Archive for Whose Life Are You Living?
Your way is the right way.
Posted by: | CommentsI had a great day yesterday. I collected seaweed at the beach to put on the garden to grow the spuds. I’v been talking about doing it for a few years but never did – so it feels great to have done it. I can still remember when I moved to Ireland 20 years ago and someone invited me for dinner and gave me some of their home grown potatoes, which they’d fertilised with seaweed – the taste was divine!!! My taste buds still go mad when I think of them.
Anyway, I had an insight about when I was doing it, I thought I’d share. I was collecting the seaweed with my friend JP, who’s a farmer and much more used to heaving heavy bags around than I am. We had great fun bagging up the seaweed and had about 30 bags filled. To get the best, we were doing it at low tide, and were quite a way from where the car was parked.
JP and our seaweed collection
When it came to carrying the bags back up to the car, I could feel my heart sink, as it looked a long way and the bags were heavy. I realised that what felt much better to me was to do it in 3 stages – to take them all up to the tide line, then up to take then all up to the rocks and then up to the car. I felt a sense of achievement each time i got all the bags to each place, I knew I could manage it and none of it felt overwhelming. JP was happy to move the bags in the same way, so we did it together in three stages, chatting as we went, and the time flew.
Someone else might have found that way laborious and felt that it made it much more prolonged and felt really frustrated with it. They’d have preferred to do it all in one go. And I know that it will always feel much more relaxing to me to be with someone who is doing things their way.
Someone else might have come up with a way of doing it that I haven’t even thought of. I might have watched them and thought I’d give their way a try and have found that I prefer it to my own way.
None of it matters – as long as you are doing things the way that feels best to you. We each have our own way and different things that are challenging. Going at your own pace and doing things in your way – being true to yourself, is the most important thing. When you know that you are being yourself, and not someone else’s version of you, or trying to fit into other people’s rhythm, everything gets much easier.
Success story
Posted by: | CommentsI was having lunch with my very good friend the other day and she told me this great story about her nephew’s girlfriend. I don’t know the woman’s name – but I’ll call her Isabelle
Isabelle is from Ecuador and moved to Ireland last year. You may have heard – Ireland is going through a difficult time economically at the moment. The TV and radio are full of stories of Irish people emigrating because they can’t find work here. There are a lot of graduates with great qualifications leaving because they can’t get jobs.
So, things on the outside wouldn’t be looking too good for someone from outside the EU, who wouldn’t have a right to work here getting any job – let alone their dream job.
From the way I heard the story, Isabelle must know about Law of Attraction and Deliberate Creation. She made a canopy of flags above her bed with all the things that she wanted. One of these was a job with Google. Guess what she just got her dream job with Google in Ireland!!!
I was telling someone else this story, and they were saying that they had done things like that and it hadn’t worked. They made a dream board and said affirmations, but what they wanted didn’t happen.
I’ve had this experience myself in the past. It’s all about ALIGNMENT. It’s not the action of putting things on a piece of paper, or saying words. It’s about aligning yourself with the feeling of having what you want. it’s about stepping the reality of having what you want – as if you already have it. It’s about believing the truth – you already have it in your vibrational reality – you just need to allow it come into your physical reality. And your feelings are the best way to do this.
Picture yourself having what you want -
- what would you be wearing?
- what would you be saying to yourself?
- what would you be saying to other people?
- what would you be feeling?
Do what you can to make yourself feel as if it has already happened.
In the case of Isabelle and her job in Google -
- She may have gone down to the Google offices and pictured herself walking up the steps to work.
- She may have worn the clothes that she would wear when she got her job.
- She may have heard in her mind the conversations that she’d have with her workmates.
- She may have written herself letters from the future about her job and her life now.
I love this story, because it’s so opposite to how most people thinks are. But it shows that if you really align yourself – even the seemingly impossible is possible.
Are You Living Your Dreams?
Posted by: | CommentsI was just listening the radio while making my marmalade – the first time I’ve made it for years!! It feels great to be doing it, and the smell of the fruit is beginning to spread though the house. Delicious!!
John Spillane and his brother were on a radio programme, talking about their lives. John is a well known singer now, but he didn’t really become well known until he was into his thirties. He left his permanent, pensionable job in the bank to pursue his dream of being a singer – not something often done in the recession hit Ireland of the 80′s!!! He often had to borrow money from his accountant brother to keep him going.
He wrote this song to speak to all people to remind them to follow their dreams. It got me thinking of my dreams and how much I am living them – and which ones could do with a bit more oxygen at the moment! Making marmalade is a dream I dreamed last year on holidays in Seville in Spain – a small dream, but great to bringing it to realisation.
Many of my dreams have come true – working from home, having lots of time in the day for walks on the beach, having a network of people around the world who share the same beliefs and ideas that I do. Feeling the support of others. Having money to do the things that I want to do without worrying. Feeling a deepening and growing spiritual connection. They’ve come true in gradual ways – and some in ways that I hadn’t fully realised until reflecting on my dreams.
One of my big dreams that hasn’t come to fruition yet, is to surf and catch a wave. A real wave!! I know that I will, and soon. But I also realised, as I was reflecting, that I am surfing a huge wave – the wave of deliberate creation!!! I am feeling the growing swell of really getting how I create my on reality, and of allowing the things that are waiting for me to come into my physical reality. I am surfing!!!
I thought I’d give you the song here, so you can see how you are with your dreams.
I’ll let you know how the marmalade turns out!!! The smell is getting stronger and more yummy as I write!
Scripting Your Day
Posted by: | CommentsHow do your days unfold for you?
Do you feel as if they just happen – as if you have no control over them? Or do you have to-do-lists which keep growing? Or maybe you have great plans but life keeps sending things to disrupt you.
I find a great tool to keep my days at a high vibe level, is to start the day with 5 minutes scripting. I write mine down in a journal – but you can also say it out loud, or say it in your head if that’s easier for you. You can do it in the shower, walking the dog, or on your way to work. The earlier you do it the better, because it sets your vibration at a higher level to start the day off. If you’re used to doing it one way – in a journal for instance, and don’t have your journal one day – don’t let that stop you – just write it on any piece of paper, or say it for today.
Here are the steps:
1.Connect to your source of Spiritual Connection – to whoever or whatever, that may be. Do it in the way that feels best for you – light a candle, meditate, say a prayer, offer an invitation.
2. Identify what is up for you today. Be honest with yourself.
How are you feeling? What is bothering you? What do you need help on? What is on your mind right now?
You may have:
- a difficult conversation looming
- Financial challenges
- Health concerns
- Worries about your family
- A presentation at work
- Your car in the garage
- A concern about a pet
- etc, etc,
Just identify whatever is there, bring it out into the open and acknowledge its presence.
3. Now Script what you want to experience in your day around the things you’ve just identified.
If other things may come up as you script just include them in the scripting in the way that feels best.
Script what you’d like to experience and the feelings you want to have as you experience them. Really feel the feelings as you’re writing them, as this will activate the vibration in you. It’s the feelings that you want which are more important than the specific outcomes. The Universe often has ways of bringing us the feelings we want in more delicious ways than we can even imagine!! So stay open to the fact that you may not know the best way!
Script for small changes in your vibration, rather than great leaps!! If you reach too far beyond where you really are now, you can reinforce what you don’t have. If you move up the scale in smaller steps, you’re much more likely to get there!
For instance if you are feeling really down about the break-up of a relationship, it may feel too far away to script about a great new romance (although that might be what you ultimately want). But if you script about feeling a sense of enjoyment as you go to movie with a friend – that will bring a shift, and be going in the direction that you want to go in.
4. Go about your day – with a consciousness, that you have set up a vibrational call to certain feelings. If any things happen – make a note of them. At the end of the day, I like to review the day, and to note what happened – what evidence there was that my vibration is attracting different experiences. They may be small or big things, but they are all signs. You can write them down, or say them to yourself.
They may be things like:
- I found the perfect parking space
- A cheque arrived in the post
- Someone smiled at me when I ordered in the cafe
- I found just the right words to say in a difficult conversation
- I seemed to have so much more time than usual today.
- A friend I hadn’t heard from for ages rang out out of the blue
- I saw an ad in a paper I don’t usually read for my perfect job
- Someone contacted me about coaching after reading an article I wrote 2 years ago!!
All of these things are signs that things are moving – note them and celebrate them, and you will be sending the signal that you want more of the same.
Have fun with it!!
A Rampage of Appreciation
Posted by: | CommentsI’m just reading “Ask and It is Given” – the Teachings of Abraham by Esther and Jerry Hicks. I can’t believe that I haven’t read it before!! – I’ve given it to people as a present, I’ve read articles and listened to talks etc, – but somehow I’d never read it. It really is true that everything happens at the right time, and now must be the optimal time for me to read it in its entirety. I am loving it and getting so much from it. It’s so in tune with everything I know to be true for me instinctively and for others that I coach. I’m really happy that I came to a lot of the learnings myself, and now can add to them by this reading and new learning.
The teachings are all about raising your vibrational level – so that you are in alignment with what it is you are asking to receive. This is where a lot of us can get frustrated and feel that the Law of Attraction is not working. We ask – the Universe is doing it’s part to align everything so that we can receive – but we haven’t done the 3rd step - of bringing our aligning our vibration with that which we wish to receive. We are still focussing on the “lack” and what we don’t have, even when we think we are aligning ourselves to receive.
I have often talked and written about how Gratitude can raise your vibrational level – and it definitely does. I love the way that Abraham talks about it in the Chapter on “A Rampage of Appreciation” . He recommends using this when you are feeling relatively good about something and are in one of the higher frequencies already. It can help wherever you are, if you can find anything to appreciate or be grateful for, but it is hard to do that if you are in the depths of despair.
One of the biggest lessons I ever had about my thoughts, and their power and my particular though patterns was at a week long meditation retreat I was on about 10 years ago. I was meditating (or rather sitting in anguish as my mind raced wildly!! – for a lot of the time) - for about 5-6 hours a day, in a beautiful place. After a couple of days, I was sitting in the dining area by myself, as I thought, idly looking around – and then I became aware of my thoughts!!!! They were SO judgemental – every person who walked in I had some comment to make about – some I considered positive, but a lot were negative – things like:
I don’t like that coat
I wouldn’t think someone dressed like that would come to a meditation retreat
They look a bit stuck up
She looks nice
Please don’t sit next to me – I don’t want to talk to you
and on, and on, and on……………… it was never ending! I had to laugh in the end, because it was so obvious.
Ever since then I have tried to consciously bring my thoughts to a state of appreciation and gratitude more regularly, so that those thoughts become much more familiar to me, and become my default place to go to.
In ” Ask and It is Given” I’ve just been reading about the Rampage of Appreciation – and I love the way that it is talked about there. To use any moment you have – like standing in line for something, or being in traffic and gently allowing your thoughts to focus on what they appreciate:
Isn’t it great to be able to get so many things in one place
I’m so happy I have the money to pay for this
The checkout person looks really happy today
What a lovely child with their mother over there
This is much quicker than I thought it would be
etc, etc – anything that you can appreciate about the situation at all.
You can do it for a regular amount of time everyday, or on your spare moments.
I am committing to doing it regularly with my house - we are needing to do some renovations, for for various reasons have been delayed. I have become more and more aware that my thinking is affecting this, as my frustration can run high at times. I know when I am in a state of appreciation and gratitude, things move more smoothly, so I’m committing to becoming more conscious of appreciating the many wonderful things there are to appreciate in my home.
What are of your life could do with some more appreciation? Have fun, finding ways to appreciate what their is to appreciate about it – it’s important to be genuine, and really appreciate the things you say you do, you can’t fake appreciation – but you change shift your focus to what you appreciate.
Emotional Healing – does that scare you?
Posted by: | CommentsI’m really excited about my teleseminar tonight! – I have my good friend and colleague, Ian Watson as a special guest, and we’re going to be talking about emotional healing.
I have to say that if I had known 20 years ago even, that I would be looking forward to something called Emotional Healing – I’d have been totally shocked!! I was TERRIFIED of my emotions for years, and did anything to try and avoid them. I could only talk about how I felt, if I could at all, by putting a pillow over my head and speaking into the mattress or sofa!! I often had a feeling, that if I cried, I’d drown in the tears, my sorrow felt so deep. Or if I go t angry, that I would kill or murder, my rage was so strong. Terrifying, no wonder I tried everything I could to suppress it.
Even after I had started on my journey of self-exploration and personal development, I still found emotions scary. Learning about homeopathy and holisitc approaches helped, but the thing that most helped me was getting to know and work with Ian.
Ian’s work is based on Emotional Release. He uses the body and the sensations in the body as the guide for releasing the emotions that are stored in the body. The emotions that never fully completed – the tears we held back, the anger we suppressed, the fear we squashed down etc. The work is very supportive, very deep, very powerful, and not scary! I now use it a lot on my coaching to help people release the emotions that have become trapped in their body.
Those old emotions can really affect the vibrational level we feel most comfortable in, releasing them is like laying down a heavy burden you’ve been carying around. It’s transformed my life – I still have some work to do, there are still emotional patterns that surface and take me by surprise, but I’ve found having a way to work with them, just by sitting and listening and following is great!
If you want to join us on the teleseminar tonight, go to the teleseminar link at the top of the page and fill in your details. The replay will be available for a while.
You can read more about Ian’s work at http://www.ianwatsonseminars.com
Just Do What You Want to Do!
Posted by: | CommentsThe first time I heard someone say that they were just going to “Do What They Want to Do” – I was quite shocked! It sounded like anarchy and really selfish. That was many years ago, and before I really understood the importance of keeping your vibrational level high.
When I talk to people about it now, they often have a similar reaction. I think we all have a fear that if we don’t do the things we HAVE to do and the things that we SHOULD do, we’ll just sit around all day and do nothing – but eat chocolate!!
I can’t honestly say that I only do “Just Want I Want to Do”, 100% of the time, but the proportion of time that I spend doing the what I want to do is increasing all the time.
There are things that wouldn’t be high on my list of things to do – like walking the dogs when it’s pouring with rain, or cleaning the oven, or doing my tax return – but I realise that I have a choice as to whether I do them or not – I can always pay someone else to do it if I really don’t want to. I could not have dogs. I could cook without using the oven! All of these things are possibilities.
I can also choose the way I approach things – I usually love it when I do out with the dogs in the rain, once I’m dressed properly and I’m looking for all the things I like about it. I do love using the oven to cook, and I love the feeling after it’s been cleaned – and if I put some good music on, or something really inspiring to listen to, as I’m doing it, I can really enjoy the satisfaction of doing it.
Just doing things you want to do, really does create a whole different way of being. There can often be conflicts in what you want to do – you may really want to see your aunt when she’s over visiting, but you also really want a quiet day to yourself on the only day that you can see her. Maybe you can do both – think win-win. Maybe you could have a couple if hours in the morning to yourself – and really, totally give yourself permission to do only what you want to do. Then in the afternoon, you could spend a few hours with your aunt – being totally present with her. A few hours visit when you’re totally present with someone, is worth a whole day of a distracted, scattered visit!
I was drawn to think about this yesterday in particular, because I was feeling slightly conflicted myself. It was a beautiful day here – sunny and blue skies – and a few of my friends were meeting for a walk on the beach. I had set the time aside to do some work and some writing, and also to be on a coaching call. All things that I was very happy to do, and looking forward to doing. But the weather was so beautiful……….
In the way of the Universe and as so often happens, I got a Google Alert email with a link to one of Kate Corbin’s Articles “The Magic of Doing What Feels Good” - the timing was perfect as things always are. In a couple of minutes I had my solution. I turned my camper van into my mobile office – with my laptop, mobile phone and notebooks, a lovely pot of vegetable soup and headed to the beach.
I had a beautiful walk, was out in the air, got loads of work done, did my coaching call, – and came back home at 7pm feeling so happy, grateful and that I had done just what I wanted to do!! I know that my vibrational level was higher than it would have been if I’d thought I had to do either or…
What do you think?? Is it selfish to do just what you want to do?…….
Are you painting your picture or someone else’s?
Posted by: | CommentsI was at my local church service today and the priest shared a story that I loved – especially as at 54, I have started painting and drawing for the first time .
The bible reading was the story of the fig tree that wasn’t bearing fruit, the landowner wanted to dig it up, but the farmer pleaded for another year so that he could loosen the soil around it add some manure.
So we were exploring the issues around the expectations you would have from a fig tree – that it would give you figs!! Not oranges or lemons or any other kind of fruit. So in our our own lives it’s important to know what kind of fruit it is natural for us to bear – what are our talents and our real heart’s desires. What do we want to manifest, to bring forth in this world. What is our contribution?
Are you giving enough space and air to your unique gifts that the world is waiting for? Do you need to manure and feed and water them more?
The story the priest told, was when he was working in Tanzania. He had a week’s holiday and went to study with a local artist, who ran week long classes. He described sitting next to an African woman, who filled her palette with an array of bright colours and then started to paint an exuberant picture with bright sweeps and swirls! He went to choose his paints, and instead of the colours he normally chose, he picked the brighter ones and started a large, swirling picture. Within a few minutes, he was completely lost. He didn’t understand the colours and how they worked together, or how to paint big. The teacher came by and said – “Why are you trying to paint like an African – you’re never be an African – you must paint from your palette in your own style.”
It’s easy to look around and to see other people and their paintings, and try to copy them. But unless you’re really coming from your own soul space it’s hard to really paint your own picture, dance your own dance, sing your own song or live your own life.
Is it possible to STAY in a higher vibrational level permanently??
Posted by: | CommentsWe had a great teleseminar last night, looking at how to Raise Your Vibrational Level.
Someone asked a question -Is it possible to STAY in a higher vibrational level permanently??
In answer I replied that I hadn’t learnt to do it yet!! So I’m not the one to show you how to – I do believe that maybe some people do, the truly enlightened beings – I don’t know any personally, so I don’t know for sure.
I was reflecting about it after the call. I know that I have heard stories of the Dalai Lama, when he gets upset, he is totally in the moment and upset about whatever is happening, and when that is past, it is past. It is like children or animals – they can get extreme emotions, but when they are gone, they are gone. I remember Eckhart Tolle speaking of the great insight he gained after sitting in a park and watching two ducks have a vicious fight. When they turned away from each other, they both shook their bodies – shaking the last of the anger out. Then it was gone!
As adults, we tend to not complete our emotions – we shut them down, or keep expressing them without fully letting them leave our system. It’s this that I believe lowers our vibrational frequency. The old residual emotions that we haven’t shaken off.
Another factor that influences us, is our desire to feel safe and comfortable and FAMILIAR. This means that we often choose to spend a lot of time in states of fear, anxiety, anger, loneliness etc – not because we like them, but because they are familiar to us. You can really observe this, if you find yourself repeating a pattern time and time again – you’re not choosing the event, you’re choosing the feeling. It’s a paradox, that we would choose something that is at the same time extremely uncomfortable, but at the same time comforting in its familiarity. If you let your body release the old emotions, and also help yourself to gradually get used to what it is like to feel comfortable at a different vibrational level, you’ll notice that you don’t need to keep repeating those patterns.
We are always going to have sadness, upset, anger, fear in our life – we are human, and these feelings give us the contrasts. They give a richness – you cannot truly love without knowing the pain of loss. We do have a choice however, as to whether we choose to live MOST of our time here, or whether we choose to spend most our time in the feelings of love, gratitude, compassion, abundance.
On the call we looked at ways of releasing the emotions stored up in your body, and also ways of gradually increasing the amount of time that you spend at the higher vibrational levels. The more that you do this, the more familiar they will come to feel to you, and you will feel safer there than in the lower vibrational levels.
You can listen to the replay of the teleseminar here: http://AttendThisEvent.com/?eventid=11558892
Spiritual Prosperity -Can You Have it Without Being Wealthy?
Posted by: | CommentsThe word prosper comes from the Latin word prosperitas,- meaning ”to do well”. It started to become widely used in the Middle Ages, and was generally used to mean – fortunate, successful, agreeable to one’s wishes.
To me it means a sense of well – being, of being deeply grateful for everything in my life. This means people – my friends and family, the beauty of nature and everything around me, the opportunities and possibilities that I have, the animals in my life, the food everything.
Is this dependent on having money?
To me, it is helped by knowing that my basic needs are met – not my wants, my needs. To know that I have food, water, shelter and clothing. I have been really lucky, and only had those basic things threatened a few times in my life, and each time, I was amazed by the help and support I received.I never believed that they would last, because I was born into a society and family that gave me the basis on which to believe that these would be provided,However, I do think that to live in a constant state of insecurity around having your basic needs met would not be easy to cope with.
We have all seen the joy on children’s faces living in India and Africa – where materially children people don’t have so much. I think everyone is struck by those looks of pure joy – and we realise that we don’t see them so often on our children’s faces in the West, when there is so much focus placed on our “wants”. Children are taught at a young age that there is always something else to want.
I don’t mean the look of desperation on the faces of people who are in famine, or war situations and are starving and terrified. I mean the looks on the faces of people who do have sufficient to eat, and are relatively secure.
So to me – if my needs are met and my wants are few, I really do feel prosperous. I feel connected to my Spirit and deeply grateful for everything that I have. When I feel that way, I can sit and watch the birds flying to and fro from the tree outside my office window for ages, and feel so prosperous.
I can feel when I am being pulled away from this sense of spiritual well-being, or prosperity. There is nearly always an increase in my wants – whether it is for material things, affection, food or whatever. I know I have gone from being grateful to what I have, to wanting what I don’t have. Re-connecting myself with that deep sense of gratitude always brings me back to Prosperity.
The best way I have found to really feel the gratitude is to take one thing in my life and really focus on everything I am grateful for about it.
For instance if I think of the bottle of water I have by my side now – I am grateful for:
the water that quenches my thirst
the filter I have in my home that purifies it
the people that made the filter – and all of the parts on it
the person who took the time to put a video up to show how to instal the filter
God for bringing the rain
the people who collect the water in the reservoirs
the people who invented ways of bringing water into our houses – at the turn of a tap!
and more and more and more……..
When I am feeling this grateful, I always know that I am vibrating at a level, that is bound to attract just the right things for me to prosper into my life.
