The Mastery of Love

  "Finally, if you are aware that no one else can make you happy, and that happiness is the result of love coming out of you, this becomes the greatest mastery of The Toltecs, The Mastery of Love.

We can talk about love and write a thousand books about it, but love will be completely different for each of us because we have to experience love. Love is not about concepts; love is about action. Love in action can only produce happiness. Fear in action can only produce suffering.

The only way to master love is to practice love. You don't need to justify your love, you don't need to explain your love; you just practice your love. Practice creates the master".

The Mastery of Love: A Practical Guide to the Art of Relationship (Toltec Wisdom) by Don Miguel Ruiz

How could you practice love this week?

How To Strengthen Your Willpower

Happy New Year! I hope you had lovely time over Christmas and the New Year celebrations. I know it's often not the best of times; we are reminded of who is not with us any more, what has not worked out so well over the past year and any kind of other lack can feel like it's put in the spotlight.

The past couple of years have created lots of upheaval and unplanned change for many of us. Through these times though we have grown and have had the opportunity to connect with who we really are and to discover what is important to us. 2013 is a year for love and abundance. Many of us have read about the law of attraction and manifestation over the years, now is the time to use it fully and have the power to create what we want in our lives. Love and abundance are part of the energetic shift that was going on in December, which many people spoke about being the end of the world because the Mayan calender ended. This of course wasn't the case but just an opening for new energy to come down to our planet. It's up to us what we do with it, we can ignore it and carry on as usual or we can choose to utilise it.

Use this brilliant time to be loving to yourself and every being you come in contact with. Use it to set your intentions for the year and to spend time thinking about what you'd like to create in your life. Be aware of not being attached to your dreams, set your desires free and trust what ever happens will be for your highest good.

Around this time of year people think about things they want to give up or begin, i.e. New Year Resolutions! I read in The Metro this week that a study shows that 4 out of 10 people will break any resolutions they set with in 2 weeks! Half of them blame lack of willpower for this.

I regard willpower as one of the most important muscles we have. If you work on strengthening it you will be able to achieve anything you put your mind to. Following are my top 5 tips to strengthen your willpower!

1. What ever habit you want to start doing do it for 21 days and it will then become easier. It takes 21 days to create new neural pathways and thus create a habit.
2. Give yourself choice. Spend time to think about what is most important to you in your life, what you are committed to and then when ever you are being tempted ask yourself does it fit in with that? It is in alignment with what you want for your life? If not then you have a choice, you can either do it anyway and accept that you have or you can stick to what is important for you. For example I am committed to being an inspiring yoga teacher for my students, there are some days when I may not be in the mood to practice or perhaps just want to pig out on  unhealthy food. So when faced with temptation I have a choice. More often than not I will choose yoga and a healthy diet but every now and then I choose the latter, and just enjoy it for what it is.
3. Take any negatives out of your language. If you tell yourself "I will not eat chocolate today" your mind does not hear the not! Have you found the nights you go out saying "I'm not going to drink tonight" are the nights you end up with a bad hangover the next morning? Instead tell yourself how you would like to be instead, eg "I fill my body with healthy energising foods" or "I am clear headed, refreshed and revitalised".
4. Freedom is one of my highest values so any kind of discipline used to send me running for the hills. However I have since learnt that discipline is actually the path to true freedom. For example, one aspect of freedom to me is to be able to travel how ever if I am not disciplined with my money and health I won't be able to do that. Following a discipline such as yoga, martial arts, tai chi, meditation will help you to strengthen your willpower, which then gives you the freedom to do what you want in your life.
5. What ever it is you want to do, just start it. Often the biggest set back is getting started but once you have and you build momentum it will become easier.

Something else I find helpful to keep my intentions in mind is to stick post it notes every where! "I am healthy and full of energy", "I look after myself", "I live every day abundantly", "I am love and courage", "I eat and drink only what is good for me" .....and so on.

Just to let you know I am running some special offers this month to help you kick start your New Year, click here to see them all.

Love and abundance to you all xx

How to Live Every Day Abundantly

I have recently completed a 21 day meditation course with Deepak Chopra on Abundance, which explored what it actually is and how live every day abundantly. Since starting it new work opportunities have flowed to me, my sense of connection to the universe has strengthened and any thoughts around lack have faded away. I can't recommend this course enough!  If you'd like to take part it in yourself you can download it here.

Today I would like to share with you a few things I learnt from the course exploring how to live every day abundantly.

To notice abundance pay attention to nature

The universe is abundant; take time to notice the sunlight sparkling on the water, the birds building their nests, the trees gracefully swaying in the wind, the rain falling to nourish hydrate the land, flowers opening to the sunlight. Nature doesn't feel a sense of lack, it simply evolves moment by moment. Take time daily to be present and notice all the beauty and magic that surround us.

Only you have the power to stop abundance in your life

Your thoughts are the only obstacles to living abundantly day by day. Scarcity, lack and fear will hold you back from appreciating all you have in your life right now.  Take time to pay attention to what you have in your life, what you are grateful for. Ask yourself if you were living abundantly what would you be doing differently? If you have faith all your needs would be provided for how would you be acting? Then do that!

Affirmations, prayer, meditation, intention, taking action towards your dream will all help you keep in a positive abundant mindset.

Change your expectations

What you expect is likely to become your reality. If you expect life to be hard it will be! What abundant expectations could you create? "Money flows to me", "All I need is provided for", "There is an infinite source of abundance", "Everything I want in my life already exists I just have to access it".

What you want it already out there; love, money, happiness, freedom. Take time to go within, meditate and connect with the infinite source.

Give away what you want the most

You want love? Give love. You want more money? Give away some money. Giving away what you want the most will trick your mind into feeling like you have it to be giving it away so you will start to experience what it feels like to have it and this will help you to attract it.

We are all connected

So often if someone in your life gets something you would like for yourself you can be left with a sense of there won't be enough of it left for you. "They have it so that means I won't be able to". The universe is abundant, there is enough for everyone. We are all part of one pure consciousness, others wins are ours too.

The power of meditation

Taking time to go with in and dream of all you want to create in your life will help to send your intention out to the universe, it will help you to notice ways of making it happen through out your day to day life. When you connect to your centre, you feel a sense of peace, that all is well. Which it is, it's just our busy mind that makes us think otherwise!

Pay attention to gifts

What do you perceive as a gift? Pay attention to all the gifts that are bestowed to you each day. The gift of sight, hearing, intelligence, the food you have to eat, the opportunities you are given, the time someone makes for you. What gifts do you have to share with others? When you really think about it everything is a gift, even what you make perceive as negative can be a gift to learn and grow.

Value yourself enough to experience luxury

Do you value yourself enough to take a long soak in a bath, go out for tea (and eat a huge piece of cake!) with a friend, to spend the afternoon walking along the beach, in the cinema. Luxury does not have to be expensive, it's those little things that make yourself and others feel valued.

Pay attention to the choices you make

Are the choices and decisions you make always for your highest good? Take time to think about how you make them and how to ensure they are supporting you in what you want for your life.

These are just a few things I enjoyed from the course, like I said above I really recommend it! If you have any thing to share about how you live your life abundantly I would love to hear it, please comment below.

Namaste x

The Power of Your Thoughts…. Part 2

One week on and here are the results of my Big Apple Experiment. I have to say it was an interesting exercise to do, it’s not in my nature to think hateful thoughts and I don’t often experience anger so for most of the week I simply ignored the hate apple, every now and then telling it how horrible it was. Then feeling quite guilty, so sending that guilt to it too! Until just the day before I was going to finish the experiment when I had the most frustrating phone call. You know the ones where you are passed around and the person on the other end of the line is faking compassion but not really helping at all. Well after I got off the call I off loaded all of my annoyance on to the poor apple….that is when the poor thing really took a turn for the worse. I am sure you can guess which apple is which. The love apple is the least mouldy one.

If you’d like to see other peoples results you can see them via Nikki Owen’s (who created this experiment) facebook page.

How amazing is this to show the effect our thoughts have? As I mentioned last week an apple has the same % of water content in it as a human being.

If feelings of guilt, hatred, anger, frustration rot an apple what effect is it happening on us and those we direct it too?

We all have an awareness that love and gratitude make us (and those around us) feel good, they make our heart sing and our energy rise.

I read a great quote by Wayne Dyer this morning who write extensively about the power of your thoughts and intention;

“If you become what you think about, and you’re thinking about what’s wrong with the world and how angry, ashamed and fearful you are, it stands to reason that you’ll act on those thoughts and become what you are thinking about.”

A great practice every day is to spend a few minutes in mindful meditation thinking about all that you are grateful for. The deeper you look into what you are grateful for the more you find. For example the food you have to eat; give thanks to all the people who grew and produced it for you, who delivered it to the shops, the people who opened the shops and served you so that you could buy it, the money you had to pay for it, your health to be able to go buy it, the equipment you have in your kitchen to prepare it, the light you have in your home to see make it, the goodness the food gives you, being able to have a choice about what you have to eat……you get the idea.

It’s so easy to fall in to thinking about lack, what you don’t have, what is not good enough but doing this simply magnifies it and becomes your reality.

As well as gratitude thinking about those you love it a lovely daily thing to do. Personally I like to sit in a comfortable cross legged position, with my hands in prayer at my heart centre. I allow a little air pocket in between my palms and start to fill it up with thoughts of all the people and animals I love, when it is full to the brim I slowly open up my fingers like flower petals and visualise sending that love out to all of them.

Just two nice little daily routines to fill you with love and gratitude.

Enjoy your day xx

The Power of Your Thoughts

The Power of your thoughts: Life Coaching

Through the 1990′s Dr Emoto, from Japan, ran a series of studies on the effects of words, prayer and music on water crystals. He filled different containers with water and gave them different labels such as war, peace, love, thank you and you make me sick. He prayed over some and played different types of music to others.

Next he froze them and took photographs of the different crystals that were forms from each container. The effects were incredible, the crystals that had been prayed over, sent love and gratitude to were beautifully formed where as the ones that had been sent words of hatred or simply ignored were fragmented, dark and quite ugly in comparison.

You can read more about and see photos of Dr Emoto’s experiment via his site.

Why is this relevant to us? Well our bodies are made up of about 65% water. If the water crystals react so differently to different thoughts, sounds and prayers imagine what happens to us humans?

I attended a brilliant course last week called An Audience with Charisma, the creator of it Nikki Owen has devised an experiment for us all to test the water crystal theory. It’s called The Big Apple Experiment. You cut an apple in half, put one half in a jar labelled HATE and another labelled LOVE. For the next week or so send love and hate/frustration/fear/guilt to each respective jar, then check out the results. It’s really quite amazing.

Why apples? They have the same amount of water in them as we do.

I am currently doing my Big Apple Experiment and will post photos of the results when I have finished.

What you say to others and yourself has an impact on a deep level. Take care of your thoughts and words.

xx

Words to Watch Out For!

  Our human mind is very quick to make us feel bad about ourselves if we are not careful. You would think we would only nurture and say kind things to ourselves but sadly this is not always the case. We can have a tendency to knock ourselves when we are down. Simply being aware of this and watching out for a few sneaky words that creep in and made us feel bad can change all this though.

Following are a few words and phrases to watch out for;

IF; “If only it had been different”, “If only I hadn’t done X” If only keeps us stuck in the past. “What if X happens” is where our mind is running of into the future worrying about the “what if’s”when they haven’t even happened yet and may never do. It’s a really waste of our energy, right now is where we create our future so instead focus on what you can do in the moment to steer you in the right direction.

Should/Ought; When I am coaching someone as soon as I hear the word should, I hear alarm bells. Anytime you feel like you “should” do something it’s usually when you are trying to live by someone else’s values. What your friends would do or your parents think you ought to. It will always condemn you as to do something that is important to someone else but not yourself will never feel right, your motivation to succeed won’t really be there and you could be setting yourself up for failure. Instead look to what you really want, how you feel is right to behave and follow that. Only you know what is best for you and it doesn’t have to be the same as those around you.

Enough; “ I'm not good enough”, “I am not slim enough”, “I am not good looking enough”, “I don’t have enough”. Compared to what? The word enough leaves you feeling in a world of lack. Instead focus on what you do have, what you are grateful for and all your great qualities you have to offer.

Always/Never; “I always”, “I never”, these two sayings provide such an easy justification to keep behaving the way you are and to condemn others. It’s not true and we are not that consistent.

Can’t; This little word cuts of possibility, anytime you find yourself using the phrase “I can’t” ask instead “How can I?”.

Therefore/which means; Our human minds automatically search for the meaning of any event, and often when we are not given the meaning we make it up. However it is not always the truth! EG “He didn’t call which means I did something wrong/ he doesn’t like me/ there is something wrong with me”. “I did not help that old lady across the road therefore I am a bad person” “I got cross with my child therefore I am a bad mother”. Be careful of the assumptions you make they are not always accurate and we are very quick to make an event mean something bad about ourselves.

When X happens then I will be X; “When I get my pay rise then I will be happy”, “When I get on holiday then I will relax”. How about if you were to be happy or relaxed right now? Don’t put off your feelings to a later date, it may never happen. Pay attention to the things you say to yourself and make sure they support you rather than setting yourself up to feel bad.

The Power of Colour

In my earlier post this month about What is Reiki? I detailed the different energy centres called Chakra's we have running through our bodies. Each Chakra has a different function or effect on our body, mind and emotions. For example our heart chakra links to how open our heart is to give and receive love, how we are around relationships and how compassionate we are. There is a colour associated with each Chakra and you can utilize these colours through what you wear to bring your attention to what area you would like to focus on, heal and express to the world. Using the example of the heart Chakra, wearing the colours green or pink, especially around your heart will help to heal and open your heart to love. Rose Quartz, Aventurine and Malachite crystal pendants are perfect for this.

Following are a list of the seven Chakra's, their corresponding colours and how to translate them into what you wear:

1. Root - Security, fear, survival, grounding and physical energy. Brown or Red. Brown is psychologically seen as a very grounding earthy colour. Wear red to overcome fear and demonstrate your power and self confidence.

2. Sacral - Action, sexuality, peace and creativity. Orange for creativity, peace and energy (action) and Red for sexuality.

3. Solar Plexus - Emotion, power, wisdom and action. Yellow is well known for being a happy colour, try wearing a yellow top and be miserable! People tend to react positively when they see someone wearing yellow, it's a natural response.

4. Heart - Love compassion, life force and relationship. Green and Pink. Pink it well known for romance, femininity and love.

5. Throat - Self expression, creative energy and sound. Blue, it's such a calming colour and turquoise is great if you are in a situation where you want to ensure you communication is clear.

6. Brow/ Third Eye (inbetween eyebrows) - Intuition, intelligence, light and telepathy. Purple is seen as a spiritual colour, also as one of royalty. Amethyst is a great stone to wear to calm the mind, remove headaches and help you sleep.

7. Crown - Spiritual vision, enlightenment and positive energy. White for it's purity and it's perceived links with spirituality.