Caution: It’s Receiving Time!

There’s a saying which goes ‘be careful what you wish for as you may get it’.  It’s true!  In Hawaii, the shamanic way of life called Huna has one of my favourite phrases, and I’m sure I’ve quoted it here before –

Where your attention goes, energy flows

That’s why when you keep focussing on what you don’t want, you get it.  It’s a self fulfilling prophecy.  The word ‘not’ is ignored by the unconscious mind.  The unconscious mind is the driver behind everything that arrives in your life … not your conscious mind, and not always your actions.  Although obviously we need to take action it should be towards what we want as opposed to away from what we don’t.  There are learning stages, and we soon get used to it, though can be forgetful at times!

I’m just reminding myself at the moment to be open to receiving what I’m looking for.  I started a practice at the beginning of the year with Jamie Ridler’s Full Moon Dreamboards after I heard my good friend Amy Palko wax lyrically about them.  I find the creative side of them a bit tricky, but today (which is full moon day) I was directed to Mosaic Maker where I downloaded a wonderful tool which helped me through the process.  If I’d had more time, I’m sure I could have played with the pictures a bit, cropping and creating on Picnik to make it even more meaningful, but for my first attempt I’m really pleased.

It’s in the shape of an ‘R’ to denote Receiving.  I wanted a reminder to myself to open my arms, my heart and keep my focus on what I want from and in life.  The images mean things to me, and may not mean the same to you – that’s why images work so well – they bypass the conscious thought and create and store meaning and feeling which helps create what you are looking for.

Although you can’t see them I know for example that these are also in the collage somewhere hidden by some of the other photos –

Look at the way water just falls with no fear, it just keeps flowing.  How that great big bear can give such wonderful warm hugs.  How those dancers perform with such grace and dedication.  The love from the angel is inspiring me to give more.  Two big splashes have got to be better than one!  A shoe made of money … reminds me of cobblers’ children and I must look after me and mine first.  And lastly, who could deny the sunshine the positive glowing golden effects it gives us, nurturing and nourishing our very existence.  Butterflies, remind us how transient it all is and why we must make hay while the sun shines 😉

I’m open to receiving what I’ve asked for and am aiming for with open arms, expecting magic sparkles to be created and jump from my own hands!  Nunca Mas is Spanish for never again and that’s a sharp stick which I popped in there just in case!!

Easy? No thanks I opt for difficult!

How does the word easy rest with you?  It’s a strange word with so many connotations, many of which aren’t always positive!

Easy lover … be warned Phil Collins would tell us and don’t fall for an easy lover who will steal your heart and you won’t even feel it.  That’s really not a positive outlook is it?

Easy rider … didn’t quite end in the easy flamboyant lifestyle the road tripping guys intended

We are so often ingrained that anything that’s easy is bad for us.  We must work hard, play hard and love hard.  We need to suffer to succeed.

Is that necessarily true?  It’s not the working long hours or putting in effort which is the issue, it’s the word hard!!  Is your effort making your life easy … if not, for what reason are you doing it?  Are you even enjoying it any more?  Sometimes we feel we are suffering and yet given the options we would rather choose the life we have than make changes to live it differently – in those cases, stop moaning and recognise your choice.

On Twitter this morning, Davina McKail (@dreamwhisperer) suggests that to give in is to give inwards to yourself.  And yesterday she noted that to give up on what isn’t working for you – is not failure, we’re surrendering and handing over to our higher power.

There’s been a bit of a theme running along these lines recently as Sally Asling (@surreylets) wrote an article about letting go in business and comparing it to the bit in the Titanic where Rose has to let go of Jack to save herself.

When you notice a theme running in your life, things you see or hear – music on the radio, tweets which catch your attention, articles which jump out at you – it’s time to listen up and think about where in your life you would be wise to tune in and actually hear the alarm clock which is trying to wake you up to your own situation.

If you’ve been making things more difficult for yourself by holding onto a  ‘Jack’ equivalent, if you feel that giving in or giving up is failure, maybe it’s time to recognise what positive step could actually be made if you did give in or up.

Sometimes you need to say ‘enough is enough’ or ‘I have done all I can here’.  Is that failure?  Not in my book, it’s actually being willing to make life easier.

Adopt the mantra – easy, easy, easy!  Question your decisions, look at your options, which one is easy and which one will you now take?

Off Piste or Piste Off?

I don’t know if you ski or not? I don’t anymore after a rather dramatic exit from the ski slopes in the year dot when I took out 3 ligaments in my right knee and although they were replaced twice in one year, that kind of piste is not one I venture onto any longer!

But even if you don’t ski, you’re sure to be able to bring up images of fresh snow and have feelings of total pleasure at being the first to cut a path across the virgin landscape knowing that you’re marking the ground with your own footsteps, going where no man has gone before.

Or perhaps you’d be like my daughters who hate anyone to spoil the fresh snow, they want to preserve it for posterity, or at least until it melts.  They like the pristine, the unclaimed, the unsullied.

What I wanted to talk about was how may clients I get who have suddenly realised that they’ve been busy making sure that they are doing the right thing by everyone else, that they’ve done very little for themselves.

In essence they’ve stayed on piste all their lives, doing what they need to do to keep everyone else happy, making sure that they follow the footsteps laid out, they don’t make any new marks.  The trouble with this is that eventually they get piste off and begin to feel like a common dogsbody, a door mat and they start to get angry.

A little problem here because they don’t know how to express themselves and they don’t know what will happen if they stop being ‘nice’.  Yes that’s what they’re scared of that some folk will not think that they’re nice.  They’re scared of being disliked if they stop doing everything for everybody.  So, they continue to be nice, they continue to let others take advantage of their ‘gentle giving’ nature and inside they are getting frustrated, piste off and their heart is no longer in their giving.

I read this somewhere but I can’t find it to quote it properly, so this was the essence –

‘I’d rather be disliked for being me than liked for being someone else’

If you were really you and could be absolutely guaranteed that you would be liked for yourself and not the person you think you ‘should’ be, who would you be?  What would you stop or start?

Down down deeper and down! #215800

I loved Status Quo but I don’t think I very often thought about the words I was singing along to.  Often we don’t, especially if it’s an upbeat tune … we’re more likely to listen and remember words to love songs, or sad songs as we’re drawn to them to help find meaning in our own worlds.  When we’re happy and upbeat we tend not to look inside, or even outside, for meaning but just accept the feelings of fun, peace, happiness – however you like to feel.

This last week, at the start of the 215800 challenge, I began to have old issues come up to the surface – was this the yoga, the meditation or was it just a repeat pattern?  A seven year old pattern I thought I’d dealt with and put to bed to be precise.  Or was this the time to go even deeper?

None of the changes and doors which I’ve shut this year have been about my family life.  To date they’ve addressed – career, self belief, finances, training, knowledge, health, friends and trust – all needing a depth charger.  I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised that family would be added into the mix at some point.

After 4 days of handling the first issue, insult was added to injury – or perhaps more likely, because I didn’t handle the first blip well, I was given an even bigger issue on top of the first in the same context.   It was only when this happened that I began to realise that it wasn’t a repeat pattern, it was a depth charged door shutting exercise.

Going Down

How did it go so wrong?  After all, I’m an experienced and able therapist and tend to my own needs on a very regular basis.  I’m also a human being with human failings, human needs and human learnings.  I say this often in my blogs.  Anyone who believes they are above and beyond the realms of being tested or willing to work on themselves and able to go deeper will stop evolving and learning.

I found myself angry, very angry.  I thought I was being dis-respected, controlled, belittled, judged and excluded.  That’s quite a list!  I was in conflict with myself too.  I knew I knew better than to react and after doing some work around this, found that I was responding calmly and rationally.  I was actually very proud of how I was handling the situation.

That was until the second one came along and really took the wind out of my sails!  Ok, I thought, this is now a bit bigger and requires a different approach.  I reached out to a friend for some help and asked what I was missing.  I knew it was me that needed to change my approach, but what I couldn’t see was the lesson and without the lesson, I couldn’t change.  Is that just me, or do others find that the lesson has to be learned first?

Getting Deeper

I started to ask myself ‘What’s the worst that could happen’? and then ‘What’s the best that could happen’?  When you truly can’t answer the first question, you know you’ve got the result you need, or you haven’t really got a problem!

I began with, ‘I’ll be treated like this for the rest of my life, or at least for the next 4 years’.  When I realised we’d already made it through 7 years, 4 years was quite easy!

I then asked if that was actually true.  Had it been 7 years of this, or just specific times in the 7 years?  Was it really so awful?  Was I making some of it up? Was I perpetuating my myth?

That meant I could then start to concentrate on how I could make a difference to helping the best to come to fruition.

Did it really matter what I thought about this person’s attitude?   Could I create more flexibility?  Could I look at this as their reaction to something and not take it personally?  How could I disengage and let go while continuing to care and be available?  How easy would it be for me to feel at peace and for what reason was I not letting it happen?

Lifting, Lifting

I made the choice to disengage and be at peace within myself.  To test I’d made the right choice, I was presented with a phone call yesterday with a friend who isn’t into self development and there’s always a good chance that my way is not his!

It sure wasn’t and as I found myself listening to his solutions to my problem – fight fight fight.  I could feel myself shaking my head, my stomach was giving little cramping signs, and I was silently saying ‘No, no.  That doesn’t fit with me and my way’.  After then being criticised for being a therapist and not handling my problems, I knew for sure that the chosen solution for my peace was absolutely the right one.  I smiled and said thank you.  I reminded myself that as a mediator I had just been given yet another wonderful lesson to use and practice.

All conflict is internal.  Whether we are facing world, community, work, school, or relationship conflict – we must first look at the conflict we have within.  When we are able to find what we really want instead of conflict, we are then able to work towards that.

I’m blessed to be able to mediate with my own inner conflicts, this one took very little time once I realised what I was dealing with.  Bang, another door is shut!

What are you listening to and believing?

Written two years ago, I found this post today.  I consider myself lucky to still have kids young enough to enjoy the Disney/Pixar etc films because it gives me an excuse to settle down and get the ‘other’ message which is so often running through them.

If you haven’t seen Horton hears a Who, it’s well worth taking the time to see it – whatever age you are! Horton questions the very meaning of existence – what if we are just a speck. What if there is something much bigger than us which makes a difference to our world. Horton is the big thing and he goes out of his way to save the speck world from disaster – coming up against all sorts of dangers and evils on his way.

My daughter asked me which bit I liked best and I could instantly identify two key bits

– when he crosses a rickety rope bridge and has to adopt two new strategies – one fill himself with air (it nearly worked but he ran out of breath) and then the second – he kept looking up and out because to look down all he could see was inevitable disaster. When he reaches the other side in one piece he does a dance because he’s feeling so happy – and then he wonders to himself if it’s because he now has a purpose.

– when he steadfastly sticks to his truth even against the onslaught of the whole jungle. As always is the case in these films, the ending is perfect – all the other animals suddenly heard what he heard and he was free. The really nice touch was that he held no grudge against the main perpetrator of his near downfall and understood that she was only doing the best she could with what she believed to be true.

Horton taught much of what I teach – how to believe in yourself, finding those who do believe in you, to have a purpose, to question your reality, and lastly you are never too big or too small to learn how to do something new even if it seems like climbing Everest just now.

The Fool Part II

Oh yes, fools fall in love .. they fall in love because birds sing so gay, and the rain falls from up above 🙂

As sure as eggs is eggs, folk fall in love.  I would counter it is the antithesis of the fool who doesn’t let themselves fall in love for fear of being hurt, the fear of being rejected, the fear of not being good enough.

The Tarot Fool, as we have already found out is very much the person who is willing to accept innocence, to stride forward with trust and knowing that all will be fine.  When you know that you don’t depend on another to bring you happiness, you too will be able to fall in love.

Fall in love safe in the knowledge that no-one can hurt you, you have more lessons to learn from each person you choose to be with.  Surrendering to the wonder and spectacle of on an open heart.  No requirement for you to change, strong in knowing who you are.

Then it is easy to fall in love, just like rain falls and birds sing.

Cherokee Legend – which wolf do you feed?

This story says it all, you get the results you focus on … enjoy …

“The Wolves Within”

An old Grandfather said to his grandson, who came to him with anger at a friend who had done him an injustice, “Let me tell you a story.

I too, at times, have felt a great hate for those that have taken so much, with no sorrow for what they do.

But hate wears you down, and does not hurt your enemy. It is like taking poison and wishing your enemy would die. I have struggled with these feelings many times.” He continued, “It is as if there are two wolves inside me. One is good and does no harm. He lives in harmony with all around him, and does not take offense when no offense was intended. He will only fight when it is right to do so, and in the right way.

But the other wolf, ah! He is full of anger. The littlest thing will set him into a fit of temper. He fights everyone, all the time, for no reason. He cannot think because his anger and hate are so great. It is helpless anger,for his anger will change nothing.

Sometimes, it is hard to live with these two wolves inside me, for both of them try to dominate my spirit.”

The boy looked intently into his Grandfather’s eyes and asked, “Which one wins, Grandfather?”

The Grandfather smiled and quietly said, “The one I feed.”

Pushing Against the Universe

When the Universe doesn’t want you to do something because it isn’t in your best interests, you’d better listen up.  It will give you plenty of opportunity to get the message and you would do well to respect it.

Following hot on the heels of the What If You Knew What You Don’t Know, I want to quickly share this as it is so pertinent.

You don’t need to know why at this stage, all you have to do is say OK thanks for letting me know!

My sister got on her motorbike this morning to go and do a day’s contract work driving for a builder’s merchant.  On the 20 mile journey to the depot, she broke down 3 times.  The last time she thought hmmm, better call out the AA.  Meantime she phoned the agency, got the consultant out of bed (it was only 6.45am) and apologised that she wouldn’t be able to get to the job.  A smiley AA chap arrived and found her sheltering from the torrential downpour under a large oak tree.

After only 10 minutes the engine started and neither the mechanic nor my sister knew what they’d done to allow it to happen.  They could find no fault and therefore no logical answer.   Not wanting to take any chances, she asked the AA man to follow her 5 miles to the bike garage where she was going to ask them to run the computer over the bike to ascertain the cause of the three stoppages.  The bike drove like a dream and was patently pleased with itself!

At the garage after extensive searching the mechanics still couldn’t find out what had happened.  The computer showed no trace of faults and didn’t even register the three breakdowns earlier in the morning.  Feeling by this time happy that she had taken all precautions, my sister went to the depot to apologise and explain her absence.

When she got there she was welcomed, ushered into a truck and told to get on with it anyway.  She was feeling a bit pressured, the truck was like a dogs breakfast inside and she was pushed out of the yard.

After the first drop of brieze blocks, she headed off to the next port of call.   Slowing down and almost coming to a stop at a red temporary traffic light, it turned green and she accelerated again.  Having got up to about 15mph, she drove on under a bridge.   The next thing she knew, her cab was 10 feet in the air and the front of the truck was in front of her nose.

Yes, the crane on the back of the truck had met with the bridge.  There were no cars behind her, no people close by and nothing else was involved.  Luckily she wasn’t harmed.

The extra strange piece of this story is that the company who are contracted by the builder’s merchants to do their deliveries had cancelled providing their services across the country for today.  Her shift was never meant to happen.  She wasn’t told this when she turned up to apologise for her tardiness.  She wasn’t told it by her agency.

It later transpires that a regular on this beat had a very similar accident only three weeks previously and it transpires that the builder’s merchants have played with the warning system in the lorry cabs.

My sister could easily have died today … she didn’t.   I believe the Universe and the Angels have been looking out for her all day.  Next time it feels difficult to do something, just don’t do it and you’ll either find the reason why in due course, or you’ll find an easier and better way.

What If You Knew What You Don’t Know

I always think it’s a bit of paradox that we often find ourselves in a situation needing to know things in order to make sense.

The fact is that we only get to know what we don’t know when we become aware that we don’t know it – up till then it hasn’t mattered one iota, therefore why do we get upset about not knowing!

You can read and study all you like, but that’s not going to help – because you just don’t know what it is that you are going to need to know until you need to know it.

We make decisions everyday based on what we know now, and that’s good enough.  There is no rule that you have to stick to that decision when you know more.  What this means is that you are constantly changing, you are continually learning and knowing more and you can make new decisions whenever you feel like it based on that new information.

This is today’s Note from the Universe

I don’t recommend asking for what you can have, or even for what you can give, nearly as much as I recommend asking for what else you can know.

Because there is always more you can know, and knowing it will radically increase all you can have and give.

When we begin to trust and accept that there are greater forces than ourselves at play, we begin to surrender to the process of being in the right place, at the right time, meeting the right people, saying the right thing and everything is just as it should be.

With a willingness to open to possibility, suddenly we find all sorts of opportunities around us which we didn’t know were there.  In order to notice these possibilities and opportunities we have to be willing to have a quiet mind, be fearless, and to notice what is working and what isn’t.

It requires us to take the blinkers off.  It needs us to be curious.  And, we need to accept when we need to take a different path.

Very often we need to make a decision in order to know more.  The people who take no action,  who worry about  ‘what if’ cannot hear or see what choices they have because they are so engrossed in their story of lack or fear.

Turn Your Thinking On It's Head

Our life is on earth is about  fun and we can make it as easy or hard as we like, every time you don’t know something rejoice in the fact that you are about to turn a corner which will create a new future, if you let it!

Why does it always rain on me?

I can’t stand myself
I’m being held up by invisible men
Still life on a shelf when
I’ve got my mind on something else
Sunny days, oh where have you gone
I get the strangest feeling you belong

I heard an interview with Travis about writing this song – he comes from the west coast of Scotland where it is usually very wet and wanting to do some song writing booked himself a holiday to Egypt (I think).  Lo and behold while he was there, it rained a lot!

Somehow it happens, we can take the rain wherever we go – we can even make the weather change – now I know, it’s a long shot, but it can happen!  I remember when I was going through a particularly tough period of my divorce and wondering just how I would get through it and each day I’d go out to take my dog for her walk – and sure as eggs is eggs on the days I needed it most, there was a rainbow – showing me that behind the rain, the dark skies and clouds the sun still shone.  Hang on till you get there was what I heard, it’s just passing over.

What’s really weird though is that ever since, a rainy day does not automatically produce a rainbow any longer.  I’ve got passed the point of needing to know that the sun is still shining somewhere because it just is!  I know deep inside that whatever is happening in my life which I’m not enjoying is something I can handle, it will pass, and the good times soon return.

Travis knew it too – he addresses the sunny days and gets a funny feeling they belong.

The way back to sunny days is trust and forgiveness.  It’s knowing that where you are, no matter how uncomfortable, it’s going to end and you will soon be basking in the warmth of the sun ….. only as long as you are willing to let go of the memory of rain.