Taking Some Time Out

For the last few weeks, I feel I've had no time for working on my business; a thing that I've found most frustrating when my energy has been very present and willing.  However the cause of this lack of time was that I've been organising the costumes for a local amateur theatre production.

I've loved it, and I feel that my life benefits from interests outside of my holistic work, but I was very concerned with how much time it was taking and this was after I'd delegated some of the work to my wonderful team of helpers.

I've been feeling torn.  I basically abandoned my work for the duration apart from seeing scheduled clients, but I haven't been that happy with this.

So I've been looking at what I can learn from the experience.  Firstly, I've learnt that I can manage a project and achieve a result within a fixed time frame.  Secondly I've learnt that I can manage people and they've seemed to be quite happy with how I've done it.  Thirdly, I've learnt that I'm not good at focusing on more than one thing at a time, when the things require creative energy.  And fourthly, I've learnt that I can work quite hard and long without getting stressed - something that didn't used to be the case.

I joked to one of my helpers that my goal was to complete the costumes without having a nervous breakdown, but I surpassed this by keeping calm right up to the end and it made the whole process a lot more enjoyable and easier to achieve.  We waste a lot of energy being agitated about things we can't change and although we often feel totally entitled to be stressed, it doesn't help us achieve our goals.

So now, the show is over, I've refocused back on my work and the very day I got a new client booking. A sure sign that when one door closes and other one opens.

If you would like to see some pictures of my lovely costumes, click here. You may need a Facebook account to view.

Forgiveness Sets You Free

I first learnt about forgiveness when I was in school.  It's mentioned in the bible and in the Lord's Prayer, but I never really understood what it was all about.  I thought back then, that it was all about letting the other person off the hook; saying "I'm OK with what you did to me".  I thought it was all about setting the other person free.

So therefore, over the years, there have been many things that have happened that I have not wanted to forgive.  Being a person who used to hold onto stuff, this was probably even more of an issue to me than to some people.  I wanted people to understand what they'd done to me - although, interestingly, I rarely actually told them.  I wanted them to feel the pain that I felt.  However I doubt they ever did, when I couldn't tell them how I felt.  So instead, I carried around the pain and the inability to let the past go.

I've since found out that forgiveness has very little to do with the other person.  It's all do do with us - setting ourselves free of the past.  It is also often to do with reconciling ourselves with what we've experienced through our interaction with another person, but we do it for ourselves.  

It still can be difficult.  We have to understand that the other person may not have been able to do any better at that particular time in their lives.  This can be challenging if their behaviour contravenes our values.  However it's good to remember that we've all behaved less than impeccably at some point in our lives, even though we didn't intend to.

But that's not the hardest part.  That comes next when we have to forgive our part in it.  What do you mean? I hear you cry. It wasn't my fault.  I didn't ask for it to happen. No, I'm sure you didn't. People rarely do ask for unpleasant things to happen to them.  However there is usually emotional residue left around the fact that we let this stuff happen to us.  

We can have attachment to the fact we weren't stronger or wiser or more aware; that we didn't choose to walk away; that we didn't fight back.  Whatever it is, we need to forgive ourselves in order to complete the process and move on.  We are on our path, just like everyone else and it is pointless to beat ourselves up for not being far enough along before the event to have the insight that the event has given us.  After all, we learn and grow from the challenging experiences we have.

Once you've done all this, you will hopefully be able to see the event as just another experience of your life, that has positively made you into the person you are today.

Then you have set yourself free.

We Fear Change!

The credit for the title of this post has to go to my friend, Reid, who wrote this phrase on a piece of paper at a recent meeting.  However, I thought it was worthy of a bit more exploration in a blog article.

So, I've been pondering over this for the last few days.  Firstly I wondered how true it is.  Certainly for many of us, we like the status quo and resist change. But then there are the adventurous among us who often head off into the unknown.  I've known people who tell me change is a good thing, and they're right, but do these people also have their fears before they step off the metaphorical diving board?

It's definitely true that the familiar is often seen as safe.  We know where we are with the present circumstances, even if we don't like them.  The new and unknown change may be better, but then it also may be worse.  The trouble is that we don't ever really know until we've made the change, and then it may be too late to go back.

The familiar protects us.  We know how to respond and what reaction we're going to get.  We know where and how we fit in.  We can easily visualise the future when it's exactly the same as the present.  The new is daunting and it often involves taking a leap of faith into the unknown.

So what is going to make us change.  Well for some of us, the thought of adventure is enough.  We take a deep breath and leap with a confidence that it'll be a good experience for us.  For others, change only happens when the present circumstances become too unpleasant, or when external circumstances force it.

Now, we're all influenced by external circumstances to some extent. So the way in which we adapt to forced change is also significant in our lives.  Do we fight against the inevitable or do we go with the flow?  Does it really do us any good to fight against the inevitable?  Well, for our personal stress levels, the answer is probably  no.  However there are may people throughout history who've managed to bring about great changes for the positive by not accepting externally enforced situations.

Often we don't know what to do for the best.  We oscillate between the different options available to us. Do we change or do we accept?  I find the best way is to try to split the arguments into those coming from the ego and those coming from the soul.  The soul has our highest good as it's focus.  It only wants what will expand us and help us to grow.  It will guide us to that which will fulfill us and help us use our gifts in the world.  The ego focuses on that which will keep us safe and therefore encourages us to do what will enable us to fit in, what will cause the least disruption and often comes from a place of fear.  The soul guidance comes from a place of love.

So I invite you to tune in to these 2 voices.  They both have their places in our lives, but it's good to be able to differentiate between them.

And lastly, I leave you with these well-known words of wisdom because I think they sum up this subject so well.

God grant me the serenity

To accept the things I cannot change;

Courage to change the things I can;

And wisdom to know the difference.

Our Defining Issue

How do we see ourselves?  Do we see ourselves the same way that others see us?  And more importantly, do we define ourselves by what we see?

When working with clients, I often hear "I am ...." or "I do...." as a way of explaining who they are.  It's usually followed by "I've been doing this as long as I can remember".  However, they are usually seeing me in order to change this very thing, and I'm hearing them affirming the old version of themselves over and over again.

So my challenge to them and to everyone else out there who wants to change is:

Are you prepared to re-define yourself?

It's a tricky one, because on the one hand, we want rid of all the negative behaviour traits and negative emotions associated with the old "us".  But on the other hand, the old version feels safe and there are probably parts of it we like.

I used to be a perfectionist.  I prided myself on getting things right, doing things well and getting good feedback from others.  However there were things I wouldn't do, in case they weren't perfect, and things that took far longer than they needed to, because they had to be perfect.  And, there was all the verbal "beating up" of myself when I failed to reach perfection.  Then there were all the things - the whoops moments - I could say I'd never done.  And those were the things I defined myself by.

Now I'm "good enough".  Wow, what a liberating phrase!  And I have lots of whoops moments.  Whoops - I set myself a schedule this week and I haven't kept to it 100%.  But it is good enough for now.

When I was younger, I got drunk and I smoked.  I saw it as a cool thing to do, and a way of being part of a social group.  I felt it was some kind of rebellion against the sensible behaviour I'd been brought up with, and this made it exciting.  I've now given up both and had to go through a huge redefinition to do that. I've had to change the focus in my life from fitting in with an existing social group to prioritising my health.  I've had to learn how to be social without a drink and a cigarette in my hand, and what that new version of me is like.

With the drinking, the redefinition happened because of the change, but with the smoking, the redefinition had to happen first in order to make the change.

So, enough about me.  What changes in your life are you preventing by how you define yourself?  An easy way to check out your self-definition is to listen to your self-talk.  What things do you say to yourself over and over again?  What do you say to yourself when you are in a challenging situation?  What do you say to yourself when you think of making that change you keep saying you want?

Then think about the pay-offs associated with this definition. There are always some.  Do you feel it fits you into a social group?  Do you feel it'll help you be accepted and approved of?  Do you feel it gives you a get-out clause when things get too much to bear?  It's important to acknowledge these as they give you the awareness which helps you change.

Then decide which version you'd like to be.  You might find that you come to a new decision.

Time to Heal

We heal when our buried past surfaces and can be released.  We all have some buried blocks as we've all had stress in our pasts which we couldn't resolve, but for the most part they stay buried.

We carry on with our lives, our often very busy lives and we tell ourselves we don't have time to relax, let alone be ill.  However sometimes that's exactly what we need to do.

When blocks start to surface, they often feel uncomfortable.  Sometimes we don't understand why we're feeling that way and even find that we can't actually pinpoint our exact symptoms. We're not exactly "ill", but we're definitely not feeling ourselves.  This is often the time we reach for our addictions: a bar of chocolate, a cigarette, a glass of wine or even a pattern of behaviour.  These addictive behaviours may make us feel better in the short term, but what they're doing is numbing us to what's happening and pushing the blocks back down into our bodies.  Be warned, however, our bodies want to heal, so they will resurface again and again until we release them.

Space also encourages our blocks to come up. This is why some people feel uncomfortable when they find themselves on their own with a whole day to fill and no clear objectives. We may moan about the pressure we find ourselves under in our lives, but it keeps us safe from having to deal with our past and having to feel the discomfort that can arise.

However, I find that this discomfort is usually worse if we resist the process.  If we give ourself the day off, listen to our body and address its needs, whether that's a day in bed, or a long walk, or curling up with a good book, the process will progress all the more easily.  If we can't give ourself a whole day off, an hour each evening when we do nothing can be extremely beneficial.

Also, it's important to remember that these emotions can't hurt us.  It's our associations with the feelings and our resistance to the emotions that cause the problems.  Also our panic that we don't know what to do about them.  The word emotion comes from energy in motion and the motion bit is important.  In fact, all we have to do is notice them, breath and watch as they flow through us, probably changing a few times on the way, and eventually go.

And to do this, all we really need is time to heal.

Clearing Out the Blocks

I'm often asked how exactly we clear our blocks and how long it will take.  Recently I used the analogy of clearing out a cupboard to explain this, so I thought I'd reproduce it here.

You know how it is, over time we accumulate possessions that we don't know what to do with.  We have people coming round and need to clear up, so it gets put away in the cupboard (substitute drawer, box, etc). Gradually this cupboard fills up so that we can no longer fit anything in to it.  And when we do open it, things fall out and have to be shoved back in.  So after a while we don't open it unless we have to.

So it is with our emotional clutter.  Often we can't process an event when it happens. We are either just too young and so we're going to be more sensitive to external influences, or the event was to sudden and unexpected to be able to get our heads round it.  Either way, most of us have had may of these such experiences throughout our lives. Add to that growing up in a culture of pretending we're OK and a lack of information and support on how to process traumatic experiences and the emotional clutter piles up.

Then comes the moment when we want to take control of our lives; the time that we have to start de-cluttering the emotional cupboard.  So how do we do it?

Well, as in de-cluttering our physical cupboards, everyone does it in a slightly different way. Some people will assume that as they haven't looked in the cupboard for several years, there can't be anything that they need in there. So they hire a skip and out it all goes.  But for many of us, (me included) we can't just throw away things without going through them first.  I know that I have to check every individual item before I can throw it away because there might be a little gem that I'll want to keep.  Often I can't throw something away one week, but a few weeks on and I'm suddenly able to let it go.  I can have days when I clear out bags of stuff and other days when despite my best intentions, there doesn't seem to be anything I'm able to let go.

So it is with our emotional clutter. Some of us will clear it quickly, others will clear it gradually.  There is no way someone else can force us to let go of our blocks, we have to be ready ourselves to do this.  A friend told me yesterday that he was building up to booking an appointment with a therapist - that was just the way he worked.  I totally understand this.

The beauty of kinesiology is that the way we clear our blocks is determined by the muscle testing process, which is tapping into the energy of the client. The session will only move as quickly as the client is able to cope with.  Therefore the client can be assured that I'm not going to come along and throw away their entire contents of their emotional cupboard without their permission.  

Now you may think that doing just that would be a good thing, and on a conscious level, I'm sure many of my clients would be quite happy for that to happen.  But on a subconscious level, what happens is that it triggers the blocked emotions and we feel huge amounts of fear or stress.  The way of kinesiology is to do the work gently in cooperation with the client.

So now you know this, hopefully you'll understand why I can't give a detailed prediction of how long it will take a particular person to clear their blocks. But also, maybe it'll encourage you to open the door on your own emotional cupboard and start letting the contents go.

Are you Aligned to Your Goals?

I use the word "aligned" a lot these days, but when I had to spend an evening explaining what I actually meant by it recently, I figured there may well be lots of other people out there who have no idea what I'm on about too.

The dictionary defines the verb to align as to bring into line or agreement.  I work with energy, so I'm referring to the act of bringing our energy into line or agreement with our goals.

Now, although this might sound a strange thing to try and do, we are actually doing it every day of our lives.  In order to wake up, we move our energy from subconscious to conscious. In order to go to sleep, we wind our energy down from active to relaxed.  When we go to work, we become the person who is an expert at our job.  When we are out with friends our energy may change to a slightly different version of ourselves.

People who reach their goals easily can align themselves to their goals.  However many of us find this difficult. The most important thing to know about this is that we can tell how aligned we are by the results we are producing in the world.  If we are aligned with what we are wanting to do, we physically produce results.

If we wish to go on holiday, we'll be aligned when we actually make the booking and go.  If we wish to set up a business,we'll be aligned when the clients come.  If we wish to change a habit, we'll be aligned when we actually make the change.

As regular readers will probably have guessed by now, the reason we are not able to align with our goals is that our blocks get in the way.  Maybe we want to go on holiday, but we're fearful that taking time off work will cause more stress.  Maybe we wish to be self-employed, but relying on such an uncertain income leaves us feeling insecure.  Maybe we wish to give up smoking but it's very ingrained in our social culture.

But what's more likely, is that we think we're aligned but the results aren't coming because these blocks are hidden from us.  What we may experience is resistance to taking action, or we may feel that our heart isn't quite in it, or we may just have no idea why the results aren't coming.

The good news is that if we remove all the blocks, we naturally come into alignment with our intentions and therefore our goals.  That's the law of attraction: we attract things that match the energy we give out.  So as long as we are giving out the energy of being in alignment with our goals, we will attract the physical results of these goals.

The even better news is that kinesiology can help even if we aren't aware of our blocks.  It has a rather uncanny and brilliant way of bringing them to awareness before clearing the stress they bring.

So, now you understand this, I ask the question again, Are you aligned to your goals?