How to SPARKLE! 

Hi.  My name is CC Lawhon (click for bio) and I built this business to help kids and teens everywhere discover ALL of who we are so we can SHINE SHINE SHINE and be the Human Sparklers we always knew we could be.  This website has many tools to help you heal, develop, discover, learn, change, grow, stay the same (where applicable), and find happiness where it always has been-right inside of YOU! 

My tutoring is a brilliant way to find all these great things about yourself, AND improve your grades or test scores at the same time!  Call now to get started: 918-859-6690...or email to find out details and times I'm available! info@guru-you.com

This article gives you the secret to living as a true Human Sparkler.  If you don't feel like reading, just dive in and start clicking circles! You will learn what you need that way too.  This is a short read with a lot of details on how to get to a space where you are ready to take in all the tools this website has to offer.  It's also a preview of my books and it's FREE :) so, enjoy!  CLICK HERE for the visual version...or read on for the article.  There are lots more links at the end.

First, you need to know that I divide most of what I do into five sections.  Physical, Mental, Emotional, External, and Spiritual.  These five areas parallel Maslow's Hierarchy of needs (Wikipedia Definition of Maslow's Hierarchy)  .  The idea is that you have to have your basic needs met before you can expand into "higher" realms like creativity and spirituality.  Before you go exploring these areas in depth, it might be helpful to read the rest of this article, so I can explain the three best ways to settle down and get balanced.  Once you've centered yourself a bit and let go, you'll more easily be able to deep dive into specific tools for your development back into a Human Sparkler!

Acceptance

Acceptance is the most important tool you have to begin to understand yourself and be happy (sparkle BRIGHT!).  Start being an observer of yourself, not a judger of yourself.  An old friend of mine used to say "stop shoulding on yourself."  The key here is that you know.  YOU are good.  Actually, not just good-- you are awesome, rare, beauty-full, amazing, and brilliant.  Listen to yourself...your true thoughts are divine.  Your feelings are great! Even if they seem yucky, they are your compass to what track you need to be on.  In its simplest form, it works like this: positive emotions=I'm on the right track, negative emotions=I've lost my center.  But we all know it's much more difficult that that in real life.  Most of us forget to listen to our inner voice.  We end up ignoring it, arguing with it and judging it so much we lose the essence of who we are and why we had the feeling or thought in the first place.  For example, here's what we usually say to ourselves in our heads after we have a reaction to or an emotion about something: 

Example 1:

                thought 1: I hate cooking dinner for my family every night...I'm so tired of it. UGH.

                thought 2: GEEZ...I am so selfish and mean! I can't believe I can't even enjoy doing something nice for my own soul mate and CHILD.  How can I even think of not feeding them?

                thought 3: Get up, cook dinner, and be happy about it you lazy good for nothing! 

Example 2:

                thought 1: I am so mad at Jen.  I mean, she didn't even call me back after all I've done for her!!

                thought 2: But, she is going through a divorce, her job is lame, and her friend's in rehab...

                thought 3: I can't believe I'm mad at her, after all she's going through right now!

                thought 4: I should call her right now and see if she needs anything.

Do you see what you did in both cases? You argued yourself out of your feelings!  Do you feel better about who you are after either of these? Do you feel like a Human Sparkler? No, you feel worse.  You feel stupid, mean, and angry at yourself and now you feel even more hurt and more upset inside because you've pushed back your true feelings.  Bottom line? We are human (well, most of us are...you get what I'm trying to say here).  We have emotions and reactions of all sorts--some of which are not pretty.  When we judge this or try to deny it is when we end up feeling miserable.

What would happen, if, in both of these cases you accepted your feelings? Not wallow in them, but observe them and go, "Yep, I feel that way--I sure do!"  For example, think of something that makes you mad.  Say, "Yep, I am totally mad at that (Jen)! I don't care about her lame job, her stupid friend, or her sorry a$$ life! I NEED HER NOW!" (are you laughing at yourself yet??).  Breathe deeply once.  Now what are you thinking about? Feeding the dog? Finishing vacuuming? What is amazing is, you are no longer hurt or angry.  You accepted your feelings, you didn't judge them or hide them from yourself, and you are now FREE.  Free to move on from that fear and pain.  If you still feel like it, you can call Jen, or not! But not because you've convinced yourself you should...because you genuinely want to.  It seems simple because it really is.

The truth is, we all have the emotions, whether they are reasonable or not.  It doesn't do any good to judge them as righteous or unrighteous, they just are.  If you simply allow them to be (again I'm not advocating month long pity parties) what they are, you usually get through them quite quickly.  I had someone tell me a couple of months ago not to think about something awful someone said to me.  She told me to just ignore it.  I said NO.  If I ignore it, it will fester, and then come out at some inappropriate time, more than likely on some unsuspecting grocery store cashier who allowed someone with 16 items in her 15 item express line or something.  If we open up to our feelings, feel them, accept them, and move on, we can focus on other things we want to be doing like playing with our new standard poodle puppy or snuggling with the love of our life.  I know I make this sound easy, and that in real life you sometimes just want to be mad or sad, but this article is already too long.  Please go to the Emotional Wellness page of the website (the green circle) for more in depth tools of how to have acceptance. When we have total acceptance of our reactions and emotions we feel more bubbly and become a Human Sparkler.

Positive Affirmations

The second tool which helps us balance and find our center is what I call positive affirmations.  Louise Hay (Louise Hay's Website) is the master of these as far as I'm concerned.  Her books taught me how to word my statements so they are completely positive and thus show me the way to happiness.  I talk about her a lot...you'll see.  The truth is, we all have tons of negative thoughts about everything.  Often we don't even remember who we are or what we want anymore because of them.  The "should's," the "could's," the "could haves," the "should not's."  We need to begin to add positive thoughts...the "do's" the "can's" the "want to's" and the "am's."  It seems hard because of all the "What if's" but let's make it easier.  Instead of trying to eradicate all the negatives, we can just add one or two positives. There are studies showing one positive thought has hundreds of times the energy and thus impact of one negative thought.

So what is an affirmation and how can it help?  It is a positive statement about what you want (expect) to happen.  It brings our energy, attention, or focus to what we want, not what we don't want.  It's about changing our thinking to choose things we want to have happen instead of being victims of what we feel always happens to us.  An example of our regular thought pattern might be, "I never make enough money."  What scientists know about thoughts these days (Quantum Physics and all that stuff) tells us this thought will actually bring more of that feeling of lack into your life.  So, what we try to do is rewire our brain into a positive state by saying an affirmation like, "I am abundant.  I am prosperous.  I have more than enough money!"  If you can say the affirmation enough (and really feel the feeling of abundance as you do) you eventually will start bringing more than enough money into your life.  The catch is, catching yourself in the negative thoughts so you can "rewire" your brain with positive ones.

But for now, let's focus on the positive things we want in our life.  What makes you happy? What makes you sparkle?  For me, I'd be happier if I could ride horses every day.  So, I might feel what it's like to be on my horse, and the wind in my hair, my body gently bouncing, and say, "I ride horses every week day." or even more simply, "I am happy."  These statements, coupled with that feeling of joy, bliss, peace, harmony, enjoyment, and life will bring more happiness into my life.  Now you make one up.  A positive statement about being happy (like I am well, I am at peace, my children get along, my friends are kind to me, I swim with dolphins on vacation, etc). Now, any time you get sick or tired or confused, say your affirmation to yourself.  Feeeeeel, the good vibes sparkling through your veins (the Dolphin Cards© say to picture little dolphins swimming and leaping happily through your body's systems).  Really BE that statement.  This may not change you overnight (because most of us resist it too much) but it will change you.  You will gain strength and conviction and by creating this affirmation, you have already found out one thing you want out of life! You are another step closer to fully becoming a Human Sparkler!

For more affirmation examples and ideas and a more in depth look at how they work, see mental wellness section (the orange circle).

If nothing else works, you can always play the worst case scenario game to get you laughing and sparkling again.  It goes like this:

Well if I don't make my house payment I will lose my house! Then I'll have to live in my car (which is a two-seater without reclining seats) with my three Great Dane puppies and my African spurred desert tortoise.  Can you plug a heat lamp into a cigarette lighter outlet?  The smell will be awful.  Then I'll get a ticket for parking my car on the street too long and I won't be able to pay that either...and then when they try to take me to jail my Great Dane will bite the officer and then...  (are you laughing yet?)

This is a way to move to a place of love out of a place of fear.  The bottom line is, you ARE a Human Sparkler and your natural state is when you shine shine shine.  Everything else is just an illusion.  So, once you start with these three basic tools of Acceptance, Positive Affirmations, and Acting out of Love vs. Fear (Law of Attraction/Quantum Physics) you will be ready to discover all the wonderous tidbits that make you YOU and thus happy and sparkly day in and day out.  Now, go take the "How You Sparkle" quiz and get going!! And have FUN, Human Sparkler, Light UP!!!