Motivational Magic eZine: Issue Three (July 2023)

In the USA it’s just after the 4th of July and a time for long weekends and gatherings of friends and family. We REALLY need to reconnect with our “Why” and our inspiration. No matter where we are in the world, taking a break to be with folks we care about, relax and recharge, is imperative these days. 

My Holiday Hopes for you are that you can find time this month to be with good folks, to laugh and play, and rest up, as often as possible. 

Enjoy the sun when it shines!

Happy 4th and Much love,

Pat and Avery

Your Morning Motivation

This section will be a thought to help you set yourself up for a more purposeful day. The time just flies by if we don’t give it more meaning! Days, weeks, months! Suddenly we look around and wonder what happened to all that time and nothing has really changed in a way we intended.

It can be a very simple thing to add a bit of focused intention to your day.

How to use this section:

• Pick one thing to focus on today. I’ll make a suggestion below, but it can be whatever is right for you.
• Write it down somewhere you’ll see it several times a day. Bonus if you add in why you chose it and how it will make a change in your day/life.
• Set a timer on your phone, 4x a day to look at your intention.
• At the end of the day write down how it went, what did you notice, and what you might want to try tomorrow.

Today’s Morning Motivation: Where are my thoughts right now?

The Focus:

Example, as I was looking at a note from my digital director Avery, I caught myself having berating thoughts about my missing a fairly obvious task. Avery very helpfully and kindly asked for me to complete it so they could finish the project. I immediately went into a very negative spin on my organization and abilities. Catching that I was in that super critical mode, I said a mantra to break the negative story, then changed my thoughts and thanked Avery for helping me stay on track. I chose to recognize that I have a lot going on and I’m doing the best that I can. I took note of what I could do to help myself stay on track so it was less likely to happen again. And then I finished the task.

Here’s what you can use when you check into your own thoughts and find them less than helpful:

1. Catch the thoughts
2. Break the grip and say a mantra or phrase to yourself
3. Sherlock what’s going on, see how you ended up there.
4. How can you feel better now? How can you set yourself up so it doesn’t happen again?
5. Take positive action, move around, finish a task.

Thought for the Month

How to Keep Your Mindset Positive

Glenn is watching Think And Grow Rich: The Movie. TAGR is a book by an ole timey guy, Napoleon Hill.

His concepts are considered the “gold standard” advice on becoming wealthy. (Yes, I know… hope the pun made you smile.)

And most of it is mindset. 

So in the car on the way to the grocery store, he was telling me that all the people interviewed in the film were talking about how you must believe in yourself and your dream relentlessly. Always getting back up, always keep moving towards your goals.

We talked about how to keep that mindset so strong, because everyone has some doubts, don’t they? I mean, we all struggle to believe in ourselves and our ideas and desires. So how did these particular people keep going all the way to success?

And that is what Hill’s book is about. It’s kind of hard to read because it is very old fashioned in vocabulary and phrasing, but that’s what makes it so interesting too. Check it out for yourself using my link here: https://amzn.to/3PsPZM4

I realized in the car at that moment that I already had a formula for keeping your mindset strong.

I’ve been teaching it for a long time. But I don’t think I have ever called it that.

Those who succeed educate themselves constantly. They keep on problem solving. They fall on their face, take a moment to recover and then get back up and start again. Those are the heroes we cheer for in our favorite stories, aren’t they?

But that’s ONE thing, a story. LIFE is quite another. Or is it, really?

I see a life of growth and ideas, and creative thinking as a life worth living. Taking calculated risks, doing my best, and learning new things all keep me engaged in life. Otherwise I start to have dark thoughts. I get too caught up in the world’s drama and find it too hard to stay open-hearted.

My pursuit of keeping a positive mindset and a growth mentality is pretty much life or death of the spirit to me.

What I have come up with, this framework of an uplifted mindset, has been tried and tested by me of course–but also by many many others who are much smarter and WAY more accomplished than I am.

I just put it together in my own way, in my own words.

I hope I have made it accessible in language and application to you.

The Process and The Brain Science

I call the amygdala your Fear Dragon™. As soon as it registers the physical signs of increased heart rate, shallow breathing, and sweating it will flood your braincase with stress hormones. This effectively shuts down your brain and puts energy into the systems of Fight Flight Freeze or Fawn. Now, you cannot think clearly or problem-solve. This tends to keep you stuck in the dark state and leads to a spiral downward.

To halt this process is simple–deep breathing.

I teach Box Breathing which is a very simple and calming way to control the breath and helps you deepen the breath without hyperventilating. It also is gentle, so as not to continue stimulating the amygdala with gulping and panicked breath-holding. It starts to redirect your thoughts away from your fear, and focuses you on your breathing, which gives you distance from the fear thoughts, and helps you to unfurl, relax and start to problem-solve.

The other part of the brain we engage with is the Reticular Activating System. 

That RAS can either be employed by your Fear Dragon or by YOU. If you don’t focus the RAS on what you want it to do, the Fear Dragon will focus it on fears, doubts, and negative thoughts because that is how the brain is designed: for the negative. That’s what kept us alive a million years ago and it hasn’t changed–until you change it by doing these processes to keep the RAS focused on making you happier, healthier, growing, and succeeding.

We tell the RAS what to do by what we focus on. So in this case you want to focus on feeling better, and doing the things to keep you on track for a good life.

By noticing you are in a funky place and need to get yourself on track for a better mindset, you train your RAS to catch the signs of slippage faster. This makes it even easier to deal with, before the Fear Dragon is too big and strong, and is much easier to analyze and put back to sleep.

So what do you do? Congratulate yourself for catching the shitty thoughts. Give yourself a High 5! Yep, that’s it. Simple. Powerful. Effective.

If you notice something, then you can learn something new to counteract the behavior. If Comparison is a repeated issue for you, there’s ways you can learn to dissolve that. If you are worried about a loved one, you can create ways to help without stepping on their boundaries. There’s so many wonderful skills we can learn.

You might say, nothing really happened. Then check in: are you hungry, tired or in pain? 

Then have a snack, rest, take appropriate measures to control your discomfort. Take control! Letting the spiral downwards continue is self victimization. And by becoming aware of your power, what you CAN do, you can stop it! 

It’s important to feel what you feel. Let emotions move. Otherwise they get “stuck” and create other issues for us. One old acting technique is pounding pillows, jumping up and down, having a tantrum like a 2 year old. This seems weird but it moves the emotions out, and better out than in! 

Pretending you have control over emotions and stuffing them down with behaviors like eating, drinking, shopping, sex, busyness, pill-popping, etc, is not only ineffective but halts your personal development. Addiction therapists say that a person’s emotional age is frozen at the age they started using addictive behavior. If you started emotional eating at age 13, you still have the emotional developmental skills of a 13 year old, until you stop the behavior and start to learn and grow.

So go ahead and grieve. Let the disappointment move through you. You tried. You fell. It happens. Go ahead and let the feelings move through. You won’t die. You won’t lose control. That’s just what your Fear Dragon wants you to think.

And look, my friend, if you need some help with this, by all means get it! That’s a wonderful thing to do for yourself. You can find a therapist, talk to a wise friend, or trusted advisor and tell them you just need to let it out, and want someone there to hold space for you.

Do not stay in that place though.

Move through those emotions, and move through! Move on to saying your Fear Busting Mantra.

Have a mantra ready to go. It’s a phrase you say anytime you need to, always positive, always in the present. Say it as many

times as you need to.

Move your body now.

You can move your body at the same time as saying your mantra. 

Put on some music, and be sure to hydrate. Drink only water, please. Your body will need some water. 

Now, you might be able to take some minutes to connect with your Higher Self, The Universe, The Force. Simply sit and close your eyes, breathe, and focus on something; the breath, a mantra, the infinite space between your eyebrows, a visual mantra like a flower in summer in a gentle breeze. Know you are loved.

And when you are done, cap this all off with a better thought. It doesn’t have to be a 180 degree change. Just something that feels a bit better can make a big difference. 

For example, instead of thinking “I’m terrible at this,” try thinking “This is challenging, but I’m capable of learning and improving. I’ve done it before, I can do it now.”

Unhelpful thought: “Nothing ever goes right for me.”

Better thought: “I’ve had some setbacks, but I’ve also had successes, and I can learn from my challenges.”

Old thought: “I’m such a failure.”

Better thought: “I’ve made mistakes, some big ones, but I’m also capable of achieving success and learning from what didn’t work.” 

Bonus steps you can take:

Think of things you can be grateful for. #BFF (Brain Fun Fact) Gratitude and Fear cannot exist in the same moment

AND 

Get into action and take a positive step.

TL;DR

Apply in Case of A Mindset Emergency

When you notice you are having a tough time or you’re in a funky mood, do not hesitate! Start the application of this formula to stem the dream loss.

1. Start box breathing.
2. Congratulate yourself for catching the shitty thoughts. High 5!
3. Write it out. Dump it out on paper and out of your brain. 
4. Grieve. Sometimes we must let the disappointment move through us. You tried. You fell. It happens. Go ahead and let the frustration, anger, and fear move through. Better out than in! Just don’t stay in this place for long. Move to the next step.
5. Say your Fear Busting Mantra
6. Move your body to help change your state of mind. The body and mind are inexorably linked. You treat your brain AND your body!
7. Check in: Are you tired? Are you hungry? Are you in physical discomfort?
8. You can try any of these: Put on uplifting music, read a passage of an uplifting non-fiction book, drink water (only water!)
9. Meditate and connect with the Force.
10. Find a better thought

Bonus steps you can take:

Think of things you can be grateful for. #BFF Gratitude and Fear cannot exist in the same moment. 

AND 

Get into action and take a positive step right now!

Post this where you can refer to it easily. When you slip into a dark place, the amygdala will flood the brain case with stress hormones and keep you from thinking creatively. You will forget what to do.

You can do it!

Journal Prompt

(Each month I will give you a thought to fire up your mind. Use journaling prompts over and over again and see how the result changes.)

Recall an incident where you acted before thinking. What happened?  Why do you think you reacted this way? Keep your focus on your reaction. Was there a history to this response? Has it happened before? How can you set yourself up so next time you respond in the way you choose instead of an unconscious reaction?

Our Quest Travel Adventures

We are leaving Italy tomorrow and I have very mixed feelings.

I was relieved to leave the Middle East even though we had a remarkable time. We were in Egypt and Petra for a total of a month. There was SOOOoooo much to love!
Including camels!

And I was ready to move on to the next adventure! On April 21st we touched down in Rome. The AirBnB I had booked was a fantastic little flat just 2 blocks away from the Scalinata di Trinità dei Monti (The Spanish Steps), just between the Piazza di Spagna and Piazza Trinità dei Monti, dominated by the Trinità dei Monti church.

From here it’s a simple walk between all the great spots of Rome! And walk we did! Turns out April can be a great time to visit. We had a week of nice weather, and though busy, it wasn’t as hot and crowded as it soon would be. There was some rain, but it wasn’t a problem. While Rome is a wonderful outdoors city, there’s a lot to see inside too. 

 Taking turns, we shared stories, and chose where to revisit. I LOVE the Roman Forum but Glenn knew even more about it than I did. We had both seen the Coliseum, and it was jam packed, so we walked around the outside, then tried to get lost in the neighboring areas. We found ourselves back in the Forum.

There were places we hadn’t seen but the other had. It had been decades since I had walked through the Villa Borghese Gardens but Glenn never had been there! We created our own memory together of the vast estate of the Familia Borghese, one of the most important families in Italy at the time.

The week went really fast, just enjoying being in Europe, drinking nice wine and loving hearing Italian. Glenn has been brushing up on the Duolingo App, and his Italian literacy is pretty good!

I had rented a farmhouse for a month outside the little medieval town of Monte San Savino. We chose it because it was quiet and not at all on the tourist routes.
Glenn was a champ and drove the rental car out of Rome (no small feat!) and a few hours north to the Arezzo region of Tuscany. The drive was beautiful! Mountains and fields verdant for spring, poppies starting to show off red in all that green. Everywhere looked like a postcard.
It was a relief compared to a month of miles and miles of sand and stark forbidding desert. Beautiful in its own way, no doubt.

Our host had to meet us at the grocery store to lead us up the mountain to the farmhouse. We never would have found the dirt track, branching off a small road, then a gravel driveway shared by the neighboring olive farm, finally twisting away almost imperceptibly into the forest. We drove over grass and flowers waist high, to get to a small flattened area of dirt and some rocks and grass that was the parking area.

Hauling our bags down a grass path, we beheld the house, stone and wood, easily 500 years old. Only the upper floor was finished enough to inhabit. We loved it immediately.
The space had a lovely vibe. It was old and there were weird levels and steps that made me have to pay attention anytime I walked around, but somehow the house made it welcoming.
The woods were full of flowers, bees, birdsong, and, we found out later, the barks of Roe deer in rut. The monastery nearby rang its bells on a schedule having nothing to do with a clock, and we reset our rhythms to it.
Our daily walks rambled like the tiny roads and hardly did we have to shift for a car needing to pass us. There wasn’t anyone else around, just quiet and the sounds of nature. I was constantly pointing out how there were more poppies everyday, adding vibrancy to the spring palette.

Sometimes at night, I became aware of footsteps below us, in the hallways of the lower floor. Purposeful striding about, not the shifty shuffle of some hobo. I mentioned it finally to Glenn and he nodded. He too had heard it, but didn’t want to alarm me maybe? I was entertained and cheered by the idea of a ghost. It was fitting.

As our month crept to a close, I found myself grieving. I had asked to extend our stay but it was booked. So we found another farmhouse outside Lucca, closer to the sea.

Member Result of the Month

(Each month, we’ll be spotlighting a member from my Magical Living membership program for personal growth!)

“…Over the 2 years that I was dipping in and out of the sessions and programmes and communities I found wisdom, shared experiences and people who were inspiring and awesome at a time when things were very difficult for me. I had stopped going to church in 2017 after realising that after almost 50 years of trying to ‘fit in’ I just did not, and that effort and energy was best spent elsewhere–but just how and where was a whole new adventure… it was as if I was a refugee without my country and having to make new paths by myself.

By 2018 I was back working full-time across various jobs/contracts, trying to support my family and at the same time trying to re-establish or find a new path to walk that was true to what I felt deeply within. It was lonely and… to be honest during the time of Covid lockdowns I was able to face and work through so much, and this is where B5/ Magical Living just played such a huge part of me moving from caterpillar to butterfly.  

Being a deeply spiritual yet practical person, I found these sessions just wonderful and what I did not expect was to find myself almost without realising growing in confidence within as I found my own self-worth and value. Asking for a pay increase, insisting on being paid for what I considered a fair contractual fee for my work, to stepping out and embracing new challenges such getting an old but wonderful second hand Harley Davidson customised trike, taking on Egyptian folk dancing again albeit 30 years older and finally stepping out and getting into LARP (live action role play) all of which have opened up my world.

I was no longer odd but belonging and being and very much accepted as me in all my quirky ADHD colours and respected me for who and what I am as well as just believing I can do and would support me in doing them.  

Pat has a great ability to hold space for a great diversity of people, cut through the crap but with respect and compassion, uses stories and experiences of her life to help walk and guide folk through challenging issues to find positive and practical paths to realising new lives and ways of living. I certainly benefited within myself as a person, but also within my consultancy (work is coming to me like crazy), social life and within my marriage and family. It also helped me help myself as I took steps to take greater care of me.

The acceptance and positive approach of Patricia and others meant I could without judgment or shame just face me and my issues and be open and honest and deal with them …As I face a new phase in my life i.e will be 60 in April 2024 I know with confidence that I will be a more whole, free, healthy me that can walk in confidence in all my colourful kaleidoscope beingness, whether I buoyant and lively or quiet and contemplative what ever I am, I can just be me.  

Would I recommend Patricia and Magical Living? HELL YEAH. It is a fantastic and powerful programme and community that is just life changing… Patricia and those she brings along are just awesome, but very human and so so approachable which is very special. It is very much worth the money and time… Magical Living certainly played a major role in changing how I walk within myself today. Thank you, Pat!”

-Janice, UK

Stay in Touch!

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A Year of Magical Living: The Science of Magic

The Magical Living community was created to give sci-fi and fantasy nerds like me a place to gather with others to focus on our dream goals.

Every month, I guide a masterclass on a personal development topic, something I have been passionate about and teaching for over 12 years now.

Our July topic is Trust. How do we trust others, and what does trusting ourselves really look like?

The human brain has instincts for survival built into it. The amygdala is the center for our survival and it’s amazing at its job. I call the amygdala the Fear Dragon™.

The things we learned as a child will still control us today if we let it. 

This masterclass teaches you how to find those old beliefs, and then how to get them to let go, to free you up to follow all those gorgeous dreams of yours!

If you are curious about the YOML and would like to try a masterclass, check out How To Tame Your Fear Dragon, now 50% off for Motivational Magic subscribers! Check your email for the coupon code.

You can check out our community and program The Year Of Magical Living: The Science of Magic here! https://magicalliving.mykajabi.com/a-year-of-magical-living-the-science-of-magic

Features

Fan Fun

Please also share our posts about it (Facebook, Instagram, Twitter.)

I will talk a lot more about it as soon as I am allowed to. 

Babylon 5: The Road Home will be available is now for pre sale for the USA and will be available in the UK 8/15 on Digital, 4K and BD! https://amzn.to/3JqpJ1d              

#B5AnimatedMovie #LytaAlexander #Babylon5 #BabylonBabes #Ivanova #Sheridan #Delenn #Londo #Lennier #Babylon5Telepath @PatriciaTallman.rocks 

Conventions

I’ll be at  SDCC July 20, 21 & 22nd. 

Signing times: 

Thursday July 20th

2:30pm-7:00pm – Signing in the Sails Pavilion

Friday July 21st

2:30-7:00pm – Signing in the Sails Pavilion

Saturday July 22nd

10am-2:30pm – Signing in the Sails Pavilion with Babylon 5 group signing at 11-12, see below

11:00am-12:o0pm – Pat will be at the Babylon 5 group signing in Sails Pavilion with Claudia Christian and Bruce Boxleitner

Preorder items at a discount for convention pickup: https://b5events.com/pat-tallman-convention-preorder/ 

Who is Patricia Tallman?

If you want to learn more about me, here’s my bio!

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Thank you for reading!

Love,

Patricia Tallman, founder of Magical Living