Purpose & Pursuit: Hold Still & Allow It

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Cape Otway Lighthouse trail

On honeymoon recently, we stopped in to check out the lighthouse at Cape Otway. At first, it was any lighthouse attraction. Then, as the time went past, I realised there was more going on there from an energetic perspective (predominantly for myself) but there was also a lesson there that I’d like to share with you.

This tourist attraction had a small “park like” attraction set. A walk where you could find information on the area and it’s uses over the years. These included a Dinosaur hut with information on dinosaurs in Australia. A signalling station where the first telegraph line was set up between the mainland and Tasmania, a little mystery with a missing pilot who disappeared after reporting an craft that was “not an aircraft” hovering above him. A lighthouse, a cafe (with surprisingly good coffee) and a world war two radar dugout.

To set this up, I need to also explain that I somehow felt connected here. I saw trees along the way that were “dead” to the naked eye yet alive with energy. I somehow felt like I was meant to be there. As this post continues, I’ve put words in italics where there was a deeper message for me in this tourist attraction.

The dinosaurs at the time, was not my thing. I realise now that this was a little more meaningful symbolically as “Ancient” or “Primal“.

The signal station immediately had me guarding my energy without me even consciously thinking about it – I was just doing it. And the sound of morse code ticking in the background creeped me out. The signal somehow was instilling fear. In one of the rooms there was a piece on a young girl that jumped out at me and then in one of the rooms that smelt intensely of Frankincense, I could sense a woman in the spirit world, sitting in the corner sipping her tea. It was like me knowing she was there was our little secret. An interesting interaction.

Then came the information piece about the missing pilot who disappeared under mysterious circumstances. The mystery and the unknown.

Next was the light house. It was still in it’s raw way. The way it was built. Nothing fancy added other than a lick of paint or two. It was what it was. It still is what it is. It’s a lighthouse. It hasn’t become anything else to please the tourists who visit there daily, it has always been it’s self and there to full fill it’s purpose. To light the shore, to guide the ships that pass by.  Hold still at your core and you become a beacon for guidance to find you.

Now the dug out. While it seems to be all about war, for me it was about the word ‘radar’. A way of being in tune with what surrounds us. And the viewing lens was a reminder that perspective is always key. That by focusing on where we’re at right now doesn’t mean that all our wants and desires are not there, in fact, they are there, we just need to look further, look deeper, within, not outside of ourselves.

Then on the final little trial back to the beginning, was a spot that beckoned me to take a photo (which I’ve included above). It just felt magical, like a fairy garden. This was all about following the impulses of intuition.

Ultimately, this expedition was a lesson in mindfulness (which is perfect timing for my SoMM learnings). It was all about being where you are, being present and mindful and knowing that when you’re in that space, all mysteries open up to us and we can be more accurately guided and therefore in a better, more “still” position in which to hear that guidance and take inspired action when it calls.

 

If you want to know more about SoMM I’ll be posting some more insights soon. If your interest is already piqued then you can sign up here to be notified when enrolment opens in 2016:

Belinda Davidson's School of the Modern Mystic starts September 29th!

Perception & The Written Word

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When you read emails day in day out at work, it can become easy to begin to see these as human interactions. We make them more emotional, even reading them in our own mind in the tone of voice we perceive that person to have written the email.

When you write an email, do you write it with emotion? How do you feel when you write it? When you read it back do you read it in the tone you wrote it?

When you receive an email, do you read it with emotion? Do you read it with your emotion or with the senders emotion?

Here’s the thing. When people write to you, they express their opinions. From their perspective. With their history and experience as their filter.

When you read those emails, you read them from your perspective, with your history and experience as the filter.

Perceptions have the ability to make or break our day.

The trick is to step aside and remind yourself that when people are expressing themselves (their despair, their frustration, their elation) they are doing so from their perspective, in their opinion and in no way is that ever a personal attack or rubbing it in. People are entitled to feel the way they feel.  If you can do this, CAPITALS become just letters. Exclamation Marks !!!! become enthusiasm. And bold type becomes a pointer to say “hey, just letting you know that this is important to me.”

 

Monday Mantra:: I let go of conditions

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Monday Mantra I let go of conditions

Advertisements have them. Legal documentation has them. We have them too, whether we’re aware of it or not. It keeps us from enjoying life, from enjoying relationships, jobs, money, family, you name it. It keeps us miserable when we could be rejoicing and it haunts our psyche on a daily basis. I’m talking about the conditions, the expectations and the asterisk of our day to day lives.

Here’s how it works:

We want the career of a life time, that makes us fulfilled, that pays us well and that we love. *BUT we don’t want to move country to where that dream career is available.

We want that loving relationship, that meaningful connection with a person who makes us feel like a giddy teenager again. *BUT he/she has to be tall, slender and rich.

I love my man. *BUT I’d love him so much more if he did the dishes more often.

Really, we should be saying or focusing on the item, person or situation as it is and valuing it as it is. We should love it unconditionally.

Sure some conditions can be changed. Sure you can love it if it had more of something or less of something or if it was a different colour or in a different location but focussing on where it could be instead of where it is right now, lends it’s self to more internal stress and only further perpetuates the current situation. So if what you focus on further perpetuates the situation then perhaps we should be focussing on just how lovely it is right here, right now and further perpetuate the loveliness….

What conditions, caveats, asterisks could you let go of today that might allow you to enjoy your workplace? Your colleagues? Your transit? Your partner? Your family? just that little bit more?

As always, download and save to your desktop or phone or print it and pin it somewhere you’ll see it. When you see it, say it. And if you know someone who would also benefit from this mantra, share it.

 

A blank page and a blog a day

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I’ve been talking a lot about writing more. I’ve been talking more about writing than I have been actually writing.

Partly because I have an idea in mind of what I’d like to create yet I can’t quite get to typing. I think it’s because I fear I may not have enough to say on the topic. What if I begin and the words run out? What if I begin and I’ve said all I need to say in one chapter? What if I begin and it doesn’t stop?

I’ve not been trained in writing, I’ve just always had a bit of a knack for it. Greeting cards and brochures and informative pieces as well as self-help style. But there’s something big about setting out to write a book that daunts a writer like myself who often times has to sit for a good while before a Monday Mantra comes to me. Yet sometimes, I only need to open a blog post and the words stream out of me like it was sitting there all along or like the words were waiting to be picked up from the ether and placed into three dimensional form.

If I think too much about it, the words stop and crickets chirp. If I lay my hands on the keyboard and simply begin, the words fall out.

So here’s a thought, instead of setting out to write a book, I shall set out to write a “blog post” per day and allow that to form the book that sits in the back of my mind. I may publish one here and there as I feel called to do so but mostly I’ll keep them cocooned and  incubating until it’s fully formed, fully transformed.

So if you too have had a little idea toying with you and you find that you’re putting it off then perhaps writing your book as a series of Blogs instead of chapters may assist in making it a more realistic goal and if it’s more realistic then it’s not so scary to begin.

So begin.

 

Human Too: The Never Ending Onion

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Never Ending Onion Human Too

I often have clients come in and when they explain what’s going on, I know instinctively what they need in terms of a goal to work with in their Kinesiology session. They often wonder how I am so wise to know exactly what they need and how I know so much about everything their body is going through.

Here’s how I know. I’m human too.

Yes, I’ve done lots of work on myself and it may appear like I’ve got it all together but I still find myself working on old issues that I feel like I’ve been working on forever. It’s like I work on one level then the next priority level shows up for me to look at.

Often, and you’ll hear this from so many people, what ever it is that you struggle with or that you need to heal in yourself is often the very thing you can help people with yourself.

I can’t help people with boundaries for instance if I’m not constantly working through my own boundary issues. I can’t help people with self-confidence or money or presentation skills or starting their own business if I myself have not and are not continually working on these aspects myself. Would you take lessons in guitar for instance from someone who was just a natural and never really had to work at it? Do you think they’d fully comprehend what it takes to learn to read the sheet music? or the frustration that comes when you feel like you’re no good at it and you might as well throw in the towel now? or the elation that comes when you finally get that tune down without having to think about it so intently?

It’s human to be working through something on some level at any given point in time. Your practitioners know what you need because they have the answers, yes. And they have the answers because they’ve been there before. They’re human too.

 

Monday Mantra:: I Take A Daily Dose of Love

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Monday Mantra Daily Dose of Love

It’s so easy to dish out the negative self talk. It’s easy to have a go at ourselves for our short comings, our didn’t do’s, our “should have done”s. Yes, it is good to know where we might have improved. But it doesn’t do us good to beat ourselves up about it. If we do, we wear ourselves down. We get tired, we get emotional and we set that negative self talk into a self perpetuating cycle of self belief that we’re never good enough, or we never get it right or the classic “I always….” (insert your always, go to stance, reaction or way of being).

The fact is that to change this, we need to recognise that we’re sometimes going to get things wrong. We need to take from that any lessons we can in order to move forward and upward. And then we need to turn the perspective around and realise that more often than not, we did the best we could with the facts and details we had at the time. It’s about accepting where we were at, what we did or said and then choosing to learn from it. From there, it’s easier to begin to talk nice to yourself again.

Create yourself a gratitude jar or journal but make the topic specifically about you, yourself, your abilities, your qualities, what it is you bring into the world. That is, write something nice about yourself. You can even ask friends to contribute some nice thoughts about you too. This will be your “medicine” for self talk.

When you find yourself in a perpetual downward negative self talk cycle, prescribe yourself a daily dose of love.

Then, when you’re having a particularly down day, do a lucky dip into the jar or a random page open in a journal and see what all the lovely things are about you and allow that to begin to lift your mood and set you on the upward cycle again.

Remember, create your little jar of love notes to yourself, when you feel down, take a daily dose of love and allow it fuel your positive self talk.

As always, download and save to your desktop or phone or print it and pin it somewhere you’ll see it. When you see it, say it. And if you know someone who would also benefit from this mantra, share it.

 

Self Development Not for the Faint Hearted

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Self Development Quote Dana Atkin

Working on yourself can be HARD work. Especially when you’re fighting your ego the entire way and dragging yourself kicking and screaming towards change like a stubborn toddler throwing a tantrum. 

It is not easy. It was never meant to be. We’re re-wiring our brain, our beliefs and our attitudes and that’s hard stuff sometimes. We’re wried for survival and survival is all about keeping the status quo. So when we try to change things, we become that stubborn toddler who wants just 5 more minutes at the park. Who wants an ice-cream and who refuses to eat his dinner because he doesn’t want the potato on the plate (even though we know full well we don’t have to eat it just because it’s there).

We’re in routine. But routine can be mundane and routine is never changing and ultimately, we as humans actually like variety and change. We just don’t like the process it takes to get there because it’s not an easy transition.

Knowing it’s worth it can help. So too does having faith that it will all come together, despite the evidence to the contrary. Self development is not for the faint hearted but it certainly is for those who seek change and are willing to do the real work to get there. Tantrums and all.

 

 

Monday Mantra:: I Choose to Begin

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Monday Mantra I choose to Begin

So it’s the new year. It’s now 2016 and this year is going to be great. It won’t all be smooth sailing, no. It will include ups and downs and the seas may take you a little off course from time to time but that’s okay. That’s life. What matters most this year, this very day, is that you choose to begin. Choose to begin planning that big overseas trip, begin that new workout regime, being that new vision board, begin that new business venture. Begin.

It’s all well and good to set sail and aimlessly navigate your world but it has to be said that having an idea of what you’d like to see, of what you’d like to feel or experience this year will hold you in good stead and you’re more likely to see, feel and experience it. If you’ve got the biggest voyage planned for this year, then begin it now. In whatever way you can that makes it feel like this year it is totally possible. Because once you begin, you set wheels in motion and oars to the ocean and even if you don’t reach your intended destination, you’re set for a journey and you’ve already begun. If you’ve got the grand voyage in mind and you begin it now but change your mind or re-chart your course somewhere along the way, that’s good too. Begining now on your current dream means that even if that dream changes, you know you’re capable of beginning the new one too.

If you don’t begin on your voyage then you’ll certainly never arrive at your destination. So begin it and if the seas send you in another direction, then at least you’ve met your destination half way.

Now is the time. Begin now. In any seemingly small way you can, begin charting your course. A fabulous journey awaits you.

As always, download and save to your desktop or phone or print it and pin it somewhere you’ll see it. When you see it, say it. And if you know someone who would also benefit from this mantra, share it.

Monday Mantra:: I Seek Counsel

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Monday Mantra I seek counsel

 

Holding it all in may feel like you’re protecting those you love. You may feel like it’s silly to feel the way you feel or that somehow, they’ll judge you or perhaps they’ll react in a way that will make you feel worse, not better.

But holding on to thoughts and feelings means that eventually our tank gets full. It will either overflow, explode or even worse – implode.

Anxiety and Depression (especially depression) can be overwhelming. It can be feel like a bottomless pit and it can feel like a lonely experience. Yes, it’s also difficult to speak up about it too.

Here’s the thing. If you speak up, seek counsel on your thoughts, your fears and emotional space, then you have more opportunity to work your way out and back into the lighter side of life again. It won’t necessarily be easy but ultimately it’s worth it. Even the greatest warrior needs men at his side in order to do battle. So call on your people and ask them to stand with you, to walk by your side into the battle.

Thankfully, for me, I’ve only seen this from a step or two back from those effected by someone with depression. What I’ve noticed from my time as a Kinesiologist is that the thing that keeps us from a asking for help is the fear of “what will others think” or “I shouldn’t really feel this way” or “it’s selfish for me to feel this way when other people are struggling with real difficulties”. The difficulty you feel about your world is real to you. And that is real enough to seek counsel. You are entitled to feel the way you do and just because it may seem like other people have it harder than you, doesn’t mean you are any less worthy of support.

Seek counsel. Please.

Advice on how to have the conversation and who to seek counsel: https://www.beyondblue.org.au/get-support/have-the-conversation

________

Note: This Monday Mantra is written specifically about Anxiety and Depression however, seeking counsel can be a big game changer regardless of your situation. Keep in mind too if you ever find yourself on the end of a conversation where someone you love is seeking your counsel, to remain in listening mode and offer your support where you can and know that how they are feeling is not a reflection on you personally but simply, how they feel.
_______

As always, download and save to your desktop or phone or print it and pin it somewhere you’ll see it. When you see it, say it. And if you know someone who would also benefit from this mantra, share it.

Monday Mantra:: I Make New Moment Resolutions

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Monday Mantra New Moment Resolutions

I heard this term in some Abraham Hicks audio recently and it has stuck with me since. At this time of year especially we begin looking into the year that is about to transition into the next and then we hastily begin making new year resolutions before the old year is out.

Besides the lack of real consideration behind them, there is something a little lacking in the “expected” response to the age old question “What’s Your New Year Resolution?”. There are the usual types like Travel destinations, lose weight and get fit as well as the visit more, travel more, do more, be more etc. There are a few things that suddenly have clicked for me at the mere mention of the New Moment Resolution.

  1. The definition of the word Resolution.
  2. The Lack of meaning in them and
  3. The insistence that we wait until the new year to begin


The Definition
Some people have missed the definition of a resolution. These are definitions as taken from thefreedictionary.com:

  1. The state or quality of being resolute; firm determination: faced the situation with resolution.
  2. A firm decision to do something: made a resolution to get more exercise.
  3. A course of action determined or decided on: His resolution is to get up early.
  4. The act of solving or explaining a problem or puzzle.

Often our “resolutions” are made in haste and only ever skim the surface of what we’re really striving for. “Lose weight” for example is too loose and open to interpretation and at the mercy of life happening around us.

What we could say is this: I’ll make small changes through out the year to improve my opinion of myself and my body image. It speaks more to the humanity in us. The fact is that often when we make a new year resolution, we don’t sit down and work out how we’re going to make it happen, we don’t project plan it working out all the possible things that could go wrong and working out how we can mitigate that risk. The fact is that we start off well meaning and when life or work get busy or complicated, it often falls out the window and we fall off the wagon so to speak. Making small changes means we get to appreciate small wins. Which builds our confidence. And this builds momentum. It also allows us to focus on our own sense of self, not someone else’s idea of what we should or should not be doing for ourselves.

Remember that a Resolution needs to be a decision for a course of action that fills you with determination and solves a particular “problem”.

Meaning
What does it mean to you if you say your resolution is to travel around the country more? If you were doing this already, how would it make you feel? What would it bring to your life and your experience?

If you’re revolution is to lose weight, then when you arrive at your goal weight or at your fitness goal, how will you feel? How will you feel about yourself? What qualities will it install in you? what do you gain emotionally, spiritually, mentally, physically from achieving it?

Make your resolution meaningful for you. Include those meaningful feelings in your resolution.

Waiting for the New Year
Why wait? Why not begin now? Right now? If it’s important to you, it shouldn’t be something that waits for the new year. Why not work out what your resolution is, define it, give it meaning for you and then begin strategising? There is no time like the present and if it’s that important to us, then we owe it to ourselves to begin. Not next year, not next week and certainly not tomorrow. Begin it now.

Aks yourself: What will it take to achieve my resolution? Who do I need on my side for this? What do I need? How much time will it take given my current circumstances (time, family, work etc). How much do I want it? On a scale of 0 – 10 (o being not important at all to 10 being my number one priority for me this year) what importance is it to you? Do need any other help for this (Personal Trainer, Business Coach, Nutritionist or perhaps a Travel Agent)?

Write it down. Get a nice piece of paper and a marker or pen and write your resolution out like an affirmation. If you physically write it out, it seeps into your subconscious more easily. Write it and write it often.

Make a new moments resolution and get planning right now so that even if you don’t officially begin until the new year, you’ll be all set up and ready to hit the ground running from week one.

 As always, download and save to your desktop or phone or print it and pin it somewhere you’ll see it. When you see it, say it. And if you know someone who would also benefit from this mantra, share it.