“Irony is the gaiety of reflection and the joy of wisdom”
Anatole France

Do you ever tutt at the news?

I used to spend fifteen minutes or so, once or twice a day, watching the news, moaning about politicians messing things up, feeling horrified at human nature and getting frustrated about things that were way beyond my scope of influence. Then for a decade I pretty much shut myself off from the media and ignored it all. All that’s changed now.

Stepping Up

Back in February this year I wrote an article called Are you Stepping Up? At the time I wrote this emotive article I was considering taking my son out of education at aged thirteen, against strong opinion from family and friends. But there were two other issues on my mind that called me to step up too. I couldn’t write about them then, but I can now.

Back in February, when I published Are you Stepping Up? someone had just approached me with an opportunity. Meantime I was in discussions with someone else about new projects.

For now – so as not to confuse things – let’s just talk about the first opportunity.

At first glance it occurred to me that this opportunity wasn’t something I’d normally have gone for. But when I thought about it I realised that it wasn’t normally my thing because I knew very little about it. And while making one very informed decision – a la Stepping Up – I was on the verge of making this other decision in complete and utter ignorance.

Ironic, isn’t it, that I’d do that – make a decision in complete ignorance while at the same time making another decision in full knowledge, while writing an article which highlights the importance of making informed decisions!

Thankfully I’ve become aware enough to notice when I do silly things. So, I put a stop to my ignorance and got curious about this opportunity life has sent me.

To be honest, the decision facing me seemed even bigger than deciding to remove my son from school and taking all the resulting flack.

Perhaps I felt like it was all too much – all these big decisions in such a short time span. But when I began to explore this other opportunity, I came to understand something important about it and about myself.

Through my work I promote self-development and overcoming your personal obstacles. I believe that when we resolve our differences with our shadow personalities we can be of greater service to others since we approach things with a more whole and complete outlook.

But here I was, nice and content doing what I did, writing to my readers each week, drafting a book and coaching. That’s when the Universe gave me a nudge and said, ‘Oi, Neil, get off you’re butt.’

‘I am off my butt,’ I responded.

‘No you’re not,’ it said.

So, I set about researching the first opportunity. Oddly, I began to find it was entirely me. The I researched the other opportunity and discovered that that was entirely me too. Making the decisions, after undertaking some investigating, made the choices incredibly easy.

As a result of the first opportunity I become a Parish Councillor. This means making a contribution to my community, helping to care for my neighbours and the land that sustains us. It also means that rather than moaning about things, locally, that might have been outside of my control I can influence them, or at the very least understand why they turn out the way they do.

The second opportunity is about taking my work to a wider audience. My work is about helping more people find solutions to difficulties and hardships and then turn their life around and make gold out of all that happened before.

The reason why I feel I can now begin watching the news again is that I feel I’m contributing something that can help to create change. Viewed like this, the news becomes a resource that shows the next steps to take.

Breaking the Spell

Often our decisions can be made based on past results. If things didn’t go well in the past, we may have no good reason to believe that a new situation will turn out any better. This creates a belief. Also, new situations are unfamiliar and we may have reservations or even fears about them. The problem is: when our decisions are made based on past failure, future reservations and fears, it paralyses us and keeps us from moving forward.

It’s not uncommon for us to push aside an opportunity even before we’ve considered it, thus missing important information and obscuring us from empowering possibilities. This sends us back into a loop of more of the same hard-work and difficulties.

Continuing a loop is like being kept within a spell. If you are happy to continually experience the same things over and over this is fine, but if you want to transform your life you must lose the attachment, to what has happened before or what might happen in the future, and view the situation based on the present possibility.

A way to begin breaking the spell is to take two minutes every hour to quieten your mind. This allows what is happening to settle in your mind. Also when things get stressful, for example, when one of your children yells at you, you might decide to take a few moments quiet time before responding – kids can find silence more shocking than shouting!

With Love and good wishes

Neil

Letting go of your preconceived notions, self-limiting beliefs, and over-analyzing nature can lead to great freedom in your life both spiritually and otherwise. The act of letting go is far easier than most people believe it to be. This is in part due to the fact that most people tend to think rather than act upon this concept. Being intellectually aware and knowledgeable about letting go is not the same as actually doing said task. This was something I myself even after 16+ years of meditation have not always had the easiest time accomplishing. However, recently, this changed for the better.

To truly let go you must first understand what that is. In doing so one completely empties their mind of all the mundane chatter, creating a total stillness within no matter what the situation or circumstances one finds themselves in or subjected to externally. From this stillness one is able to simply observe what is going on both around them and within from the mind without actually grabbing hold of those thoughts and becoming inundated and bogged down by it.

It is within this silence that one truly let’s go. This is again far easier to do once one gets it. Most people tend to think they have to try and focus hard to accomplish this task, but in doing so generally create additional thought out of said focusing. This is ineffective at best, as it simply replaces the chatter, stress, daily goings on thoughts in one’s head with other thoughts centered around letting go vs. simply doing just that.

A good exercise to do while trying to let go, especially if it is a stressful situation one is trying to deal with, is to smile. The smile can be real or a fake one, it matters not. There is a physiologically connection between the body and one’s emotions. When you smile it is nearly impossible to feel a negative emotion. The next time you are trying to let go, sit in inner silence with a smile on your face. You never know what type of results you may gain from this very simple exercise. Enjoy the experience for what it is worth, and again try not to get bogged down by your own thoughts, simply let them slip through your grasp and move your attention from them as soon as they do.

Next thing you know you too will be letting go of all the negative things in your life and truly enjoy it all for what it is worth.

You must admit that to be successful in your work, you would have to deal with a lot of stress and anxiety regularly. The cutthroat business world we live in is filled with days where working constantly does not guarantee success.

Because of this the work atmosphere is always tense and competitive. Many individuals with great success potential find themselves feeling burned out and stressed to the point that even their body is reacting differently. Instead of feeling energized and excited, you will now feel tired, irritable and very much anxious.

Many people do not realize that to be successful in the business, you should be more relaxed. Effectivity can be achieved if you learn to manage business-related stress. When relaxed, you will be able to see things more realistically and clearly. Making decisions will be easier and you are less likely to make any mistakes because everything was thought of and discussed in a calm manner. If you look around, people with a more laidback attitude, usually becomes extremely successful in the business.

Being relaxed also builds up confidence, which is an important factor in business success. It could also earn you respect from your co-workers as well as deep admiration. With all these great benefits of being calm and relaxed in a business setting, you should try as hard as possible to achieve this.

For starters, you can learn to separate your personal life with your work life. As soon as you leave the office, you should make it a habit to relax and unwind and forget about anything related to your work. Another way is to be as organized as possible including planning your days ahead. You should also make time for activities like exercise or even a quiet dinner with a friend. These activities will help ease the work-related stress.

If you still feel stressed, even after following all these suggestions; your problem maybe solved by a visit to a qualified hypnotherapist. Being the latest treatment for stress and anxiety, it would help you by altering the way you manage work-related tension subconsciously. Your therapist will teach your mind to relax during stressful situations. Once your mind is calm, your body will follow.

Hypnotherapy takes only about a few hours and results are almost immediate. You will certainly feel less anxious and calmer. Depending on your stress level, it could take as little as one or two sessions to experience the effectivity of hypnotherapy.