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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)

February 26, 2016

Get stuff done – make your bed

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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)

January 8, 2016

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

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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)

November 15, 2015

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

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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)

August 1, 2015

“Resistance” – Your cue to keep going!

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The brain is a funny thing – I know that you are here, reading this, because in some way, you want to improve yourself. I’m here writing it because I want to do the same, improve myself and our world by shining a light to help others improve themselves and the world around them.

But we all suffer from “Resistance” – the negative force inside all of us that wants to maintain the status quo, wants to not “feel the fear” but to “stay safe” and to hide away from change and growth. Because change could harm us right? Best not do that then, just stay here in our nice little world and be secure, even if we rationally hate it and want, even need to change it…

The need to “stay safe” comes direct from the Amygdala, AKA the “reptile” brain, which operates as a part of the Limbic brain, but at an even lower level – Evolutionary studies show that this is the part of the brain system that we have now that evolved first. One of its jobs is to be in charge of the part of “fight or fight” (our instinctual decision making and emotional response) that is based on previous emotional memory patterns.

So, why is our learning to discern when this little nugget of our brain is activated important to our progress? When the Amygdala is activated, it makes our gut feelings on something not quite so trustworthy as usual, as it is basing its reaction on past emotional memory patterns, usually formed when we are very young.

Like the limbic brain, it has no language or sense of time, it acts in the now to keep us alive and safe, and will always point towards short term satisfaction and pleasure over long term gain. (As an aside, it’s also the part of your brain responsible for weird and irrational snap decisions around instant gratification – that sweet sticky doughnut you ate cos it tastes nice, or those lovely new shoes that you have no idea why you bought for instance! Marketers play heavily to this instinctual behaviours as they lay out shops, they know how to make your Amygdala give you a short term gain “happy”!)

This “short term view” can make us freeze in our tracks or even run away when a “big unknown” comes up; something that we’ve never encountered before may well be harmful! This can very much rob us of the want to act for our own greater good. Where the Neocortex knows that progress towards “a long term change towards greater good” will improve us and our world, the Amygdala puts up “stay safe, be happy in your now, don’t change” signals.

Nite that when the Amygdala signals, these are taken by the brain as a whole to be the appropriate reaction response to the situation – Limbic reacts faster than rational Neocortex. And so the Neocortex gets overruled and we feel Resistance.

Resistance takes many shapes: fear, self-doubt, procrastination, distraction, addiction, timidity, ego and narcissism, self-loathing and perfectionism, to name a few. I’m sure that you’ve feel these come up in your lives, I know I have in mine! (Procrastination is the main way my resistance shows itself. I’ve learned ways to turn it to my advantage, but that’s a whole ‘nother post!)

Knowledge is power however, now you know why you are feeling resistance, and because we can actively gauge and use the strength of the Resistance we feel against “the good thing that we want to do” we can use that as a compass.

After all, as Steve Pressman says in “Do the work”: Resistance wants us to not move away from our current state of mind; it’s a negative, repelling force. It will outright lie to us, fabricate reason after reason for us not to act, and cajole, seduce or bully us into not moving forward.

However, Resistance, being negative, is always lying, and it is totally full of bullshit.

The fact that resistance is always a liar means that when we are feeling the most resistance to an new idea or change, that is when we most need to act, using the feelings of resistance to guide us towards the calling or purpose that we know that we must follow. The more important that work is to us, however much we want to achieve our goals towards “greater good”, as the “greater good” grows so does the resistance we will feel towards our perusing them.

The work (your ideas, dreams and goals) can be anything: Writing a book, dropping your excess body fat, lifting weights to gain muscle, learning how something works so that you are more able to support yourself in using it, designing and launching a website to share your ideas, painting, creating or drawing something and then showing it to people or embarking on a 6-month around the world adventure – all these things have long-term gain for the good in common. They all pretty much require short-term pain of some form: planning, organising, potential financial shortfalls or simple courage of convictions to press on.

There are a few ways to combat the Amygdala, and so, armed with this new knowledge, what are you feeling resistance against doing in your life? What goal in your life are you procrastinating around doing, or fussing over “because it has to be perfect”? Leave me a comment below about what your resisting, and we can start working on connecting those dots.

Catch you next week!

Image used “Resistance is Beautiful” by teofilo
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)

July 12, 2015

Can you “sit still” or do you need to “fill up your eyes” ?

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I’ve been doing personal development work the last 10 days or so, working on some of my “money stuff”, generally working on discovering and clearing my money blocks, creating an abundance mindset and specifically around making crucial mindset shifts for making passive income (Disclosure: Affiliate links) because hey, I want to create content and courses that improve the world, be a successful female entrepreneur role model for the next generation and gain clarity in my own world so I can help you to connect your dots and improve your life!

I love Denise Duffield-Thomas, she is just so down to earth, practical and totally speaks to the way I think about life. (NB: This is so important. You must resonate on a positive and human level with the people you work with and listen to in life. A good coach will turn you away if she feels that you will not work well together. Stress and combat over “personality-issues” do not make for successful self-improvement!)

Some of the work I’ve been doing has been all about my “sitting still”; being in the moment, breathing, focusing and listening to various messages. This made me think about how we “fill up our eyes” these days – using our Smartphones (Which are actually the ultimate personal computer) and tablets to “just check in”, “play a game” or various other activities that really just waste time and aren’t really engaging with the world or ourselves.

I remember when I was a kid, technology was really just breaking into the home environment, the mobile was a good 15 years away. So, as well as watching telly, I read books, played out, built things, made cakes, talked to my friends for hours on the phone. I could also “sit still”, because I didn’t feel the need for the “need to be doing” i.e. 100% engagement/stimulation, at all time. I look at my behaviours now, and the behaviours of my friends children, and we are all attached to our technology! We are “filling up our eyes” with minutae, most of which we don’t actually need to know, and some of which (especially for children) isn’t actively developing cognitive connections.

I’ve not denying that our level of tech. can be very useful; it is definitely life improving, and provides valuable learning and problem solving tools, but I’ve actively had to remember how to reach stillness again, remind myself that I can “just sit”, that I have no need to get agitated if my phone is not in my hand if there is nothing else going on, that it doesn’t matter if I’m not checking FaceBook or Twitter (the information I really need will find me) and to sit, breathe and also engage to absorb knowledge when I’ve been actively learning new stuff.

I feel that losing this stillness is a big issue. Having stillness in life allows for “reset” time, for me, this is the time where I engage with my orchids, dye my yarn, or just sit for 15 minutes on a sunny day enjoying the sun on my face! I also have concern for the kids who have not actually learned about this stillness in the first place. Yes, we all know that kids run around and pretty much never sit still, but when they do sit down, I see the automatically reaching for a device as potentially not the best idea for them…

So, can you sit still? Summer’s the perfect time to start to regain this vital skill. This week, I want you all to get out from behind your desk at lunch, go sit in the sun (Or, if you are like me, “sun-adjacent” i.e. in the shade!) and just be in the world for 15 minutes. Enjoy the sun, listen to the world around you, breathe and don’t touch your tech. during that time. Note how it makes you feel. Are you calm and enjoying the time, or agitated that you are taking time out and can’t “fill up your eyes”. Afterwards, are you feeling energised and ready to get back to your day with renewed vigour (hint: this is the desired outcome! 😉 ), or did you just feel a bit silly and fidgety, or that it was a waste of time. Leave me a comment below, and we can work on finding the moment and connecting those dots.

Catch you next time!

Credit for Sitting Still half of image used What is this life if, full of care, we have no time to sit and stare…. by Nagesh Jayaraman
Used Under Creative commons licence: Attribution 2.0 Generic (CC BY 2.0)