Category: Mindfulness

This one’s actually not that easy to write… The concept is a slippery one, and I keep false starting the writing in my head, I suspect because I’m holding on too tight to the concept! (I also have “Let It Go” from Frozen in my head, which is both helpful and not in equal amounts! 😉 )

It is a counter intuitive concept after all, in some ways. We all carry baggage, both good memories and bad, and generally, these memories shape how we interact with the world. This can keep us trapped in the past, very much preventing us being present in the now.

And whilst knowing how the world works can be a good thing, letting go is very scary. After all, some of the things that we carry that drag us down we don’t even consciously think about any more. The negative experiences become part of “us” – But letting go of these negatives means removing known structures, removing the “comfort blanket” of what we think we know about how the world works.

And of course, as we know, the Amygdala likes keeping us in known past patterns, because “change is bad right?”

However, we don’t need to make a fuss about letting go, we just make the choice to see how are Amygdala is working and simple brush past that. In essesence, there is nothing to it but to do it.

Take Wednesday just gone for example. Around 2 weeks ago, my Central Heating Boiler started making very very loud noises and then turning itself off after running for 4 hours or so.

I’m pretty hands on, so I do the obvious stuff; check the water pressure, check the condenser outlet isn’t blocked outside, bleed the radiators to get rid of air then re-pressurise the system. But nope, if anything, the noises be worse and it starts turning itself off even more.

It’s overdue servicing anyway, as I’ve been a bit lax with managing that. So, I ring the servicing company and I’m quoted £95 for the service and an additional £85/hr call out for the repairs labour.

I’m good with that, the company are a good & reliable company with well trained staff, not rip off merchants at all.

So, the chap turns up and does his thing. The boiler was in generally good shape, but what was causing the noise and turning off issue was Limescale gunk build up in the Condenser trap (the other end of the pipe I checked outside!) – which had built up cos of my lax servicing.

So, how is this about letting go? As I was brushing my teeth Wednesday morning, waiting for the repair person to show up, my brain leapt to “what if my boiler is totally broken… where will I find ~3K from?”

Which could have causes a spiral panic, and all the yukky fear that goes with that. Instead, I then just saw the thought for what it was, shook my head at the silliness of the thought and let it wash out as a negative voice thought… I let it go.

That thought came from a scarcity mentality, from the past when where I worried about money and lived a small life because of that. Now, because I know the universe has my back and I let abundance in, this story also has a good ending – As it was a simple fix, the admin lady back in the office only charged me for 1/2 hour labour, so the bill was actually £42.50 less than expected!

So, how do we go about being able to let go? It’s nothing but simple practice really; the brain is a bit like a puppy, it runs around enthusiastically, going everywhere willy nilly in the territory that it knows. What we have to do is obverse our own thoughts, and when they start to stray into negative patterns or repetitive thoughts, we simply have to “pick up the puppy”, acknowledge that it was getting a bit wild running about over there in the past and bring it back to the present.

The more that you do this, the better you will get, as by seeing your own patterns you can then learn that they are just that, repetitive patterns, and that by holding onto them, you are almost certainly not serving your higher good.

Conversely, we don’t want to stop the puppy running about, because we would lose inspirational thoughts, what we want to do is just observe and train our puppy to walk the lighter, more inspirational paths, and generally leave the dead-end negative ones alone; just take a sniff at it, know it’s not worth the effort and then pass it by.

Whilst doing this day to day is good, you might want to kickstart the “puppy-training” learning process with a touch of meditation. Have a go and see what arises for you. This is a short meditation, will take around 15 minutes.

Find a comfortable posture for you.
Sit, stand, lie, whatever you want and however you can be relaxed. Close your eyes or not as you feel. Become aware of your breathing and take slow full belly breaths. (Often, we breath in small pants, with only with the top of our lungs, meaning we are really not taking in enough oxygen to keep our brain working at optimal speed)
Then, notice, right now, the position of your body has ended up in and how it feels.
Are you balanced through your spine, or are you canted to one side? Can you feel any physical tensions in your body? Do any parts feel warm? What about cold? If there is tension, or pain, could you give it a description? A shape, a colour or a texture? Be aware of these tensions. Also, what happens to the tensions and pains as you become aware of them? Do they release or stay with you?
Next, become aware of emotions that are touching you at the moment.
What happens when you observe your emotions? Can you rate how strong the emotion is? At this point, don’t try to let go, just feel it. Counter-intuitively, putting effort into letting go creates more tension – instead, simply become aware of it, acknowledge it and allow the emotion to take its course. If you want to laugh, laugh! If you want to cry, or yell do so. There is no wrong here, it’s all good to simply feel. Us “logic based westerners” generally don’t do enough of it. Take a good belly breath or two. If any of the feelings lingers on, for the now, be okay with that, and accept it as it is. If things do linger, there are other tactics that we can use to process these, but that’s not a topic for right now. Just know that you are going to have more work to do later.
Finally, are you willing to let go of anything that you found out?
Is there anything that you’re now holding on to that you can see isn’t serving your higher good? Take a few more belly breaths and just relax. Let whatever it is that you are ready to let go of just drain softly away as you breathe, trusting that you have within you all that needs to be known.
Have a good stretch and come back to the day.
Reactivate the body with a yawn and a good old glorious stretch, wiggle your fingers and toes, shake out your hands, stand up and gently jump or wriggle.

Are you willing to Let It Go? Once you’ve stopped humming Disney, leave me a comment below about how this experiment works for you, and especially how it feels, even if those feelings are negative. Because, as I said last time, negatives are as valid as positives for self-learning, as all “feels” are generated by the Limbic brain in the now. Once we know where we stand, we can start working on connecting those dots!

Catch you next week!

Image used, Untitled by Stewart Black
Used Under Creative commons licence: Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic (CC BY-SA 2.0)

October 30, 2015

Choosing the best nutrition

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Following on from the thoughts in my previous post “Crap in = Crap out“, I wanted to write a little more on what I feel is the best nutrition, and, even if you don’t agree with me 100%, some guidelines how to choose foods that are good for the body generally.

So, what do I view as good nutrition?

I base my food choices around Optimal, Sub-optimal and Non-optimal. I personally ban nothing, I just chose to avoid things that I know are non-optimal. After all when something is “banned” or “bad” then, by that nice twist of human psychology, we generally want it all the more.

Broadly speaking, the foods I eat are:

Optimal (eat freely and with gusto!):
Plentiful amounts of meat, fish, fowl, green veg (brassica), eggs, cheese, cream, butter, olive oil, herbs, spices.

Sub-optimal (Eat with care, enjoy the tastes):
Moderate amounts of all other non root tuberous vegetables (peas & corn are not vegetables, they are beans & grains respectively), veg from the onion & garlic family, seeds, nuts (peanuts & cashews are beans), berry fruits (inc tomatoes.)

Little bits of non potato roots (swede, turnip, sweet potato, carrots etc), 70% dark chocolate, cocoa powder, red wine. Beans are a borderline case, extra care advised.

Non-Optimal (really not good for the body, enjoyed without guilt once in a blue moon, if at all):
Sugar, all grains (rice, bread, pasta, cake, biscuits, crackers) & white potatoes.

I talk more about how to start eating a low-carb way in this article on my low-carb website.

However, even if you don’t agree with me on the above, there are still a few factors that I’m sure that we can agree on.

Choose and prepare actual food.
This is really a cornerstone of self-care. And usually, knocking up a nutritionally valid meal takes just as long as one that is devoid of nutrient value. Why stint yourself? It takes me 15-20 mins to prep and cook most of the meals I eat, and I know exactly what went into every mouthful I then take.If you are choosing “ready-meals” (let’s face it, everyone does once in a while!) a good thing to bear in mind is the ingredient list – Does it have ingredients in it that you wouldn’t cook with/couldn’t find as a home cook?
Check that label, 6 ingredients or less is a good start. If there are more, ensure that these ingredients that are not chemical “Fillers” “Flavours” or “Enhancers”
Never choose “diet” products – They are usually sugar and chemical laden monstrosities!
Look at the ingredients for two well known brands of “Diet shake” (low-fat then low-carb)

Slimfast Vanilla Shake 325Ml
From www.tesco.com/groceries/product/details/?id=261592549
Ingredients: Skimmed Milk (78%), Water, Sugar, Milk Proteins, Corn Oil, Stabilisers (Cellulose, Carboxymethyl Cellulose, Dipotassium Phosphate, Carrageenan), Thickener (Acacia Gum), Emulsifier (Mono-and Diglycerides of Fatty Acids), Flavourings (contain Lactose), Vitamins and Minerals1, Antioxidants (Sodium Ascorbate, Alpha-Tocopherol), Sweeteners (Sucralose, Acesulfame Potassium), 1 Vitamins and Minerals: Magnesium Oxide, Vitamin C, Zinc Oxide, Ferric Pyrophosphate, Vitamin E, Niacin, Sodium Selenite, Biotin, Copper Gluconate, Manganese Sulphate, Vitamin A (contains Soybean), Vitamin B6, Thiamin, Vitamin D, Pantothenic Acid, Folic Acid, Riboflavin

Atkins Ready To Drink Vanilla Shake 330Ml
From http://www.tesco.com/groceries/product/details/?id=282485593
Ingredients: Water, Dairy Protein Blend (Milk Protein Concentrate, Calcium Caseinate), Sunflower Oil, Stabilisers (Cellulose, Sodium Carboxymethyl Cellulose, Carrageenan, Potassium Phosphate), Acidity Regulator (Potassium Citrate), Flavourings, Sweeteners (Sucralose, Acesulfame-K), Salt, Colour (Riboflavin)

I am sure you will agree with me, neither of these are at all real food… Consuming these types of product do no honour to your body at all. Remember, Crap in=Crap out!
Make time to eat, and eat mindfully and conscientiously.
Eating food is something that most of us tend to “fit in” to a busy life – we grab a quick sandwich between meetings, or mindlessly grab “something” to eat whilst doing other things. We also graze on “snacks” as we work or watch telly… And again, none of this values your body.

Eating mindlessly means that you are not paying attention to the signals your body will send you about being satisfied. Grazing especially, where you are constantly chewing and “topping up” your stomach, and hence suppressing natural signals, is not at all how we evolved to eat.

Myself, I always ensure that I take my lunch break and take my time over eating. I’m slightly less mindful than I might be, in that I read my book whilst I eat. However, taking that break from my day re-energises my brain for a good afternoon of productivity!

When I cook my dinner, I enjoy eating it. Again, I’m generally watching something as I eat, but I’m also taking my time and enjoying my food, and not just stuffing it into my face as fast as I can.Thinking about what I’m eating also allows me to listen to my stomach – if I’ve cooked too much, I’ll know it. I will then stop (no fake imperative to “clean the plate” for me!) and (generally) fridge what I’ve left over, for consumption later or more often the next day.

So, my challenge for this week: At work next week, when you eat lunch, do nothing but eat lunch. For the period that your food lasts; no books, no chatter and definitely no work! Enjoy the food, and indulge in the sensations it gives. Revel in how it tastes, it’s smell, how it feels in your mouth. After you finish eating, read a book for the rest of your lunch hour, or if your lunch room is more social, chat with colleagues about anything but your day-job – do not dash back to your work. Take time to breathe and digest.

Commit to doing this at least once next week and leave me a comment below about how this experiment works for you, and especially how it feels, even if those feelings are negative. Because negatives are as valid as positives for self-learning, as all “feels” are generated by the Limbic brain in the now. Then, we can start working on connecting those dots!

Catch you next week!

Image used, Warm confit ocean trout – Bistro Vue by Alpha
Used Under Creative commons licence: Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic (CC BY-SA 2.0)

September 18, 2015

You can’t do it wrong… Sometimes, it just takes time to get it right!

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One of Resistance‘s biggest allies is our fear of “doing it wrong”; In western culture (and a couple of others also, most notably Japan), we are taught from the get go that everything has to be perfect at first creation, and that failure is something to be avoided at all costs.

Thinking mindfully however, where we learn that All life experiences teach you, these days I’m not afraid to fail. Some of the best things I’ve learned in life have been through monumental cock-ups.

For instance, in my day-job, in my early days of working with Group Policy Admin, I learned how the system worked through a huge error – I didn’t realise that unless you saved the policy work done a certain way, the system didn’t retain the security filters placed on it – and so I hid everyone’s C:\ drive, rather than just the C:\ of the intended group of computers.

This mistake was easily undone, and the cock-up I made here, along with the lesson I learned from making it, saved me from doing something with the system at some point down the line that would have been an million times worse!

I have a very healthy attitude to failure now – I approach all things in a state of playfulness – which is the state that the limbic brain likes the best. Yes, making mistakes is disruptive, so learning, testing and planning before hitting the go button is the way I do things now, knowing that I have the skills to ensure success, so it will probably be OK, but also knowing that if I do break it, I also very much have the capability to fix it again.

It’s that pushing through to ensure that things do work out OK if they do go wrong that is the key. For instance, as an inventor, Thomas Edison made 1,000 unsuccessful attempts at inventing the light bulb. When a reporter asked him, “How did it feel to fail 1,000 times?” Edison replied, “I didn’t fail 1,000 times. The light bulb was an invention with 1,000 steps.”

Edison learned vital things from his first 999 tries that lead to his eventual success. If he had have given up at the first failure (or even felt resistance so much that he didn’t even try!), we would probably all still be using candles!

There is also another dimension to ‘You can’t do it wrong’ however, which is all about second guessing oneself. This is more the “will I make the wrong choice” type of doing it wrong than anything else – and it’s again firmly rooted in resistance as your amygdala feeds past experience feeling/memory into your current choice giving fear for the future outcome.

Combating that one is a mixture of being present in the now and trusting your gut feeling to instinctively make the right choice. A choice made in the now will always be the right one, as you will have collected enough information about the issue for your subconcious to know what is right, even if your concious mind hasn’t caught up yet. You just need to be still and listen to yourself.

However, listening to the fear feedback loop caused by your amygdala’s need for stasis will lead to procrastination and inaction. Unfortunately, your Amygdala has a loud voice, and so learning how to reach past that and get out of your own way whilst making a choice is an art in itself.

If you think it all sounds like a great deal of effort, you are not wrong. And Resistance will try and make you not learn the skill at every turn. It is well worth being persistent however, and even though it took me a couple of years to even begin to get the trick of getting out of my own way, learn to find the quiet in the now and make that choice, the only time I ever receive a bad outcome is when I’ve second guessed myself. I’m still on the journey with this one, but every time I practise the skill, the easier it is to exercise it. And life is just so much easier as a result!

Are you ready to join me? Make a commitment now to be present. Leave me a comment below about your experiences in this area, and we can start working on connecting those dots.

Catch you next week!

Image used “Deciding Which Door to Choose 2” by Vic
Used Under Creative commons licence: Attribution 2.0 Generic (CC BY 2.0)

September 18, 2015

Intermission…

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August was a very weird time – an all too brief 4 day visit from one of my partners, two funerals, a wedding and the Nineworlds Geekfest conference sandwiched in between them – All very exhausting emotional things – followed by a period of “brain fuzz” from “doing all the stuff”, so not much room for the inspiration needed to write to take effect.

I’ve wanted to write my next post (“You can’t do it wrong“) for the last three weeks, but my brain simply didn’t want to give me “words” of any shape. I did manage to journal a little bit about one of the funerals (to aid creating white space in my brain) but I know there is way more in there that needs to come out. When I’ve not been at work (doing “the minimum needed to get by and keep projects moving”), I’ve spent most of my time either sleeping, fussing over my orchids/watching YouTube videos on Orchid care and finishing up re-watching S7 of Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

Now, I could chose to beat myself up over this seeming “waste of time”, and a few years ago I very much would have done, feeling all the guilt around “doing nothing” and I would have tried to force “things to work”, which would inevitably lead to life not working at all and even more “things not happening” in life as I wallowed and flailed.

However, taking the Mindful view on things, I simply acknowledge that having had a very emotion filled and time sapping beginning to August, I needed some time to reset. And my doing that self-care and taking that time to get back in the flow is not something that is “bad” or “wrong”, it is something that just “is”. And I have no need at all to feel bad about that at all.

Take my work here for instance. I dedicated myself to producing world-changing content once a week, and my lack of words to the world since the beginning of August could be seen as a massive failure. I could sit here in a puddle of self-recrimination and self-doubt, allow that negativity to enable me to listen to my amygdala and simply give up on my writing and myself – because changing the world takes effort… and that equals resistance.

I do know that for the last week or so, where my brain has been up and firing again, that I have been very subject to resistance. I’ve been wallowing, “filling up my eyes” in a rather drastic way, doing anything to seemingly avoid writing or creativity (Although I have been spending lots of time with my Orchids!).

However, using that resistance as my compass, and knowing that my time-out allowed my brain to heal, enough is enough and it’s time to push on through! It’s time to give thanks and forgiveness in my life, open up to abundance and start shining again.

I’m hoping that I’ve given you reassurance and food for thought. Have you had a time where you felt that everything was just too much? How did you cope then? And are you now working Mindfully and with Gratitude to accept that sometimes life hands you a shit sandwich (to quote Marie Forleo!) and that you have to deal and move along. Leave me a comment below, and we can start working on connecting those dots.

Catch you shortly!

Image used “Intermission (5/7)” by jnyemb
Used Under Creative commons licence: Attribution 2.0 Generic (CC BY 2.0)

July 19, 2015

Declutter – good things happen when you do.

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As I said last week, I’ve been doing personal development work on my “money stuff”, generally working on discovering and clearing my money blocks and creating an abundance mindset. (Disclosure: Affiliate links)

Part of creating abundance is about allowing it to enter your life. Now, spiritually, I’m a Pagan, so the concept of Magic is nothing new for me. I’m very comfortable with knowing that the Universe/Field of Potentiality/Divinity has my back, that intention is all and that you have to do the work to enable the universe to meet you half way to give you what you request (chance favours the prepared mind and all that).

However, in my Pagan practices, I’d learned that you make the intention, ask divinity for it and then release it, trusting that the intent will become. It’s praying, one asks for a thing just the once; mithering at the problem will cause doubt/loss of clarity which confuses the universe i.e. diluting the power of the prayer.

However, where I’ve been diving deeper into Mindfulness, improving my mindset from Lack to Abundance as well as working out how this can then serve both myself and others, I’ve been reading around “cosmic ordering” and manifesting (The Law of Attraction) as they are often in the same books!

I’ve been giggling at the various authors describing the principles of magic and asking the Universe for things without referring to the divinity of it at all, but it has made me pay more attention to my own spirituality, and I’ve been revisiting my views and beliefs around the power of intention.

“Declutter!” is pretty much the first step in all manifesting/cosmic ordering writings (as well as it being a major principle of Feng Shui), as having clutter hanging about confuses intent. Denise Duffield-Thomas has a wonderfully practical video on making manifesting foolproof where she talks about the decluttering step in detail.

This is because decluttering is not just about space (though for the last 3 weeks, I’ve been decluttering my house with gusto!), it’s very much also about decluttering our thoughts.

We all collect “static” over the years, we build stories around what has happened to us – scripts – that give us words that then shape experiences. Not all these scripts are helpful or even useful to our future lives; “History is a very good teacher, but not all of the lessons are good ones” is a phrase I often use.

Recognising and then working to declutter the negative scripts that we’ve built into our world view is important; simply put, they hold us back. The universe gives us what we expect to receive, so if our scripts are saying things like

“Oh, I’m so fat!”
“I hate my body/nose/tummy/bum.”
“I never win anything.”
“Why do I always have a headache?”
“I’m so tired all the time.”
“I hate my job.”
“I never have any money.”

then that is exactly what the universe will keep giving!

So, this week I want you to start listening to yourself, how much negative clutter are you carrying around in your head? Some of our negative scripts can be re-framed as positives, some we can recognise why we are thinking that way and work to make a change easily but others just plain need ditching. Leave me a comment below about what you’ve found about your thoughts, and we can start working on connecting those dots.

Catch you next week!

Image used Trim (lock) by
Used Under Creative commons licence: Attribution 2.0 Generic (CC BY 2.0)

June 26, 2015

Basic orchid care pointers

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I love my orchids. I love the colours of their blossoms, the way a fresh flower looks like it’s covered in glitter. I feel happy when their leaves are rigid and shiny, and I love the stillness that my 10 minutes of orchid checking gives me everyday.

A while back, my friend Ann got given an orchid as a house warming present. She was rather scared that she was just going to kill it off, like she had with previous orchids, so she asked me for some pointers.

Most people buy (or are given) Phalaenopsis orchids as the most common ones in the shops. Their blooms are beautiful and, despite the myths to the contrary, are the easiest of all the Orchidaceae genera to care for.

The most common reason why people “fail at orchids” is that they treat them like a normal house plant: park them on a sunny windowsill, water them every couple of days “so they don’t dry out” and often leave them in the puddle of standing water that collects in the base of the pretty ceramic pot they come in.

However, this is exactly the opposite of what they need. They need minimal fussing, dappled sunlight and only a sparing amount of water. This is because they naturally grow attached to the bark of trees in the canopy of the Rain Forests, where life is generally humid but not very out-and-out wet.

Importantly, as well as water, their roots also need both light and air, as Phalaenopsis’ photosynthesise with both leaves and roots. Orchids ship in clear pots for this reason. (Although, some companies pack their orchids with moss into a rubbish flexible PVC pot – these orchids will need re-potting as soon as they finish flowering, as the moss will be stopping air getting to the roots).

Because the roots need air, any standing water can very quickly cause root rot.

The plant usually remains in bloom for ~3 months, the flowers die off then fall off one by one. This is totally normal and not a sign that the plant is dying at all. Also, the very bottom leaf turning yellow and detaching on occasion is also totally normal, this is simply natural wastage, usually in response to humidity levels.

So, this translates at home to:

Usual household temperatures, anything from 16°-28° is generally good. The occasional overnight drop down to ~10° will cause new flower spikes, but consistent cold is bad.
Either a north facing windowsill, or a windowsill that generally doesn’t get more than 2 hours of direct sunlight per day.
A “Drench watering” every other week (or weekly if it’s very warm) – Hold the pot under a running tap – tepid water, not cold – for a minute or so, also running the water over any aerial roots, then leave to drain totally. Ensure that minimal water remains in the pot, do this by tipping the pot at an angle, this will drain the water that has collected at the bottom of the pot.
Getting water on the leaves isn’t an issue, but ensure that you don’t get water in the crown. If you do, remove the puddle immediately with the corner of a paper towel. Crown rot will happen if you leave the puddle in there.
Not moving them around too much – picking them up and plonking them down too often “just to peek at them” is bad. Visual inspection and touching the leaves to check rigidity is good, but you only really want to move them around to water them as above.
If you notice the bark drying out quickly, or your house is not very humid then mist them every other day as well. Leaving them above the water line on a water filled pebble tray is also good.
On visual inspection, you are checking that the bark is not totally dried out (generally, condensation on the inside of the pot should be visible right up until the day before drench watering) and the leaves are rigid – if the leaves are floppy, the plant is dehydrated – Either mist the plant and the bark heavily, or consider a drench watering. If they are wrinkled, and water is being supplied on a regular basis then the roots are not supplying the leaves with water for some reason. That’s the subject of another article!
Talking to your plants when you inspect them is totally allowed, even encouraged! Giving living things your total focus give you happiness and keeps you in the now. There is also documented science that plants that are spoken to nicely grow better. 🙂

There are “advanced class pointers” around feeding, re-potting and how to spot issues, which I’ll be writing on in coming weeks, but using these basic tips will keep your orchid thriving and blooming for many years to come. Following these pointers, Ann’s orchid is very happy, and has thrown both a new leaf and a new flower spike!

Have I inspired you to get an orchid, or to start growing things on your windowsill? I do hope so. Leave me a comment below, and we can start connecting those dots.

Catch you next week!

June 12, 2015

Pick a craft, any craft…

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Oh my, last weekend has been hectic, and not in a good way, my partner had a rather awful healthcare experience, mostly in terms of “lack of human touch” quality to the care given by some of the overstretched hospital staff rather that the actual health issue itself. As “Pick your craft/Find your Bliss” is exactly what I had written as last week’s article title, life provided me with the inspiration to write the article, even if the experience wasn’t actually that great in itself..

Hence I’m a week later than I wanted to be in getting a post on this this topic written and out to you all. However, as we sat on the ward, rather bored and awaiting the needed medication bag so escape could happen, both of us wished that we had our knitting with us to keep us occupied, rather than just an iPad to stream media on.

The stress of the tedious not knowing what was going on was rather high, and , any craft that was small enough to be portable would have been a good way to engage the limbic brain “in the now”, rather than allowing the Neocortex to loop around in “what if???” circles. This is because watching a TV show is simply a passive activity, rather than an engaging/active one.

I know that knitting isn’t everyone’s cup of tea, but I do advocate that everyone should have a craft; something creative that can be played in and around with, as often as possible. As well as knitting, I dye yarn and fibre, muck around with watercolour pens and Sharpie(TM) markers (drawing is very much not one of my skills, but I like the “art-sy doodles” I produce), coo and fuss over my orchids (because helping them grow them is definitely an art!) and write, both on my websites and in my journal.

As adults, we generally leave play behind us; it’s seen as childish, a waste of time and something that should no longer be required in the adult world of responsibilities. But this lack of joy through play and creativity is very harmful to us.

Engaging in these craft activities gives me “flow” (“flow” being what psychologist Mihály Csíkszentmihályi describes as “a state of concentration or complete absorption with the activity at hand and the situation … A state in which people are so involved in an activity that nothing else seems to matter.”) – moments of mindfulness where all my brain is doing only one thing, leaving me totally wrapped up in “the now” of the creative moment.

I know that finding flow and having my playful craft activities enhances my day-to-day hum drum. Since I’ve been crafting more, I’ve become generally happier, more able to concentrate, both at home and at work and I find it easier to resolve problems and issues because my attitude is more relaxed and playful about “things”.

So, I want to challenge you to find your bliss as well. What type of craft do you to already that you could find time to enjoy more? Or, is there a playful activity that you’d really like to try? Take action to find that bliss, and then leave me a comment below about it, so we can start working on connecting those dots.

Catch you next week!

Image used, Craft Room by chrissy.farnan
Used Under Creative commons licence: Attribution 2.0 Generic (CC BY 2.0)

May 29, 2015

Ego – It’s an active blocker to progress

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“But I know this already!” – Potentially the most harmful statement one can make when learning. And, as we are learning all the time, with every experience we live, you may well find that it’s your ego that is stopping your progress.

Thoughts in the vein of “that’s impossible”, “I could never do that”, “I can’t see the benefit”, “that’s no good to me”, or other similar negative statements are blockers to progress. After all, pretty much everything is possible, as long as you are willing to believe in your own power to achieve it. Take for instance Michael Grab – He’s learned that he can balance stones. Finding the correct points on the rocks to make stacks of seemingly impossible towers

If one person can do it, anyone can. You don’t need to be special, or lucky, you just need to check your ego at the door and enter into the project with an open mind.

Conversely, “But what if goes wrong?” is also a massive blocker to progress. Nothing is ever perfect, it never can be. Organic growth is wonderfully flawed, and embracing that is a good thing. Also know, that if it does break, you can fix it, always. Never be afraid to fail.

I’m sure that along the way, Michael failed many many times with the balancing, before he learned how to feel for the balance points and centre the rocks perfectly.

So, I want you to think about a situation where you have felt your ego was in the way of your progress and then leave me a comment below about how you worked to resolve that. Then we can start working toward connecting those dots.

Catch you next week!

Image used under licence and by kind permission of Michael Grab at http://www.gravityglue.com and https://www.facebook.com/gravityglue

May 1, 2015

If it’s not scheduled, it’s not real.

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When I was in my teens and early twenties, I never kept a diary/calendar and I remembered all the phone numbers that I needed (about 20 at that point in my life). I prided myself on remembering everything I needed rather than having to write it down. (I learned the periodic table, both order and atomic number/weights for instance)

Whilst my memory is still something I take a pride in, and I’m well known as having “the elephant brain” in my team (I remember everything I do generally, and when prompted, can easily recall detail level (or where to look to get it), I acknowledge that life back them was rather more simple in terms of happenings and events than it is now.

Ironically, but unsurprisingly, one thing I was never good at when I was younger was being on time or prepared for things. Although I knew where I was supposed to be, I never planned enough time to get everything done before arriving. I never honoured the space that appointments take, and I realise now that this is because I didn’t schedule anything.

I now live and die by my Google Calendar. It’s awash with colour-coded goodness and copious event notes. I now know where I need to be and when, what I need to do to prepare, I get it to send me text messages to prompt me and can therefore show up fully committed and raring to go!

For instance, I’m a B-School Alumni from 2011, but this is the first year I’ve done the entire course. Previously the time I needed to commit was just swamped in the tide of life & I faded out after the first week. So why success this year? Because I scheduled it! I carved out the time to do it in my GCal, told my partners that I was “DND”during this time and therefore I was fully engaged in the process.

Recently, I’ve also been popping in physical things that I want to achieve/own as well as the things I need to do/places I am planning to be at.

If it’s in my schedule, I will put time and effort into making it happen.
I’ve given my brain permission to act on an external ordered list, rather than juggle and procrastinate over an internal mess.

By reducing that internal mess, I gain clarity, and so actually have space to get other “to-do” tasks done along side my scheduled events! I’ve finally found a round tuit 😉

Also, by making space in my life for “a thing”, I tell my limbic brain and so the universe that I’m open to receiving said thing. Being open to receive means that either “the thing” will just turn up, or the means to obtain “the thing” will happen in my life.

So, have I inspired you? I know that I inspired myself and I’ll be carrying on in this theme next week; as I wrote this piece, another ‘blog post focusing specifically on Money Scheduling fell out of my brain and onto the page as well! *new post, cut-paste*

Meanwhile, take action today & get your schedule out of your head and either write it down or GCal it. Come back and leave me a comment below about what you are “scheduling to reality” around, then we can start working toward connecting those dots.

Catch you next week!

April 17, 2015

Why writing a goal list rather than typing it out has way more power.

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I know that I always learn something way better when I write about it. Recently, I both changed job roles (with a promotion!) and moved fields slightly. I moved from being an Information Security Technician into the SharePoint Architect role. As I sat with with the outgoing Architect, I sat there and scribbled notes and doodles as we chatted.

Now, my hand writing is legendarily awful, as you can see! (Yes, that really is my hand writing.) Even I have issues reading what I wrote later on, so, why would I choose to had write the handover notes when I could have used my laptop to type into OneNote to organise the same thoughts.

The reasons are two fold. Firstly, when you put pen to paper to write words around conversations, take lecture notes or form ideas, it forms far better memory pathways in the Neocortex, especially when you are summarising, as you are actively thinking about and analysing what you are writing about as you are writing it. This in turn activates neurons and forms complex memory chains, a real boost to learning. It also leads to far better understanding of the subject at hand.

Secondly, writing is also an act of creativity, to which the Limbic brain responds and acts upon, giving you emotions about what you are writing and creating life feedback from the feels created that motivates action. If you are keen to learn, or eager to visualise your goals as you write, your limbic brain will feed back this happiness, this sense of anticipation into your everyday life.

Conversely, typing is all about mechanical skills, and so drawn entirely from the Neocortex. And typed information, although generally more verbose (most of us can type faster than we write) is generally is less understood by the note taker; it gets rationalised, contextualised, and is then “filed away for future reference” by the Neocortex.

The brain is basically parking the information for future recall, but with no real understanding of this information typed. This is because the Neocortex is not at all in charge of acting/reacting to stimulus (yep, that’s the job of the Limbic brain) and so the information sluices through your brain without making a real impact or forming the more complex memory chains you get from writing.

The upshot of all this? The combination of Neocortex and Limbic brain working together to give both context/understanding and emotion means that the goal list you type is far less likely to actually happen than the goal list you write.

Have you a list of goals that are just all in your head? Do your goals never seem to happen? Take action now, grab a pen and a piece of paper and write down that goal list! Leave me a comment to tell me about it and we can start working toward connecting those dots.

Catch you next week!