life

Time for change 

Changing old habits are hard, I know. I have a million of them and each one is fighting for survival, wondering if they are next on my hit list of self-improvement. I’d just like to inform them now, in front of witnesses – that’s you guys – that I’m willing to negotiate. Even the thought of change can scare or put people off trying, so let’s try and approach the subject in a different way. Let’s not change, lets adapt. Let’s use what we already have and go on an adventure, let’s set tasks for our habits and use them to our advantage – keeping everyone happy. Self-improvement isn’t hard, it really isn’t: what’s hard is fighting with our past, but that’s a subject for another day. Ok, starting from today I want you to give your old habits a choice: they can leave, or stay and grow with you. Either way, life is going to improve with or without them. You are now in charge and it’s going to be fun from here on in.

Let’s start with gratitude. Yes you read correctly, let’s start a habit of gratitude for the next 40 days from the time you wake up in the morning until you fall asleep at night. Fill your day with gratitude: give gratitude for every possible situation that comes from being alive and seeing the sun rise and set – before you know it, gratitude will be a part of your normal day. The same principle goes for happiness, love, confidence, and respect, if we spend a few minutes or even seconds throughout our day working on these habits, our lives will improve fantastically – and all with minimal effort. All it takes is awareness of what’s happening throughout your day, instead of drifting aimlessly with no meaning. We have the ability to be whatever we want to be, all we need to do is work positively with our habits to create more of what we want and less of what we don’t. Remember; energy flows where attention goes.

Don’t believe the hype 

Don’t believe the hype

As you sit here reading this, your mind is probably telling you that you don’t need improvement: you are who you are and don’t go getting ideas above your station. It’s a part of our defensive mechanism, and is useful in keeping us safe from danger, but not so useful in helping us achieve our goals. In fact, it’s preventing us from doing so. We let our minds rule how we live. The constant chatter of total rubbish is defining who we are, and if we don’t take that control back then happiness and fulfillment will never truly be ours to experience. Take a step back and think of it this way: our person and our mind are two separate entities in one piece, and they can live in turmoil or in harmony, depending on how we react to them. I’m not saying that we are all schizophrenic, but I suppose it comes very close.

Our thoughts and feelings create the life we live, and by taking charge of our thoughts and feelings we can genuinely mould and sculpt a happier, more joyful, healthy future. But we have to really want it. We all have a story; a story we have made up to justify why we do things or why we don’t do things, a story that is usually full of excuses and self-pity, and we live it out accepting everything it says about our capabilities. But the story of our lives is just that – a story, and it can be rewritten anytime you want. It can take any shape, take any direction, because you are the writer and you have full control over what happens; all you need is the courage to believe in you, the courage to stand up to yourself and say ‘I can do that, I am more than this, I can achieve anything if I really want to’. We are the creators of our own destiny: it’s time we all woke up and started living.

Meditation 

I have been dipping in and out of the practice of meditation for a number of years, and have found it to be an amazing way of helping me take a step back and look at my life in a totally different way, opening my eyes and my soul. It’s helped me bring back clarity and peace to a very hectic, unhappy life that kept me from being myself. It’s been a long and difficult trek, let me tell you!

​Mindfulness of meditation didn’t come easily to me. I went to class after class trying my hardest to connect with my subconscious, but the harder I tried, the further away I was getting from my goal. You see; it took me a long time to realize that mediation was a deeply personal experience, and no one can teach us how our mind works. We have to find our own way forward. I’d spent goodness knows how much money on classes run by people who are only showing me how they found the way, and I believe that the only people getting any kind of benefit were the paid teachers. Paid for leading me in the wrong direction. I’m not saying don’t go to classes, as they are a good place to learn the basics and meet like-minded people, but don’t go wasting time and money going on someone else’s journey. We all have the ability to meditate: each and every one of us. I believe we have had it since the day we were born, it’s just been bred out of us with education and TV and the hectic lives we lead. We are all spiritual beings with a connection to the universe, we are made of star dust the same as everything in existence, and are capable of great and magical things. All we need do is believe in our own ability to live. There are lots of free videos and articles on the internet that can help you get started; the information is only a fingertip away from you. There is no right or wrong way of meditating, only your way.

Here is a short Meditation video that will help you along the way.

Use your imagination 

Imagine: you haven’t a care in the world, you are sitting on a nice warm beach. It’s not too hot; there is a soft breeze cooling you down along with a refreshing, iced drink at your side. Sit back and feel the sun on your face. Take a deep breath and soak up that feeling of relaxation you have just created with your own mind. I love using visualization techniques; not only do they brighten up my mood, but they give me clarity, and – most importantly – I use them to help shape my future.As a child I was forever being told to stop daydreaming and to pay more attention to the real world; but what is the real world? Each and every one of us lives in our own reality. We all have different belief systems that determine what kind of life we lead – good or bad. I look at things differently to you, a poor person’s realty is totally different to a wealthy person’s, somebody living in the city has a different reality to someone who lives alone in the countryside. You know what I’m getting at when I say realty is different for everyone. What if I told you that the reality you live in is totally under your control? That you can shape and guide it in the right direction any time you want? What if I told you that through the practice of visualization we could do this? We can take control of the wheel and stop wandering aimlessly through life. There are cultures and individuals all over the world that successfully use visualization in their everyday lives, and have done for decades; it’s not a new concept at all. In fact, I’d say it’s one of our original senses that we forgot how to use. We have nothing to lose by performing visualizations, we can only gain from it – give it a try yourself. What have you got to lose?

You see, our brains cannot differentiate well between real action and mental action. Research has provided evidence showing that thinking about an action — even whilst your body is at rest — will fire the neural pathways in your brain, just as if you were actually doing it.

Below is a brief exercise that you can try out:

Take a photograph of somewhere or someone you consider special. Take your time and really analyze it. Memorize every single detail that you can. Now I want you to simply close your eyes and try to recreate the photo in your mind. Try and remember every detail: the colors, the setting, every detail — whatever is there. Open your eyes to get more detail if you have to. Do this everyday for a week and before you know it, you’ll be visualizing like an expert. We can achieve all sorts of amazing things with our imagination; all we need do is believe in our own abilities. By starting with a photograph and using that to work on, we can train our minds to do this with whatever our thoughts desire. There are no restrictions, only the ones we put on ourselves.

Let’s look at this from another angle, and with a real example from my own life:

As children we all dreamed of becoming a fireman, a nurse, a rock star, an actor, an astronaut, or something equally as magical. We all daydreamed of what we wanted to do as an adult and we played for hours, just us and our imagination. But what happened? Why did we stop? How many of us became what we dreamed of becoming? How many of us forgot?

I’d say at least 90% of us never achieve our childhood dreams. We give them away so we can fit in with so-called ‘normal life’. We start living the dreams of our parents, or worse, we simply don’t live at all – we only survive by drifting through life wondering what could have been. As a child I dreamed of becoming a rock singer or an actor – or even both! You know what? With no formal training I did it. For the last 10 years I have been living my childhood dream. Ok, I’m not rich and I’m not famous, but I am actually living my dream. I hadn’t even thought about it until now, but have I created my own future through daydreaming as a child? It could be totally coincidental that I now work in the entertainment industry and that my choices have mirrored my heroes, but I truly believe it’s more than that.

The universe we live in is not only mystical, but I believe it’s also magical. After learning about the law of attraction, my eyes have been opened to the powers we hold. Powers and skills that – if used with positivity and love – can change our reality. It’s taken me over 40 years to work out that what was natural behaviour as a child could be the answer to living a happy fulfilled life. There have been other times in my life I remember, as I sit here writing this, where I have used daydreaming to alter my path; and it’s always worked, each and every time. Good and bad. From this day forward I ask you to start considering this, having an awareness of all your dreams and ambitions. Take time to sit and think about them, dare to dream the biggest dream you can, believe it will be yours: because I truly believe it will.