Honest Hypnosis

Master Your Mind... for a Change

Imagination vs. Will power

WDIWOBTYCPI Wednesdays

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What Wednesdays are for…

I don’t know why I did this, but I set up on my white board an intention for every day of the week.

For example, “Mondays are for ME”. I highly, highly suggest you begin to practice a new kind of “Tithing”.
Now before you run to the exits, this is NOT an Evangelical Christian Tithing Sermon…

It IS a Transformational, Mind Mastery Dose of Practical GROOVINESS for your personal mastery mission…

This is about “Tithing” of your time, talent and treasure, but it HAS to start with YOU.

Give to yourself first. This is NOT selfishness. And “Mondays are for Me” is a perfect example. When I take my mondays and really rest, really take care of me and my need for quiet, meditative, restorative time, I have so much more to give to YOU the rest of the week.

So in my schedule, “Mondays are for Me”. You can pick a different day of the week but in my mind, setting aside Mondays for self care and rest is one of the best gifts I can give to the people I love… The entire rest of the week follows… Now many people do that on Sundays, but I work all day on Sundays so Mondays are MY day of rest. (But this message isn’t about Mondays…)

Tuesdays are for TRANSFORMATION… and if you read yesterday’s email/blog post you already know that Transformation Tuesdays are coming! (But THIS message ain’t about Tuesdays so enuf said for now)

But Wednesdays!

WONDERFUL, WEDNESDAYS!

The popular culture calls it “hump day”. The day you get over the hump of the work week and can see the weekend beckoning… And I guess for the cubicle slaves of the world “hump day” gives them some kind of hope… However, I prefer to focus on something a bit different today…

How about… WHY DOES IT WORK OUT BETTER THAN YOU CAN POSSIBLY IMAGINE WEDNESDAYS?

W.D.I.W.O.B.T.Y.C.P.I. WEDNESDAYS for short.

What if, every Wednesday morning you started out by writing that power phrase over and over again by hand? And then chanted it all day in your mind?

What would happen if you purposefully and consciously practiced this one little thing every Wednesday?
Seriously! For your own practice pop it into the first person and ask away.

Why Does It Work Out Better Than I Can Possibly Imagine?

Here’s an example: A very dear friend of mine had an ominous email exchange with her boss over the weekend… It seemed so ominous on Saturday that when her boss said… “We have to talk first thing on Monday Morning”… she went a bit into panic mode… and what is pretty cool is that her anxiety response was actually pretty damn productive, she explored the notion that on Monday she would have no job…

So rather than sit around freaking out, she dusted off her resume and reflected on all the skills and assets she has to offer in both the corporate and academic markets and came up with 3 alternative contingency plans so that no matter what, she would be ok with or without her job.

And then? She started breathing, grounding and focusing her mind on:

WHY Does It Work Out Better Than I Can Possibly Imagine?
Why DOES it work out better than I can possibly imagine?
Whey Does IT work out better than I can possibly Imagine?
Why does it WORK OUT better than I can possibly imagine?
Why does it work out BETTER than I can possibly imagine?
Why does it work out better than I CAN possibly imagine?
Why does it work out better than I can POSSIBLY imagine?
Why does it work out better than I can possibly IMAGINE?

And so on… over and over. Heck, I chanted it with her. And I started feeling fabulous as well.
And then she went on to have a fabulous weekend.

Monday, she went in and her boss was completely reasonable, supportive and appreciative of her…
There was no conflict. Just a bit of clarification that had to be talked about in person. No biggie.

Interesting huh?

So you might want to actually put this one into practice. It’s simple. It’s free. It’s accessible anywhere
and it works. It’s also just one of the gazillion mind mastery tools I teach in “How To CRUSH anxiety NOW!”

So that’s your assignment for today (should you choose to accept it). It’s one that just might be revisited on Wednesdays to come.

Why it Works:

It works because it helps to shift your focus, it changes your energy, your bio-chemistry and the presuppositions in the question engage your unconscious mind to filter reality according to the question.

Any thoughts that do not match the presupposition simply get filtered out.

Your Unconscious Mind simply can NOT not filter your reality according to that powerful question. It simply has to accept it and build evidence to verify its truth.

So yeah. It’s actually self hypnosis. If you feel like opting in and joining the Transformation Nation, I’ll send you a link to a full video course explaining why and how this process totally works for you if you use it.

Try it. You’ll like it.

And to support it is a little Transformation Tune I wrote back in 2007…
Song #361 I’m Lucky

or use the handy, groovy player with the horseshoe picture at the top. :o)

That’s it for now.

I love you and I love loving you and I love watching you love yourself more and more each day…

I will see YOU on the INSIDE!

– Mark

p.s. More on the upcoming TRANSFORMATION Tuesdays coming soon!
p.p.s. My new online Hypnosis For PTSD program is available here: Hypnosis For PTSD

The really important thing is just to be fully aware that you can realize the change you’re looking for…

And here’s how

Click the link below to:

Or just leave a comment below 🙂

Focus & Meaning Rap

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hh-12-08-FocusRap-ss2Hey, hey, hey, hey,

HAY!

Surprise! a VERY short video for you today.

With a new song that is just now moving through me…

Inspired by what I talked about in yesterday’s video/blog post about Dr. Donnie Epstein…

Grounded in the idea that the only two things we humans can control in our world is

1. Where we are focusing our attention or What we are focusing ON…

and…

2. What meaning we give to whatever is happening…

To simplify it into a “chant” or “rap”

It becomes a new mantra…

Where is my focus?
What am I making it mean?

Your assignment today is to write this out, whisper it to yourself, chant it, rap it, sing it… all day long and then let me know how your day went.

Got it? Good!

Cool and groovy. I’m outa hear!

(yes you beloved detail oriented “spell checkers out there”, I MEANT to spell here, “Hear” it’s called “Phonological ambiguity” in Ericksonian Conversational Hypnosis…  Sum People call it Punning… But it adds up to something deep going on in your unconscious mind… That’s right… mmm hmmm :o)

– Mark

p.s. HEY!  a special warm welcome to New Transformation Nation Members Jason from upstate New York and Carina from Hamburg Germany!

Welcome!!!!

p.p.s. Focusing on how bad things are? Want to stop doing that? Need help shifting it? Check out CRUSH anxiety NOW!

Moment of Truth

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45706221_mThe Moment of Truth.

We’ve all experienced it at some time or another…

When it’s make it or break it.

Now or never.

Do or “die”.

Play ball or go home.

Shit or get off the pot.

Put the pedal to the metal.

Burn  your boats.

Burn your Bridges.

“Shatter the patterns and leave the past behind”

It’s time  my friend…

To get SERIOUS.

About what?

Oh YOU know what… Don’t you?

That thing that you think you would like to change…

You know what you want to change. Many people want to change. But most people can never seem to make changes “stick”.

There may be many reasons why people don’t change. But there is definitely one thing that stops a lot of transformation from happening…

It’s all about the “Moment of Truth”.

You see, until you convince your unconscious mind that there is no more wiggle room, no more weaseling out of the change you want to make, you will be like MOST of the people who want to lose weight, stop smoking, get fit, get relief from anxiety and stress, make more money, succeed at dating and relationships, and generally “nail it” on the big stages or playing fields of their lives…

A wanna be.

(Been there. Done that. None of us are immune from it at any level.)

And I know you don’t want to be a wanna be.

You want to be somebody who can take charge of every area of your life and master it.

Am I right?

The moment of truth…

…When for a clear, decisive instant we stop bullshitting ourselves and admit that we alone are responsible for the challenge in front of us.

No one is going to make you make the change.

No one is going to say anything or even notice if you just kind of… stay the way you are… there is no one to be accountable to except yourself.

And it’s time. It’s time to dig deep into your own power and determination and be so bold as to fvcking go for it, isn’t it?

When people find out I’m a master practitioner and trainer of hypnosis, they almost universally ask, “Can you MAKE me stop smoking or “Can you MAKE me stop eating junk so I can lose weight?”

Nope.

I cant make you change and I can’t make the changes for you, but I sure as hell can help you to get your mind in the right place to make that powerful decision. To get to your moment of truth.

And then I can give you a massive array of tools you can use immediately to run your own mind. Faster. Easier. Better.

But there are no guarantees except YOURS. The one you set up for yourself.

And BTW “Faster” doesn’t guarantee that it’s going to be fast.

“Easier” doesn’t guarantee that it will be easy.

But it will be faster, easier, and better with the tools you’ll learn here than if you keep doing what you’ve been doing in the past.

So when you’re ready to go deeper, you’ll find some powerful tools here to help you help yourself Master Your Mind For A change…

Of course, you have to be ready. You may not be ready even if you think you are.

I set out to find my abs at least 5 years ago. To this point they have remained safely hidden behind a bit o belly fat.

I did have a moment of truth Fall of 2014 that It was a MUST to lose 20 pounds.  And I did.  And I feel great. And I’m building muscle, moving my body, healthy, happy to be wearing a size smaller pants… in other words I went as far as my “moment of truth” from last year could carry me.  And so while I’m a lot  more fit and trim than last year, I want more.

I want to see my damn abs! I DEMAND to see them.

 And now it’s MY moment of truth.

To put up or shut up. To walk my talk. To publicly declare 2016 as my “year of the abs”… To do so publicly is to “force accountability”.  But it also gives me an opportunity to invite others like you to join me for whatever your personal goal or goals are for 2016. We can do whatever we truly want to do.

This COULD be your moment of truth. Are you in? Let me know ok?

What is it you want? What is it you’ve been saying you want but haven’t actually actualized in your life or personality or behavior?

It definitely helps to know what that is… LOL

But let’s say you DO know what you want, but you’re not really sure you’re ready to actually have it.  How do you get your self to stop resisting and spewing out excuses and self pity and COMMIT to get there sooner instead of wasting all that time getting ready to get ready to change?…

It comes down to a big enough “why” that you can sustainably hold in your mind that communicates, no, relentlessly BROADCASTS to your Unconscious Mind that there is no way out except through. There is no way home except forwards. It’s creating enough leverage in your own mind so that going back is not an option. The only way out is moving forwards through all of the objections, and old standby excuses. And then there are some additional steps and mindsets that help you to KEEP the momentum going once you decide to “go all in” for your goal. And once you’ve committed to your action and started taking action, how to make it fun. How to make sure you actually notice progress that will keep you moving forwards, even one single step at a time.

Why do you want to change the thing you want to change?

And is that enough to motivate you?

or is there something else that when added to the mix will cause you to crank it up and COMMIT?

Talk to me. I’m listening. And I’ve made MY decision. Let me know if you want to join the fun.

– Mark

p.s. It’s Not Just About The Food
photo credit – Copyright: yuriz / 123RF Stock Photo

Letting Go

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24931051_s
Hey there oh RADIANT one.

Let’s Tawk About LETTING GO (shall we?)

After my fabulous week of cranking out admittedly BRILLIANT, fresh and challenging videos, I thought it might be nice for us both to kick back a little bit with a song…

I’m not suggesting you let the song’s refrain get stuck in your head or anything…

But if it DID… What WOULD that be like? LOL…

This was one of the first songs I wrote that was inspired by my work as a healer/hypnotherapist/NLP practitioner.

People have come to me so emotionally wounded, so devastated by their childhood experiences that it literally becomes a self fulfilling prophecy…

Ultimately whatever happened in the past is gone, our memories of it and beliefs around our pasts can be healed and released. It starts with the intention of “letting go”.

And no I’m not saying that all you have to do is listen to this song a million times and anything you want to let go of will “magically” just loosen up it’s hold and sweetly drift away on the breezes like the dandy-lion seeds in the picture, BUT if you DID listen to this song a million times, it might FACILITATE it (at least a little bit).

When we release ourselves from attachment to our “horror” and “shame” stories and begin to live more and more in this sacred present moment healing can take place…

And of course it is a process we are in that sometimes seems like 2 steps forward and 1 step back, but it is happening…

Looking back at the 10 years of “lessons” since writing this song it feels like it was as much a message for me as it was for my clients…

As I often say to my current hypnosis clients and NLP students, the tools and techniques from Neuro Linguistic Programming or “Processing”, or from traditional hypnosis don’t instantly “fix” us, but they give us resources to heal ourselves faster, and more completely than if we were just using trial and error… or going through the same old behaviors and expecting a different result… (which Einstein is famous for saying is literally the definition of INSANITY).

Imagine singing yourself sane. What would THAT be like? :o)

Your Daily Mind Mastery “Take-Away” on this beautiful Saturday in November is to practice IMAGINING letting go. Let of of whatever it is that when you let it go would empower you to feel lighter, stronger, more at home in your body and in this present moment…

Let this be your soundtrack for the day.

Please click the arrow to play:

Let It Go

Song # 344   |   3/1/05   |   CD: Eyes On The Horizon

Refrain:
Let it go, let it go. Let it slip away
Let it go, let it go. Let it slip away
You will feel much lighter by the end of the day

I don’t know, I don’t know, Why you chose this road
I don’t know, I don’t know, Why you chose this road
It’s the perfect path for you to make yourself whole

Refrain:

I wish that you could see, the person that I see
I wish that you could see, the person that I see
Shining back at me so magnificently

Refrain:

Bridge:
I don’t know why you chose this experience
All I know is that on some level you did.
And if you chose it, you can change it kid.
It might be uncomfortable to admit it but you’ll be glad you did
You can blame it on your childhood
You got beat up  even when you tried to be good.
Your mom and dad, well they did the best they could
And you can’t escape the fact that their best was often not very good at all…
You got in the way and you got hurt and I’m sorry for that…

But they’re not around, they’re dead and gone or at the very least
They are no longer bigger than you.
So who’s beating you up now? Every single day?
Who’s keeping you depressed and tired and hurt and angry and overweight?

And if you chose it you can change it kid!
And if you chose it you can change it now…

Refrain:

I’ll sing this song for you. I’ll sing this song for me
I’ll sing this song for you. I’ll sing this song for me
Let’s get tangled up in the sweet melody

Refrain:

Look around, look around. See beauty everywhere
Look around, look around. See beauty everywhere
When you see your self make sure you that notice it there.

Refrain:

Copyright 2005-2015 by Mark Shepard. All Rights Reserved. Used by permission.

Want to crank up your “Letting Go ” muscles?

Check out my “kick the ass of anxiety” Course: CRUSH anxiety NOW!

Thoughts? Questions? Comments? Contact me baby.

 

Photo credit – Copyright: / 123RF Stock Photo

Why Anxiety Is Not A Disease

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24561941_mA lot of people have been hoodwinked by the big pharmaceutical companies into believing that anxiety is a disease…

Big Pharma wants it to be a “disease” so they can get doctors to prescribe their shitty pills with all their addictive and soul killing side effects so that they can make the big bucks. Cha Ching! Month after month.

It’s not. I repeat. Anxiety is NOT a Disease.

There is no “anxiety” germ. There is no anxiety “virus”.

Other than the metaphorical “thought virus” that anxiety really is,

Anxiety is thinking about what you do not want to have happen.

It’s really the same as “worry”… just a bit more intense.

What’s worry? Thinking about bad shit happening. Often to our LOVED ones! Why would anyone DO that?

We all have this ability. It comes with the “human software download” you got when you signed up for this lifetime.

Unlike all the other animals, we can imagine a future that we don’t like.

The flip side of this is that we can also imagine a future that we DO like.

Either way, your unconscious mind gives you the “biochemistry” of whatever you are focusing on with your “mental movie screen”…

Before this morphs into a full blown “rant”… I’m going to go turn the video camera on just in case it gets interesting…
[Here’s what I ranted up for you]
Okay, that felt better…   (BTW If you ever feel so inclined to “go deep for cheap” you can always check out all 80 or so videos I’ve  uploaded to my Honest Hypnosis YouTube channel so far since JULY!  :o)

The bottom line is that only YOU have the power to stop your old patterns and habitual ways of thinking that cause your unconscious mind to react with fight, flight or freeze biochemistry.

As I mention in the video, sometimes our negative thinking patterns about the future are so insidious and “normal” that we don’t even notice that we are doing it… Kind of like the fish in the ocean don’t really “notice” the ocean.

Well that makes sense right? That’s literally what we mean by being “unconscious”.

It’s happening outside of our conscious awareness…

And though it may be outside of our conscious awareness, it is really happening on your “internal storyboard” and it really affects what hormones are triggered in your body which in turn creates “how you feel.”

The Honest truth is that the only way to actually “cure” anxiety is to change your thinking, to change your focus and to do it enough so that you install a new habitual way of automatically responding to the world and life’s little (and not so little) bumps, curves, hills, valleys, or mountains.

You see, one thing nobody else is telling you, is that your immune system is constantly eves dropping on your self talk. Immune systems have the ability to actually listen and LEARN.

So what you are doing unconsciously actually matters a great deal. And as I’ve said a gazillion times, hypnosis is really the “process of communicating effectively with your unconscious mind”.

It’s not hocus pocus or some magical power that suddenly happens when some creepy asshole starts swinging a watch and telling you to go into trance…

Hypnosis is YOU running your own stream of consciousness in a way that actually gets you what you want instead of what you don’t want.

Oh! What a surprise!?!…

All that stuff that you’ve been getting i n your life that you don’t want? Your “old” hypnosis brought that in. Hmmm Let’s see what the “new” hypnosis could do if  you gave it a chance!

So just a quick reminder, CRUSH anxiety NOW! increases in price Tomorrow. It will still be reasonably priced and affordable but it will never again be THIS CHEAP. So if you are curious about going deeper with me, check it out. The risk is on me. A bunch of you awesome action takers have already jumped in and are already CRUSHING the “beast” of anxiety… Cowabungah!  Looking forward to your questions and success stories! OH YEAH!

CRUSH anxiety NOW!  Cheap… Price… set… to expire…

[wpdevart_countdown text_for_day=”Days” text_for_hour=”Hours” text_for_minut=”Minutes” text_for_second=”Seconds” start_time=”1446052439″ end_time=”1,,” action_end_time=”show_text” content_position=”center” top_ditance=”10″ bottom_distance=”10″ ]times up![/wpdevart_countdown]

In the meantime, I will see YOU on the… INSIDE!

p.s. A shout out to all the new Transformation Nation Peeps like locals, Dottie and Jeremy from my home town of Albany NY and the fabulous, far away Peter from New Zealand… NEW ZEALAND. Where it’s already tomorrow! Way to go Peter! Also Brian from California! Kristan from Pennsylvania, Welcome!!!! The “Transformation Nation” is assembling… MIND MASTERY ROCKS!

I am OUTA HERE! Talk to you tomorrow!

photo credit – Copyright: lightwise / 123RF Stock Photo

Life Outside The Box

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19728676_m-2Imagine a box.

You’ve lived your entire life in this box.

It is beautiful.

It is comfortable.

It is safe.

You’ve got all your favorite things right there…

And then one day…

[Here’s the video version or just keep reading. It all leads to the same place…]

One day you hear a sound…

It’s coming from a long locked, unused closet door that somehow no-one knew about… or that hatchway in the ceiling… that someone painted shut…

It sounds like Someone or some thing is knocking on the door… of your box.

Whoever is knocking keeps banging and banging until the plaster of that part of your beautiful home begins to crack and fall …

What a mess! You think. And you also might be feeling a little “trepidation” or uncertainty or downright fear.

“Who is out there!?!?”

“What is out there?!?!?!?”

You retreat to the farthest corner of your “box”… and watch in horror and fascination as…

Eventually the hatch swings downward  or the door swings inward and some friendly guy who you’ve never met before pops his head into your little world and says,

“Hey! There’s a great big world out here for you to explore! I’ve come to rescue you from your limited little world, your box… your cage. Your comfort zone. Come out and be free! Come out and Play!”

If you’re like most people. You would do just about anything to shut that guy up, close that door, and reseal it like it was never there…

“Cage! How DARE he call my lovely world a ‘CAGE!’ GO AWAY!”

And if you did that, no one would blame you….

However… after a time wandering back around through your “known world”, your “box”… your “home”… you will find yourself wondering,

“hmmmm What IS out there? What if I AM missing something really good?”

Eventually, you might want to open that door yourself… curiosity can be insatiable…

And I’m not suggesting you are curious… but if you were curious, what would that be like?

And when you do…. carefully,…. gingerly peek out…

at first you might not even be able to focus in the new light… or you may not be able to conceive of what is out there, or perceive it…

And the guy who originally knocked on your door? Pounded your hatchway open a bit… is he a god? a saint? a messiah?

Nope.

He’s just a guy who went through exactly the same thing, just a little sooner than you did.

So he has set about finding all the little cages and boxes that people have shut themselves up in and he is calling you OUT.

Calling you out into a vast adventure that we call “the awakened life”.

At the end of your first day out in the wide open spaces, you might want to slip back in to your familiar comfortable “place”… and that’s fine… it’s a good place… it’s a relief…

But eventually you will want more… The brilliant sun and sweet breezes and the fullness of life in the vastness of the universe is simply too breathtakingly beautiful to ignore.

You want it. Don’t you?

Well you can have it. Come on out and play. Join us!

Essentially what I’ve described is the bare bones formula of pretty much every adventure/fantasy story or “heroic journey” ever written, filmed, or told around a fire.

The main character is going along quite nicely in his or her life, Bilbo Baggins has very little need of Wizards and Drwarves, Elves, or dragons… But something interrupts that routine, that pattern, and he is called out of his limited comfort zone into something bigger. Along the way he learns some things about himself and the world and his place in it. His knowledge and confidence grows, he begins to respond to events as they arise. As best he or she can. And it turns out, our little scaredy cat character has grown into an actual hero.

In the Russian story of Baba Yaga, a young girl is forced out of her home and on an unwilling adventure… along the way she meets a mysterious stranger on the road… she is kind to him. He gives her advice, or a magic hunting horn, or the gift of a talking crow… Whatever it is, it has magic powers for her to call upon when she most needs it…

She continues on… eventually she makes other friends whom the witch has treated badly, A dog, a gate, a comb, a fish, a certain tree… whatever. It changes depending on the version of the story…

By the time she meets the witch, she has support, help arrives from many places, many sources…

Since our unconscious minds LOVE story and metaphor. Crave it, actually, these lessons are internalized into our deepest beings…

When we commit fully to our own heroic journeys, I believe the “universe” conspires to support us.

This is such a human universal that I believe we need to pay attention to it. As a professional storyteller, I used to watch hundreds of school kids settle down into what can only be described as a trance, as I told them stories…

We are a storytelling people. But what stories have we been telling ourselves lately?

In CS Lewis’ classic, “The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe” Access to the “other world” is through the back of an old wardrobe… Time is different there. The “rules” are different there.

But the characters we step into as we read or watch a story unfold are as real to your unconscious mind as anything else you might imagine… remember?

Your unconscious mind is your imagination.

That’s why when you go to see a movie, your heart rate increases as the main character runs head long to a cliff and then jumps…

Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid hunted down by a posse, choose to leap off a cliff into a raging river rather than be caught… boom! Fourth grade. I’m watching that movie with my next door neighbor Peter Miller. All I have to do is remember and I’m there… I’m in the movie seat but I’m also in the movie and my heart catches in my mouth as we jump over the edge into that crazy river…

Alice falls down a rabbit hole into a totally topsy turvy, crazy different realm.

Harry Potter discovers that he’s not like other kids… for real.

Wherever you go in your imagination, your unconscious mind believes it’s real.

Once you know that, you can start imagining better and better worlds… and then begin to live them authentically in your life, and that’s how we make them real.

I can’t climb down into your world… It doesn’t work that way…

But you CAN come on up and out into this one…

and there are others even bigger than this!

This is the adventure of your life.

I dare you.

I double dare you.

I double dawg dare you!

Explore it with me or without me.

Today I could be playing the part of the mysterious “stranger” on the road.

Whatever, my job is to let you know it’s here… and it is yours.

– Mark

p.s. One way to stick your toe in the water before you fully climb into your greatness, is to check out CRUSH anxiety NOW!  at its, soon to be forever gone, “beta test” price… you can always get a refund… it’s ridiculously cheap… It’s worth 10 times the price.

Give it a shot. Take a test drive. You’ve got nothing to lose except your fear.

Take the puppy home and keep it overnight… see how you like it in the morning…

Peek your head out today… that’s all I’m saying…

No big commitment. If you don’t like it you can go back to being the way you were… Not everybody is ready for freedom. There is no judgement. But I HAVE to knock. It’s my job. It’s my calling. It’s my destiny.

Come on out and play!

CRUSH anxiety NOW! 

 

photo credit – Copyright: nexusplexus / 123RF Stock Photo