Your Ultimate Guide to Happiness, Inner Peace and Personal Fulfilment - Sign up below for your weekly Inspirational Insights

Inspirational Insight

‘If we always do what we always did, we will always get what we always got’ – Jackie Mabley

Take the time to explore your habits and the actions you take.

The ones that you carry out automatically, that you do without thinking.

The ones that are stopping you from making progress on lifes journey.

Doing what you always do.  Always getting the same results.

Are you happy to settle for that?

Pushing your boundaries and stretching your comfort zone is a great way to do things differently.

And it’s a challenge that you can embrace on a daily basis.

Begin today.  Act different, be different, have fun.

Go on – Empower yourself.

Want more Inspirational Insights to assist you to grow your inner well being?  Just enter your name and email address in the box to you right to receive you own weekly Insights – enjoy x

Heaven or Hell

How’s your abundance coming along?  It’s all in the mind and can mean that life is either heaven on earth or hell on earth.  It all depends on how you use your thoughts at any given moment.

The mind is a great blessing.  It’s a tool that can be used to grow your abundance or shrink it.  You get to choose always.

At the moment I’m working through the Abundance Programme for 40 Days (details here (http://judithmorgan NULL.com/i-radiate-infinite-abundance-at-all-times/)).  I’ve actually completed the first 40 days and have started on the next.  Why.  Because this time around it feels different.

I’m not over complicating things as it works perfectly well without any need to dig deeper.  It’s just that my awareness has grown since I started and now when I read the daily affirmation, I’m seeing a different meaning.

I’m also beginning to feel it with my whole person, from the inside out and its as if my being expands as I meditate on it for the 20 mins required.  There’s a richness in the world that has nothing to do with money and everything to do with what you see.

Heaven or hell on earth.

Every single waking moment is full of choices that come from the mind that work their way through to become thoughts.  Now these thoughts are not reality.  No, they are my thoughts on what’s real for me.

There’s an old tale about 4 people describing a crime that’s just been committed in front of them.  Every one of them sees a different scenario as processed by their own mind.  Who’s right and who’s wrong?  Well, they’re all right and/or wrong depending on what their senses picked up.

So what’s different for me?  Simple, I’m just seeing everything from a different viewpoint.  For instance, I was thinking about an incident that happened last year when I went to stay with my sister.  A chance remark was taken out of context and I was thinking of the consequences of that remark.

Feeling quite sad and sorry for myself, I had a severe case of the ‘if only’s’.  Then I laughed because I realised it was just my thoughts and not real.  It was my take on what I thought had happened and instead of letting it go, I was hanging on to the residue of the moment.

It’s not true anymore.  The world has turned and it’s old news.  For goodness sake, I’ve just held a family party that was amazing.  There was no remarks about comments or suchlike that had occurred in my past (well maybe a few funny anecdotes).

So instead of falling into a mind made hell, I shook myself up and lifted my eyes to the abundant heaven on earth that lies before me.  One that’s overflowing with spring flowers and colours that lift the soul.  Seeing the benevolence of a generous Universe all around me.

Inside out living (http://www NULL.threeprinciplesfoundation NULL.org/) at it’s best, where I get to choose where I put my thoughts.  You have that choice too.

And a huge thank you to Judith Morgan (http://entrepreneursoul NULL.com/what-i-learned-from-my-lunch-with-a-bankrupt-by-judith-morgan/) who introduced me to the 40 day programme that is turning into so much more that I could have ever imagined.

 

Reiki is Love in Motion

When I took my Reiki I attunements many years ago, I wrote this heart felt poem to remind me that Reiki is always connected to the Heart.  It’s a pure love energy and really is Love in Motion:

From my heart to your heart I’m sending you love,

It comes from the heavens the angels above,

It has no expectations it’s joyful and true,

 With heartfelt thanks Love’s blessing to you

The Sweetness of Doing Nothing or La Dolce Far Niente

The Italians have a phrase ‘La dolce far niente’ which translates as the sweetness of doing nothing.  Wiktionary (http://www NULL.wiktionary NULL.org/) describes it as ‘sheer indulgent relaxation and blissful laziness, being deliciously idle’.

But the sweetness of doing nothing seems impossible when the mind is playing games and all sorts of wild scenes dance around your head.

Last week I went to meet friends for lunch and as it happened was the first to arrive.  A beautiful sunny day meant that I could buy a drink, sit in the gardens and wait.  Sounds blissful doesn’t it.

Well it would have been if I hadn’t sat there deciding that maybe I’d got the day wrong, or no-one else was coming and they’d forgotten to let me know.  You name the scenario and I can almost guarantee that I’d thought of it.

No blissful musing, just pointless worry that wasn’t true.  Of course those musings disappeared with the arrival of the others and the real business of enjoying lunch began.

My point is that as human beings most of us are predisposed to think the worse, rather than take each moment as it happens and see what unfolds.

I missed a real opportunity to savour ‘La dolce far niente’ and I only have my thoughts to blame.  You see, nothing exists until it is thought into being.  But thought can lead you up the garden path because it’s not actually real.  It’s just thought, it’s what creates our realities and determines how we behave minute by minute.

Life happens and there are times when it feels as though everything and everyone is conspiring to make life a misery.  It’s a time when thought supports that theory and brings to mind all the worse case scenario’s.

It means that we descend down into a low quality of mind.  It’s impossible to make a rational decision whilst in this state of mind, because the thoughts that are coming to mind are not coming from a good place of well being.

It may feel like the perfect solution but it isn’t.  Trust me.

What if you decided that the best thing you could do for yourself whilst the world continued to make life difficult, was to just sit tight and ride the storm.

What if you decided that the very act of ‘La dolce far niente’ was the perfect place to wait.  The sweetness of doing nothing as you idly waited for the rainbow to appear.

A case of ‘OK world, while you do your best to keep me down here in the dumps, I’m going to sit and do nothing to stop you.  No, instead I’m going to read my favourite book, or listen to my favourite music.  I’m going to release the need to control or know the outcome while I sit and enjoy the sweetness of doing nothing.’

Now there’s space for miracles to happen.  The act of doing nothing releases the mind from the chaos it’s spinning in.  Now there’s room for your inner guidance to break through and find a solution, tailor made for you.

It’s available 24/7 for each and every one of us, but cannot fight it’s way through swirling thoughts.  It requires a stillness to shine.

That stillness can be yours once you learn to allow yourself the joy of ‘La dolce far niente’.  The sweetness of doing nothing means that life just got sweeter.

Dying by Degrees

How do you cope when you feel blue?  The past week has seen me recovering from a viral infection that has left me decidedly blue and I can’t seem to shake it off.

I want to be happy and get on with my life, but each time I think I have it cracked, thoughts or a memories of something sad pushes through my defense mechanism.

Knowing that it’s just my thoughts and not real I’m just letting them wash over and through me.  I’m trying to wait patiently for it to pass so I can move on.

But it’s not easy.  It’s as if my mind wants me to wallow in the deep depression that makes me swallow back tears.  And I can’t decide whether they are tears of self pity or genuine tears of sadness.

The biggest memory is for the sister I lost to Breast Cancer some 15 years ago.  It’s a long time and whilst the memories are softer, it can still hurt to remember what’s been lost to the world.

You see, she wasn’t just the best sister you could possibly want, she was also my best friend.  Before if I felt blue I could ring and she would know without asking, how to raise my spirits.

She never told me what I should be doing, or what I might consider, she just listened and them somehow rephrased my words into something that changed it all.  Few people have that ability.

Many believe they have it, but my own experiences have proved otherwise.

We also did a lot of things together .  You know the kind of things that best friends and sisters do.  We shared all the important dates of our lives.  Our marriages, the births of our children, but death was the one date I couldn’t share.

I was lucky enough to be sitting holding her hand as she slipped away.  I was relieved that she wouldn’t suffer any longer, but sad she had missed the birth of her first grandchild by a few days.

I’m guessing that I feel so blue because of the big birthday bash  I held for my family.  It was fabulous, but it was incomplete, because Linda was missing.

But just writing this has made me realise that Linda would be sad if she thought I was blue when life is waiting.  Waiting to be experienced, to be felt, to be loved.

The best thing I can do is live my life to the full whilst acknowledging that sadness and feeling blue will always be part of life at times.

My health and happiness depend on my ability to live my best life.  Cherishing each moment as it happens means living and not dying by the degrees of blueness or sadness that try their best to dominate.

Inspirational Insights

‘Aim to be better today than you were yesterday’ - Jan Marchant

What would it take for you to aim to be better today, the next day, and the next ad infinitum.

Imagine aiming to be just 1% better on a daily basis.

Now take yourself forward a week, a month, a year – isn’t it amazing how far you have come.

Little drops of water can soon become a stream.

It’s the constant flow of energy that enables you to be, do become whoever you want to be.

Simple but stunning truth.

Want more Inspirational Insights to assist you to grow your inner well being?  Just enter your name and email address in the box to you right to receive you own weekly Insights – enjoy x

Tips to Inner Well Being – No. 4 Being Present

Today’s Inner Well Being tip is focused on being present in all the moments of your life.  It’s easy to believe that we’re present at all times but the subconscious mind is an expert at pulling our attention away from the present moment.

It likes to remind us of all the stuff that’s going on in our life.  And it doesn’t differentiate between past, present and what might be coming up in the future.

Take the past.  How many of us live part of our life firmly entrenched in what’s gone before.  Old fights, old arguments, old slights, old situations for starters on the negative side.

Joyful days, events, happenings on the positive side.  Good or bad, they all have the past in common.  And as the only time that ever counts is the present moment, why would anyone want to spend longer than necessary there?

I’m not saying ignore your memories, especially the cherished ones, but remember that it’s your choice to revisit those memories and how long your stay there.  They could be stopping you from taking action towards your dreams.

Well, you might be thinking, what about dreams,  they’re my past and future too.  Yes, of course they are and I’m not saying ignore them.  Just be aware of where you are on your dream journey.  Too long spent revisiting the details and/or too long hankering over the desired outcomes can take you away from what you could be doing to move it along to fruition.

Nobody want’s to see a dream turn into a distant memory that never morphed into being.  Unless of course that old dream grew into something different that you are working towards now.

The ego is a great one for holding us in a different place.  It’s a fearful creature that lives and dies outside of you.  It listens to others opinions, judgements or criticisms and makes them more important than the innate wisdom that lives inside of you.  It requires gentle handling as you acknowledge its messages without acting on them.  It’s difficult to stay in the present moment when the ego is active.

So how do you stay present in each moment?

First of all breathe deeply and be aware of your body.  Starting from the feet let your mind slowly be aware of every part of you as travel upwards, finally reaching your head.  Was that easy or was that hard?  Did thoughts such as ‘this is silly’, or ‘what am I doing later’ or other intrusions fight for attention?

Try studying one of your hands, noticing the differences between your fingers and your nails.  Really study them.  These exercises help you to discover how it feels when your focus is completely on what you are doing in that moment.

Try a similar exercise with whatever you are doing.  You may be reading this and thinking about what you’re doing next.  Try reading it out loud or in your mind, word for word.  I guarantee it will be a different experience to most peoples normal awareness.

The more you practice being in the present moment, the more it will become the norm.

Living life in the present moment allows your Inner Wisdom to show up more and more.  Remember your Inner Wisdom will always there for you 24/7, batting for team ‘You’ guiding you to your best outcomes whatever the situation.  Who could ask for more.

Hay House The Writers Workshop

A magical weekend with Reid Tracey (http://www NULL.hayhouse NULL.com/authorbio NULL.php?id=541), Cheryl Richardson (http://www NULL.cherylrichardson NULL.com/) and Nancy Levin (http://www NULL.nancylevin NULL.com/) at the Connaught Rooms (http://www NULL.grandconnaughtrooms NULL.com/), London was on the cards.  Hay House, the publishing division of Louise Hay (http://www NULL.louisehay NULL.com/)was running a workshop for writers on how to publish your work plus the opportunity to submit a book proposal to Hay House (http://www NULL.hayhouse NULL.com/).

Two floors up and the room was electrical as people started to mingle, wanting to know what kind of work was being written, how far along the chain to publishing were they and other friendly details that knit the group together.

Was it a good workshop?  It’s a question I’ve been asking myself since I left for the journey back to normality.  Certainly it was a wonderful atmosphere as the high energy created took us all to a new dimension of being present in the room.

Information was given on all the ways to progress and publish your book.  Running alongside, the pitfalls balanced out the glory of seeing your work in print.

Woven in and used as content padding were the inspirational stories of Cheryl, Reid and Nancy, plus film clips of other Hay House authors.  I would have liked more interaction, workshop style with my fellow authors.

With the promotional videos of Hay House running at break times, I personally felt slightly brainwashed, especially as the sound appeared to be cranked up, making the real conversations going on in the room hard to listen to.

Nancy Levin gave us some writing exercises to get our creative juices running.  Disappointingly, this was the only interactive work we did.  Next, instead of sharing with those nearest to you, a few were given the opportunity to deliver their musings to the whole room.

Of course there wasn’t time for everyone to share, because time is always at a premium at these workshops.  But question time was a good sharing experience.  You lined up, asked your question and everyone benefited as the answers were given.  A lot of the time, your own concerns were dealt with before they even had a chance to form.

Running throughout the workshop it became apparent that it’s vital to have a platform to show the world who you are.  Marketing yourself to the nth degree – a kind of know me, like me, buy me.  Today’s world expects you to be open and accessible via social media.

Oh dear.  I expect that’s not what most of us wanted to hear.  Listening attentively, it seemed to me that hopes and dreams were riding on the ability to engage with the world.

Tentative questions were raised.  Looking, seeking a kinder, gentler way to bare their souls as expressed in the rich kaleidoscope of creativity on offer.  Sorry, toughen up, if you think this is hard then you need to get real, were the answers given.  Movers and shakers only please.

Writing your book is a doodle compared to what you are going to have to negotiate to the end result of getting it published.

It is essential to get your work copy read and edited whatever road you go down.  Self publishing is one of the roads where these steps often get missed.  But if you want to be taken seriously then your work needs to be as perfect as is near possible.

The traditional route to being published requires you to find an agent.  It’s very rare to be discovered and not need one.  This route also requires the book proposal – the importance of this cannot be stressed enough.

The book proposal is one of the the hardest piece of work most authors will ever write.  Just getting started probably sorts the men from the boys.  It’s a real test.

It’s your interview to show what you’re bringing to the table.  Your shot at winning the glittering rewards.  Investigate, search and look for guidelines.  All agents and publishers have their own requirements.

Back to and more emphasis on having your platform.  Basically, no platform, no publisher, no sales. Of course for us, the authors, it’s our work that is paramount.  For the publishers it’s about will you sell well and make them money.  The world is the same whatever the industry.

Harsh truths that many were resisting (judging from the questions raised).  It will be different for me scenarios being played out as the mind soothed troubled brows, preventing the unwary from seeing, hearing the truth of what getting published is all about.

The one thing I took away from the weekend is the fact that I am an author.  I write, therefore I am.

I am a serious blogger.  It’s my contribution to helping others find a way forward.  It only requires that I continue to share and to write.

Was it a good workshop?  No, not as a workshop.  For me that was perhaps misleading. Yes, as a seminar.  With less of the ‘padding out’ stories I think it would work as a one day event.

Did I learn anything new?  For sure, I learned a lot and not all of it was about writing and publishing.  But that’s the joy of new experiences – you never know what’s going to show up.

I showed up and I was well rewarded.  My inner well being is thankful for it.

photo credit top: Bellah (http://www NULL.flickr NULL.com/photos/thepapergoose/223731353/) via photopin (http://photopin NULL.com) cc (http://creativecommons NULL.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2 NULL.0/)

photo credit bottom: Chocolate Geek (http://www NULL.flickr NULL.com/photos/vipulmathur/471634239/) via photopin (http://photopin NULL.com) cc (http://creativecommons NULL.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2 NULL.0/)

Tips to Inner Well Being – No. 3 Your Abundant Life

An abundant life is something that belongs to all of us.  Today’s tip looks at ways to grow and appreciate the abundance that’s on offer.

First of all you have to be able to see it when it shows up.  Simple if it’s numbers coming up on the lottery, a scratchcard or winning a competition.  It’s a tangible sign that abundance has knocked on someones door.  The problems start when it’s always someone else and never yours.

Focus alert.  Someone elses abundance is what’s on their radar.  It’s no use wishing it could have/should have been you because now you’re focusing on what you haven’t got.

Focusing on what you haven’t got is a big no to growing your abundant life.  Hard as it may seem, if you can send those winners love from your heart, bless them and wish them well in their good fortune, you can release them from your thoughts.

Ah, your thoughts.  Always the way forward in everything you want to attract into your life.  Did you know that nothing occurs in your life without you thinking into being?  Doesn’t matter whether you believe it or not, it’s the truth for each and every one of us.

That being the case doesn’t it make sense to learn to monitor your thoughts, as in no more careless thinking.  Careless thinking is probably one of the biggest causes of abundance disappearing from your life.

Stress about lack of abundance creates thoughts of what’s missing.  It goes around in circles as the lack of money, success, relationships and an ever growing list of negatives dominate the mind.  Are you willing to turn it on it’s head by focusing instead on what it would be like if those things were not missing from your life.

It’s not even positive thinking, although if that works for you use it.  It’s more about thinking and feeling it into being.  As if it’s already a given in your life.  Create the pictures in your mind of your abundant life.  See it, feel it, hear it, smell it – make it real.

Create a vision board with pictures and words cut out from newspapers, magazines or whatever you create yourself.  Place it somewhere you can see it so that your peripheral vision picks it up even when you are walking past it.

Watch what you say.  Careless talk could be what’s stopping abundance from getting through.  Think about what your saying with the same care you give to brushing your teeth.  Take the care needed to stop the gaps from opening up.

Start to recognise all the abundance that turns up.  Money off coupons, sale prices or price reductions are all signs of abundance in your life.  When you start to acknowledge them and give thanks a wonderful thing happens.  They start to show up more and more.

These drip feed your abundant mindset and allow for more to show up.  Be grateful for everything that shows up.  Pay any bills and debts with love rather than stress.

Celebrate the friends and family that bring you so much pleasure, rather than the ones who are being mean, awkward or just plain ignoring you.

Celebrate what’s right in your life and watch your abundance blossom.  How does it get any better than this.

Inspirational Insights

‘Changing one small thing for the better is worth more than proving a thousand people wrong’ Anthony Pivec

Are you willing to step back and look at all the times you have wanted to prove that you were right and they were wrong?

How much energy did it take?

You have grown and no longer have to waste energy in this way.

How good it feels to know that, by changing one small thing for the better, you no longer get pulled into other peoples opinions of how you should live your life.

Liberaing isn’t it!

Each small change is one large step to continuous self empowerment.

Go fly, the stars await you.

Want more Inspirational Insights to assist you to grow your inner well being?  Just enter your name and email address in the box to you right to receive you own weekly Insights – enjoy x

photo credit: I Am Not I (http://www NULL.flickr NULL.com/photos/mladjenovic_n/3115136737/) via photopin (http://photopin NULL.com) cc (http://creativecommons NULL.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2 NULL.0/)

« Previous Page — Next Page »