Net Gamblings

Carole started counseling with me because she was depressed. She had been ill with chronic fatigue syndrome for a long time and believed her depression was due to this. In the course of our work together, she became aware that her depression was actually coming from her negative thinking – Carole was a constant worrier. Many words out of her mouth centered around her concerns that something bad might happen. “What if I never get well?” “What if my husband gets sick?” “What if I run out of money?” (Carole and her husband ran a very successful business and there was no indication that it would not go on being successful). “What if my son gets into drugs?” “What if my kids don’t get into good colleges?” “What if someone breaks into the house?”

Her worry was not only causing her depression, but was also contributing to her illness, if not actually causing it. Her worry caused so much stress in her body that her immune system could not do its job of keeping her well. Yet even the awareness that her worry was causing her depression and possibly even her illness did not stop Carole from worrying. She was addicted to it. She was unconsciously addicted to the sense of control that worry gave her.

I understood this well because I come from a long line of worriers. My grandmother’s whole life was about worrying. She lived with us as I was growing up and I don’t remember ever seeing her without a look of worry on her face. Same with my mother – constant worry. Of course, I picked up on it and also became a worrier. However, unlike my mother and grandmother, who worried daily until the day they died, I decided I didn’t want to live that way. The turning point came for me the day my husband and I were going to the beach and I started to worry that the house would burn down and my children would die. I became so upset from the worry that we had to turn around and come home. I knew then that I had to do something about it.

As I started to examine the cause of worry, I realized that worriers believe that worry will stop bad things from happening. My mother worried her whole life and none of the bad things she worried about ever happened. She concluded that nothing bad happened because she worried! She really believed that she could control things with her worry. My father, however, never worried about anything, and nothing bad ever happened to him either. My mother believed that nothing bad happened to my father because of her worry! She really believed until the day she died (from heart problems that may have been due to her constant worry) that if she stopped worrying, everything would fall apart. My father is still alive at 92, even without her worrying about him!

It is not easy to stop worrying when you have been practicing worrying for most of your life. In order for me to stop worrying, I needed to recognize that the belief that worry has control over outcomes is a complete illusion. I needed to see that, not only is worry a waste of time, but that it can have grave negative consequences on health and well-being. Once I understood this, I was able to notice the stomach clenching that occurred whenever I worried and stop the thought that was causing the stress.

Carole is in the process of learning this. She sees that her worry makes her feel very anxious and depressed. She sees that when she doesn’t worry, she is not nearly as fatigued as when she allows her addiction to worry to take over. She sees that when she stays in the moment rather than projecting into the future, she feels much better. The key for Carole in stopping worrying is in accepting that worry does not give her control.

Giving up the illusion of control that worry gives us not easy for anyone who worries. Yet there is an interesting paradox regarding worry. I have found that when I am in the present moment, I have a much better chance of making choices that support my highest good than when I’m stuck thinking about the future. Rather than giving us control, worry prevents us from being present enough to make loving choices for ourselves and others. Worrying actually ends up giving us less control rather than more!

About The Author

Margaret Paul, Ph.D. is the best-selling author and co-author of eight books, including “Do I Have To Give Up Me To Be Loved By You?” She is the co-creator of the powerful Inner Bonding healing process. Learn Inner Bonding now! Visit her web site for a FREE Inner Bonding course: www.innerbonding.com or mailto:margaret@innerbonding.com. Phone sessions available.

margaret@innerbonding.com

If you are in a sexless marriage and are unhappy because of it, don’t worry, it isn’t unrecoverable but it is serious cause for concern. You may even be thinking that you need a divorce because of your sexless marriage, that’s only natural. But, in order to really decide what to do, some thinking needs to be done so you feel good about your decision, regardless if you stay married or not.

Being stuck in a sexless marriage can have you feeling a wide range of feelings from loneliness, listlessness, confusion, unconfident, etc. These feelings come about for a variety of reasons and they can be overcome if you just figure out why you’re in a sexless marriage. You need to get to the root of the problem and uncover the real reasons that you and your spouse are no longer sexually active assuming of course, you once were!

To get to the heart of the causes for a sexless marriage will take some time. On the surface, you may be thinking that the cause of your sexless marriage may include one or more of the following scenarios:

Sexless Marriage: “We both work too much!”:

You both work extremely hard and there just never seems to be enough time to get together, your schedules are skewed. This is true a lot nowadays with the ‘new’ economy, lots of couples are married but just live together like roommates if both parties have ‘time-consuming’ careers. If not managed properly, it is unfortunate but common for people in this type of lifestyle to end up in a sexless marriage.

Sexless Marriage: “You work, I stay home with the kids!”:

One of you works very hard with your career and one of you stays home to raise the children (child), which is equally as hard as any career! This situation can lead to a sexless marriage in many cases because of the seemingly disparate priority base of each party. The spouse with the career may need to work after hours, travel, or attend “post work” functions and the spouse who stays home raising the children (child) may not have any other outlet for relaxation away from the home front. This situation can easily lead to a sexless marriage because there may be underlying feelings from both sides that contribute to an already tough situation based on personal and work related schedules.

The spouse with the career may say at times, “Why do you think I work so hard? I do it for you, the kids, our family, etc.”. The spouse who stays home with the children (child) may say at times, “You have another release, you have social interaction daily with the outside world. I feel stuck here sometimes, I need to get out and have time for myself.”. If the spouse that stays home feels like the spouse with the career enjoys being out and working more than being home, that calls for a whole different and escalated level of concern! Chances are the sexless marriage was bound to be that way before the current situation even arose.

Sexless Marriage: “I don’t know why…there’s just no spark left, you don’t pay enough attention to me and our sex life and I guess I don’t either!”:
This is a common sexless marriage situation and it can be caused by a variety of things including emotional scars, bad experiences, boredom, laziness, etc. In this situation, there is deep cause for concern from both parties because both parties aren’t happy sexually but don’t really know why it ended up this way. Both parties have just “let things go” and didn’t place a high enough priority on their sex life with their spouse, which in and of itself is very concerning.

Why would either or both parties let things get this way when love making is so important?

Sometimes there’s a feeling of being taken for granted that can occur in this type of sexless marriage, and both parties should realize that sex is a basic human need and should take priority over other things at the right time. It takes work to get out of this type of sexless marriage, you need to sit down and figure out why your marital love life has dwindled. If you both really want to rekindle things, you can do so, but you both need to take equal responsibility for correcting the problem.

Whatever type of sexless marriage you are in (there’s certainly more types than listed here), remember that it is not unrecoverable. If you’re to the point of thinking about getting a divorce because of your sexless marriage, take the time to sit down and figure out how it got to be the way it is now.

If you’ve lost interest in your spouse from a sexual point of view, you need to define exactly why that occurred. If you don’t know right off hand, you need to think back to a time when you did ‘have the spark’ and recall what you both were doing, feeling, thinking, etc. From that point, identify what has changed, why it has changed, and what you can do about it. When you get that portion figured out, you may well on your way to taking the first step of recovering from your sexless marriage. Remember, if you really want to rekindle your relationship, you can.

Karl Augustine

“A Practical Guide To Deciding Whether Or Not To Get A Divorce”

An eBook recommended by marriage counselors and relationship coaches to their clients.

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Sexless Marriage

A potential method of boosting the cost of your home is to redecorate the kitchen. You needn’t entirely renovate the place to gain this result either. Simply replacing your obsolete kitchen appliances can have this effect. Regardless of the fact that they look the same as they did 3-4 decades ago, fridge freezers have been designed to be by far more efficient. Today, there are fridges with a freezer on the bottom, full humidity control, customizable shelving, ice machines, side-by-sides, along with many extras to make life a little more luxurious.

The new trend in fridges, in case you’re not aware of it, is to hide them under the counter. Adding a cabinet front on to a fridge freezer could be the easy step to making your kitchen look more fashionable. For another special touch, you could customize your storage space by adding e.g. anything you feel might be handy.

Fridge freezers aren’t the only gadgets to which this applies, dishwashers can also be tucked away amongst the cupboards. But there’s lots more. Instead of heat, the new trend is dishwashers that have a dehumidifying mechanism which demands a smaller amount of electricity and needs a smaller amount of time besides.

Large families aren’t pinned down to only one dishwasher. They are choosing to put in two in the kitchen, more often than not in the counter top near a second sink. They’re ideal for those that do a lot of cooking. Separating things this way is certain to add further convenience to your kitchen.

A fast glance over a few magazines should provide you with some ideas for the surfaces as well. Victorian designs and simple shaker doors in white or off-white have returned as the most trendy home renovation things on the market. Current fashions favor cherry instead of oak among home owners. You shouldn’t permit any which trends to limit your creativity in experimenting with different surface materials. You won’t have to get the builders in to infuse some fresh air into your home when simply replacing the kitchen equipment will do the trick equally well. Furthermore could possibly have an lcd television integrated into the kitchen. In improving your kitchen, only your imagination is the limit. You too can enjoy that perfect kitchen.

It is not unusual to have high ranking at the Search engines yet see low
conversion rates. In fact, someone else whose ranking is lower than yours may be making a killing online with his products. How could that happen? With all other things being almost equal, good web design, good sales copy, quality products, it is highly probable the other person has an effective email marketing campaign set
in place.

It is a so-called ‘known secret’ of successful online marketers that the lifeline of any Internet business is email marketing. It brings longevity to your business. If you hope to make a long term living off your Internet business, you need to give serious thought to email marketing if you haven’t done so.

I started off my Internet business without seeing the need for email marketing. I spent a lot of time on SEO. Then one day this question dawned upon me. What am I to do with the traffic that would show up at my door?

It is a known fact that not many people will buy your product or service on their first visit to your website. Yes, some may buy the products that you are promoting but the majority won’t. The vast majority may never come this way again. You stand to lose substantial traffic in this way. Then what about those who bought something? How can they become your lifelong customers?

No wonder, successful online marketers have an effective follow-up system that allows them to touch base with their visitors. What better cost effective way to do so than through email.

4 Benefits of Email Marketing:

1.Gives visitors a personal touch to your online business. Email communication is the most cost effective way at present to touch base with your website visitors.

In a highly impersonalized world of Internet marketing, simple personalized email communiqu©s can do wonders for your Internet business.

2.Allows you to build credibility and trust with your visitors. You can achieve this by conducting short courses in the area of your expertise through email. The courses you conduct must be relevant to the products or services you are promoting on your website.

For example, if you are promoting weight loss products, you may conduct a short course like 30 days to lose weight. People are more disposed to buy your product or service if they gain confidence through the information you have provided.

3.Exposes visitors to your product or service. Sales statistics reveal that most people need to be exposed to an offer 7 times or more before they buy. You have no way of exposing your products or services before your website visitors except through Email marketing.

4.Turns first time buyers into lifelong customers. Email marketing is an effective way to update your customers of your latest products and services.

Follow-up with your customers immediately after they made a purchase with an offer of a free gift or special discounts on products that are related to what they have bought. This is good marketing practice. You will endear first time buyers to you, and turn them into lifelong customers.

After all been said, how to get visitors to leave behind their email address? Nobody will give something in exchange for nothing. Offer a free e-book, or software, or email course, or newsletter in exchange for your visitors’ names and email addresses. This is by no means tricking people into giving their email address. In the first place, your visitors have some expressed interest when they came by your website. Your job is to continue to arouse their interest that they want to know more about what you have to offer them.

The names and email addresses you collect is called an opt-in email list. With it you can touch base with your visitors without being accused of spamming.

Follow-up with personalized email communiqu©, offer relevant information and leads. Don’t turn your email communiqu© into one big sales letter. It puts people off. If they unsubscribe from your mailing list, it’s your loss. Say goodbye to your potential customers.

You cannot maintain the number one spot at the Search engines all the time. Other webmasters will overtake you sooner or later. However, this does not diminish the importance of Search Engine Optimization. For long-term success, SEO and an effective email marketing campaign are needful.

Gerrick W
mailto:gw@1stinternetmarketingsolution.com
Information and Software Tools You Need
to Effectively Promote Your Online Business.
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