Empowering thoughts - Gratitude

Previously I had promised you a blog on empowering thoughts. There are many thoughts that are powerful, one being thoughts of gratitude. Gratitude is the key to our hearts. With gratitude we open up ourselves to feel love for who we are and what we already have. Without gratitude for where we already are in life, we can never move forward, because we are then in fact resisting our own being, our life, our journey. Being grateful creates a spiral upwards, where the more you are grateful in your life today, the more you will attract/draw to yourself to be grateful for tomorrow.

I’d recently completed a gratitude challenge on facebook. The challenge was to post five things I was grateful for in a day for 1 week. I could not repeat a gratitude and it had to be something I truly felt grateful for. This has been a big learning experience for me and I’ve gotten so much out of it. On the first couple of days, I had posted the things that I was usually grateful for, my families health, the support around me & the opportunities that present themselves. After these first couple of days, I had to start really thinking about what I was grateful for outside my general spectrum. Things that came to mind were things I hadn’t really considered before, like the music that puts me in a great state of mind, for time and that I have clean air and water. It made me realise there are so many things in life that just work out I had been taking for granted.

Also, I learned a lot about the people around me. When I was expressing gratitude, it made the space for others to step up and do the same. The change we can inspire in others is powerful and this is just one example of that.

I put you all to the gratitude challenge! So tell me, what have been your wins out of expressing gratitude?

The Mind-Body Connection

I was in my health psychology class this week when the lecturer started discussing somaticizers. A somaticizer in psychology terms is described as someone who experiences distress and conflict through bodily symptoms. She spoke about it as if only certain individuals experience this and is unusual to find. Now no offence to my class or the teacher, but to me this makes perfect sense! The mind and body have an incredible connection and feed off of each other. When you feel anxious, your brain sends signals to the body and it responds to these messages. Some start hyperventilating, others get clammy hands, the way it presents can vary, but the point Im making is that we all experience somaticism to some degree. So why is this not recognised on greater scale illnesses?

Masaru Emoto is famous for his experiments showing the effects mere thoughts have on water droplets before they are frozen. This was achieved through prayer, music or attaching written words to the container of water. The water crystals changed depending upon the words or thoughts given to the water. The two images above are of water crystals, the left exposed to music, and the right exposed to the words "You make me sick. I will kill you".

More than half of a humans body weight is contributed to water, and the body is physically connected to the mind... which brings with it the idea that this effect can be seen within our own bodies, if not on a greater scale! Our thoughts are so powerful to our life and what manifests. However most people are blind to this knowledge, or have no idea how to use thoughts to their advantage. Recognising this connection is the first step to maintaining good health and well being. Empowering thoughts will be discussed further in next weeks post, but for now I want to leave you with the challenge to start recognising your thoughts on your own body and how this could be contributing to your life. You can share your thoughts and comments below.

Believe

Beautiful poem I have read and want to share with all. Enjoy!

Believe: By Chelsea Varvaro

Believe in Love

Believe in Faith

Believe in Truth

Believe that no matter what happens, you have the power to prevail

Believe in Strength

Believe in Courage

Believe in Honor

Believe that everyone has the power to be good at heart

Believe in Song

Believe in Dance

Believe in Culture

Believe that no matter who you are or where you’re from- everyone is unique

Believe in things you never would

Believe in doing things you never could

Believe in achievement

Believe that if you think you can, you can- but if you think you can’t, you won’t.

Believe in the damned

Believe in the degenerate

Believe in the corrupted

Believe that evil does exist in many forms, but all can be overcome

Believe in spiritual

Believe in holy

Believe in sacred

Believe that your personal values can never be taken from you

Believe in mad

Believe in depressed

Believe in suicidal

Believe that one smile can save a life

Believe in magic

Believe in hope

Believe in dreams

Believe that the unbelievable happens everyday

Believe in time

Believe in forever

Believe in YOU

Believe that as long as you believe in yourself- anything is possible

Magic Dust

I've found that in todays day and age, there are people in the world searching for the missing ingredient.... the thing that will make their life magical. Like winning the lottery, taking a weightloss pill or rubbing a magic lamp will solve all our problems and only then can we be happy.

Im here to let you in on a secret.... We are the magic dust! If you're looking for something better or something to change in your life, the first place you should look is in the mirror. It all starts with us, the person. If Galileo waited for someone else to sail across the globe to determine the world round or for some magical force to deem it true, we might still be of the mind that the world is flat and fall off if we go too far!

We are in control of what we be, do and have in life. The first and foremost clue to know if you're on the right track is to be doing something that you are passionate about, something that makes your heart sing!

This searching for magic dust is something I've been familiar with. I spent years training and competing in a sport looking for magic dust.. looking in the program, the next diet, my coach, books, the latest training gear.. the list goes on! Only have I discovered now by venturing out into the world and becoming an entrepreneur that we create our own odds. By our conviction, belief and knowing in our heart its real for us and taking the actions necessary, we can make all our wildest dreams come true.

Share the magic you've had in your life on this blog, I'd love to hear your stories.

Happy Bank

This is something I have started using when in those moments where things aren’t going my way and my energy levels start to fall. It’s important to be on the same frequency of what we want... the easiest way for me to explain this is if you have just bought a new car in the colour red, all the red cars driving past you will start to stand out. This applies to our mood - when we are negative we find more stuff to bring us down, and when being happy and in flow we find more things that go our way.

The happy bank is an idea that I came up with for those times where I’ve needed to remind myself of all the awesome and truly wonderful things that I have in my life, so that I feel happy and draw more of this to me. This needs to be a powerful memory or desire, something that creates a strong emotional response within you, otherwise it wont snap you out of it.

Here are some things saved in my happy bank....

Cuddling my beautiful god daughter

Trekking around the UK, exploring and having fun

Visiting the Lindt chocolate factory in Switzerland... and yes the bag was my take!

Spending time with Friends....

Arleena and myself on a Kayaking adventure!

Bungy jumping in Macau with Ali

Whats in your happy bank? Start depositing and the interest you receive on it will start to multiply!!

The Ripple Effect

Today I am asking you to stop and think about the influence you have on your world. We have all thought about how we have been effected by our environment before - the person driving in front of us too slow, a boss giving us a hard time, or a friend who brightens up the day. But rarely do we think about the influence we have. It's like a ripple, starting with us and radiating out into the world.

A friend told me a story once about someone whose life was not going well. He felt like he didn't have a friend in the world and had nothing left to live for because no one was ever nice to him. So on this particular day he had decided enough was enough and he was going to end his life. On the way to the cliff top that he was going to jump off, a complete stranger, smiled at the man and wished him a lovely day. That act stopped him from jumping and his life went on to turn around, he met the love of his life and had a family. He had said he wished he could tell that stranger the impact that their smile and kind words had on him that day.

You never know how much your influence may mean to someone.

So smile...it’s contagious!

What are your Energetic Investments?

It's the smallest changes we make that have the biggest influence in our life. It's the changes that come from within that dramatically change our reality.

This is exactly how it happened for me, the smallest change I made within myself had a dramatic impact on how I'm able to create success now.

One day I was writing out my budget for the fortnight and started to fall into the trap of feeling like I was getting no where, I had all these 'expenses' and felt helpless in creating the results I desperately wanted. I thought back to all the concepts I'd learned since getting into personal development, and one stood out in my mind very clearly 'What you think about, you bring about' (from The Secret). In my life this was exactly right. I had been focusing my energy on 'expenses' and feeling lost... and guess what... that's all I was creating! From there I took it upon myself to create the life I had been dreaming of no matter what. Then I asked myself the question, where is my energy going? Clearly with money I was caught up in expense land and had not even considered money as an investment. So I changed the way I thought about using money from an expense to an investment. Thinking about things as an investment emphasizes the decision making process and that you get value from making this decision. I was choosing to invest money into things like food to sustain me and my education to grow as a person. Doing this changed the energy I placed on money into a positive and I'm now able to create more of this in my life as a result.

I didn't stop with money, I started to look at all areas of my life as an investment. Everything is energy. A thought, an action, a conversation, a dollar bill = ENERGY

Take the time to think about your investments. Grab a pen and write out:

What do you invest your time in?

What are your finances invested into?

What are your emotional investments?

What relationship investments have you made?

What investment have you made into your own happiness?

Now look over your answers and ask - What is my return on my investment? Does this bring me closer to what I want out of life?

By doing this you can start to recognize where you can turn around your whole life, just by changing the investment you had previously made to one that better serves you. For instance, start investing energy into being grateful for what you're happy about instead of investing energy into being resentful for what you're unsatisfied with.
This concept has made dramatic changes in my life and I hope it does the same for you.

Constipation of the mind

At first procrastination and constipation may seem quite different and strange to discuss. But today I am asking you to take a closer look. Procrastination is the art of delaying action when the opportunity is there to do so. Before starting my business I suffered from this in my studies at University and I must say I really cheated myself. Instead of planning out what study I would do for the whole semester, I would do this in lots, then I would miss a few items of study, then I would need to add in extra hours, and in the end I was staying up till 3am to finish an assignment due in the morning.

Once I had started my business the layout was made in a similar fashion. I planned out week by week and wrote down tasks and action I needed to take each day. The strange thing was, I completed everything… and added in tasks along the way! This was a rewarding feeling I must say, but the main difference between my studies and my business was that I enjoyed doing my business. When studying it was if I had to force myself out of bed to get behind a text book, and now I am bursting at the seems with excitement throughout my day running my business.

When thinking about constipation, it is a blockage of the body systems. And what do we think procrastination is? To me the best way to put it is constipation of the mind… A blockage between oneself and the outcome residing in the mind! In my case, I did not enjoy my studies, lacked motivation, and did not take it upon myself to change this. Other blockages that come to mind common in society are belief in oneself, worthiness, belief in the universe providing it and like me, people simply don’t enjoy what they do, yet continue to do it anyway! So next time you find yourself on the couch, making excuses to not do something, stop, and ask yourself ‘Why am I avoiding this really?’ because constipation of the mind is the worst kind and might be the one thing you need to overcome to have the life of your dreams.

Allowing the good stuff

From the beliefs held in modern society today, many have not allowed themselves the pleasure of wanting what they truly desire (or believing its possible for them to have it). Potentially, this is from a lack of belief in ones ability, or not seeing in any way how it could ever manifest. Whatever the reason, it is one of the fundamental causes preventing us from having what it is we want.

The truth is rarely spoken, that if our mind can conceive it, and we believe it, we can achieve it! We must be ok with allowing the good stuff, the things we want most to manifest in our life. At first when I heard this concept I thought 'of course I'm ok with receiving what I want'. Yet its only been recently I discovered I had not allowed myself to have success for myself due to an old, contradicting belief... that I must do everything completely different to what I do now to have success. Upon this discovery, I have let go of thinking I need to change, and the success I have been able to create for myself in these short days is mind blowing!

So go on, allow yourself to dream big, you never know... it might just happen!

Courage to take the journey

A wise man once said "It is not the destination that counts, instead, it is the journey". There are many paths we can choose to take in life. These paths can lead us in the direction to what we desire, and others can lead us away. Sometimes the hardest path to walk is the one that gives us everything we dream of. It is easy to stray from this path in times of uncertainty and doubt... it's easy to listen to the naysayers, easy to fall down and stay there. It is even easier to justify these actions, to blame others for these experiences we face and lose direction of what is most sacred to us.

It takes true courage to persevere in these times, to hold onto the belief that you have within your heart, to stand up for what you believe in and to face these challenges with the knowing that this is part of the journey, and makes it worthwhile. Giving oneself the permission to take this journey is the first step to living it. I encourage you all to give yourself the permission to take you journey, unlock the courage inside you and do what is necessary to walk this path. Here are some things that have helped me along my journey.

1. Get clear on what you want: This not only helps you understand what you want and why, it helps establish a connection between yourself and your vision. By doing so, it will assist you in knowing the steps you will need to take to get closer to what you want.

2. Be the person you will need to be to have what it is you want: Many of us hold the belief that once we have what we want we will be a different person. The truth is we need to be a different person to have what we want. It comes down to the basic principle that if we want our external world to change, we first need to change our internal world (ourselves). For instance, in order to lose weight, one must change their lifestyle first, not the other way around. If we are unwilling to create change (or allow it into our life), then our results in life will stay the same.

3. Feel the feeling of having it now: Imagining ourselves surrounded in our vision has 2 main purposes. Firstly, it heightens our energy level to a place where we are able to manifest what we want. Lets face it, if a goal doesn't get you excited enough to get off the couch, you wont have the amount of power required to create it. Secondly, it changes our mindset to potentially see things we had not previously considered. A hidden way to take a step forward or move around an obstacle perhaps.

4. Put in place support systems: With success and change comes new challenges and obstacles to overcome. This is normal when creating new results and to assist you in times of doubt surround yourself with systems that enable you to keep moving forward. Surrounding yourself with like minded people who assist you along the way, keeping yourself reminded of why you want to achieve this particular result & continually recognizing the positive progress you have made so far are some ways of doing this.

Share your comments and experiences here. Make it a great day, you deserve it!