How I transformed my money mindset

If you’ve been following my ‘blogs, you will know that one of the deep-dive pieces of work I’ve been doing in the last year or so is specifically around my money-mindset. Society messages such as “money doesn’t grow on trees” and “a day’s work for a day’s pay” and society’s general “lack mentality” – “there’s never enough to go around” had me solidly blocked. I spent a great deal of my twenties spending money I didn’t have and then living way below my potential because all of my disposable (and some of my essential) income was being used to service debt.

I definitely had self-sabotage going on in my past and women especially are taught to “make do” with lower levels of resources, for themselves more than anything else. Some women even feel like they are “cheating” if money starts to flow “too easily”. And because life is always flowing on, you might not even be aware that you’re blocked and sabotaging yourself, you might think that this is just the way it is and that’s pretty much that.

It wasn’t really until my late thirties that I got a proper handle on what was going on with my money and the fact that I seemingly spent it like water and never had enough of it. No savings, massive overdraft, 4 credit cards with high interest and maxed out balances… Due to other mindset work I was doing, I started to also see that some of my money issues were based around resistance. About the need to stay the same and “safe” – when in reality, I very much wasn’t.

But, whilst I finally knew what resistance was, and learned to recognise it in my life, in terms of money, I didn’t really know how to deal with it at all. I found that I my life so far had not at all prepared me for the to work to remove the blocks and sabotages that I’d been gifted by a bad money mindset education.

I found Denise Duffield-Thomas and her amazing money mindset course, Lucky Bitch Money Bootcamp in early 2014, via my marketing mentor, Marie Forleo, and I don’t regret signing up at all. Me and my knickers are much happier and wealthier as a result of Denise’s work in the world.

The Money Bootcamp is a six week course and vibrant community of over 3,000 women that identifies and helps you release your money blocks. Denise’s popular course has been helping people since 2012 to upgrade their mindset.

So, why have I been talking about Denise non-stop and sharing the Bootcamp link with you now? Because Denise is running a live version of the course for the first time in three years. That means live group Q&A calls, quizzes, checklists and the momentum of 3,000 women working together.

I’ll state for the record right now that I still haven’t completed the bootcamp work, but the parts I have done have shifted so much for me already – as there really are crucial mindset shifts that need to happen so you can gracefully receive abundance in your life. It also helps in all areas in life where a change needs to be made, as the principles are easily molded towards other goals and targets where you know you feel resistance.

The Investment for the course and all the add-ons that come with is usually USD $1997, but for the next 15 days, until 27th October 2016, the course is only $1497 – a $500 saving for so much more value!

I really highly recommend Denise’s course as one of the best money mindset resources out there. She is known for being very down to earth, honest, practical and humorous with how she spreads her message to the world. With this live round, it really is a brilliant time to join her Bootcamp, and I for one am very excited to be working through the exercises with Denise leading them! I know it’s going to be simply amazing. I’m very much looking forward to the leaps that I know are coming.

This course has helped women generate millions of dollars and changed lives all over the world. Are you going to join us? Take action, go sign up for Lucky Bitch Money Bootcamp, come back and leave me a comment below, and we can start working on connecting those dots.

Catch you next time!

P.S. As you know, I am proud affiliate of Denise’s work. If you purchase a Lucky Bee product or course I may receive a commission at no additional cost to you.

How decluttering leads to more money

I’ve spoken before about decluttering, looking at observing and decluttering the beliefs we hold that don’t serve our greater good. However, that’s really only half of the story, especially if we look at decluttering with the lens of manifesting.

First step – how to do this? I recommend reading The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying: A simple, effective way to banish clutter forever by Marie Kondo – an excellent physical de-cluttering system.

Why declutter? For successful manifesting, decluttering our physical environment is a massive key. To allow goodness to come in, we have to get rid of our old, broken and make-do things, and my manifesting mentor Denise has a post on practical decluttering and the reasons why it’s a fantastic thing.

When I first read Denise’s book “Get Rich, Lucky Bitch” on manifesting, I didn’t quite believe her thoughts on decluttering, after all, how can the first step be so simple? I’m a person that lives in organised chaos – I have things in piles, and I know where it all is.

I also now know that piles are not organisation – and where that organisation matters to me right now, all my things are in their place, neatly pared down to the essentials of the task. Decluttering is a continuing process after all!

One of the first thing Denise talks about in her Lucky Bitch Money Bootcamp is living a “first class life”, obtaining this via incremental upgrade until you reach whatever “first class” means to you in any area, so that you tell the universe that you are ready for the abundance.

Part of taking that first step, apart from making an inventory, is for 99% of women buying yourself new underwear. Most of us (me included until 15 months ago!) don’t really think about our undies, we have mis-matched and worn out knickers, bras that we wear until we fall apart and generally none of it makes us feel any form of love towards ourselves. For whatever reason, we’ve been taught that “nice underwear is frivolity” and simply don’t value ourselves enough to put good quality underwear on under our clothes.

So, about 5 months after I joined BootCamp, in the spirit of the KonMarie decluttering I’d already been doing with my things, I went through my underwear and socks, and threw out most of it. I’d been surviving on old rough socks, 2 rather geriatric bras and 20 pairs of generic “tanga” knickers that were very much past their best days.

I then did something that I had never ever done before in my adult life. I went to M&S and bought 8 sets of matching underwear (1 bra, 2 knickers) as well as a couple of 6 packs of cotton knickers for “relaxed” days. I then folded it all neatly in my drawers, in the KonMarie style that lets you see it all at a glance.

I’d never spent that much on myself, let alone on my underwear. I’d also never had matching underwear, and never had the luxury of enough bras to wash them with the same frequency as I washed my tops. Subconsciously, as my body type is not one that generally wears pretty undies, all I felt I deserved was very cheap and uncomfortable sub-par bras and knickers. I wasn’t feeling the love in that area of my life at all, and so wasn’t projecting basic openness to good things.

About 2 weeks later, at my day-job, I was offered a position on an important board, that is going to shape how the business works going forward. I also took the decision to finally declutter another products based business that I’d been hanging on, simply because I thought I might well be able to turn it around due to my emotional investment in it. Seeing however, how it was being an economy class thing in my life, where I was not giving myself love, only work for little reward, enabled be to finally let it go – having a final sale of stuff brought me more cash in 3 days than the previous hard work with it had brought me in the previous 3 months put together.

Would these things have happened without new underwear? Maybe, but I do feel that loving myself with an underwear upgrade was a very good start towards being open to the abundance and opportunities that are still coming thick and fast this year!

So, have my new knickers inspired you into some physical decluttering? Leave me a comment below about what are going to declutter from your space this week, and we can start working on connecting those dots.

Catch you next time!

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

I’ve an awesome manifesting resource for you

This post is for my more “woo” readers, whilst still being all about the practical. I haven’t talked about manifesting a great deal here, although it’s an undercurrent in most of my posts and I do quite a bit of it in my own life.

However, with it now being Q4, it’s a good time to explicitly talk about goals and receiving the outcomes that you are desiring.

Whilst I’m all about the practical actions, without direction, action is meaningless. And in terms of goals, our mindset is just as important as the actions we take. However, most of us don’t take the time out to think about or form clear, specific goals or take daily mental actions, such as dream boarding, writing down our goals in our journal or saying an affirmation every day.

Without goal clarity, life simply flows around us, which leads to…

Nothing. No forward motion, things that we think we want, but haven’t really been specific about not clicking into place.

Then, of course, procrastination sets in. Resistance takes a bite out of us and we don’t progress.

Using manifesting as a tool can be a very direct way to set goals and achieve them. However, if you’ve tried it before, and it felt like it was silly or a waste of time, I suspect that you’ve simply not been taught a good framework to base the work on.

So, I want to share Denise Duffield-Thomas’ very easy and practical Manifesting Formula.

(Yes, I am on a Denise kick this week, I’m a proud affiliate of Denise’s work. If you purchase something from her in the future, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.)

As I’ve said before, Denise is an incredible money mindset mentor, AKA “The Lucky Bitch” whose best-selling books and courses have helped thousands of entrepreneurs step-up to create success and abundance. Denise shares her process to take you from “personal development junkie” into manifesting machine and money magnet.

Her Virgo brain’s want to take “woo” and turn it into practical steps has made a manifesting formula that is easy, fun and a totally chilled process. Sign up here for her free manifesting formula course

You don’t need to be perfect, meditate five hours a day or chant naked under a full moon to manifest your ideal life, but you do need to clear your mind of any blocks, get crystal clear on your goals, infuse every part of your day with positivity, take inspired action and learn to receive abundance (yes, receiving is a learned process – women really struggle with that part).

So, are you inspired to manifest some awesome into your life? Take action today: Go and join Denise’s manifesting course, then come back and leave me a comment below about what goals you are working to manifest. Then we can start working toward connecting those dots.

Catch you next time!

Track your income to create more abundance

I’ve spoken before about “creating” wealth via simple money transfers; automating savings by scheduling transfers into dedicated money pots

Another way that you can create wealth and say “yes” to abundance by tracking the money and the value that comes into your life. My money mentor, Denise Duffield-Thomas has a fantastic blog about this- How to track your income to create more abundance – which also contains the resources that she provides her Lucky Bitch Money Bootcamp members to track income with.

I use the spreadsheet method, tracking the money and value that comes into my life. I feel that tracking value in particular makes one far more aware of just how generous the world around us is, and how much value we are given, as well as also how much we are willing to accept – an interesting and surreptitious money block that most women have.

When I joined the Lucky Bitch Money Bootcamp in 2014, I was a rather large amount more in debt than I am now, had an overdraft equivalent to a month’s salary and zero savings. I will be the first to admit that I’ve not worked through the whole course as yet, but tracking is one of the first things that you do – and by being aware of the value and the money that was entering my life, it really did allow me to see how abundant I actually was, and how being open to all the value flowing in, my sense of lack diminished.

One of the big things that happened for me about 2 months after I started tracking was the bank finally offering me a loan for both my overdraft amount and almost all of the money I had sitting on credit cards. Being able to re-leverage my debt, at a vastly reduced interest rate, gave me back more money to actually then bring the debt down faster, as well as removing all the bank fees I was seeing each month. Instant feeling of abundance!

I’d been checking for a loan every 3-6 months or so for the previous 3 years and being denied or offered a rate the same or worse than the one on my cards (Which given I had one sitting at 28.9%, was going some!). I like to believe that the universe could see that I was finally really getting my crap in order, and so gave me a helping hand.

So, have I inspired you? Take action today: Go read Denise’s blog, and commit to tracking your abundance for the next 30 days. Come back and leave me a comment below about how you are saying yes to abundance, then we can start working toward connecting those dots.

Catch you next time!

EFT – why you might want to think about giving it a whirl

I really like EFT ( Emotional Freedom Technique.) aka “Tapping”. It lives under the umbrella of “Energy Psychology” techniques, and it looks so dumb (especially when you are tapping under your arm and on the top of your head) that you may well feel that it’s a bunch of hooey – but what you can achieve with it really is awesome.

As you know, I’m all about the science, and most double blind reputable studies point to EFT simply using “The Power of the Placebo” to affect change in a person. Now, I’m 100% with Tim Minchin on science and “Alternative Medicine” (Homeopathic Sugar pills in particular), and that “Modern Medicine” is something that should always be matched and used appropriately to an individual’s health circumstances – but I also feel that Placebology, where the patient affects their own change because they believe that the placebo they are using will change them for the better definitely has a place in the therapeutic process.

I feel it works because it allows a person to be 100% honest with themselves, as tapping out the various issues and free-flow verbalising around them will make us make intuitive perspective leaps that we could never make in a flat state with a conscious mind. When I tap on issues myself, I’m always surprised by something I say that “just falls out of my brain via my mouth” as I’m associating.

The Founder of EFT, Gary Craig, discovered that in persons with anxiety or fear, that by tapping on 9 specific meridian points and using a set of very specific “set-up phrases” and then talking honestly, openly, and usually in negatively phrased statements about issues through the tapping process, that the issues can be reduced to a place where they have little to no on-going effect, very quickly, and with much less stress to the patient than via traditional psychological methods . He believes that the tapping mechanisms of EFT operate in the same way as Acupuncture – activating specific meridian points stimulates them to assist the body in releasing the negative energy feedback loops to remove dis-ease.

There have been studies that show the tapping has a calming effect on the amygdala. I’m sure that you know by now that the amygdala gets activated either for pleasure in the now, or in an amygdala hijack, in a response to a perceived danger, either real or imaginary.

In a fear situation, the amygdala causes adrenaline and cortisol to be released to prepare our body for action (i.e. to fight or to run). Where a “potentially harmful” situation is perceived, the amygdala works with the hippocampus to enforce its previously learned “stay safe” feed-back loop. For instance, if a person has been in a road accident, the experienced fear gets stored away and then every time a car journey is needed, anxiety levels irrationally increase.

During his development work, Gary discovered that EFT isn’t just for “fear calming” situations, it can be used on pretty much any occurring issue:

Personal Performance Boosters
- Achieving personal and professional goals
- Public speaking
- Sports performance
- Fat reduction & body composition
- Job interviews
- Self-confidence
Emotional Challenges
- Stress
- anxiety
- phobias
- Depression
- feeling overwhelmed
- Relationship issues
- Insomnia
- nightmares
- Panic attacks
- Sexual abuse
- Obsessions
- compulsions
- Traumatic memories
- Procrastination
- Poor grades
- Grief
- loss
- pet loss
- Post Traumatic Stress Disorder
- Addictions
- overeating
Physical Issues
- Allergies
- Migraines
- Fatigue
- Fibromyalgia
- pain management

NB: While EFT has produced remarkable results for many people, it must still be considered to be in the experimental stage and people and the therapists that advise clients to use EFT must take complete responsibility for their own use of the technique. If you try it, give it a good go, and find that it doesn’t work for you, don’t sweat it. Just try another self help technique. Never let using EFT or any other self-help technique that I or anyone else might talk about get in the way of seeking professional medical help where required.

So, why am I particularly talking about EFT this week? Well, there’s been more ISIS terrorist activity in a few places around the world in the last few weeks (Baghdad, Ankara and Brussels) and so, in an effort to help us all combat Hate I wanted to share this Brad Yates Tapping video with you: Clearing Hatred – Tapping with Brad Yates

NB: if you have never viewed Brad’s Channel before, before you start tapping away, you must watch these two videos first – as Brad is very clear that you know what you are doing, and that you take full responsibility for your own well being.

I’m connecting my own dots on this one, as I’m currently training to be able to use EFT with you in our coaching practice. I first discovered EFT around 2000, and I’ve used it off and on since then (I’ll admit more off than on!).

I got sharply reminded about using it way more often, and in combination with Forgiveness work as part of my working through Denise Duffield Thomas’ Lucky Bitch Money BootCamp – and it’s now happily part of my daily routine again.

So, what are you going to try and use EFT on? My advice is to try it on everything :-). Pick a topic and drop me a comment below. Then we can start working to connect your dots!

Catch you next time!

Forgiveness – a powerful tool for mindset shift

As I’m sure you can guess from what I’ve keep banging on about ( 🙂 ), a huge part of Self-Change is re-framing our Mindset and the decluttering process is not just about clearing physical space, it’s about mental decluttering also.

“Don’t let it rent your head” is something my Mum said to me a long time ago, and what’s happened to us in our past can very literally “hold us back” in that past and that story. When I spoke about simply observing feelings in the letting it go meditation, the emotions we feel are often driven by our stories, and the top tactic for dealing with the ones that linger is forgiveness.

Mental de-cluttering can be very difficult – Lifting the memories and beliefs that shaped our current thoughts into the light of objectivity, feeling them and then asking “Does holding onto this experience serve me and my higher good?” can be very hard indeed, as our amygdala is usually telling us (very loudly) that holding on to the memory and all that entails is the “safe” thing to do.

However, as Anaïs Nin said: “And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom”

Mental de-cluttering is something that we do again and again – yes, there are big pieces of the past that come up when we think about this the first time we do it, but mental decluttering and forgiveness is like an onion – it has layers. There is always more to de-clutter, always more to forgive, and we always feel better for working through the (very easy) process. After all, hanging on to the more toxic memories that drive our lives through pain, resentment or anger is like “eating poison and harming ourselves, yet expecting the other person to die.”

In the same way as when we physically de-clutter our stuff (and I recommend reading The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying: A simple, effective way to banish clutter forever by Marie Kondo – an excellent physical de-cluttering system ) we de-clutter memories and experiences by topic, with a focus on “Love”, “Money”, “Work”, “Siblings”,”Parents” or any other life topic that we feel is “renting our head” – naturally there is always cross-over, but don’t let that stall you. If you don’t think a memory would fit in where you want to do the work right now, then leave it for later.

The actual process is easy – Allow yourself some time, pick your topic, grab pen and paper (because writing activates both sides of the brain) and start writing out emotional memories on the chosen topic. Include anything that still has an emotional charge – anger, resentment, embarrassment, shame, etc and write a short paragraph on each memory as it comes up. Keep going until you can’t think of anything else, aiming for between 20-100 memories.

Don’t get stuck or over think it, you may end up with pages and pages, or just a few lines. The memories that are “missed” this time aren’t yet ready to be forgiven. Just like cleaning out the wardrobe usually takes more than one go, emotionally charged memories that are driving current behaviours often hide behind each other.

Once you have the list formed, and you are ready to start forgiving (It’s perfectly fine to write the list and then leave it to one side for a short while if you need to do so) read the first memory, then take a breath and say out loud “I forgive you, I’m sorry, thank you, I love you.” and then physically cross the memory out with your pen. Repeat the mantra for each item on the list, crossing them off until you reach then end. You can then discard the list in whatever way you see fit; rip it up, shred it, burn it or just chuck it in the recycling.

Why these words? Because they release you from carrying the emotions – it’s not at all about the cause of the memory, be that a person, organisation or circumstance. And whilst remaining engaged in the exercise, you don’t even have to mean the words that you are saying all that much. Remember, the Limbic brain doesn’t have “words” it has “feels”

Energetically, “I forgive you” is acknowledging the memory and the emotion, “I’m Sorry” covers forgiving ourselves for carrying the emotion for so long and clears any residual entanglements around the event (It’s not about “apologising to the other person”, there is no condoning of past grievances or victim blaming here), “Thank you” is about appreciating the lesson it taught you, even if that lesson was hard to carry or had negative consequences at the time, and “I love you” seals the deal, wrapping up the experience and energies with love and releasing them.

You may well feel some resistance to doing this (I know I have in the past) because letting it go is very, very scary. However, know that doing forgiveness work on the past will change your future life, so leave me a comment about what you are forgiving, and we can start working on connecting those dots!

Catch you next time!

Image used, FORGIVE YOURSELF by miguel
Used Under Creative commons licence: Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic (CC BY-SA 2.0)

Get stuff done – make your bed

One of the little things that I ask of people that I coach and mentor is a very simple and mundane thing – I ask them to make their bed every day. It only takes a minute to pull the duvet up, straighten the pillows and make sure it all looks good.

It really seems so silly, that such a small thing would have such a big impact, but it really does. Making this task automatic means that you achieve the first task of the day before you even leave your room, and by doing it, it sets the mind up to “do more” with the day. It also gives you a little lift when you see it later, especially if you come home after a crappy day.

This excerpt from the Austin 2014 Commencement Address, University of Texas by Admiral William H. McRaven has been animated and is doing the rounds on the internet lately, is all about this, and really sums it up perfectly:

Every morning in basic SEAL training, my instructors, who at the time were all Viet Nam veterans, would show up in my barracks room and the first thing they would inspect was your bed.

If you did it right, the corners would be square, the covers pulled tight, the pillow centered just under the headboard and the extra blanket folded neatly at the foot of the rack (—rack— The Navy term for your bed.)

It was a simple task–mundane at best. But every morning we were required to make our bed to perfection. It seemed a little ridiculous at the time, particularly in light of the fact that were aspiring to be real warriors, tough battle hardened SEALs – but the wisdom of this simple act has been proven to me many times over.

If you make your bed every morning you will have accomplished the first task of the day. It will give you a small sense of pride and it will encourage you to do another task and another and another.

By the end of the day, that one task completed will have turned into many tasks completed. Making your bed will also reinforce the fact that little things in life matter.

If you can’t do the little things right, you will never do the big things right.

And, if by chance you have a miserable day, you will come home to a bed that is made—that you made—and a made bed gives you encouragement that tomorrow will be better.

If you want to change the world, start off by making your bed.

If you want to watch the full speech, it’s on YouTube (And you should, it contains excellent life advice for us all, not just a bunch of going-to-be Navy SEALS: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pxBQLFLei70
And the full transcript: http://alcalde.texasexes.org/2014/05/mcraven-to-grads-to-change-the-world-start-by-making-your-bed/

Leave me a comment about how you are going to make making your bed an automatic practice, and then we can start working on connecting those dots!

Catch you next time!

Image used, Our new handmade bed! by Miss Yasmina
Used Under Creative commons licence: Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic (CC BY-SA 2.0)

Be the change you want to see – it all starts with self

I’ve been wanting to get this post out of my head and through my fingers for a while – there is so much “ugly”/”bad”/”hate fuelled”/”selfish” behaviour in the world right now and the sheer amount of these behaviours around the world feels honestly overwhelming.

And I’m sure that you hate what’s going on in the world with a passion. I know that I do.

Right now, around the world, “bad” things are happening – Jewish Soldiers abusing Palestinians, ISIS Salafist Takfiri* abusing and terrorising their surrounding Muslim population and generally bombing around the world, Russia shelling and bombing Ukraine, the current UK government making economically bankrupt choices leading to massive inequality and deprivation.

That’s to name but a few things going on that make our world right now that make it seem so bleak and negative. So, how can we re-frame this into a more positive outlook?

I’ve come to think that “Hate” as a concept is actually a neutral thing; it can be an extremely potent force for Change. For instance, if one person hates something enough, they will be moved to make a Choice and Change that thing. It is the Choice that provides the positive or negative action, not the fact that Hate is the driving factor.

So, what can one person do against this seeming tide of relentless crap? Remember that we think of change in terms of the people that have driven it, “someone” took that first step.

All of these people were “just one person” when they started out on their path to affect big change (both good and bad): Martin Luther King, Mahatma Gandhi, Aung San Suu Kyi, Malala Yousafzai, Adolf Hitler, Ian Duncan Smith, Bill Clinton, Bill Gates, Robert Mugabe, Steve Jobs, Pol Pot, Ghengis Khan, Abraham Lincon, Lhamo Thondup (The 14th (and current) Dalai Lama), Adam Braun, Tony Robbins, Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar.

The list goes on and on. History is littered with single people that made a difference. Sometimes the path chosen leads to massively bad things, more often than not however, it leads to great works of good. What’s to stop you from joining them?

Michael Jackson had the right idea… at least in his music. Jackson was well known for creating songs with conscience. “Man in the Mirror” (1987) and the later “Earth Song” (1995) are themes about Change on the grand scale having to start very small – with the Self.

Any and all Change has to start with the Self – Self is the only person that we can 100% effect. By an individual making a small change, and being an example, we can then affect others. The kicker there is that anyone we then interact has to then want to make a change in themselves.

If you are ready to make a change, you have to also realise that Fear of Change is a big factor for others. (Good Ol’ Amygdala!). But, to change the world, all any one person has to do is make a start and have the faith in themselves and in the Universe that the change is possible.

After all, what we want already exists (bear with me), but focus is needed to make it real.

This is all to do with Quantum Theory.

The three main Quantum Theory pillars, put very very simply, are based around the principles that

“At an atomic level, everything is energy”, (Quanta)
“Everything is connected” (Entanglement), and
“Something is only real when we choose to observe it” (“Superposition” and the “Observer Effect” – See the “Schrödinger’s Cat” thought experiment)

The Many-Worlds Interpretation of the consequences of Superposition states that “At any given moment in time, there are an infinite number of possibilities occurring, and that all of them already exist and are happening simultaneously. Each possibility happens in its own space and can’t be seen by others. We only see the possibility we focus on.”

So, if every possible version of every person exists somewhere, we simply choose to focus on the best possible versions of ourselves as what is real. (For the Terry Prattchet Fans out there, he referred to this concept as “going down the other leg of the trousers of Time”)

But how, I hear you cry? It’s all very related to letting it go and also to resistance but the very first step is by being kind to ourselves.

I’ve spoken before about how we receive overwhelmingly negative messages about out bodies, our worth and our self from society and media and also in some cases from our parents and peers. We are told everyday that “life is hard and then you die”, “being fat is ugly”, “money doesn’t grow on trees”, “sex is evil”, “no-one will want you if you are …” etc etc.

Simply put, this messaging is not kind. It’s also not true, and as we internalise it, it keeps us trapped in a negative mindset, far less able to make any sort of change, let alone change for the better.

However, when we start being kind, firstly to ourselves and then to others, we open possibilities. It doesn’t have to be big: For ourselves, eating well and getting good sleep is a good start. Whilst in the wider world, small acts such as Holding open a door for the person following you, saying “thank you” to the bus driver, giving someone some small change in the supermarket check-out line when they are tuppence short.

These sorts of small and random acts of kindness ripple through the world. For instance, eating and sleeping well gives us the energy to make our day easier. Holding the door lowers the stress on the person following you, saying “thank you” makes the bus driver smile & giving pennies smooths out the buying process for everyone in the queue, de-stresses the person that was a touch short and also keeps the checkout person happy.

When change can start so small and be so simple, why would a person not choose to make the world a better place? That’s a huge philosophical question, but the TL;DR message is simple:
Be kind – Kindness to both self and others is the number one self-care act that will make the entire world a better place.

“When we feel love and kindness toward others, it not only makes others feel loved and cared for, but it helps us also to develop inner happiness and peace.”
—The 14th Dalai Lama (1935)
Head Monk Of The Gelugpa Lineage Of Tibetan Buddhism

Leave me a comment about how you are going to make one small change for yourself that could grow to change the world. After all, once we know where we stand, we can start working on connecting those dots!

Catch you next time!

* (Takfiri – Arabic. Can be translated into English as “excommunicated.” In Islamic law, takfir or takfeer (تكفير) refers to apostasy in Islam – The general consensus being among the leading Islamic Scholars is that ISIS are not following the Islamic faith at all.)

Image used, Practice Random Acts of Kindness by MarcieLew
Used Under Creative commons licence: Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic (CC BY-SA 2.0)

“Let it Go” – Holding on too tight is not the path to change

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)

Choosing the best nutrition

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)