Living Out Loud

Allowing others the freedom to grow

We're all pretty protective of our right to lead our own lives, make our own mistakes, learn our own lessons.  But how good are you at allowing others the freedom to do the same?

In my life right now, I'm struggling with that.  A central character in my life is proposing to sell her house and move to Egypt with her three year old daughter. 

And my ego (along with those of all her family) is strongly resisting it.  And while I admit that some of that comes from my selfish desire for her to remain in Ireland where I can see her regularly, it's mostly worry and fear for her wellbeing, and the wellbeing of her young child.

Oh, my ego could provide you with a very long list of all the reasons why this plan is misguided and doomed to failure.  And your ego would be nodding along in agreement - of that I have absolutely no doubt!

Whenever I allow myself to dwell on the matter for more than a couple of minutes, and especially when I begin explaining to others all the reasons why she should not do this, I get very upset.  Thank God for meditation though, because it is helping me to loosen the grip of fear and glimpse a possible higher purpose in all of this. 

When I allow my Higher Self to get a word in, I acknowledge that I cannot see the big picture of this person's life, and what I think I know to be the certain outcome of this "drastic" move may not in fact turn out to be the case.  I also remember that this three year old girl is more than a child under the control of her mother's decision.  She is also a wise soul who chose this other soul to be her mother in this lifetime.  And both of these souls also chose to learn particular lessons - and just maybe this move to Egypt is a necessary part of both their journeys.

I do know that.  But my ego doesn't like it, not one little bit.  But slowly, my ego and Higher Self are reaching a compromise.  I'm hoping that this plan is not destined to manifest, that it is not for the highest good of all, and will in the end come to nothing.  (In a nutshell, I'm hoping she will see "sense")

But at the same time, I'm trying to accept that maybe it is for the highest good (no matter what I, or anyone else thinks about it).  And if it does come about I hope I will look back on it and be glad that it happened despite my current feelings on the subject.  I'm remembering most growth comes from the difficult situations rather than the easy ones.  And if we're not growing then there's not much point in our being here.

I'm working with this affirmation by Florence Scovell Shinn:

"I do not resist this situation.  I put it in the hands of Infinite Love and Wisdom and let the Divine idea come to pass."

It's from The Game of Life and How to Play it (a gem of a book), and it's helping me to loosen the fearful grip of my ego, and allow my Higher Self to deliver some peace of mind. 

What about you?  How do you cope when you find yourself in similar situations?

The A-Z of Happiness: B is for...

Being happy now

If there were a journey towards happiness where would it begin?  In my opinion, it begins with a decision: to stop postponing being happy until your life circumstances are just how you want them.

 

If you believe that you'll be happy when you get a better job, a raise, buy your own home, get married, have kids, or whatever it is that you'd like in your life, (and apologies if this sounds harsh, but) you are labouring under a false illusion. 

 

When you achieve something that you've wanted for a while you will feel "happy".  However, it is a temporary happiness that will last just as long as it takes for you to adjust to your new circumstances.  And it never takes long before a new desire comes along to replace the old one. 

 

That is perfectly normal, and provides you with a drive to move forward in life.  But as long as your happiness is associated with having what you want in your life, it will always be a little out of your reach or will be something you experience fleetingly here and there.

 

Wanting your life to be perfect before you allow yourself to be happy is setting yourself up for failure.  This model requires your health, your love life, your relationships with family and friends, your work, your finances, your home environment and your social life to all be ticking along just the way you want them to be - and all at the same time!   And if anything is off, then you won't be happy.

 

Being happy now comes from accepting all of what is right now (refer back to A is for...), even if it's not perfect, and not allowing the imperfections to get you down.  It requires letting go of your idea of how things should be and making peace with how things are.

 

Being happy now also requires letting go of feelings of guilt, shame or regret related to the past.  You can't go back and change that.  You can only learn from the experiences and with that learning do better now.

 

The past is over and done with and there is no guarantee that the future will arrive.  Both exist merely as thoughts - either as memories or anticipations.  Neither is real.  The only thing that is real is the present moment.

 

Which leads to the conclusion, that if you want to be happy, you need to be happy now - no matter what your life looks like right now.  That is your challenge in life - if you wish to accept it....

Beliefs

"Men often become what they believe themselves to be.  If I believe I cannot do something, it makes me incapable of doing it.  But when I believe I can, then I acquire the ability to do it even if I didn't have it in the beginning."   ~  Mahatma Gandhi

Your beliefs rule your life! 

If you want to be happier, first and foremost you need to believe that it's possible.  If you don't believe you can be happy now, without things being different in your life first, then you won't be happy now. 

Whatever you believe to be true will be true for you.  The reason for this is that your mind will filter everything it encounters, allowing those ideas and experiences that support your beliefs to be noticed, and disregarding those that don't.  Therefore, day in and day out, your mind finds evidence to support your beliefs about life, further compounding your beliefs as being true.  That is both good and bad news!

This is bad news because most of our beliefs we carry unconsciously.  But it is good news too because once you're aware of this you can pay attention and - get this - change them!!!  Yay, how empowering is that!

Beliefs are merely thoughts that we think repeatedly.  However, because we hold our beliefs to be truths, we elevate their status as more than mere thoughts, and that's what makes them very powerful.  And of course they are truths (the evidence of our lives supports this), BUT they are only our personal truths.  They couldn't possibly be universal, because all of mankind differs in their personal sets of beliefs.

And if beliefs aren't universal truths, but merely thoughts that we give power to, then it must be possible to change our beliefs that don't support us to more empowering ones that do.  (Hooray!!!)

To change your beliefs, you must change your thoughts.  Repeatedly and continuosly.  Like most of the tools that will be discussed in this series, the concept is simple but its successful application will require lots of practice.  But on the plus side, practice does make perfect and you will reap the rewards : )

The first step is to identify what your unconscious limiting beliefs are.  (Leave the positive ones alone - if they serve you well, no need to change them)  This is fairly easy to do: look at your life.  Whatever you see is a reflection of your beliefs. 

What do you see that you don't like?  What might be the underlying beliefs?  What circumstances would you prefer, and what empowering beliefs would support you in achieving that?

Now write down those new empowering beliefs, and repeat them (out loud if you can, but silently works too) several times whenever you catch yourself thinking thoughts that don't support what you want.  Essentially, you'll be using affirmations (again, refer back to A is for ...) to try on your desired beliefs until they start to feel like your own, until they become as integrated into your way of being as the old ones used to be.

Practiced consciously and regularly, affirmations can help to shift limiting beliefs and install more empowering ones.  Sadly, this might not be enough.  You may need to enlist the help of a life coach or spiritual healer to help shift some of the more deeply ingrained beliefs that are holding you back.  But make a start yourself, and see how far you get. 

Whatever you do, do something about the beliefs that aren't aligned with how you really want to live your life.  Believing you can have what you want is absolutely essential to having it.

Believe you can be happy now, even if right now your life isn't perfect, and you are setting yourself up for success : )

 Doing your Best

In his guide to personal freedom, Don Miguel Ruez outlines Four Agreements which can have a profound effect on your life if practriced consistently.  One of them is "Do your best".

"Just do your best — in any circumstance in your life.  It doesn’t matter if you are sick or tired, if you always do your best there is no way you can judge yourself.  And if you don’t judge yourself there is no way you are going to suffer from guilt, blame, and self-punishment.  By always doing your best, you will break a big spell that you have been under.”

Doing your best will increase your happiness because you can't help but feel good about yourself when you know you've done a good job.  When you do less than your best, even if others are satisfied or impressed by your work, you don't have the same level of inner satisfaction.  When you secretly know that you could be doing so much more than you are doing, there's a big chance it's going to quietly eat away at you inside.

In doing your best you actively contribute to your own healthy sense of self-worth.  In a nutshell, you will respect yourself more.  You will value your own contribution and what's more, you will accept other's appreciation of your work - in knowing you deserve it, their respect and admiration will ring true to you and it will strengthen your own inner sense of respect.

Self respect and self esteem.  Inner states of being.  Just like happiness : )  They all go hand-in-hand. 

Doing your best can't help but lead to a happier you!

The A-Z of Happiness: A is for . . .

This is the start of a new series of posts, which may take a while to get through.  It is intended to be a series of tips to help improve your inner state of happiness and wellbeing.  26 posts, maybe 26 weeks, or longer...

It will be in chronological order, so we're kicking of with 

A is for...

Accepting the present as it is

Ok, maybe it’s not perfect, but it is your reality for now.  In all probability though, it will not be your reality forever.  As the immortal saying goes, “this too will pass”.

 

However, there is an important universal law to observe which simply states that which you resist persists.  It’s a derivative of the Law of Attraction which in its simplest form is about your experiences in your life reflecting the energy you put out into the world.  That energy comes from your thoughts, and most especially your feelings.

 

If your energy is focused on struggling with a situation in your life, you will continue to attract that struggle.  Resisting your present circumstances in your life usually sets up a mindset of worry about your future, and places stress on your mental, physical, emotional and spiritual well-being in the present.  It reduces the capacity of your inner resources to deal with the situation in a creative, constructive manner.  The more depleted your inner resources are the more difficult it will be for you to cope with the situation, find solutions and move beyond it.

 

When you accept that this is the reality you have to deal with for now, you free up your energy and your inner strength to move through the situation rather than getting stuck in it.  Acceptance is not the same as ignoring the circumstance.  It means acknowledging the full truth about what is going on for you right now, what the gap is between where you are and where you want to be.  From there you can identify what needs to happen in order for you to move in that direction. 

 

Resistance keeps you stuck where you are.  Acceptance empowers you to move forward. 

Affirmations

Affirmations are statements that positively declare that a circumstance or experience you wish to have is already your true reality.  When practised repeatedly, and with intent, over time affirmations can help to reprogramme your beliefs.  When we come to B is for... we'll look at beliefs in more depth, but for now let's just say that whatever you believe to be true will be true for you, and so it is important to positively affirm to yourself that you are as you wish to be and your life is as you wish it to be.

When people first start working with affirmations, they commonly feel silly and fake.  This is because they're affirming the existence of a circumstance that is not yet true for them.  The trick is to ignore these silly and fake sensations and repeat your affirmations anyway.  With patience and practice they will help to bring about a shift in your outlook, perspective and how you feel.  They will help you to relax, release your worries and develop a trust that no matter what happens all will be well.

One of my favourite affirmations when I catch myself worrying about something is borrowed from Florence Scovel Shinn:

"I do not resist this situation.  I put it in the hands of Infinite Love and Wisdom and let the Divine idea now come to pass." 

When I first started working with it, I used to have to recite it over and over before I would start to relax and let go.  Now I just have to use it once and I immediately trust that a solution will come to me at the right time.  And it always does : )

To write your own affirmations, think about how you wish to be or what you want to have or experience.  Then state it in the present tense using only positive terms.  This is important because your subconscious mind does not recognise negative statements and it will reinforce your experience of what you put your attention on whether you do so positively or negatively.

For example, affirming "I am happy and well" will draw your attention to the states of happiness and wellness, but "I am not depressed anymore" will keep your attention on the state of being depressed.  So, no shift from the unhappy state to a happier one.

To get started on affirmations it can help to borrow some great ones that are already out there.  Once you get in the habit of using them regularly you'll be easily able to create your own in an instant to suit whatever need arises.  For some ideas try these resources:

Think Positive! Blog

The Game of Life and how to play it by Florence Scovel Shinn

Your Word is your Wand by Florence Scovel Shinn

You can Heal your Life by Louise Hay

Attention & The Law of Attraction

"Our thoughts create our reality -- where we put our focus is the direction we tend to go." ~ Peter McWilliams

Or to simplify the quote above: energy flows where attention goes!  If you want to feel happier you need to put your attention on the more positive aspects of your life and less attention on the negative. 

According to the Law of Attraction, your attention is an energy that magnitises to you people, things, events and circumstances that match that energy.  So, if you put your attention on things that you love, enjoy and appreciate, you attract more of those wonderful things and even more wonderful things that you will love, enjoy and appreciate. 

And the same principle applies when you put your attention on that which you wish to have less of, or not-at-all of!

Therefore, to be happier, put your attention on the people, events, and experiences that boost your happiness.  Appreciate them (ooh - another A!)  We'll look at this again when we come to G is for Gratitude...

Attitude

"An attitude of gratitude can fend off any saditude."  ~  Karen Salmanson

Attitude is King!  It's what makes the difference between barely surviving challenging times and thriving despite them. 

If you can maintain a positive attitude when the going gets tough, you can actually be happy eventhough some (or even all) aspects of your life suck right now.  I suppose it really ties in with the first point - accepting your situation for now.  Accept it but don't let it beat you down. 

When your attitude is can-do - no matter what happens - then you don't get sucked into a negative thought spiral about the sucky circumstance.  With a can-do attitude you will have positive thoughts, and positive thoughts lead to positive feelings. 

We'll deal with this in much greater detail when we get to T is for....  But for now, the important thing to remember is that your attitude programmes the way you think about things.  And if you want to be happier you need to think happy thoughts.  Kinda simple really ;-)  Such a shame that simple doesn't always mean easy!  But luckily, practice makes things easier.

 

Those are my ideas under the "A" category for imroving your happiness. I hope you'll practice some of these tips, and if you have any others to share I'd love to hear them.

Are you struggling with negative thoughts?

Quite a few of my clients have recently voiced concerns over their own negative thought patterns. The universal worry is that these negative thoughts will manifest themselves as unpleasant events eventually. My clients were therefore fighting their own thought patterns and trying very hard to change their thoughts.

A thought in and of itself has very little substance. Our mind is always thinking, and if every thought manifested itself, we'd all have nervous breakdowns! Thoughts are fleeting creations - they arise, take form, and dissipate. Imagine your exhalations on a cold winter day. You can see your breath for only a little while before it evaporates. Thoughts themselves have about as much form and impact as your breath - unless we feed them with energy.

We can give a thought energy by reacting to it with emotion - thus generating more thought and more emotion. Have you ever gotten yourself all worked up over an imaginary scenario, such as losing your job or discovering a cheating spouse? We can feed a thought with our energy so that it becomes very substantial. If we hold a thought and the emotional energy for 68 seconds or more, according to Jerry and Esther Hicks, we begin manifesting accordingly.

Without emotional energy, thoughts simply arise and dissipate, just like our breath.

What happens when we react to a thought with fear? We may find ourselves in a negative thought and immediately follow up with "Oh no, I shouldn't be thinking this! I'm thinking negatively. Quick, let's think of a positive affirmation." Fear is a powerful reaction. What we resist, persists. Resistance is just another way of directing energy. If, for example, positive affirmations are a means of resisting a negative thought, then they can in fact feed energy into the very thought pattern they are meant to dispel.

It's far more effective to observe negative thoughts than to resist them. Observation allows us to step away from the thought, rather than feeding it with emotional energy. Imagine sitting next to your stream of thoughts as if it were a river flowing by. We are not pulled along by the currents in that river because we are merely standing by and watching. We're not jumping in for a swim.

When we work on creating consciously and manifesting what we want, we don't have to control our thoughts. Our mind does so much thinking that it would be impossible to do so, anyway. We simply select the thoughts to which we give emotional energy. We gift our positive thoughts with an appropriate emotional reaction. In this way, we give our chosen thought substance, so that we will attract like resonances into our lives. The rest we simply observe, knowing that they will dissipate harmlessly without consequence.

By Andrea Hess, Intuitive Consultant. Please visit Andrea's web site at

www.EmpoweredSoul.com for a free sample reading.

Change your beliefs and you change your world

"Men often become what they believe themselves to be. If I believe I cannot do something, it makes me incapable of doing it. But when I believe I can, then I acquire the ability to do it even if I didn't have it in the beginning." -- Mahatma Gandhi

If your life is less than what you would like it to be, and you wish to address this proactively it is essential that you examine and, if needs be, change your beliefs.

But what exactly are beliefs? Well, quite simply, they are

a) ideas you hold onto as fact
b) thoughts that you've thought many times over
c) the foundation of everything you experience in your life

What are beliefs not?

a) facts
b) universal truths

Beliefs are thoughts and ideas that you give power to through repetitively thinking that they are "true", that they represent the way things are. But the real truth is your thoughts and ideas are no more true than my thoughts and ideas, even if our thoughts differ greatly.

Your beliefs have a great deal of power over you, because you consistently come across evidence to support them. Your experiences in life will constantly prove your beliefs to be seemingly factually correct. The reason for this is that your conscious mind cannot possibly cope with every piece of information that it is exposed to. So your subconscious sifts all the information it receives and rejects that which contradicts your beliefs and retains that which supports them.

Some of your beliefs may have been taught to you by family, teachers, friends etc, and some are completely of your own thinking. And given that we each have a unique combination of environment, upbringing and life experiences, we each have our own set of beliefs.

Where your beliefs stem from however, is not that important. What is really important is to realize that they are not undeniable truths - if they were, they would be universally shared! But your beliefs do inform your view of the world, how you think things are and how you think they should be.

Generally, beliefs are attached to strong emotions. Your attitude to life is completely influenced by them. Therefore, what you believe is of the utmost importance in how you approach your life, and deal with the issues you face on a day to day basis. In order to change your habits, you may need to change your beliefs.

The main problem with beliefs, is that most of us live with Limiting Beliefs, which hold us back in going for what we want out of life, or interfere with our attempts to think about things in a new way. What do you believe about yourself, your qualities, your abilities, your family, your friends, your financial situation, your ability to control your world?

If your beliefs don't support your intentions to change things for the better, chances are you won't manage to implement those changes. Instead, you will encounter plenty of obstacles to support your belief that this is beyond your capabilities/your family don't love you/your friends don't appreciate you or whatever it is that you're assuming to be the case.

If on the other hand, you believe you are a strong person, capable of acquiring the new skills required you will overcome obstacles, rather than falling at them. If you believe your family and friends will provide you with the support that you need, you will find the courage to go for what you want. The obstacles that may arise along the way won't necessarily vanish because of your positive beliefs, but your ability to deal with them and keep moving forward is absolutely dependant on your belief that it is possible.

Changing your limiting beliefs doesn't just help you to change your life, it helps you to transform it!

Change can be temporary - you can change forwards and back, as often as you like. Transformation is permanent. There's no going back. A butterfly cannot go back to being a caterpillar. That is transformation. You can make temporary changes in your life without delving too deeply into your beliefs. But if you want to make fundamental transformations, you will have to examine them and make sure they support you in going for what you want.

The good news is that this is absolutely do-able. The process is simple, but it also requires dedication and commitment. Yes, that means hard work!

What to do?

1. Identify your beliefs in the area of your life you want to improve. (To do this, simply look at your experiences so far - they will mirror your beliefs)
2. For each limiting belief you uncover, ask yourself what belief would support you better?
3. Write affirmations that simply describe the new beliefs you'd like to adopt
4. Recite these to yourself many times a day for as long as it takes to install the new beliefs (remember, beliefs are merely thoughts you've thought repeatedly). Inject strong positive emotion to this process. It will help if you combine these affirmations with meditation. Every time you catch yourself thinking the old belief, recite your new affirmation.

It does take a lot of practice, but if you open yourself to the possibility you could find evidence to support the new belief emerging very quickly. And the more you reaffirm the new belief to yourself, the more evidence you will notice, and the stronger your new belief will become. No matter how sceptical you may be feeling right now about this process, I'd ask you to be open-minded and give it a shot. What have you got to lose?

You've got a whole new world to gain.