Changing Your Self Perception

This week I have been preparing the course outline for the four day Spiritual Intelligence in Coaching course that I am teaching in March 2012 with Nick Williams.

One of the topics we are covering in depth is about self perception. This is important both for our participants and a key topic that they will be helping their clients with as coaches or therapists.

Our self perception influences our thinking and therefore our behaviours. Basically, how we perceive ourselves totally impacts how we behave in the world. And guess what, we mostly have our self perception totally wrong!

Our ego mind likes to tell us that because we have done things that we are not proud in our lives we are bad – a bad person in fact. This is confirmed because we have also made mistakes in our lives and haven’t lived up to our own expectations or those of others. When we were growing up we knew that if we were well behaved and did well in school and were successful in all that we did, we were deemed to be “good” and by implication when we did not do well or behave well the message was that we were bad.

This ego thinking is often buried deep in our unconscious mind and yet these perceptions that come from this early conditioning and unresolved past events often stay with and affect our current lives.

In my role as a coach who focuses on the healing of the mind, I find that it is often these very beliefs that we need to be looked at for what they are, recognised as untrue and released. The main problem with having these beliefs buried within us is that they lead us to feeling guilty, and this guilt that sits within us can lead us to sabotage any and every aspect of our lives. It leads us to act in guilty ways rather than ways that reflect our worthiness.

Our ego also has a clever strategy for dealing with all this guilt. It represses it so that we are totally unaware of it and then projects it out onto others, making them the guilty ones who are behaving in bad ways. This of course would work as a strategy except that as we attack others with our thoughts or words for behaving in bad ways, we are then attacking ourselves and what does this do? Compound our guilt and so the spiral of guilt within us increases confirming what we originally thought, that we are bad.

So what is the way out of this? Here are 5 suggestions:

• Recognise that although you have got things wrong and behaved in ways that were not your highest and best, these were only mistakes. These were times when you were acting from your ego’s fears rather than the love and kindness that is within you. So forgive yourself for anything that comes into your mind where you feel guilty or bad for what you did and hand over our feelings of guilt to our Higher Mind or God. And know too, that we all have these areas in our lives where we need to forgive ourselves for things that we have done “wrong.”

• Instead of dwelling on your mistakes, instead dwell on the lovely qualities that are within you. If you believe that there are Higher Beings who are here to help us with our lives, invoke the Greek goddess Aphrodite, the goddess of love and beauty. She can help you see the love and the beauty within you and act from that recognition. You can also invoke her to help you to know that you are totally loveable exactly as you are. With her help I am sure you can think of many, many times when you have acted from your innate love and beauty!

• Know that you were created by God as a being that was and is perfect, loveable and totally good. This part of you is changeless and eternal and as such, this perfection cannot be modified, regardless of your actions in the world. Your essence is the love that is inside you and yes, you have made mistakes but these mistakes do not make you bad, they were just places where you did not act in alignment with that love and perfection. Part of your growth here is to learn to act in alignment with your innate True qualities and where you are not yet able to do that it is important to forgive yourself.

• Marianne Williamson suggests that every night when you go to bed, you go over your day and look at the places where you acted well and the places where you did not come from your best and then forgive yourself for those latter places. That way you are every day clearing the places where you may feel guilty rather than allowing it to build up in your mind.

• Remember that every time we judge another we are cutting ourselves off from the love that is inside us. The more we can resist the temptation to judge – and I know at times that is not at all easy – and send loving energies to people instead the more we are reminding ourselves of the Truth within us and adding to our perfection, rather than our guilt.

All of these 5 ways take willingness on your part to be really aware of your thoughts, your words and actions. Often I find that we have to work with a coach or a therapist and go into the mind to release the root cause of this wrong minded thinking. On our Spiritual Intelligence in Coaching course we will be teaching gentle techniques to our coaches on how to do this for their own benefit and for the benefit of their clients. We are currently running Foundation workshops which are a prerequisite to this course. For information on the Foundation workshops please click here.

Stop Trying …

I sense that many of the intuitive messages which we receive come down to these two words: Stop Trying.  But that is easier said than done isn’t it?

The problem seems to be that we have it bred into us that we won’t get anywhere, or do or be anything if we don’t try. And the more we want something, the harder we try…isn’t that true?

I have been reflecting on the things that have come easily to me in my life and the things that have been a bit of an uphill struggle: the former have nearly always come about when I have put no effort in and almost forgotten that I wanted to achieve a certain thing. In contrast the latter have often involved me trying hard and yes, at one level I have enjoyed the trying and the doing, and at another level I have found it both frustrating and often upsetting that my efforts have not produced the results that I had hoped for.

Furthermore, the appearance of things not working out as I thought they would has made me question the very intuitive guidance that led me into these situations in the first place. It seems though, on reflection, that perhaps my intuition wasn’t wrong, it was my approach of putting effort in and trying hard that was.

I reflected on the way I manifested my share of my daughter’s school fees for the forthcoming academic year. I remembered thinking sometime in the spring that I would like the money for the fees for the next school year to be there for me in advance. I had forgotten that I had put this thought out into the Universe, and yet through a set of circumstances that took place in May/June of this year, I was given exactly the money that I needed in entirety about a month ago. This was not money that I earned but money that I was given from a source that I would never have expected. And it seems that this is how the Universe works: the more we can get ourselves out of the way and rely on the Universe to provide for us all that we need and want, the easier things are for us.

So how do we do this? Here are some suggestions:

• Rather than trying to do things and making yourself do things, move into the space of allowing things to happen naturally. It is easy to have a list of things you are trying to do because you feel you should, rather than just letting things be that really should happen. This degree of stopping the trying can seem very scary because we feel we will lose all control and become couch potatoes that do nothing all day long. The reality is that your Universe will bring you things to do that really are right for you if you stop the trying and move into allowing.

• Find the balance between being clear about what you would like to draw into your life and having an open mind that allows new things to come to you. Having a narrow focus limits the things/situations/people that your Universe can bring you because you are closing your mind to all the other opportunities that are coming your way. In every situation also there is a Higher Will at play that if we can soften to it brings about what really is best in every situation. The difficulty is that we think we know best and we think that we know what should manifest and occur. Often though we have to be willing to just surrender to Higher Will and let that take over…because it will anyway!

• Always be aware of what is happening naturally. During your day allow yourself to sense where your own inner guidance system is taking you. I find that in my day, I am always sensing when to move from one thing to the next and what my next thing is to be. Sometimes, the next thing is nothing and that is fine too…and I find that from that place of going within and doing nothing, I then get the energy to get up and do something. It takes a willingness to go with that flow but I find it saves me a lot in wasted time and energy and I am able to achieve all that I need to achieve with minimal effort. The key to this is to keep your awareness as much as possible in the present, so that the flow is made clear to you.

• Give yourself some slack. The areas where we tend to try hard are the areas where we want to improve ourselves or the situations in our lives. The first step in wanting to improve anything is to accept where you are in the present and not fight it. We tend to be very hard on ourselves when we have not done our meditation well or not at all, when we have eaten badly or not exercised, or when we have behaved in ways that we are not happy with and yet all these seeming mistakes come from our ego’s desire to stop us evolving and growing. The negative self talk we get into from carrying out these behaviours is extremely undermining and destructive and yet we have to know that when the time comes to really improve that area of our lives, the ability to do it will come easily and naturally. As always when it is time to heal a particular issue, the energy and motivation to do it with ease is there.

So I would suggest that you really stand back and ask yourself, “If I stopped trying, what changes in my attitude and behaviours would I make?” And I promise you, you will not just do nothing, but the shift in your outlook will open the doors for the Universe to rush in and do the hard work for you.

A Course in Miracles teaches us that the highest form of prayer is “I need do nothing.” This sounds unrealistic but it is true because we create, not at the level of what we do in the world, but at the level of what we think in our minds. So time spent in “right thinking” is the most valuable time you can spend.

Deepening the Feminine Energy

Getting in touch with your feminine energy sounds easy, doesn’t it? Meditate for a while and you must be there?

In truth, for most of us it is not that easy, either for women or for men. One of the key reasons for this is that the feminine is represented in our consciousness by our mothers. For many of us, our relationships with our mothers were not the nurturing, supportive relationships that would have enabled us to fully develop our feminine power.

Ideally our mothers represent a place of safety, security and love when we were children. A place where we can go to feel nurtured, supported and loved. From a loving relationship with our mothers we learn that we are totally loved and we learn to love both ourselves and others with ease. We feel secure in the feminine domain of acknowledging and expressing our feelings, relating to others, trusting our inner wisdom and overall, having complete faith in the Universe to support us in all that we do.

Unfortunately for many of us, our mothers did not provide this for us. They were not brought up in that way and so they did not have the emotional nourishment and security from their mothers that enabled them to parent us in that way.

My mother had an extremely strict mother who very much ruled the household with domination and control, rules and demands.  I was largely brought up by this lady too during much of my childhood while my mother was working. Indeed it was my mother’s choice to let her mother bring me up so she could continue with her teaching career. This left me as an only child in a situation where I had to do as I was told…or else, and be seen and not heard under all circumstances. Although in part I rebelled against this, I realised very early on it was just easier to give in and accept the regime, and say nothing.

With this lack of emotional understanding and nourishment from an early age, developing the deep inner security that goes with the feminine power has not been easy. Indeed having faith is effortless when you feel secure, but when you don’t, having faith seems like a major challenge. This is what my Universe is continually wanting me to learn and heal in my life, so that I become stronger in my feminine power and release the energies of control that seem so familiar from my childhood.

So how do we heal this lack of security that so many of us suffer from as a result of our upbringing with our mothers?

Firstly we have to be willing to forgive our mothers who were merely behaving in the exact same way that they were treated. They were doing their best and their actions did not mean that they didn’t love us, but that they didn’t know how to love us any better. We can never fully know all that they were going through during our childhood and what challenges they were facing that made them behave towards us in the way that they did. With this forgiveness, regardless of whether they are alive or have passed on, it sets you free to develop and grow in your feminine energy free from the effects of the past.

Secondly we have to learn to provide ourselves with the inner nourishment and support that we so badly need. Healing our relationship with ourselves enables us to grow in feelings of security. One of the key ways in which we do this is to acknowledge our innate goodness regardless of the mistakes that we have made. We were taught as children that we were good if we succeeded academically, if we were well behaved, and did what Mummy and Daddy wanted, and if we looked good in all situations. As adults we have to know that we are good and perfectly OK even if things aren’t going our way, even if we do make mistakes and even if we aren’t a success. This innate perfection is not dependent on what we do, but on who we are and the more we can know this, the easier it is to grow the receptive, passive and magnetic power of our feminine energy.

Thirdly we have to forgive ourselves for all the times we have not treated ourselves with love and support. Very often we compensate for this lack of inner nourishment with eating disorders, addictive behaviours and other compulsive attachments as a way of punishing oursves for our inner emptiness and insecurity. This self attack, which breeds so much guilt within, has to be acknowledged and forgiven and replaced with self love and acceptance of our feelings.

As we learn to love and forgive ourselves we come to see this love reflected back to us in the world around us through the people we meet and the support that we receive from them. We find ourselves spending our time with different people and attracting in new relationships and friendships which nurture and support us in who we are.

The more we are in touch with our sense of inner connection to Source, the easier this is to do. Our inner connection, and ability to be in the present moment, allows us the opportunity to be conscious of our feelings and behaviours and make healthy choices based on this awareness. There will be times when we choose against ourselves, but more and more we will be able to choose to support our feelings with self love rather than attack.

From this inner connection we are also able to grow in our awareness of the love and perfection that is already within us. In turn this develops our sense of inner security, our faith gradually grows and we are able to recover more quickly from the challenging situations of our lives and see their value in our growth and development.

References: http://marianne.com

Why Goal Setting Can Ruin Your Life

We live in a world where acquisition and achievement have become all important. This has been supported by our innate desire to have more and be more in life. A whole movement which studied the psychology of success over the past 40 years has taught us that the only way to acquisition and achievement, in short to “success,” is to set clearly defined goals. Having set these goals, they are achieved by focusing unwaveringly on their achievement and taking action, often daily, to achieve those chosen outcomes.

There is no doubt that the human mind is hugely powerful and if you consistently focus your mind on a chosen result, there is a possibility that you will achieve a certain outcome. This may take some time, but with patience and a sense of determination, you may well get there. For a few, this approach has brought material success and financial gain, but for most it has led to disappointment, frustration and misery as intended goal after goal has not materialised.

So why is this? Why is goal setting able to ruin your life?

Goals are most often set in the hope that life will be better with the attainment of a certain goal. They are set in the hope that with this achievement or acquisition, there will be greater happiness and fulfilment. For many wanting to improve their lives, goal setting offers them a way of trying to make their lives more rewarding and under their control. Yet the realisation soon comes that even with their chosen acquisition or achievement, they are no happier or fulfilled. How many times have we got the bigger house, the better car, the partner, the marriage, the children and the better career situation, only to find that we are still no happier? From here the solution seems to be to set another goal, and a bigger goal at that, in the often desperate hope that this will bring the happiness we crave. In time, goal setting creates an almost never ending cycle of desire all in the search for a seemingly elusive thing.

Another problem with using goals to try to make us feel better inside is that we often do create for ourselves things that are not really right for who we are and that are not really in alignment with who we inherently are as a person. We think we want a bigger house yet when we get it and see the reality of maintaining this bigger house and garden, we realise that it is not really quite us. It can actually become a burden on us rather than a pleasure, and impose some considerable strain on us on many levels.

In addition to this, many people set goals that are a result of what they think they should want or should have. They set goals based on what their peers have or what their peers are doing, or based on what they are being “encouraged” to do by others. It takes quite a lot of singularity of mind not to get caught up in this subtle peer pressure or indeed the family pressure that says you should have a thing by a certain age or be a certain way.

What often happens when we are intent on creating a certain outcome is we miss that very thing that really is for us to have, that really would make us happy. With the strength of our focus we fail to see the opportunity that is right in front of us because it is not what we have chosen to look for. The reticular activating system of our mind helps us to notice those things that lead us to our chosen focus and can actually prevent us from noticing other signs and coincidences from the Universe along our way, signs that really are trying to help and guide us. So many people miss out on what is inherently for them by having this narrow focus that things should be a certain way. Furthermore, our logical, rational approach to our goals leaves no room for intuition, inspiration and creativity as we forge ahead on our “chosen route.” And this is the very crux of the problem, it is our chosen route, it is about what we want, and that is very often at odds with the chosen route that the Universe has mapped out for us.

For many people goals are sought after with much pushing and striving. We have been taught that to achieve things we must “take massive action”,” make life happen” and “take the bull by the horns” so we try to do this, often to no avail.  This approach based purely on what appears the logical steps to take to achieve something can lead us to be very driven, very manipulative and often very unaware of the effect we are having on those around us.  It adds often to our stress levels as we chase and push to achieve our outcomes, always thinking what else can we do to achieve this. The Protestant Work Ethic that taught us that we are here to “live to work” fuels our ardour as we push ever forwards in the hope of achievement.

With this self focused approach, at no time do we stop a moment and ask what are the consequences for our families, our marriages or relationships, our friendships and also the consequences for our health of all this pushing to “make life happen?” For many people that I have worked with as a coach, they have lost much that they hold dear as a result of this desire to be successful as defined by their goal setting and the material world. They have lost marriages, relationships with their children and friendships all in the name of goal achievement and success. On reflection this endless goal setting has made them, they acknowledge, lose touch with what is really important in life. They have lost out on love, connection, intimacy, and a host of other values that come with good relationships. Many high achievers are coming to realise that these really are the things to value…and sometimes when it is too late.

However, the biggest problem with goal setting is what happens to the many people who, despite doing all the right things, do not achieve their goals. They do not get to where they want to be or have what they feel they deserve and want. The disappointment and disillusionment this causes is hugely detrimental for us as people. It leads us to be very self denigrating, self critical and self undermining. The self talk that we get into about the way we are and the way life is, can significantly lower our levels of self esteem and self worth. It makes us see ourselves and life through a very negative lens that effectively states “life is not fair.” We see things working out for others and wonder what it is that they are doing that we are not doing. This endless comparison erodes our levels of self appreciation so that we often feel a failure. And the difficulty is that from that place it is really is hard to lift out of the depression and low feelings that invade us. Stress and depression are moving towards epidemic proportions these days and for many goal setting and the failure to achieve is at the root of this.

So what is the solution to all of this? Are we just to give up on our goals and give up all hope?

The good news is: there is an alternative approach to reaching your potential and achieving all that life has to offer you.

Within all of us is a sense of inner wisdom that can be used to guide us in every aspect of our life. It can guide us to achieve all that is for us to achieve; it can inspire us with new ideas and options that we had perhaps not considered and it can be used to guide us in the creation of our dreams. And by dreams I mean those ideas and often random synchronicities that come us to that inspire us to act on them. They are not goals that we set, but are ideas that well up from inside us, that just come to us and take hold of us. These dreams feel right, they energise us and they are totally in alignment with who we are.

Most importantly of all, our inner wisdom can guide us in how to be happy for it has our fulfilment at the core of its guidance for us. This innate wisdom really can see the bigger picture of our lives as well as our talents and skills and it gives us these gifts of creative insight at just the right time. And often all we have to ask is “What is the Universe offering me right now?” “What things are happening naturally and easily for me at this moment?” It may be that right now there is no action to take, no dream to act on and if we can accept that everything is perfect for us, then we really are acting in alignment with Universal flow.

What gets in our way of following this natural course of events is our desire to control our lives and what happens within it. Rather than accepting what is, we try to fight against it and it is that very fight against life and our circumstances that can lead to much stress and negative thinking. The Universe really does have an intelligence of its own and if we can join that universal intelligence, which for some is their innate Spiritual Intelligence, then life takes on an ease. We come to recognise that every situation is perfect for us, perfect for our growth and perfect for the Universal plan as a whole.

So, my advice is to stop setting goals and stop striving to achieve those goals and let your instincts guide you in the right direction. You will feel happier, less stressed, and certainly more fulfilled.

Opening the Door to Receiving

We live in a culture where we feel we have to go out and achieve things and have things to be successful. We feel if we are not trying to achieve something, then there may be something wrong with us. This leads us to subtly, or – not so subtly – to feel pressured all the time to go out and get.

Through our desire to get, to achieve and to have we often forget that there is a whole Universe waiting to give to us. Our Universe is set up for our perfection and if we are willing and able to get out of the way, it will bring us that perfection very easily. And this is the crux of the matter – we have to be willing to say Universe, i do not know what is meant to happen here, I do not know what is  for the best in this situation and I am willing to let go and allow Universal will to handle this situation for me. From this request then Universal energy can flow in and  the way forward is gradually made clear. This requires a profound shift in our thinking from “this is what I want to have happen here” to “what is meant to happen here?”

The time when this way of thinking is so difficult is when we are feeling insecure in the circumstances of our lives. Our very insecurity make us want to take control and make certain things happen that are of our choosing. We get into desperately wanting to know what is going to happen, how will this work out, and we are always in a state of seeking answers. To be able to let go of that thinking and get to the place where we are really open to receive the clarity that shows us the way forward, we have to get to the state of total detachment which states, “I am happy whatever happens”. We have to be totally willing also to give up our pre-conceived ideas about what should happen, our judgements on the situation, our personal position and all the conclusions we have already reached. We have to get to that place where we can say, I do not care what happens because I know what the Universe brings me will be perfect. Once we are in this place the Universe can start to work for us to bring about perfection and all we have to do is be an open receiver of that perfection. In truth, we have to do nothing except be the receiver.

This place of “I need do nothing” is not an easy one to get to as we are so conditioned to go out and act  and be in control but if we can get there, our whole body language changes and our energy opens right up. There is a perceptible shift in our body posture and muscle tension. It feels like instead of having to go out and “get”, we can just relax back into opening up to receive what the Universe has in store for us. Try to get a feel for this different body language between feeling you must go out and get compared with just allowing yourself to receive – which feel softer, easier and less stressful? If you think of pictures of Jesus he is often depicted with both his hands a little distance from his sides and with both his palm facing forward in a very open and receptive position – he is not pictured leaning forward trying to grasp at something and having to be in control!

This receptive and allowing outlook does not mean that we sit at home all day doing nothing (unless that is what we are guided to do), it means that we can soften into a place letting things happen rather than making them happen. We can allow synchronicities to work for us and for our good to come to us with ease. Very often the challenging circumstances of our lives are opportunities for us to get right out of the way, do nothing, and let the Universe get to work bringing perfection to us with the absolute knowledge that the Universe has a win for all intended. So in any situation that is not to your liking, place the entire situation in the hands of God or the Universe and get out of the way knowing that your only role is to be an open receiver of Higher Will. Think of being a Diving receiving station which is shining light out into the Universe and at the same time is totally receptive to Divine inspiration, Divine abundance and Divine love – it really is that simple. And with this receptive approach, one thing we receive is all the guidance and wisdom we need to help us through in every situation. We just have to be willing to give up the belief that we are in control or that we should take control so that things work out as we want them to. For the truth is that we really do not know everything and often how we think a situation should work out is really not for the highest and best for all concerned. The best  prayer we can have here is that Divine Will be done and then we must let everything unfold according to that Will.

If we can know that the Universe and Divine Will really does have our good at heart and wants what is best for us and we can trust that, then we can easily surrender the control and let that Higher knowledge take over. Does it make life easier and less stressful and less anxious? Yes definitely!

And one last thought: just as when the student is ready, the teacher appears so too, when the receiver is ready, the giver appears in every circumstance!

Vibrational Alignment

Our vibration – our electrical output if you like, is affected by many things including the food we eat, the drinks we drink and any drugs, medicinal or recreational that we choose to take. It is also affected by the environment that we are in. Most importantly though, it is affected by our thoughts (both conscious and sub conscious) and the feelings we have in our body as a result of those thoughts. Any thought that takes you up and makes you feel good, positive and expanded as a person lifts your vibration and any thought that takes you down has the opposite effect on your vibration. Quite simply, the more time you spend in higher vibrational thoughts, the more magnetic you are to your good, and the more time you spend in lower thoughts, the more you are in effect, repelling it. And the key point here is that what comes to you is in exact relation to your vibrational output, regardless of what you are asking for with your conscious mind.

The good news is that we do have control over the one thing that is key here – our thoughts. This is where our discernment and awareness comes in, for we do have to be very conscious of the vibrational output we are omitting with our thoughts, for as we go higher on our spiritual path our thoughts become even more powerful in attracting or repelling our good. I appreciate that there are times when our emotional pain is surfacing when it feels like you have no control over what you are thinking and yet from this pain you have the opportunity always to seek out new perspectives and new ways of seeing things and to ask your Higher Mind that your thoughts be lifted. You can also add compassion for yourself and understanding of yourself into this mix to raise your vibration whilst in that place of pain.

Here are five suggestions for how you can reclaim your power so that you remain totally magnetic to your good:

1. Be very aware of your thinking when you are just awaking or going off to sleep. At that time your sub conscious mind is very open and receptive to your thoughts, so it is really important then to be thinking about what you desire or appreciating the good things that you already have. This is also a time when we are receptive to intuitive guidance and clarity, so any thoughts that you hold that support that guidance will strengthen it for you, especially when you feel times of doubt about its validity.
2. The ability to quieten your mind at any point in time, not just when you are specifically sitting down to meditate, enables you to ask for new and different thoughts to come to you. If your mind is rushing around on a certain subject, then just taking time to be still and ask for a new, higher thought about this subject is all you need to do. You could ask for a thought that is more aligned with Source thinking on this subject so that you can then be lifted to a much higher vibration.
3. Be willing to see different perspectives.  As we grow spiritually we need to be able to move out of our own limited perspective and consider the perspectives of others. We tend unfortunately to get fixated on our particular way of looking at something and it takes a real willingness to step out of that and consider other viewpoints. When I am considering different points of view, I find it valuable to actually get up from where I am sitting and move a couple of feet away to see someone else’s perspectives (almost stepping into their shoes as it were) and then move again to see another person’s. I keep moving around until I have understood the perspectives of everyone involved. Having done that, and intuitively you will know this information, I also find it useful to think how would Jesus look at this ( and for you it may be your Higher Mind or God or Allah or Buddha or some other high, wise person) so that you can see the perspective of a truly wise and evolved person. From here you can use your discernment to really see what is the right thing for you to do, what is the right way to look at this situation and how you can best use your thinking to move forward in a powerful way.
4. Be aware that your ego has no interest in your happiness. It is always encouraging you to be safe, to not change, to keep things as they are and to remember how small and unimportant you are. The ego will want to focus you on all that is wrong with a person or a situation, thereby sending out a vibration aligning you with all that you do not want. For the more you focus on what is wrong, what you do not want and how bad things are, the more this “wish” will go out into the Universe and draw more of those things to you. This again is where your discernment and awareness are important to focus you on those parts of your experience that you are happy with, grateful for, what you value and what you love. This is your “wish list” in effect, so focus upon it consciously and be willing to see beyond the ego’s limited viewpoint of a person and see their innate goodness.
5. To amplify the power of your thoughts and to really become the magnet, the absolute best way to do this is to add in your conscious connection to Source as you think these affirming thoughts. This conscious connection, in whatever way you do it, either thought your heart, through your connection in your abdomen or thought connecting with Source energy within you, will save you much time and energy. This is because you are amplifying your magnetic pull of your good to such an extent that it saves you a lot of man hours of taking action…and isn’t that a nice thing!

So, to conclude, we always have the choice about how we see our reality. We always have a choice about the thoughts that we think and how we see ourselves. We can see ourselves as powerful beings able to draw things to us easily and effortlessly or we can be permanently at the effect of what our Universe is reflecting back to us. We have the choice, and in life this really is one of the few things we get to take control of. So expect miracles, expect blessings and expect your good and…….. I hope to see you at the workshop on February 5th to discuss this further.

Refocus The Lens

Our minds and our consciousness are like a camera with a zoom lens. Sometimes we have this lens open for a wide angled shot, but most of the time we have the lens zoomed in and focused on what we want to see. We programme our camera from our consciousness to seek out for us certain circumstances and experiences and this programming faithfully brings us exactly what we want.

Our problem lies in the fact that this programming is done largely at an unconscious level. It is based on beliefs and attitudes that we acquired from our early experiences when our mind was that of a young child, without the understanding of adult knowledge and wisdom. So this is why although, at a conscious level, we want and hope for certain things to come about in our lives, working against this are our underlying beliefs and attitudes that often have us believe that we are not worthy of such things. These underlying attitudes are what get reflected back to us in our lives showing us the unconscious beliefs and therefore the unconscious lens that we are looking through.

What is good news, in contrast, is that we can choose to re-programme these beliefs and the lens we select. How we view the circumstances of our lives helps us hugely in this re-programming. In every situation we experience we do have a choice about how we experience it and how we respond to it, and this experience and response will always come from the lens we are looking through. We can allow ourselves to experience life through our unconscious lens that may lead us to see things in a negative way or we can gently take charge of our responses with awareness and view experiences as we choose. There is a really lovely YouTube video which is about gratitude which I think is very valuable in helping us to see our lives differently in challenging times and this is certainly one way to take charge of the lens – to programme it for gratitude.

How we view ourselves though, is of course at the core of this. As we change our self belief and self image, our behaviours naturally change and so does the world around us. That is why it is so helpful to work with someone who is able to assist you in changing these limiting beliefs that you are holding about yourself. I have found that in my work with clients, the most valuable way I can help people is to assist them in seeing themselves differently, as well as freeing them from the mindsets that are limiting the awareness of their Truth.

If I recall rightly, A Course In Miracles describes the unfortunate way we see ourselves as weak, vicious, ugly, sinful, beset with pain, filled with warring parts and held together by a God to whom we pray for help. So, if underneath the persona that we show to the world, we are holding even some of these mindsets about ourselves, you can see why it is hard to draw to you all that your Universe wishes you to receive.

What we can do though is affirm the light about ourselves – light being the spiritual understanding of who we are and why we are here. The light gives us the realisation that we are one with the Creator and as such we are a precise reflection of the Creator. So all the attributes that the Creator has, we have too and anything contrary to that is merely a false idea that we are holding about ourselves, based on the ego’s belief that we are separate from the Creator. So I suggest you pick an attribute that you feel the Creator is – it may be joyful or loving, abundant, compassionate, wise, magnificent or totally worthy and hold this in your camera’s lens about yourself as you go about your day. When circumstances come along that may seem to the contrary, affirm that this is a wrong perception and is not the Truth of who you are. You can heal your mind by knowing, this is something I am going through, but it is not who I am. In time what will happen is that your outer reality will start to match up with your new self belief as you maintain this new lens that you observe yourself and your life through.

Enjoy re- programming your camera and experiment with your zoom lens – have it wide angled whenever it feels right to open up and take in more and zoom in when necessary.

May I be Spacious …

What has this got to do with Luck?

One of the key qualities that Buddhist traditions focus upon is equanimity. Equanimity is said to be the balance, born of wisdom; the ability to have an open perspective in our lives which in turn, leads us to often greater understanding and patience in our life experiences. It also embraces the ability to let go of control and accept that which is with ease. With equanimity comes a spaciousness in our lives. This spaciousness embraces a willingness to open our focus beyond purely what we want in any situation. It embraces also the ability to soften our vision so that our perspective naturally takes in more of what our Universe is offering us. This is often something that does not come naturally to us and in fact we need to train our minds to be spacious, open in outlook, relaxed and flexible in our perspectives and free of our self imposed constraints.

We are all very skilled in our tunnel vision around what we have done wrong and the mistakes that others have made. It seems like we almost get fixated with the details of the objects of our frustrations and find much evidence to support that we are right and the other person is wrong. This habit of the ego to focus on the mistakes of others does nothing to enhance our own self esteem and, in addition, we have this fixation too on our own personal mistakes. Being spacious in our thinking, although alien, can allow us to give others and ourselves also some slack as we move through our lives which, in turn, allows us to be more relaxed and open to the Universe.

Our lack of spaciousness can also appear when we have things that we want to attract to us. We are sure that we want a certain thing and this will make us happier. Yet studies on luck have shown that people who are able to go throughout their day with an open mind and a flexibility of thought and focus are the ones who “appear” to actually be lucky. With a soft focus you really do see the opportunities that are for you to enjoy.

Professor Richard Wiseman is a British psychologist who has studied luck. He created the well known experiment where volunteers were shown a short film of some people playing basketball and told to count the number of passes made with the ball. After just a few seconds, a man dressed as a gorilla slowly walked into frame, beast his chest at the camera, and walked off. Unbelievably, almost none of the people watching the film noticed the gorilla because they were all so focused on the basketball passes and counting them as they had been told to do. One of the four things Wiseman  cites  is that so called “lucky people” have a relaxed and open approach which enables them to notice chance opportunities when they come up (the other three being making decisions based on intuition, holding positive expectations and adopting a resilient attitude that transforms bad luck). In contrast, the so called “unlucky people” in his experiments we more tense and anxious and just did not notice such opportunities however hard they tried. And the harder he made them try, the more they missed the opportunity they were meant to spot! In addition Wiseman’s “lucky people” went to great lengths to bring change, variety and the new into their lives. They were willing it seems, to break habits and search out the new…all of which creates a spacious approach to life.

With a spaciousness of thought you are able to easily change plans and be open to having no plans around certain areas of your life…and how liberating would that be…to have no plans at all? Yes, I accept that you cannot do that every day of your life, but you can do it for some of the days and it is worth giving it a try so that you too become luckier!

So spend some time thinking the following:

• How you would feel if you were more spacious in your outlook?
• How would your energy feel?
• How would your outlook on life change and most importantly, how might your life change?
• And how could you apply this softer focus to your life?

“May I be spacious.” Make that your new mantra.

And, what is important here is that these scientific experiments carried out over 10 years are supporting the very thinking that I feel makes up the essence of Spiritual Intelligence. This is what is happening more and more now – science is verifying the very thinking and faith that we hold true!

To read the article on Wiseman’s research on luck go here.

Programmed for Perfection

“Be who God meant you to be and you will set the world on fire.”
St Catherine of Siena

The Bishop of London who gave the sermon at William and Kate’s wedding on Friday started his sermon with this wonderful quote. The 29th April is the festival of St Catherine of Siena and so this quote was so fitting.

As we go about our busy days though it is easy to forget that we are here to be something that God meant us to be. It is very easy to focus purely on our outer world and all that is happening in that world around us. We forget that we have inner world and that the key message of that inner world is that we were created perfect.

This may seem difficult to believe when you think of all the things that both you and others have done wrong over the years, but despite that, any wrong doings do not take away this essential truth that is at the core of everyone’s being whether they are aware of it or not.

We are perfect because each and every one of us was ultimately created by God and as such we are children of God. We can really think of ourselves as extensions of God with all the same attributes that God has. This means that all the good qualities that God emanates such as love, kindness, compassion, beauty, wisdom, abundance, well being are actually the Truth of who we are too. This truth is something that we have a choice to believe or dismiss. The value of believing this is that it enables you to separate yourself from the circumstances of your life and of your physical body and align yourself with this perfection. This process of aligning your thinking in this way is known as Spirit identification as opposed to body identification which is what we are familiar with.

So you may be thinking, why are we here if we are, in truth, already perfect? The answer to that is that as a result of our past – our childhood, our previous incarnations and often our ancestral lineage – we have picked up thoughts and beliefs that are contrary to that perfection. These wrong thoughts need to be healed and that is part of the Purpose of our lives. These are thoughts such as “I am not good enough,” “I am not loveable,” “I am not worthy,” “Things never work out for me.” These thoughts are purely thoughts based on our personality’s perception of the former events of our lives which is often wrong and lacking in adult understanding. As we go through our adult lives we are given opportunities to heal these wrong perceptions through the opportunities we are given to grow that we call challenges. When we do heal these beliefs and re-align them with our innate perfection, we in turn send out a raised vibration which has a positive effect on all of the planet as ultimately all minds are joined. I find in my personal coaching I do with clients, a lot of what I am doing is helping them heal these wrong beliefs that they are holding and returning them to their place of truth because it is only from there that we are able to move forward and set the world on fire.

Here are three tips for applying this Truth:
1. You can ask God or your Higher Mind, whoever you pray to, to bring forth the perfection and brilliance that is within you. Picasso, Mozart and Shakespeare expressed this brilliance in their unique way and you too can do the same in your unique way.

2. In any situation where you feel that your negative beliefs or patterns are playing out, ask that these beliefs or patterns be purified, transformed and healed. Ask that they are healed in such as way that you can see yourself differently, so that you can return to the Truth of who you are.

3. The most effective way to heal your mind of these negative beliefs is to be willing to forgive each and every person or situation that causes you upset. In my book Spiritual Intelligence in Business I describe it this way:

“There is nothing that will heal our minds in such a powerful way than the ability to forgive and let go. A Course in Miracles lists the following benefits of forgiveness:
happiness, a quiet mind, certainty of purpose, and a sense of worth and beauty that transcends the world, safety, protection, gentleness and a rest, so perfect it can never be upset. Your willingness to forgive both people, including yourself, and situations that lead to even the smallest reactions of irritation and anger within you will lead you also the sense of unconditional peace.”

To conclude, whenever you are tempted to look at the circumstances of your life and feel down or bad about yourself, remember this inherent perfection within you. This perfection is how you are programmed to be and in every moment you have a choice to remember that programming or ignore it.

To return to the sermon at the wedding, in the prayer that William and Kate composed in preparation for their marriage they say:

“In the busyness of each day keep our eyes fixed on what is real and important in life and help us to be generous with our time and love and energy.”

This sums up so well the focus we all need to have.

Easter – The Power of Resurrection

Easter is known as the holiest festival in the Christian calendar, one where we celebrate the resurrection of Christ, three days after his death on the cross. It also gives us the opportunity to renew our personal faith, as we ourselves witness and experience our own personal crucifixions and resurrections in our own lives. These periods, that may be both challenging and deeply painful, give us the opportunity always to surrender to a Higher Power and allow that Power to heal us, so that we too have our own personal resurrection. Throughout these difficult times your intuition can guide you in alignment with that Higher Power to assist you to your resurrection.

Releasing all your problems, worries and concerns to your Higher Mind for this to take place, involves the following steps:

Step One: Be clear about what you want help with

We all have free will, and so by Universal Law we can only be helped if we ask for help with everything we need help with. All you have to say (out loud or in your head) is, “God, Higher Mind, the Universe, angels (whichever you believe in) please help me with …..”, and your request is heard.

Remember this proviso, though:  add to all your requests that you want this or something better to happen. That allows the Universe to use its creative abilities to bring you something even better than you have imagined. Your intuition can see the bigger picture of your life and can see that you could have so much more than you ask for.

In all challenging situations the most valuable thing you can ask for is that your thoughts, attitudes, perceptions and feelings about the situation be healed. For this healing of your perceptions gives you the opportunity to see things differently and it is often when we see things or people differently, that the situation is resolved for us.

Step Two: Detach from your desires

Having made clear requests, your next step is to let go of those requests completely.    Let them go in the sure knowledge that the healing of the situation is on its way. Imagine releasing your requests into the hands of your Higher Mind – freeing you from carrying around that burden of concern. If you try to hold onto a situation, or worry about it a lot, you will make it very difficult for your Higher Mind to help you. Know that you will receive the guidance or healing that you need at exactly the right time and in exactly the right way.

This attitude of total detachment declares, “I place this situation totally in your hands and allow you to heal it in whatever way is for my highest good and in alignment with the Higher Purpose of this situation. The more you can surrender your expectations of what you think should happen and how it should work out, the easier you are making things for your Universe. With everything in life, the more you can totally let go of your expectations, the more easily life can work out for you.

Step Three: Be open to your inner guidance

Your intuition will guide you through your subtle inner senses and feelings. Your intuition speaks to you through synchronicities in your life and through repetitive ideas and feelings. Coupled with all guidance is the gut feeling of sense of “Yes, this is right.”

In my book Spiritual Intelligence in Business I highlight four ways your inner guidance can come to you:

“Our inner guidance and wisdom comes to us in four main ways. We are all capable of receiving guidance in all of these ways but our mind has habitual patterns in the way it processes information and so we will tend to favour receiving inner direction in perhaps one or two of these ways. Here are the four ways. See which one resonates with you:

Visual guidance
Visual guidance is the ability to receive mental images and pictures, both within the mind’s eye and in the world around.
People who easily receive guidance this way thrive on art, interior design, beautiful scenery and the “look” of things, from clothing to architecture.

Visual guidance embraces the imagery that comes during dreams, meditation and times when we are just relaxing, contemplating or day dreaming.

Visual guidance may also come as things we are drawn to in the world around us, or which seem to leap out at us: a sign, a slogan, an internet site, a newspaper headline, a book, or an article read on impulse. One or more of these visual tweaks to our attention turn out to give us all the information we need. Yet the source that draws our attention to this guidance is still within us. All such visual messages (and indeed all messages) will be accompanied by an intuitive gut feeling of rightness: “Yes, that’s the answer I need.”

Auditory guidance
Auditory guidance comes either through the still, quiet inner voice within us, and more commonly as auditory messages from the world around us that we are specifically meant to hear. People who are aware of their auditory senses are those who seem to have finely tuned hearing. Musicians especially tend to find receiving auditory guidance easy.

Most often, we will pick up auditory messages by overhearing conversations that we are meant to hear, by receiving guidance (requested or not!) from other people, or even by hearing ourselves give “guidance” to others that is really meant for us. Turning on the television or radio often results in our hearing something that was “meant” for our ears. As noted above, these messages will be accompanied by that intuitive gut feeling of rightness.

Sentient Guidance
Sentient guidance is the ability to receive guidance through our body and emotions and through those aptly named gut feelings. Our feelings about something are literally our answers to our questions about it.

People who are naturally in tune with their feelings receive guidance easily this way. They can pick up easily what others feel: they can sense the mood in a room, the intrinsic energy of a place and people they feel drawn to or away from.

Excitement and passion will draw us towards people and activities that are meant for us; feelings of heaviness and constriction will warn us about those that are not. And often there is no feeling to do anything at all, and that is right also, to do nothing at this time except go within and know that the feeling of when to act will come to you.

Where a choice of action is being considered, imagine how you would feel when following one course, and how you would feel if you did not follow it. Positive bodily feelings signify the right choice in all that you do.

Cognitive guidance
This is the ability to receive answers directly into our minds through ideas and thoughts that just come out of the blue. Often with this form of guidance we just know things, and we do not know how we know! People to whom this form of guidance comes easily are naturally intelligent thinkers who like to analyse, think things through and consider all options before making a decision. They will receive guidance directly into their mind as a series of steps to take one at a time.

All inner guidance will be positive, empowering and work as a win–win for all concerned. It often comes to us as the first thought we receive when we go within and ask what to do.”

Step Four: Quiet Time

Your mind wants to be active all the time, leaping from one thought to another in a way that is completely predictable despite all its activity. This is especially so when you are feeling stressed or worried about an issue. To receive your intuitive guidance, you will need to take some time every day at least to relax and quieten, and preferably to meditate. Ideally this means going to a place where you can be undisturbed for at least ten minutes and preferably 20 – 30 minutes.  There, you will allow your body to relax and let go of tension by focusing on your breath.

People who meditate daily are able to receive guidance more easily because they are used to bringing their minds to quietness and stillness.  It doesn’t matter what form of meditation you use as long as you are stilling your mind in some way.

Step Five: Take action on your guidance

The more you are attuned to your subtle inner senses, the easier it is to receive inner guidance.   This may simply come to you as new thoughts or ideas.  Often in difficult situations the guidance is to do nothing and for us this is perhaps the hardest thing to do. Whatever the form of the message, the content will be repetitive, and it is very important that we do act upon it.  The more you do act in alignment with your intuitive messages, the more you will get to trust them.

As we move from our personal crucifixions to our resurrections we really feel that we have been re-born. Often the symbolic three days is the time that it takes us to move to a place where we really are able to see the situation with new eyes. This is often seeing it from a “higher perspective” that is more loving, more compassionate and from an understanding of the other person’s thinking. To get to this place, all we have to do is surrender our limited thinking into the hands of our Higher Mind. This alone will guide you to your resurrection.