, was parroted by his colleagues at rival restaurants — that the Council was comprised mainly of politicians and sociologists, that they maintained an interest in fostering the talents of chefs all over Japan, and guided many, with an invisible hand, into the art of sushi.

Senju and his other chefs acknowledged that they had all been invited to apprentice at sushi restaurants by men who appeared to be executives, and whom they never saw again. No coincidence, to be sure.

What Senju did not know was that the Council trained these chefs with the goal of creating a global network of highly-insecure, knife-wielding megalomaniacal chefs beholden to the Council that gave them their livelihood and the dictates of said Council no matter how far-fetched or illegal. Such was its modus operandi since its inception, hundreds of years earlier. It worked well, tried and true, part of a structure developed and honed by the most brutal shogunates of feudal Japan, who ruled the country through networks of daiymo overlords. In those days, just like the shogunates, the Council was granted its own network of chefs overseeing territories and receiving tribute. And though still subject to the shogun’s rule, the Council was given independent control over the culinary and agricultural aspects Japanese culture, with the understanding that to properly rule over a nation, there must be a well-defined and proud culinary tradition, which should be thoughtfully developed by the greatest minds of the nation. While money flowed from the towns and regions up to the shogun, the real tribute was always in the form of personnel selected from an elite cadre of chefs who doubled as expert assassins. Meanwhile, they were able to cultivate a cuisine that would become one of most essential aspects of Japanese culture, a boundless realm of taste, ritual, and artistry that would keep Japan in a state of solidarity for all time.

Even after the shogunates fell, and even after the emperor turned out to be just a man, the Council retained its power over the culinary traditions of Japan. As for the knife-wielding megalomaniacal chefs, their traditions were retained as well, and became one of the chief exports to burgeoning restaurant scenes in Paris, London, Rome, and New York.  

As one of the most sensational chefs of his generation, Senju was an obvious choice to join the Imperial Council. His day-to-day life didn’t change much at first. He was allowed to keep his restaurant, and was given greater resources to help him with staffing and purchasing. He sometimes received letters or telegrams discussing the opinions and decisions reached by the Council — a change in length of the standard maki, a new official weight of a piece of sashimi — that were to be enforced at the local level by chefs such as himself.

Then one day he received a different letter in the mail. On the back of the envelope was wax stamp of an image of a turtle, the first time he had seen such an insignia. He opened the letter, looked it over. Then he read it again, this time with more attention to each individual sentence. Then he read it a third time. And a fourth. Finally he put it down and fixed himself a drink before reading it a fifth and final time.

The first paragraph of the letter praised him by stating how the Council had been watching his career closely and was suitably impressed.

The second paragraph indicated that he was being selected to forge an expansion of territory into the United States. Work visas were already in order. He would be relocated to Los Angeles in two months.  

The third paragraph invited him to a special ryoken in the mountains. He flew to Tokyo, the next day. At the airport he was met by a driver and was taken into the mountains to a ryoken with no name, arrived at via unmarked streets. There he asked to take full advantage of the hot springs and other private luxuries. After an appropriate amount of relaxation time had elapsed, a representative of the council, a lawyer-type, though he never identified himself as such, met him in his room, and together they read over various papers concerning his new position in America. The representative addressed all of his concerns, which Senju kept to a minimum.  

Once again, Senju found himself in a position for which he felt wholly unqualified and doomed to fail. Regardless, it was his stance that he would attempt to succeed, no matter how shameful the outcome. As it turned out, the Council was right to select Senju. Within a few years he had established the American Sushi Guild, an organization built from nothing, modeled after the great bureaucracies of Japan’s high period, with the Council as its benefactor. He achieved total hegemony by controlling all facets of the industry — importers of rice and mayonnaise, harvesters of fish and seaweed, synthesizers of imitation crab. And of course, the human resources department, his personal favorite, the one in which he blossomed. The chefs were his eyes and ears, were the mechanisms that kept the all-important river of tributes flowing from even the smallest sushi restaurants to local bosses, then on to regional bosses, all the way to headquarters. Controlling commodities was straightforward bribery for the most part. It involved knowing the right people and rewarding them for their service to the Imperial Council. It involved replacing those people should they ever waver in said service. It involved watching markets, buying up inventory, creating demand where there was no demand before. It involved minor extortion, larceny, and statement kidnappings. It involved appeals to ancestor worship and promises of a return to former glory. It involved the curation of traditions, new and old.

Obviously one doesn’t achieve that level of power and wealth without making a few enemies. Hence the masseuse’s hands, now working his feet. Nerves of such importance the masseuse has been at them for thirty minutes each. Such enemies had been piling up for many years, but up until recently they hadn’t caused him too much of a headache. Small rebellions would appear like a rash, an unsightly nuisance more embarrassing than harmful. But after a while the acts of rebellion changed. They took on a different style. While at first they involved the errant chef refusing to pay his dues, or the righteous fishmonger trying to unionize his fellow mongers, now it came in the form video tapes depicting masked men wielding chef’s knives taped to wooden broom handles. They came in as faxed manifestos whose national distribution was all but assured in the cover-letter. Demands for tributes to end, for a severing of ties from the Council. Guild members started complaining that their customers were getting sick, that the health departments were threatening to shut them down. Reports of poisoned sashimi, a culinary disgrace. It was terrorism, plain and simple, directed at his base of operations.

Directed at him.

That was when he started noticing the fleck in his throat, the sign of an irritant not even prescription-strength antacid could control. He hired investigators to snuff out the rebellion, but the leads went dead. His ordinary security network were not suited to the task of quashing a rebellion, which seemed to strengthen every day.  Sensing a loss of control, Senju hired an outside agency to help with security and investigations. That’s when he met Alonso.

While Alonso did his job well, the rebellion had already metastasized too deep into the heart of the American sushi world. Nevertheless, together they formed a plan that would monitor as much of the guild’s regions as was feasible, and report back any leads they might have on the rebellion, which like a young Senju, had found itself with a new name, a new legacy —  the Partition.

Senju was a different man by then. The Partition had positioned itself as the antagonist to the Guild, to him. It forced him to reflect on himself in a way he had been avoiding since he was a young boy, when his parents taught him the art of self-delusion after the emperor’s great admittance. He suddenly felt disarmed, unsure, without purpose. And so he went to the Council and begged for assistance.

It was a mistake, but a mistake that had to be made. Acts of rebellion are simply not tolerated, replied the Council. But how can a rebellion be quashed if we don’t know from where it originates? asked Senju. How did the shogunates of old handle such things?

Their response: You work it out. That is what we pay you for.

They were right of course. Though I’m the President of the Guild, he told himself, I’m still just a bureaucrat in the end, expected to execute a job for which I am paid. It is that simple. Mine is the face of the Guild, not theirs. Mine is the face in photos with the Washington elite, the California elite, the New York elite. Mine is the signature on the dictates of the Guild sent to all regional bosses, disseminated through their ranks to all subordinates, no matter how low on the corporate ladder.  Mine is the face concealing the brain that swells with anger and fear, anger for being trapped in a role from which it was impossible to remove myself, fear for failing at it; the brain whose mechanism for survival was to feed fear to the anger so it might grow in strength and eclipse its origins and leave them forever in darkness; whose energy is sourced from the pleasure of knowing an enemy has been destroyed, that the bond between anger and fear has produced results, tangible results, an enemy that now lives in the same darkness at my hand eclipsed; which lives in a cycle that exists on death and can only stop at death, never before.

He wondered what it took for a man to become what he had become. Was he a man of circumstance? Was he conditioned from a young age to value certain traits that a criminal organization would find useful? Did his parents foster such traits in him, knowing subconsciously that they would be of value to him, specifically him, throughout his life? Was he an average boy in an average time, plucked from obscurity?

Perhaps he realized it the first time he held a knife in a kitchen. The most important instrument in the cook’s arsenal — violence at the core of the culinary arts, the hierarchy of a kitchen much like an army. Forget the searing flesh of a piece of beef, or a fillet of fish. The violence of the kitchen is found in the subtleties of dicing an onion, bisecting it, following the ridges created, as if ordained, by nature, showing him the way. When he learned the techniques for dicing an onion, he couldn’t help point out how it reminded him of seppuku. His teacher corrected him: seppuko was a stabbing motion, the point of the blade, the point of the knife is rarely used in the kitchen. No, Senju said. I mean knowing the structure of the vegetable, making as few cuts as necessary, and the whole onion falls to pieces. The teacher looked at him with a concerned look, wondering what the little Senju would say when he moved on to gutting and scaling fish.

The masseuse left the room, told him to take as much time as he needed. Two hours of his day, gone. He wished he had gone for a run, instead of laying there letting his mind wander so. He didn’t feel the least bit relaxed. Why he took the suggestion, he didn’t know. No one could give him the relaxation he needed, only himself. What did it take for him to become the man he became? Simple: he only trusted himself. He had grown into his identity because he could be relied on to do anything, and now he could no longer rely on anyone else. Such was his predicament.

Senju checked the mirror. He tried to smile, but his facial muscles seemed to have failed him. It appeared that a scowl had adhered itself permanently to his face.

[jayne-hecate-writer]

The Ocean of Self Hatred

Times have been hard and I was forced to step away from my writing for my own sanity. 

There are a number of reasons for my sudden departure from creativity and after several months, I am now back to a small degree and I can explain what small events caused this flight into fear. 

The first thing that happened was that I was given some very serious negative feedback about my writing, it ridiculed my sentence structure, made fun of my character development and was harshly critical of my cover design. I am aware of my own limitations so I could concede many of the points made, but not to the severity of them. It went beyond critical reviewing and stepped into mockery of my art form which as a new writer, took me right back to my childhood and the mockery I received for my poor spelling and grammar. 

As a child, I went to around thirteen different schools and I moved so often that I did not spend more than a couple of years in one place. The result of this was that I had huge gaps in my education and was missing some of the fundamental skills required to write and spell correctly. These missing sections of my education gave me some rather mediocre exam results on leaving school and a school report that wrote me off as educationally underwhelming. So on leaving school I jumped ship, right into college, topping up the missing sections and ended up going to two universities to get a degree and then a post graduate certificate. 

The same kind of thing can be applied to my writing. I have had no formal training as a writer, my degree was actually science, which is an entirely different form of creativity. Self editing long form stories takes a huge amount of effort and after reading the novel for the sixth time in a month, even simple mistakes made while editing are easily missed. I am also not a designer and I have not a single qualification in any form of artistic endeavour, so cover design was a real challenge for me. It would be very easy to take these things and add a negative spin, turning them from real reasons into bitter excuses. But I am going to stop that right now. They are not excuses. My first book was a great adventure for me. I had not the first clue on book design, despite reading so many books for my own pleasure. I did all of the work myself, which I then placed on Amazon Kindle to the complete indifference of the publishing world. My partner and I spent an entire year sending off the required details to agents and publishers, receiving well over three hundred rejections until we had one single bite of interest. (Technically, this is not true, we had several bites, but most of them were from vanity publishers who would take my work and simply print it, at great cost so that I could then sell them myself.) 

The one good bite came from a publisher who stated that they were greatly interested in the first two chapters that the submission required and they wanted to read the rest of the book. The book was supplied and we were told that after six months, they would be back in touch. Sadly we never heard from them again and that was why the book got put on Kindle. I moved on because I had other stories to tell. I also joined a writers group and began spending time with other writers, honing my skills. 

So my first full length book is amateurish and it has have many flaws, maybe even several spelling mistakes that I have not spotted and yet it stands as a real achievement. Some of my friends have been very kind with their comments, they understood what the book meant, where it came from and what I had achieved. 

The criticism I received for the book rocked me from my rowing boat of self belief, or maybe self deceit. It told me that I had not done very well, that my attempts were worthless and that I should not have bothered. Actually, that is not what the criticism told me at all, that is what I told myself afterwards. The criticism told me what I already knew, that the book had some flaws and some bits of it could have been done better. But my own lack of self love took a long negative dive into self disgust for having even tried. I punished me for being a beginner, for not being like Penguin Books, for not being good enough and in so many ways I am still doing this, acting out this brutal regime of self sabotage and it is fucking crippling me.

The second attack on my creativity came when I was set to be reassessed for my disability by the agencies that we have in the UK. There is currently a feeling here that disability is somehow shameful, that disabled people should be thankful for what little handouts the state gives us and we should shut up our moaning. Opinion on what makes disability has in some ways been handed to the common man in the street and the results of this are that there is a growing trend for hatred towards disabled people on social media and all of the other places where the angry hate filled slack jawed mouth breathers can find easy targets to attack with their bile. When I saw a sign on the door of a disabled toilet in a supermarket, that was clearly produced on the office printer and read “Not all disabilities are visible, please be kind to disabled people”, I knew that things had got nasty. 

The self sabotage set in once more and my guilt and shame for having mental and physical health problems went into overdrive. The assessment by the benefits team is far from over and right now I am living in dread of the report that will be written on me. Reports from several disability charities in the UK show that I am not alone in living with these fears though. Disability assessments are so stressful that disabled people would rather live in poverty and suffering, than go through the system that is supposed to support them. For me, it got so bad that in desperation I contacted my local politician and asked for them to step in and put a stop to one of the things I was facing. The bitter irony of this is that this politician is the same man who voted in parliament to reduce benefits available to disabled people, because disabled people should be out earning for themselves! The levels of selfishness and inhumanity shown by this Government disgust me and yet I was forced to ask them for help. 

The anxiety that grew within me, leading up to my assessment, got so out of hand that I was barely able to function. I stopped going outside, I certainly stopped driving and I stopped interacting as I withdrew into the shadows putting a stop to almost all of my artistic efforts. This was not a safe place for me to be because this was where my inner demons berated me and beat me down for my weakness. It seems that I truly love punishing myself, often far more brutally and to greater depth than any judicial system would consider sinking to. 

I may possibly say that I am now swimming in the bleak ocean waters of self hate rather than drowning in them, but I am not yet ready to walk across the beach of self sabotage or even step into the quiet cafe of self doubt to have a cup of safe, mildly chilled anxiety. I think that this analogy is starting to leak now, but I still have some way to go before we can let it flow away. Despite all of the dark waters of misery I am swimming in, stood on the distant seawall of happiness is a group of good friends who are waving at me and even holding the warm soft beach towel of comfort. These are the people who tell me that my creativity is good enough to play with, that I should try my best to do what I once loved and most importantly of all that my self sabotage is not needed. 

The last review I wrote for a piece of theatre (is this another analogy, like a slice of creamy mime or a side salad of death metal?) was praised by several people who mean a great deal to me or that I even admire. It was even commented on by the theatre themselves who were very pleased with it, because it was fair and it was balanced. Criticism has to be balanced. Some one once told me that there are no bad writers, just books that don’t interest us (I would dispute this, but then my Kindle recommendations were recently filled up with awful rubbish written by Holocaust deniers, after I looked at one such book because I did not believe that such things could exist!). So if my book fails to interest someone, so be it. I wrote that book because I had a story to tell, the people living in my head wanted to get out. At the moment, the sequel is stalled, like a broken down Morris Marina on a mudflat (what is it with the fucking ocean references?!) waiting for the tide to go out so that it can be recovered. I am not yet ready to continue my writing, but the voices of the characters in my unfinished story want me to continue. 

I don’t know when I will start working on my writing again, but it will happen. There are a few things I need to work on first (my obsession with miserable oceans for a start!) such as my self sabotage and self doubt. Trying to feel worthwhile as an artist takes effort. Anxiety and depression are exhausting and make such efforts almost impossible. Doing it without medication is harder still, but living on medication is even less desirable because although they make me level (like a flat ocean that is freezing over by any chance?), that level is lower than it should be and I lose all of my creativity all together.

So do I have any words of wisdom worth sharing? Maybe, maybe not. I can tell you that self doubt and anxiety are crippling. Good friends tell you the truth, but do so positively. I can also tell you that creating anything is a great achievement. Self publishing is bloody hard, to do it well requires a huge amount of effort or a bloody deep purse (full of doubloons from a pirate ship no doubt!), so if you are also working hard on making or creating, bloody good for you. You inspire me because you are a shining example of what it means to be an artist. Well done you, have a hug. 

If you want to see some excellent examples of creativity in action, buy the last book released by my writing club. You could also get yourself on Youtube and check out Adam Savage’s Tested because that is always inspiring. There is also Sariel’s Technic Lego channel which is amazing. Also, go and give some of your time to the awesome Bucket Head Props and their friend Ace Cosplay who frankly are both amazing. There is no end to the adventures that can be had in creativity of any type and all of these people prove that beautifully. 

[ourmrmel]

Reasons to Work with Mel Feller — A Business — Executive Coach — Life Coach — Coaching — Mentoring With Mel Feller

Reasons to Work with Mel Feller — A Business — Executive Coach — Life Coach — Coaching — Mentoring With Mel Feller

No matter what stage your business is at, a business coach like Mel Feller can make you work harder and progress faster than you would on your own. From providing a much-needed ego check to helping expand your network, Mel Feller can give you both the tools and perspective you need to go from point A to point B. There are not very many life challenges and issues that Mel Feller has NOT personally gone through. Mel Feller has been through very low spots all the way to enjoying the high mountain views.

Mel Feller knows all too well that we are our own worst enemies. We each have many life challenges that sabotage ourselves, limit our thinking, trigger negative responses and compromise ourselves.

Quickly scan the list below and watch for any items that grab your attention in some way. If you are open and receptive, your intuition will flag items that deserve your attention. Note the life challenges that ‘resonate’ with you,and then start to select 1 to 3 of these to start your exploration.

abandonment absentmindedness abuse accidents accusing acting the clown addictions aggression always being with people ambition analysing anger anxiety arguing arrogance attachment avoidance being judgmental being opinionated being reactive being scattered being too emotional being ungrounded blaming blind devotion boredom bossyness busyness carelessness co-dependency complaining compromise compulsion conflict confusion control cowardice criticism cruelty cynicism deceitfulness deception defensiveness defiance denial dependency depression deviousness discounting dishonesty disorder disoriented dominance doubt drama dreaming egotism emotions envy escape

exaggeration excessive focus on others excuses extremism failure fantasizing faulty beliefs fears feeling needy fixed ideas focusing on the past foolishness forgetfulness frustration futility future thinking glamours greed guilt hate hopelessness humourlessness humour ignorance ignoring illness illusions impatience impractical impulsiveness inaccuracy indecision indifference inertia inflexible character injury insecurity insensitivity intellectualisation intolerance isolation jealousy judging justifying limitations lack of commitment lack of confidence lack of creativity lack of discipline lack of energy lack of purpose lack of trust laughing it off laziness living in the past loneliness low energy lying malnutrition manipulation martyrdom

materialism mediocrity minimizing moodiness narrowness needing to please others negativity no fun non-supportive habits numbness obsessions opportunism over-eating over-exercise over-spending overwhelm over-work pain perfectionism phobias poor health poor self-esteem possessiveness poverty mentality prejudice pride procrastination rationalization rebellion repression resentment resistance ridicule rudeness running away sadness sarcasm seeking approval self-obsession self-centeredness self-deception selfishness self-pity self-sabotage shame shyness sleep solitude status stress stubbornness suffering timidity unexpressed emotions vacillation vanity violence withdrawal worry

All of us experience major and minor life challenges. How we handle these struggles on a daily basis determines our physical, as well as our mental well-being. It takes only a single event to convince us we have no control over our circumstances. Sometimes these challenges consume us with guilt, panic attacks, or chronic fatigue. Our problems pressure us from every side, threatening to crush or break us.

Surprisingly, all life challenges have a direct relationship in defining our purpose in life. If only we could find assurance that there was a plan or reason for the difficulties we face. We search for meaning in tragedy, questioning our reason for hope or a future. “Why me God? How can I ever forgive? I hate my life! How do I stop the pain?”

Life and Business Challenges — Out of Control

Life challenges enable us to see ourselves at our best and our worst. We may attempt to temporarily escape our circumstances, falling into alcohol addiction or drug addiction. Others find themselves overwhelmed, careening out of control — even contemplating how to commit suicide.

A dear friend, Susan, recalled thoughts of driving her car off a cliff. When the rear view mirror revealed her two small children sleeping in the back seat, she brought the car back under control. “My children trusted their mother and rested peacefully even though death threatened to destroy their lives. Their hearts were not troubled and they never were fearful.” After seeking out Mel Feller, Susan realized that she could overcome fear, by receiving God’s gifts of power, love, and self-discipline.

Life and Business Challenges — Beyond Your Control

We face our greatest life challenges when we struggle to find love, security, and assurance that life truly has meaning. Our fears, unhealthy behaviors, and excessive emotional struggles result from our inability to interpret and correctly cope with our circumstances and feelings. Whether wrestling with chronic pain, forgiving infidelity, or trying to conceive, it is possible to move beyond that place of hopelessness.

Why Mel Feller

Based on their own experiences, some Mel Feller’s clients discuss some the benefits to hiring a Mel Feller as business and life coach.

You’ll go outside your comfort zone.

Especially for introverted entrepreneurs who run online businesses, like myself, it is easy to become enmeshed in my own business world. My business coach, Mel Feller, has helped give me the push to step outside my comfort zone, meet new people and try new things in my business. Even extroverted entrepreneurs can be caught in ruts — Mel Feller will push you out of them. — James Andrews

I finally have someone who is not afraid of correcting me.

Every great team has a coach. Think of the best NFL and NBA teams, which all have coaches. A coach is someone who is not afraid to confront you and tell you when you are doing something incorrectly. They have a proven method to success and can help you take your business to the next level. — Thomas Klinkerman

I learned how to make my ideas a reality.

Business coaches have one goal: to make your ideas into a reality. That is exactly what Mel Feller has done for me. Although you may have many brilliant ideas for your company, sometimes it’s hard to know where to start and what to tackle first. Mel Feller will evaluate your plans, assess if they are realistic or will be successful and set out a way that you can implement them correctly. I took a small real estate investing company to one that now owns over 700 doors in Canada. — Liam Thomas

I got personal attention from someone who knows my business inside and out.

I have had a Mel Feller as a business coach for more than five years. The one aspect that a Mel brings, that group sessions or mentors do not, is a keen awareness of your entire business and way of being. There are few times when someone is going to focus just on you for an entire hour, probing you about something that happened last quarter, an employee issue you had three weeks ago or your style of leadership. I thank God that he had 30 plus years of experience. Mark Beckerson

My networking opportunities skyrocketed.

The more you are involved with successful people, the more you will succeed. Aside from the other great points that Mel Feller taught me, networking opportunities skyrocket when your business coach, such as Mel Feller, is out being an advocate for you. They know you and how you react in many situations. You will be top of mind in many cases when your coach is out meeting new people. — Hunter Kayley

I was held accountable for what really matters.

Mel Feller can do wonders for busy entrepreneurs. As you run a growing organization, everything gets complex; you get busy and sometimes push off things you know are important. This is where a great business coach like Mel Feller comes in. You can discuss the vital things you need to accomplish in order to achieve your goals, and your coach will hold you accountable. That alone will make you more effective. — Sandra Hoodik

As you achieve your goals, it is important for you and your team to take the time to celebrate. Sharing this journey with your coach will be exciting and rewarding.

Mel Feller has over three decades of coaching and consulting experience in diverse industries, which provides a rich framework for his organizational insights and creative solutions. I brings a thoughtful approach to his work, carefully integrating both my coaching and consulting skills and abilities. When consulting, my focus is on “what you are doing” (i.e., goal setting, problem solving, taking action and achieving results). When coaching, my focus is on “who you are being” (i.e., how you are leading, aligning your values and tapping your gifts). As a client, they become more consciously aware of how paying attention to — and balancing both — are critically important to their success.

When you combine Mel Feller’s keen insights and engaging style with his in-depth skills, technical certifications and broad industry experience, the result is a uniquely qualified executive coach and organizational consultant.

So… what kind of coach are you?”

I get this question a lot. Moreover, the answer is… I am a Life Coach, Executive Coach, Career Coach, and Business Coach. I coach teens, business executives, authors, artists, entrepreneurs, retired seniors, busy moms and entire organizations.

“Truth telling, honesty, and candor: I loved you Mel Feller! You have so much energy and knowledge! I truly hope I get another opportunity to be coached by you. I see myself a little clearer now, and it’s not so bad.”

Lisa Mathews

“Mel Feller you added more value than we can possibly see right now. Mel Feller, you are warm, inviting, and accommodating. Thank you for coming alongside us in this transition!”

Vanessa Cavanaugh

“Mel Feller the best education session that we have attended in many years! Thank you so much — I am very excited to put everything you have taught us into practice!”

Michael Randolph

“Mr. Mel Feller, Thank you, thank you, thank you for giving a marvelous keynote at our Symposium! While we have not yet collected the official feedback, the unofficial feedback was that You Were a Hit! I heard nothing but compliments regarding your presentations. Thank you for making such a positive impact on our attendees! ”

Lyle Cunningham VP

“Mel Feller uses his humor, compassion, and direct nature to help bring out the best in me. Mel Feller is committed to helping me live…I mean, really live, life to its fullest.”

Jose Rodriguez

Mel Feller Links

https://www.instagram.com/mel.feller

https://ourmrmel.tumblr.com/

https://www.pinterest.com/cfs360/

https://twitter.com/melfeller/following

https://wordpress.com/page/melfellerinternetbusinessinnovations.wordpress.com

https://dribbble.com/melfeller

https://biggerpockets.com/forums/79/topics/49008-larry-goins-bootcamp

https://txbusinessdb.com/p/mel-feller

https://xindex.com/c/12031660488/mel-feller-financial-services-group-inc

https://buzzfile.com/business/Coaching-For-Success-940-569-9260

https://melfellerrealestateinnovations.wordpress.com

https://myspace.com/mfcfs360

https://goodreads.com/user/show/86266194-mel-feller

https://mfcfs.contently.com

https://alignable.com/wichita-falls-tx/coaching-for-success-360

https://quora.com/profile/Mel-Feller

https://about.me/melfeller

https://independent.academia.edu/MelFeller

https://medium.com/@mfcfs360

https://melfellerentrepreneurialideas.wordpress.com

https://about.me/melfeller

https://thecoachingoffice.com

https://quora.com/profile/Mel-Feller

https://linkedin.com/pulse/reflections-journaling-mel-feller-mel-feller

https://creonline.com/finally-my-first-deal

https://etrainingguide.com

https://reitips.com/open-letter

https://thecoachingoffice.com/testimonials.html

https://fortunebuilders.com/student-success-old/testimonials/page/9

https://agrandpaslove.blogspot.com

https://plus.google.com/u/0

https://youtube.com/channel/UCk_zDXJgadnWwmab0PhaIkQ/videos

https://linkedin.com/in/mel-feller

https://challengesinlife.com

https://melfellersuccessstories.com

https://melfeller.com

https://melfellerbusinessblog.com