It's Your Life......Own It!

By Christie Bakeman

We go through life asking questions; wondering how we got where we are, why is this happening to me, is this all there is and can I really improve my life? Sometimes we need help finding the answers. With humor and honesty, Christie Bakeman takes us through different areas of life, sharing her personal stories and processes to help you wake up to the possibilities. You deserve to be happy. Beginning from a place of acceptance, you are guided through exercises to assist you on your journey to improve your daily existence and create the life you desire.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Balboa Press
• Release date: Feb 10, 2016
• ISBN: 9781504349475

Christie Bakeman

Christie Bakeman spent thirty years in management, juggling sixty-five-hour workweeks as a wife, mother, and volunteer. A successful businessperson from a young age, she was listed as one of the ten executives to watch in 1992 by the Atlanta Business Chronicle. A lifelong journey of self-evaluation and spiritual fulfillment led to her transforming her ordinary life and creating a life filled with love and light. She is a founding partner of succeed at.life. You can connect with that community on Facebook. Christie currently lives with her family in Arizona.

Book preview

It’s Your

Life……

Own It!

Christie Bakeman

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Copyright © 2016 Christie Bakeman.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

Balboa Press

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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.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

ISBN: 978-1-5043-4948-2 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5043-4949-9 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-5043-4947-5 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2016901569

Balboa Press rev. date: 02/09/2016

CONTENTS

Preface

Chapter 1 Changing Paths

Chapter 2 Work and Your Job

Chapter 3 Life Partners/Spouses

Chapter 4 Health and Feeling Good

Chapter 5 Raising Happy Children

Chapter 6 Your Most Important Relationship—You

Chapter 7 Your Worst Enemy—Your Subconscious (until you make it your best friend)

Chapter 8 The Oneness

About the Author

Notes and Inspirations

To Brent: thank you for being a supportive partner in this endeavor. Although components of this book have been floating around my head for years, I did not have the courage—nor did I create the opportunity—until we explored life’s possibilities together.

To my children: Cody, Ryan, and Laren. Thank you for inspiring me to love, dream, and create.

PREFACE

The purpose of this book is to help you take control of your life. No matter what your circumstances, I want to show you—even prove to you—that you are in control of what you experience and the results that have become your reality.

We’ve all heard, at one time or another, that you get what you think about. This book will provide examples and specific thoughts that show you that what you are experiencing is a direct result of what you have been thinking. The good news is that you can make immediate changes to achieve a more desirable outcome. Is it easy? Sometimes. However, most of us have been thinking and operating the same way for so long that we have some habits to break. For these circumstances, you are going to have to put forth some mental effort.

Change is a funny thing. If someone else changes in a way that benefits us, oh boy, we like that kind of change. However, if we discover that we are the ones who need to make changes, well, that’s a different story. The fact is that some of you will get angry with me for making you take an honest look at yourself. Fine with me, and here is why; if your emotional tone is anger, you have much more ability to take action than if you are feeling despair. My goal is to help you no matter what your emotional state is at this moment in time.

This book became available to you for a reason. Merely being in possession of it means that you are open to its ideas and the knowledge contained within. Thank you for being willing to open up yourself to the possibilities ahead of you. I promise you won’t be bored, and—who knows?—there is always the possibility that your life will improve. That’s my goal, and just a heads up—I have great intentions for you.

Sometimes it’s the smallest decisions that can change your life forever.

—Keri Russell

Deciding to read this book certainly qualifies as a small decision, but it will be up to you whether or not it changes your life. I simply want you to know that you can. To get the most out of this book, I suggest you actually do the exercises it contains. Remember when you were in school and how you retained or learned more when you used more than one of your senses? The reason you were asked to take notes then is that it helped your mind assimilate the information better when you read it, heard it, and took notes. Simply reading the exercises may give you a little spark of intuition about your life, but actually doing the exercises will provide you far more insight. So break down, get a spiral notebook or composition notebook, and plan on doing the exercises. After all, you did decide to read this far. How about a bit more of a commitment to yourself?

CHAPTER 1

Changing Paths

Y ou must have been living under a rock the past few years if you haven’t heard of or talked about the law of attraction. Maybe you read the book The Secret , or you tuned in to Oprah and heard a stimulating conversation about attracting everything you want. Maybe you’ve read the teachings of Abraham or listened to talk radio. Whatever the catalyst was, you at some point thought about how cool it would be to attract everything you want. Then reality set in, along with thoughts about how this crap doesn’t work—at least not for you. I understand that feeling, because I’ve been there.

I was so excited when I read The Secret that I bought two dozen copies so I could give them away. After all, I wanted all the folks who were important to me to have the same information. I gave a copy to each of the fifteen managers who worked for me. One of those managers, Julie, called me the day after I gave her the book to tell me how excited she was because she had stayed up all night reading. This information was new to her and created an increased level of excitement for life in her. I also gave the book to one of my youngest son’s friends, Liam. He was a teenager who’d experienced more trauma in his life than most adults, and I wanted him to know that he could control his life. He was so grateful to be introduced to concepts that he’d never heard of that he couldn’t stop reading the book.

So here I am, all excited about this book and about a universal law referred to as the law of attraction. I read the book, set some goals, and shared what I was thinking about with others—and my life didn’t change. Damn! Okay, I said to myself, maybe you haven’t really absorbed the true meaning of the material. I bought the CD set of The Secret, and I also bought a couple of Abraham CDs. Most folks don’t know that the basis for The Secret began with the teachings of Abraham delivered by Esther Hicks. I spent a great deal of time driving for my job, so I figured I’d put all that drive time to good use and really absorb the material. Guess what happened? My life didn’t change much at all. There were small victories in my attempts at manifestation, but nothing anyone else could recognize.

Right now, you might be saying, See? It didn’t work for her either, but you’d be wrong. It may have taken years, but once I finally got it, I was amazed. My intention with the book you are currently reading is to share enough examples and exercises with you that your journey into believing that you are in control of your life and happiness is a shorter one than what I experienced.

As above, so below. As within, so without.

—The Emerald Tablets

In May of 2011, I was riding in a Jeep with the top off on some unknown road in Ohio. My oldest son, Cody, was driving. My youngest son, Ryan, and their friend, Taylor, were in the back of the Jeep. It was a beautiful, sunny day, and the warm wind was blowing against my face and through my hair. I spent fifteen minutes trying to identify a feeling that came over me. Seriously. Okay, I’m blonde but not dumb, and it took me nearly fifteen minutes to identify that I was feeling happy. Wow! What a wake-up call. How freakin’ sad that it had been so long since I had been happy that I didn’t even recognize happiness when it showed up. Not to bore you with the details of my misery, but let’s agree that whatever circumstances we become accustomed to become our normal. It is just how life is for us. Maybe it is a coping mechanism for the human race that we become complacent and accept life as it is without much thought as we go about our lives—until something occurs that wakes us up. My wake-up call was that Saturday afternoon, and it made me realize that I had to change something. I wasn’t sure what at that point; I was just absolutely positive that I had to change something, because I wanted to be happy.

It wasn’t until 2013, when I read the entire Emerald