Fear and Procrastination

How many of us put things off, which we know would be better if they were done now.  I know I have to put my hand up for that one.  For all those who scroll down to read the previous blog post, you'll see it was in August.  So for just over 2 months, I've procrastinated writing a new post.

I can come up with a thousand excuses; some of them sound very reasonable, some sound just plain ridiculous (even to me).  The truth is that I've procrastinated.  I've diverted myself onto other things because I haven't wanted to write.  I've wasted time because I haven't wanted to write.  I've even been ill for a little while, which gave me an excuse not to write.

But the truth of the matter is that there has been fear preventing me from writing.  Not the kind of easily identifiable fear.  I don't expect a big monster to come and eat me if I tap keys on my laptop.  No, this is the kind of hidden fear that lurks in the shadows and suggests that something bad might happen.  It doesn't quantify what, because then I could rationalise it away.  And it doesn't clearly explain to me what I'm frightened of; it persuades me I don't like writing, which is actually completely false, because I'm loving writing this.  It persuades me that I don't know what to write, which is also false, because I didn't know what I was going to write before I started writing this post and yet the words have come.

No, the truth is that I'm fearful of something deeper.  Maybe it's fear of failure, maybe fear of success, maybe fear of opening up, maybe fear of making a mistake. Maybe a bit of all of those.

The other important thing is that I'm completely normal.  It's take me a long while to come to that realisation, but it's true.  No matter how much I feel I'm alone with this, most people are fearful.  Some people are fearful of standing up in front of people, whether it's doing a presentation of being in a show.  Some people have a fear of making a phone call to someone they don't know.  Some people are fearful of asking for help and support.

Now, the thing with fear is that it can often come from events in our past.  If we had a bad experience in a school play, we might fear being on stage now.  However, sometimes the fear comes from doing something new, from stepping out of our comfort zone.  If you've always labelled yourself as someone who doesn't make phone calls, it's going to take you a little while to become comfortable with it.  I got into writing this blog over the spring and summer, but the longer I've left it unwritten, the harder it has been to reconnect with it.

The first step is literally taking the first step.  I've sat down at my laptop.  I invite you to stand up on stage, even if it's alongside someone else.  I invite you to pick up the phone and make one call on your list.  I invite you to ask one person for some help, even if it's the tiniest thing.  I invite you to take that first step and to realise that the monster doesn't actually come.  And when you've done that, congratulate yourself and plan step 2.

It's OK to feel fear while you're doing this.  We don't have to clear all the fear before we take action.  In fact, it is often not possible to do this.  We often have to take action in order to clear the fear.

So, I wish you courage to take the next step in to your power and I would love to hear how you get on.

Are you feeling down?

A couple of days ago, I met up with a friend, who was not feeling her normal positive self.  She had a couple of nerve-racking events coming up, but she seemed very flustered generally.  She said she felt heavy and seemed to lack her normal confidence.

So I thought I'd write a little article about why this happens and how we can get ourselves out of it.

Firstly, I'd like to say that this is a pretty normal reaction to the stresses and strains of every day life.  From time to time we're bound to slip off the positivity plateau that I'm sure all my readers frequent on a regular basis.  Oh, you don't?  Well read on...

There's a big difference between falling off this plateau and staying down.  The second state is one which hopefully you can avoid.

Our emotional state is one which will always fluctuate.  The word emotion can be broken down into e-motion.  The "e" stands for energy, so emotions are energy in motion.  Hence they are designed to move, ie fluctuate.  There is no problem with feeling anything in life.  The problems come when you get stuck there, as anything which is stuck can't move.

The other point to recognise is that this movement is in a vibratory pattern.  How fast or slow these emotions vibrate depends on how positive or negative they are to us.  In simple terms, the closer they are to love or fear - love being the most positive and fear being the most negative.  Try it out for yourself: what order would you put the following: contentment, anger, frustration, bliss?

The next thing is what to do about it.  Well there are a few options.   The easiest and quickest is to use your self-talk to boost your emotional vibration.  Your what, I hear you cry?  Your self-talk - the little voice inside your head which, if you're feeling negative, is probably saying ridiculously untrue things like "I'll never do it", "I'm not good enough" and often gets worse and worse as we spiral downwards.

For some reason us humans find this state quite sticky.  We can very easily get immersed in such a state, but we do ourselves great harm with negative self-talk.

So the obvious solution is to monitor what we're thinking and change it for the opposite.  So if we find ourselves saying "I'll never do it", immediately change this to "I'll easily do it".  You may not believe it straight away, but if you keep replacing the negative statements with positive ones, then you'll soon start to. You only believe the negative ones because you've repeated them so much.

This works very well for sudden emotion drops, when they are a temporary state.  For more long term states of low emotion, we often need to do a bit more.  It's still worth replacing your self-talk, but often we find it harder, or the results come more slowly, which can discourage us.  It might be worth interrogating the emotions (gently) to find out where they came from.  We might recognise them as the voice of a parent or teacher from when we were younger and that might be enough for us to disown them and replace them with a new positive voice of our own.

If we're still not getting the results we want, chatting to a friend can help.  Remember, it's great to talk to someone who can empathise with the fact you're having a hard time, but not someone who's going to agree with you that life sucks, unless you really want to remain stuck in a low vibration.

And if none of this is helping, it might be worth getting some professional help.  I can help you find the root cause of the negative emotions and help you transform them in to positive ones.  There's no need to stay down.

The Process of Process

Process is a word that comes up a lot in healing circles.  People talk about being in process or processing stuff, but what does it actually mean and how does it work?

When something changes in our life - circumstances, or our feelings about something - we go through a period of transformation.  Sometimes that's quite smooth and quick, but at other times it can be quite challenging.

Take, for example, moving house.  When moved from my last house to my present one, both of which I liked, there was a period where I felt uncomfortable in the new house.  I hadn't yet got to the point where I felt at home there, but I'd already left the last place, so I couldn't return there either.  Eventually I made the new place home and things became more comfortable, but the period of adjustment is what we know as the process.

One thing that can come up during a process is uncertainty.  That may be one of the reasons I found it hard to adjust my new home - it was all new and unfamiliar.

However process happens with other types of change too.  It might be that an organisation or group you're involved in wants to change something.  The tendency is often to resist the change or take it as a personal criticism, but it might be that the change will result in something even better.  We might want to resolve everything very quickly so we know where we stand, but we will probably have to go through a period of process.  If a large number of people are involved then they will need to have their views heard and they may change their views during the process.  The uncertainty can feel uncomfortable until a new equilibrium is found.

In the same way, when we go through therapeutic healing, whether we do this by ourselves or with a professional therapist, we are also going through a change. We're changing from the person we were to the person we are becoming.  Although this will be a positive change, the unknown element can make it feel a bit strange for a while.  As unresolved issues come to the surface, we can feel uncomfortable.  As we let go of the old, we can feel a bit empty.  As we take a new step into the unknown, we can feel vulnerable.

The key to all this is patience and trust.  An awareness of what process is can make it easier for us. Rather than panicking that we're somehow going mad or that a decision feels wrong, we can ride it out calmly.  It is also important to let others go through their own process.  By recognising this, we can give them space and respect until they have found their new balance.

So I wish you the best for your next process.  Enjoy.

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.