2005 October | Embracing Changes

When Your Body Needs You

October 27th, 2005

Even though I am quite aware of the importance of taking care of your body and health, after all I have spent the last 20 something years getting people to listen to their body and following its wisdom. Still, I was quite taken aback by what happened to me recently.

Our Foundation “Attitudinal Healing” is preparing for its autumn public function. This year, we are holding an art exhibition with music at my own gallery. As president of the Foundation, naturally, I need to co-ordinate a number of things. One of these is organizing transportation for the paintings and the artists.

Well, due to circumstances I’d rather not go into here, I freed up my time, organized a small bus owned by a friend and together with my car, off we went to go pick up the paintings and the artists. Everything went smoothly and together with five other people we got paintings, artists and bus all in one piece back to my gallery.

We spent the rest of the day doing what most other galleries do in the event of an upcoming showing. Hanging up the paintings, labeling them, adjusting the lights, cleaning up, getting things together and thoroughly feeling great about our work. In the past I’d left most of this initial work to the Artists and their friends.

When I got back home that night, the exhaustion kicked in. My body ached, my feet burned from running up and down the stairs and in circles, my head hummed and I felt completely drained.

I realised that there was no way I was going to go through a mentoring class I had coming up at 3:00 AM in the morning! Here was my body telling me very clearly that it needs me. so I flopped down unto the coach in the living room and dosed off for a while. When I got up half an hour later, my body felt like lead which I barely managed to drag along.

That was it! I knew I had to do something fast. I dragged myself down to the bathroom, turned on the tap water and ran the bath. I soaked away my entire weariness and tiredness in that bath tub, feeling with every passing minute the relief and the lightness of being again.

After the bath, I curled up into bed with a cup of hot soothing holicks for my nerves and went to sleep.

When I got up the next morning, I felt rejuvenated and free of all aches and pains. Really, even after all these years, the soothing effect of water still never stops to amaze me.

Tags: body, health, rejuvenation, relaxation, water
Posted in Self Care | No Comments »

Life Is Simple: Revealing 5 Proven Ways To Own Your Life

October 14th, 2005

Do you own your life or does it own you?

If you’re struggling with your life, this could be an indication that you’re making your life much too difficult than it needs to be.

You’re here to live a life of joy and abundance. To experience a rich inner life of recognition and inspiration which should translate into your outer world.

If this is not the case, you can redirect the course of your life by following these 5 proven ways.

1. Live fully in the present. Simplify your life by living consciously in the moment. The present has so much to offer you. It is in the present that you can lay the foundation for the rewards of your dreams in the future, not in the past. To do this, bestir yourself sufficiently in the right way by taking one step at a time .

To live fully in the present, you need to experience every minute of your life inwardly and not just outwardly. This means, grasping aright deeply within yourself the experience of the moment before moving on. This safeguards against taking on too much at any time and getting overwhelmed. Which often develops into struggle.

2. Do what comes naturally to you. Get into the habit of first doing what comes naturally to you and polishing it up. When you do this often enough, in time you’ll be able to handle other difficult matters with lesser efforts.

This is because your becoming disciplined and adept in one area of your life, equips you with the necessary tools to tackle other challenging areas more effectively. The result is greater competence and deeper satisfaction.

3. Have a heart full of joy and appreciation. A joyful and appreciating heart has no room for fear. Fear is always an indication of a sense of lack. This could be conscious or subconscious.

I have observed that people whose hearts surge with joy of deep appreciation and gratitude feel only love. Even in the face of grave calamity, as in the case of bereavement, there are always things you could be grateful for. Like taking comfort in knowing that the you are never alone. Something I was vividly reminded of when I suddenly lost my own mother.

4. Move with ease into any change as a natural happening. Life is. Meaning, it is in constant motion. To own your life, you need to accept this fact. Trying to evade or to negate changes is the least smart way of becoming masterful at the game of life.

A question for you. Can you stop the sun from shining after a raging storm or stop the dawn of a new day breaking in at the end of a night? Right. You can see how ludicrous my question is. This is to underline the foolishness of wanting to control the cycle of changes in your life at any time. It simply is impossible and only results in more struggles. The wisest thing to do is to stay open for changes and deal with them when they appear. Remember the expression never to go looking for trouble, it will find you? So just be in the NOW!

5. Trust and follow your intuition to the letter. Residing within you is a wealth of knowledge. The key to unlocking this treasure is your intuitive power. People who have learned to access their intuition before making any decision live in harmony with their environment.

My own life completely changed from second guessing myself when I truly began to listen to my intuition. I now have a sense of profound joy and clarity as I remain congruent with my values. The more you learn to trust and follow your intuition, the more control you’ll have over your life.

What you gain are strong emotional balance, mental and psychic alertness to guide you to a life of bliss and prosperity.

As you can see, you don’t have to become enslaved to your life. For life is meant to be simple, provided you become aware of what is wrong and change it.

Tags: abundance, appreciation, change, Intuition, joy, living in the present, rich inner life
Posted in Motivation and Inspiration, Self Development | No Comments »

Is Change Really Hard or Can it be Really Simple?

October 4th, 2005

I know this may appear contradictory to the title of my blog. But it really isn’t! Think about this for a moment. Everyone seems to believe that changing is really difficult. But is it really? And even though, I have my share of challenges with certain life changes, I can’t help but feel that we shouldn’t have to overcome life changes with inner struggles and fear that cause stress.

By this, I’m implying that when our attitude is based on a constant acceptance of what “is” and not what was or should be, changes can be integrated into our lives as a normal happening, just as eating, sleeping and talking. Because a change can be that simple, if you let it be.

I remember an episode with an older colleague. She enjoyed collecting antique jewelries and precious stones. In her lifetime, she must have collected a whole stuff of antiquities worth over 3 million Dollars. Even though she and her husband lived rather modestly, she was happy holding on to her collections. After her husband died a couple of years ago, she was suddenly faced with making some changes. This included deciding whether or not to move back to her hometown, where her two siblings were still living.

Because she had no children, she felt that there was nothing to hold her back where she had been living. Even though she had lived there for over 40 years. As I listened to her I could sense that there was more than she was saying.

So I asked her directly, whether the thought of moving back to her hometown at her age was daunting to her or was she more concerned about what to do with her antiquities. She had always remarked in the past that she never wanted any of her siblings to know that she had much assets.

She confirmed my sensing and I asked her what she would like to do with the jewelries. Since she didn’t know and wasn’t even sure of wanting to part from them, I encouraged her to speak to a financial planner. She agreed and ended up selling most of the jewellery for a substantial amount of money. She took the money and used part of it to buy herself a very beautiful and comfortable 2 bedroom apartment in the same town as one of her siblings. With the help of her financial planner she invested the rest of the money in the stock market.

She told me after moving back to her hometown, that she had deposited the rest of her antique jewelries in a bank safe, together with her will.

That’s how simple change can be. Know where you are now, and move into creative action by doing the next appropriate thing. Sometimes you may require someone there, to help you out.

Tags: acceptance, change, Mastering Change
Posted in Motivation and Inspiration | No Comments »