Be by Design: How I Be Is up to Me!

By Christine McKee

Are you where you want to be?
Do you know how to get there?

The human brain is the most complex and wondrous thing you will ever own, and you do own it. When it comes to understanding our consciousness, however, we often feel lost. We simply havent read the owners manual.

If youre not finding the answers, rewrite the questions.

BE by Design can show you how to get the most out of life by handing over the controls and making you accountable for your own existence. Using a four-phase process that draws on a blend of modern psychology and eastern wisdom, this journey to self is full of easy-to-use, practical tools and stimulating strategies to help you unlock your full potential in everything you intend, think, feel, say, and do.

Make every day amazing; be the best you can be.

Love, family, health, life purposethese are the things to define us, not confine us. By pausing, stepping back, and examining your relationship with yourself and those around you, you can break free of habits and beliefs that are holding you back.

Like a GPS for your soul, this book can help you get from A to Benavigating a path to your chosen destination. Devoting time and energy in your well-being is always a rich investment, and the rewards are unlimited. Happiness, empowerment, focus and confidencethey all await when you take charge of your life and design how you want to BE.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Balboa Press
• Release date: May 25, 2012
• ISBN: 9781452505169

Christine McKee

Chris McKee, a registered psychologist, is director of BE Institute, a psychology consulting and training organisation in Brisbane, Australia. She uses a combination of eastern philosophy and modern psychological techniques with her clients in the corporate, private practice, mining, government, and nonprofit arenas. Chris is dedicated to empowering individuals to reconnect with their inner wisdom and, in doing so, return to wholeness.

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Copyright © 2012 Christine McKee

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Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

The author of this book does not dispense medical advice or prescribe the use of any technique as a form of treatment for physical, emotional, or medical problems without the advice of a physician, either directly or indirectly. The intent of the author is only to offer information of a general nature to help you in your quest for emotional and spiritual well-being. In the event you use any of the information in this book for yourself, which is your constitutional right, the author and the publisher assume no responsibility for your actions.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

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Balboa Press rev. date: 08/15/2012

Contents

A Note From The Author

Preface

Introduction

What To Expect When You Embrace These Concepts

Phase I    Awareness

Chapter 1    Why We All Perceive The World Very Differently: A Mini-Tour Of The Brain

Chapter 2    Your Manual Of Life

Chapter 3    Unhealthy And Healthy Response Options When Feeling Negative Emotion And Stress

Chapter 4    Accountability Versus Non-Accountability: You Are The Creator Of Your World

Phase Ii    Focus

Chapter 5    Intention Model

Chapter 6    Personal Power: Control Versus Influence

Chapter 7    Mood Control

Chapter 8    Choosing The Now: Each Day Is A Series Of Once-In-A-Lifetime Events

Phase Iii    Maximising Potential

Chapter 9

The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly: Relationships Are Your Mirror

Chapter 10

Building High-Quality Relationships By Choosing To Communicate In The Moment

Phase Iv    Choices

Chapter 11

Your Mental Diet: Choosing High-Vibrational Words

Chapter 12

Power Of Gratitude And Finding Beauty Daily

Afterword

Conclusion

About The Author

Bibliography

Also by Christine McKee

State Control: Self-Empowerment by Actively Choosing Your Response to Anchors: Chapter in the Book Your Mind Power, Available from Hybrid Publishers.

For Lyne

You are a wonderful spiritual warrior and friend.

Thank you for your guidance, love, and support.

Why do you stay in prison when the door is so wide open?

~ Rumi

A NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR

Dear Reader—

Thank yourself in advance for being a wonderfully active contributor to your self-knowing and journey of self-love during our time together as you are reading BE by Design: How I BE Is Up to Me.

You will easily recognise that you have always had the moment-by-moment choice to be all that you desire to be. When you practice the tools shared here, you will create a more beautiful and happy life for yourself. The goal of this book is to assist you in creating new, alternative, and fabulously healthy life habits. Or perhaps the tools will inspire you to modify any of your current habits that aren’t bringing you the awesome results you intend for yourself as a brilliant individual, lover, family member, friend, leader, team member, and so forth.

As you absorb the information in this book, I urge you to challenge your current thinking patterns, attitudes, behaviours, values, self-talk, and judgments about yourself in relation to your potential and talents. Be curious and courageous as you embark upon this exciting journey of self-discovery in becoming the most effective person you can be.

Seek joy in looking inside yourself, and be delighted and fascinated by what you find—you are a remarkable being. Seek joy in seeing the best in yourself, and you will be open to seeing the best in all the other human beings you connect and interact with in this lifetime. In the words of Swami Prajnanpad, First of all, accept yourself.

While you are reading this book and integrating the tools and strategies into your way of being, BE intentional, BE focused, BE unlimited. You hold the keys to all of the doors that appear along your chosen path. Live the motto: How I BE Is Up to Me.

With love and blessings to you,

Christine McKee

Brisbane, Queensland 2012

PREFACE

This book is the result of my own search for life’s highest meaning over the past decade. It’s a journey that has spanned the inner depths of my own soul, guided by the teachings of modern spiritual greats like Dr. Deepak Chopra, Dr. David Simon, Esther and Jerry Hicks, Dr. Doreen Virtue, Neale Donald Walsch, Ken Keyes Jr., Wayne Dyer, Caroline Myss, Pema Chodron, Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj, Sri Chinmoy, Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev, and Swami Turiyananda.

BE by Design: How I BE Is Up to Me is not just another self-development book. I personally have road-tested all of the tools and strategies shared in the book across different situations, contexts, and relationships in my life. I have shared everything from the book with both therapeutic clients and corporate business clients, with wonderful success and excellent accolades.

BE by Design: How I BE Is Up to Me is born from the philosophy that accountability for transformation starts with you. All tools and strategies included are designed to heighten your individual awareness of choices and their consequences on the entire system of life—the self, friends, family, work colleagues, businesses, community, country, and planet. This book offers a process that can be applied across the whole of life.

I would like to acknowledge some amazing people—without their presence and reflection in my life, my self-knowing would have undoubtedly been less expansive. In no particular order, I honour and send love and thanks to Lyne Mear, Mum, Dad, Lisa Filmer, Grandad, Ross Murdoch, Donna Spethman, Tony Sambell, Kelly Rothwell, Jodi Floyd, Gina Milicia, Lois Cooper, Glenys Woolcock, Jen Kirkin, Al Head, Swami Tureyananda, and all of the wonderful clients I have been blessed to work alongside. Each of you has inspired me to look deeper within.

INTRODUCTION

Have you ever really considered what you intend for yourself? For your life? I mean really considered it. Who are you? What is your purpose? Are you committed to walking the path to achieve all you are capable of being? To living your life knowing you have unlimited potential? If you answered no or sometimes, you are like virtually all of the wonderful clients, colleagues, friends, family members, and strangers that I have had the great pleasure to talk to about these soul-knowing questions.

At one time or another, most people have dabbled in exploring more of who they are and why they do what they do. They may have questioned why their life is as it is; perhaps they have been unsure about what to actually do to confidently, consistently, and knowingly accept all aspects of who they are and actually step fully into their brilliance. BE by Design: How I BE Is Up to Me provides user-friendly, easy-to-apply tools and tips to assist you in dissolving the layers and veils that act as masks to keep you from living the life you have always wished for, desired, and truly intended for yourself.

You will find that this book is practical and easy to read. If you choose to fully engage in the tools and tasks that are included at the end of each chapter, and apply them repetitiously across any area in which you are not currently living the life you fully desire, then your moment-by-moment life will be filled with beauty, self-love, love of others, learning opportunities, compassion, gratitude, intentional focus, clarity of self, respectful interactions, and acceptance of self and others. Essentially, I predict that you will be enthralled by your self-created freedom to choose how you will be in each and every moment, and experience life as a series of once-in-a-lifetime events.

To provide you with every opportunity to BE by Design, the book has been segmented into four key phases. Each phase shares concepts and then a range of practical, hands-on tasks to help you experience and have success in using the tools. While there are four phases for ease of reading, you will find in practice that you move through the phases simultaneously.

The first phase focuses on Awareness, where you will start to understand why you do what you do in life currently. You will gain insight into why you think, feel, say, and do what you do in different contexts of your life. The second phase, Focus, builds on and provides action options based on what was discovered during the Awareness phase and is where you get to really assess what you want moving forward and how you can get yourself there. The focus is always on making choices for the highest good for all, in every life situation. The third phase, Maximising Potential, is about empowering yourself to be an effective, respectful, and skilled communicator in all contexts of life by knowing yourself. In the fourth phase, Choices, you have the opportunity to commit to continually monitoring Is what I’m about to do going to move me toward high-quality outcomes for all involved? This phase is the key to sustainability in your transformation, as every moment is a choice point.

The focus is on opening the windows and doors in the house of your being so you can consciously choose who you wish to be regardless of the roles you play or situations you find yourself in. As you move through the four phases, layers of self-understanding will keep coming, and insights and revelations will, over time, become more subtle. I welcome you to fully immerse yourself and bathe in the gift of self-knowing, where you will undergo a wonderful transformation. Enjoy knowing that you cannot go back to your previous version of yourself, as the self-awareness you gain will surely inspire you to keep moving beyond your comfort zone and social conditioning—that is the only appealing and desirable option.

So let’s get started. I fully encourage you to commit energy, effort, courage, persistence, silence, diligence, consistency, openness, and a massive sense of humour. Most of all, enjoy the journey.

WHAT TO EXPECT WHEN YOU

EMBRACE THESE CONCEPTS

When you jump on in and play with the tools with childlike wonder and vigour, you will gain wonderful outcomes for yourself, your life, and your relationships. Here are a few examples of what you can expect:

• Develop an understanding and appreciation of why you have chosen to be who you are up until now, based on social conditioning and life influences that have shaped you.

• Take personal accountability for all of your choices in life.

• Eliminate judgment of self and others and appreciate that all human beings are making the best choices for their current level of consciousness.

• Experience the wonder of moment-by-moment choice.

• Learn to express your preferences while respecting your personal boundaries and the opinions of others.

• Be accepting of and embrace uncertainty, understanding that it leads to infinite creativity.

• See the humour in being human.

• Have more fun in life.

• See wonderful possibilities in whatever happens in your life.

You may find it useful to keep a journal or notebook handy to capture your wonderful insights as you move through the chapters.

PHASE I

AWARENESS

Awareness is the first of the four-phase BE by Design process that you will move through. So get comfortable and enjoy learning more about the reasons behind what you think, feel, say, and do across different situations and relationships in your life. You will have the opportunity to explore your brain and your social conditioning, or what I affectionately refer to as your Manual of Life—the unwritten book that was handed to you in your early years to explain how the world is and how you ought to live your life, all based on well-meaning others’ perceptions, judgments, and rules. You will get to decide how often you take full accountability for the outcomes you get in your life based on your actions. I also share some insights into typical human reactions when faced with stress and negative emotions, providing a healthy option based on being present in the moment.

CHAPTER 1

Why We All Perceive the World Very Differently:

A Mini-Tour of the Brain

The greatest discovery of my generation

is that human beings can alter their lives by altering their attitudes of mind.

—WILLIAM JAMES

To begin this section, I’d like you to consider this scenario:

A policeman was walking down a steamy suburban Brisbane street when he heard a woman cry out, Don’t shoot me, John, don’t shoot me! The policeman ran into the house, where a distressed woman was cowering in the corner on the floor. Inside the house with her was a doctor, a priest, and a lawyer. The policeman immediately arrested the priest. Why?

Make a note of your answer to the question, and then turn to the end of this chapter to find the solution before you continue reading.

How many of you weren’t sure of an answer because you assumed the doctor and the lawyer were also males? This is the most common response, by the way, based on past experiences and social conditioning that tell us most doctors and lawyers are males. Therefore, our brains stop searching for alternative views, because the current view matches our reality. The way you perceive, interpret, and give meaning to a situation, event, experience, relationship, or interaction is unique to you—it is your map. It is

Reviews for Be by Design

[darcia_10 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

I'm not a fan of self-help books, which are often filled with trite sayings that work as marketing slogans but fail at functional advice. This book caught my attention because Christine McKee uses a psychological and scientific approach for behavior modification. The information here isn't as much new as it is put together and explained in a way that is both accessible and thought-provoking. Each chapter is a mini lesson on the importance of things such as intention and focus. The language is conversational, and each lesson is followed by a section labeled 'A Call To Action', in which McKee offers simple steps everyone call follow in order to incorporate the changes in our lives. An added benefit of this book is it helps us to understand and empathize with the behavior of the people in our lives. How we interact with others can often influence their response and behavior in any given moment, though we don't often see it that way. Whether you feel you need to make some changes in your life or you're just interested in how our brains work to shape our perceptions and experiences, I highly recommend this book.