Empowering You: 11 Ways to Shift Your Personal Paradigm

By Kimberley Bell

We all long to feel fulfilled in our lives, yet so often we feel far from it. If you’re ready to shift gears and experience a more deeply satisfying life, then keep reading...Transformational Life Coach Kimberley Bell has some empowering practices and insights to share with you.

In this short-and-sweet book, you’ll discover 11 nuggets of love and inspiration to help you:
• Honor and appreciate yourself—and your life—right here, right now
• Understand the value of insecurities and the gifts they offer
• Discover your true happiness—the kind that ignites you from the inside out

Whether you’re stuck in a mid-life crisis, struggling with your teens, or seeking more balance, Empowering You offers straightforward guidance for living with authentic strength.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Nov 15, 2016
• ISBN: 9780998071916

Book preview

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Introduction

Isat on my bed in a well of despair; tears streamed down my face as I replayed the challenges of the last forty-three years. I was disgusted with myself and angry at God, thinking, Why me? Why must I always have to live this way? I heard how much I hated myself in these statements. It was one of the lowest moments of my life.

Four years before this moment, a single morning had changed the game for my family and me. The events of that seemingly average morning shocked me to my core. This shock made profound ripples, the effects of which would reach beyond—through the next seven years.

The morning after Halloween, my six-year-old daughter woke up with what I thought was some type of allergy. Unfortunately, I was wrong. Little did I know that I would be embarking on a seven-year quest to heal my daughter. We saw close to fifty doctors in that period, and none had good answers. These were the darkest days of my life—and yet, within them, I found the light. The lessons I learned during this unfathomably painful period became the anchor that got me to where I am today—and I want to offer that anchor to you. When my pain became so great that I could no longer stay in that darkness, I learned that I had to shift my personal paradigm to become happy.

When I use the word happiness, I’m referring to the authentic happiness that ignites us from the inside. My journey has taught me that happiness can’t last if it depends on circumstances. Happiness cannot be sustained by attaining things like a desired salary, an amazing home, or a perfect body. While my daughter was sick, I also realized that as much as I looked forward to certain moments of happiness, such as eating my favorite ice cream and watching my favorite TV line-up, as soon as I turned off the TV, a familiar gnawing would creep back in, consuming me in the dark. I wanted authentic happiness—something that extended beyond those moments of apparent enjoyment. I wanted to feel excited to be alive—all the time—to feel both loved and appreciated. To get to that place of authenticity, I had to allow myself permission to be…me.

Perhaps you’ve heard that happiness is a choice. I believe that to be true. However, unless you are aware and have purposely dedicated your life to becoming a happier person, just choosing to be happy can feel like an overwhelming task. For me, I first had to recognize and admit that I wasn’t happy—my life wasn’t going the way I had hoped. Then I had to make a conscious decision to be happy. I had to be willing to create true happiness in my life.

We all say we want to be happy, but to be authentically happy we must commit to empowering ourselves. It’s one thing to speak the words, but it’s completely different to take action. Committing is the key. In order to make lasting changes, we must shift our individual patterns to align with our desired outcome. We have to align our thoughts, feelings, words, and actions.

For so long, our focus has been outside of us. We try to fix our outer appearances, finding daily and nightly distractions. I invite you to be open to the possibility that we may need to begin nurturing our inner worlds instead of our outer worlds. Our focus needs to be on feeling empowered instead of disregarding and devaluing ourselves. When I look around me, I see a society that has an insatiable need for outside approval. I see younger generations who look as though they are trying to get our attention, often pushing boundaries excessively. I see so many people who are sad. My heart breaks for them.

I have been sad, too. My own childhood was filled with years of heartache, heartbreak, and loss. That moment of despair was the tip of my iceberg. Despite the pain inside me, I taught myself how to rise above it and create a life filled with daily joy. I did this by finally allowing me to embrace myself and be true to me. Now, I am here to empower you to do the same—to be true to you. Nothing would make me happier than knowing that everyone who reads this book will come away from it with more self-value.

After I shifted my personal paradigm, I became an empowerment coach, studying at Robbins-Madanes Center for Strategic Intervention. Using my personal experiences, my work with clients, and my strategic intervention training, I’ve become aware of 11 ways to shift your personal paradigm—the way you see the world—toward empowerment. I want to share them with you.

Are you someone who feels the struggle every day? Does it all seem like so much effort just to go from one day to another? Do you feel overwhelmed by your life or your relationships? Do you wait on others in order to move forward in your life? If so, you’re ready to shift your personal paradigm toward empowerment, and this book is just for you.

This guide will return repeatedly to four values that I feel should be the titanium foundation for all human beings. These values are truth, gratitude, compassion, and forgiveness, and you’ll see them pop up as themes throughout this book. They are the basis of empowerment and make up the perfect recipe for lovingly connected relationships and a happy world.

The pages before you touch on a variety of situations and present philosophies that, if adopted, can empower you deeply in your life. What does it mean to honor ourselves? How can we learn to use our voice to speak our truth? We will look at how offering truth, gratitude, compassion, and forgiveness to ourselves and others can make us powerful beyond our comprehension. I’ll explain how we can put our best selves forward in life and give others permission to do the same.

Living from an authentic place is an integral key to happiness. Before we can do that, we need to shift our minds and invite a new approach when addressing our relationships, our lives, and ourselves. Prior to installing the new, happier program within you, we must take a look at the results of the older operating system that you’ve been running on. It takes