“Obstacles will not defeat me.  Even the most difficult of situations will yield to my resolve, persistence & determination.”  Leonardo da Vinci

At the beginning of last century Napoleon Hill wrote the ground breaking book, “Think and Grow Rich.” He said in the very first paragraph of the book, “Truly, ‘thoughts are things’, and powerful things at that, when mixed with purpose, persistence and a burning desire for their translation into riches or other material objects.” These words are still true today. Today when the world needs us to be passionate about our collective purpose – not just our own materialistic ideas. Today when we understand so much more about the energetic fields around us from the science of quantum physics. Today when we need to be persistent and not give up on the common good for mankind and the generations who are coming behind us.

Anyone who is ‘successful’ in some way, will tell you they have had to overcome some sort of challenge or obstacles along the path & often many times over.  If you think about learning to walk.  If we have normal physical anatomy, we would never have considered giving up on the idea of walking, we had to be persistent & overcome some knocks before we became proficient.  There would not have been any question about achieving that milestone. We all have it in us to believe in the future and work towards bettering ourselves, bettering circumstances for others aspiring to lofty universal ideals.

Think back to some time in your past when you have been tested & when you have come out the other end, you realize that your character has grown, leading to a strength you may not have recognized previously. From this growth, comes a confidence and optimism that your future could be all you think, as long as you are persistent and consistent. Think of a time when you have successfully overcome an obstacle because you have stuck with it, you may have had to reframe, refocus and redirect .  Realize that in those instances you were a victor & not a victim!  Make a resolve that you will use those inbuilt strengths to persist & surmount this new challenge yet again.

Enjoy being victorious!

“Enlightenment is a destructive process. It has nothing to do with becoming better or being happier. Enlightenment is the crumbling away of untruth. It’s seeing through the façade of pretence. It’s the complete eradication of everything we imagined to be true.”  Adyashanti

Wow! This feels a bit like the world at the moment. The crumbling of all we have known in recent times. The uncertainty, as things that we have taken for granted are no longer allowed or even exist. Most of us clinging to a past that wasn’t actually serving our needs any more, but because it is all we have known we are having trouble letting go. We are resisting the change in a world-wide frenzy of fear and panic. This is not only the fear of the virus itself but the fear of the unknown, a world that may strip us of certainty, of a sense that we only have to work harder, spend more hours away from the family chasing a life that we have believed is the only way.

Suddenly we are thrust into time with family. For me this is online as I am in my own wee bubble with no one risking, because of my age, to cast a shadow on the threshold. I too have worked hard. Not only physically, but on my health, my fitness and my inner understanding. But at the end of the day I am human, I have expectations that I am invincible, it’s not going to happen to me. Energetically I have been feeling the collective unease, so I have enrolled in a programme, which fortuitously goes over the month we are in lockdown. We are having deep meditation sessions which is really grounding me and helping me to accept that things are as they should be even though that can be a struggle at times, as so many things we have known could be eradicated.

Enjoy connecting to that part of you that never dies!

“Time is the coin of your life.  It is the only coin you have, and only you can determine how it will be spent.  Be careful lest you let other people spend it for you.”  Carl Sandburg

I wrote about this quote 5 years ago & today I have a different perspective.  All my life, I have felt the truth of this quote, right to the core of my being. Because of that I have filled up every moment with doing, believing that time was too precious to waste. This is still true, but with advancing years I’m realising that my time doesn’t have to be filled up with things I see I have achieved. Instead, I can see that connecting with my inner being is as beneficial & fulfilling. I went on a 2 hour call in the weekend that was titled, “Unwavering Stillness.” We were taken through 2 or 3 methods to drop into the serenity that is in all of us. I say 2 or 3 because we weren’t allowed to write notes as that would bring us into our physicality. Whenever I experience these types of group calls I leave feeling very ‘chilled,’ with a realisation that I need to do this more often.

I meditate most days and that definitely helps me cope better with what is thrown in my direction. But this is another level that I want to do more of – now that we’re going to be at home more, this might be the answer for me. I will still walk on the beach as long as the weather doesn’t turn nasty as it did on Saturday. I will still use some of my days to do some much needed sorting out of accumulated ‘junk.’ Actually my mother started sorting out her ‘stuff’ at about my age. I hope I don’t take as long as she did. It certainly can be a balancing act, balancing the yin or nurturing side of us and the yang or activity based side of us. Balancing what we want against what others want. Learning how to tune into our own body’s wisdom so we KNOW what we want rather than always doing what others want – setting some boundaries. Each one of us has our own journey that no one else has the right to try and live for us. Are you aware of the difference? Do you really KNOW when you are living your life on purpose? How do you know that? We all need time with Self to feel whole, to feel self-love and feel that sense of purpose.

Enjoy spending your coins of time getting to KNOW you!

New Zealand has made some tough decisions in the past 24-48 hours. Being an ’island’ country it is easier to control our borders to try and contain this virus that has got the world in its grip. Have any of you read the ground breaking book by Bruce Lipton, “The Biology of Belief”? it was written about 15 years ago by a doctor who taught medical students about the basics of cellular biology, but when he started looking at the quantum physics of the world, he realised there was more to life than he had been teaching. His research shows that all the cells of our bodies are affected by our thoughts. It is not only the life around us that causes stress but also our thoughts & beliefs. Regardless of how stress is caused the result in our bodies is the same, and stress causes about 90% of illness. The stress response in our bodies releases cortisol which shuts down the immune system to conserve the bodies energy to get away from whatever the perceived threat might be.

Fear is a big ‘turn-on’ of the stress response. The media, the pharmaceutical companies and governments are making sure we hear of the deaths. From all accounts these are mainly from people with compromised systems already. I don’t want to down play the loss for the families of those people, but those losses are a small percentage of reported cases & not a lot bigger percentage from the normal flu. Take all the precautions you need to, that are being promoted everywhere. Do everything you can to boost your own immune system to fight off any bugs you get whether the Corona virus or not. These all relate to good health practices – eat healthy foods, drink good water, meditation, exercise and a good night’s sleep. Avoiding fear and stress may mean reducing the amount of TV watching or Facebook scanning for the latest news.

I will leave you with a quote from Dr Bruce Lipton. “Please remember the truth of quantum physics, the most valid of sciences on the planet. Consciousness is creating your life experiences! Are you being conscious of disease… or of health? Wishing you all Health, Happiness and Harmony.”

Enjoy attracting health!

“Victory is knowing that you’ve done your best. If you’ve done your best, you’ve won.”

If you’re training for the Olympics & you don’t come away with the Gold medal when you expected to get it, it can feel disappointing even though you may have done your best. On the day though your best wasn’t good enough. I recently heard an Olympic hopeful talking about the sorts of conversations she had in her head. The sort that we can all have, regardless of what it is we are striving for. The ups on a good day of feeling you definitely have a chance and the downs on a not so good day when everything just seems too hard. In those moments the conversations of the committee in your head are about how useless you are, how you are not good enough and the questions relating to who do you think you are to be in the ‘race’ any way. The ‘race’ may be as simple as doing a presentation representing your company, learning a new skill that is outside your comfort zone or standing up for what you believe in.

On the other side of the coin, this young Olympic hopeful talked about walking the tight rope of believing in yourself so that you had a chance of winning, but at the same time bracing yourself for the loss so you can still hold your head high when things don’t go according to plan. An acceptance of the self who has done her/his best at the end of the day. These days children are all given certificates for participation. While this sounds great especially when they are younger, it can give them a sense of being a winner when actually they are far from it. When my children were little I can remember a drama teacher having no hesitation in telling these young kids what a bad job they had done, if indeed they had. I remember being quite shocked with some of the blunt comments that were issued. But I got the impression that the kids ‘got it.’ They understood they need to do more work or something differently if they wanted to advance up the ranks. But I do think it is hard when they are being judged from a subjective point of view. It’s not like they just didn’t run fast enough, it’s more about the judgement that on some level the ‘examiner’ doesn’t like me or my work.

Enjoy feeling the victory of having done your best today!

“I’m bold enough to use my voice and brave enough to listen to my heart and live the life I’ve always imagined.”

Does this quote speak to you at all? Do you feel like maybe you are not being heard or you in fact are not saying what you want to say? This may not be out there in the big wide world, but even if you’re not saying what is inside you to the people who matter – your family, friends, work colleagues, primary  love of your life! If you’re speaking your truth, why do you think that is? Have you a fear of spoiling the relationship, a fear that you might upset someone or it just feels too hard to say what you want and have the other person understand you.

In the past few days, I have been asked in face book groups that I belong to about the wins I have had in the past week. Sometimes we have been brought up to believe that expressing something good that has happened to us, to strangers, is blowing your own trumpet, tooting your own horn. Would you feel brave enough to tell the others in the group what has gone well for you, or would something stop you or cause you to water it down? I mean you might show others up, it doesn’t do to show off, what other reasons might you come up with that cause you to back down from sharing?

Are there times in your life when you are not really listening to what you heart is telling you? I had a situation recently where I was feeling uncomfortable. I had made a decision about this situation, but it had obviously not been the right decision for me to take. Having been brave enough to listen to the message my heart was giving me, I had to be bold enough to use my voice to step back from that situation which then enabled me to change direction and step into some new possibilities. Are there things going on in your life at the moment where you should be listening to the intuitive nudge, and giving voice to something you are really wanting to express?

Enjoy expressing your truth!

“Beware of destination addiction: The idea that happiness is in the next place, the next job or even with the next partner. Until you give up the idea that happiness is somewhere else, it will never be where you are.”

I’m in an online exercise programme that has a face book group for connection and interaction. Inevitably people are exercising to lose some unwanted weight and when they do, they are happy that they have achieved their goal. I haven’t been in such a supportive group before. Even if people are struggling for whatever reason, there is always a group of others who give them a pep talk, who encourage them and help them, at least outwardly, to accept the need to continue and enjoy ‘pushing play,’ as they all say. There are some who have a lot of weight to lose but the fact they have lost any weight at all is an achievement, and encouragement to continue. Most don’t want to seem negative so although they may talk of things not going to plan they are putting a brave face on it. But who knows what they are feeling under the outward optimism we are seeing.

At the end of the day you are the only one who knows if you are faking it or whether you do actually feel happy in the moment, even though you may not have achieved the outcome you really think you want.  What is the pep talk you give yourself to genuinely feel happy for others who achieved what you haven’t? Are you able to rely on yourself, no matter what, to be grateful for what is going on in your life and feel the happiness you know is going to maintain a better physiology? A better physiology is your heart rate, blood pressure, breathing and muscle tension. If you have to wait for something else to happen in your life or wait for someone to do something that creates your happiness, you have less opportunities to be happy and you could be waiting for the rest of your life. As the quote says, that happiness you seek will always be at the end of the rainbow, in a new job or a new partner, not in you right now, right where you are.

Enjoy finding the happiness from within and improving your physiology!

“If there are no ups and downs in your life, it means you are dead.”

A few years ago I was doing a trek in Nepal, and on the first day we were walking along the valley floor and the guide pointed upwards and said, “That’s where we are staying tonight.”  My heart sank, to see the height of the hill/mountain we had to climb.  But there was no alternative and we had chosen this particular route so that we could see the sunrise from the ‘top of the world,’ the next morning.   And what an experience that was, with hundreds of others from all parts of the world, joined with one common exciting purpose.  So the contrast was amazing! Yes it would have been easier to just walk along a flat path, but we would never have had that fantastic experience.

Life is also like that.  How do we get the contrast of light and shadow, of good times and ‘bad,’ if we only ever have one basic experience?  Life would become monotonous.  There is a natural Law of Polarity, which says, there are always 2 sides to everything. You can’t have an in without an out, or an up without a down. The rich tapestry of special moments wouldn’t be treasured, if we didn’t have some challenges to gives us the contrast.  Maybe even some pride in ourselves when we have overcome something that perhaps we didn’t know we could do.  It takes acceptance of both the good points we have and the points we would rather hide, to make us who we are and what we have to offer the world.

Enjoy staying alive with both the ups and downs in your life!

“You can spend your time alone re-digesting past regrets, or you can come to terms and realize you’re the only one who can forgive yourself, makes much more sense to live in the present tense”      Eddie Vedder

When I was a teenager, I remember thinking why should I forgive myself, what rights have I got to do that, when I’ve done something that others may have not liked. And I’ve hung in there with the judgement & criticism of myself, until the next demeanour came along. I saw the Catholics going to the priest for absolution of their sins & thought that was wrong because once they had that off their chest they could go out & do it all over again. I don’t know whether they did or not, but I’m sure they felt better about what they had done because the priest had done the sign of the cross over them & sent them on their way.

It has taken a long time to allow myself to forgive the things that I don’t like about what I have done. Let’s face it, in the scheme of things, they don’t really look too bad. If a murderer gets to turn their life around, then surely I should be able to do the same. Depends on my level of energy as to how much I can turn my back on those messages I had when growing up. Those messages that were trying to turn me into an upright citizen of this world. I’m grateful that I had an upbringing from parents who cared enough to remind me what society expected of me. But sometimes I wish those voices of judgement would stop. How much longer do I have to feel bad, when all I have to do is acknowledge that we all make mistakes right now & move forward.

Enjoy forgiving yourself & moving confidently on to the next step!

“Discipline is choosing between what you want now and what you want most.”

We have become such a ‘now’ society. In my parent’s day you didn’t buy anything on time payment, you saved up until you had enough to pay for it. Slowly but surely the urgency has crept in. As soon as the stores were able to set up finance plans we were putting all sorts of things onto a payment plan. Cars, whitegoods and even clothes – pay as you wear. The stores were doing more and more to capture our disposable income. Only it’s no longer disposable for a lot of people. Credit cards have taken over and it’s too easy to pay for something we really can’t afford. Whatever we have bought will be obsolete before we have paid it off. Are you measuring your success against you friends?

It was interesting over this past Xmas. Some family members gave the grandchildren some cash to put towards something they each wanted. The 5 year old had a short fall of about $4 and even though I was going over and the plan was to give some more while there so I could go shopping with them to spend it, he really didn’t get it. I’m not sure at what age they get that sense of waiting longer for something they want most. So he did some chores for Mum to make up the short fall to get his favourite toy. At the end of the day though he did pay cash so I guess he learnt that little lesson and did earn it first. They have done experiments with kids and tell them they can have one sweet now but if they leave it on the plate they can have 2 when the researcher comes back into the room. The majority cannot wait. What are you having to discipline yourself about, to wait until you have saved enough for whatever it is you want most. Our money mind set has a big part to play in all of this but that is a story for another day.

Enjoy choosing between now and delayed gratification!