Blurting

I have just had the funniest thing happen, bear with me I’ll get to that bit in a minute. However, this morning I had situation happen in which the complete opposite of what I had been working on happened. This was not the first time, however this morning was the straw that broke the camels back.

I was so cross and wrote an email to a friend to have a real good old moan about how unfair the world was, why did it happen to me AGAIN, I’m fed up with this, blah blah blah! I had a good old blurt – an unedited flow of thought. Ever since writing the email I have been able to drop it - more or less. Each time it came back to mind I reminded myself that I was allowed one blurt of negativity and that’s all. The optimum of course would be no blurts of negativity, but I am realistic and know myself and I do need to get it out of my system.

Now as I said, since the blurt I have been able to catch the thoughts and drop them, but I did feel bad about sending the email and dumping the negativity on someone else. That had stuck with me most of the day. Here’s the funny thing: I never actually sent it. I thought I had, but I have just this moment opened up my draft folder and there it was, in all its unsent glory! I was so pleased that it hadn't landed up in her inbox and darkened her day.

Lesson: Blurting is great, get it out, write it down, shout at an empty room if you need to. Tell yourself that this blurt is the one and only opportunity to remove it from your system. Any more is just self-indulgence, and simply starts to recreate it all over again. Move on, get into the present moment and deal with what’s next. Create something anew.

Premium lesson: don’t send the email! No dumping allowed – this is your stuff, not anyone else’s.

Next time you feel a bout of annoyance, pissed off-ness, anger or frustration coming on, try blurting, it helps.

Staying power.

I saw a magnificent movie this week; The Pursuit of Happyness, and it blew me away. The shear perseverance this man, Chris Gardner, had to pursue his dream, throughout the most challenging of circumstances was truly awe inspiring. It brought tears to my eyes. I cannot recommend it highly enough. Where a large percentage of people would have given up he stayed the course, with no guarantees at the end, and won through.

It made me contemplate my own life and how with some things, compared to Chris Gardner, I have given up at the first fence! We live in an instant society, we are used to having it now, immediately, this minute. The instant gratification. If it doesn’t happen quickly we often give up and move on to the next thing.

Living life spiritually, from the bigger picture, can be a bit like that too. If we don’t see results quickly we begin to think that it doesn’t work, that it won’t give us the experience we are looking for. Many times people try one path and if they don’t see results, they stop and try something else. With this constant changing how can we possibly make progress? There is a clue in all true spiritual paths as to how to embody spirituality and live it. All of them have ‘practises’, things that you do on a regular basis. It may be meditation, contemplation, visualisation, practising gratitude, chanting, prayer, journaling, study, a myriad of things. The main point here is that we need to practise them, do them, have staying power. For us to constantly expand our awareness, grow as both human and spiritual beings we need the one pointed focus. As in the film there may be very intense challenges, where we can feel at our wits end, but keeping going, holding the end in sight and doing all that we can is the way forward.

What things have you given up on recently? Maybe it is time to pick them back up again, invoke your staying power? If you want inspiration go watch the movie and, just for fun, right at the end of the film a man walks past Will Smith and his son – the real, true life Chris Gardner!

Fighting with Reality.

I have been wondering what to write about this week, so much so it is Saturday afternoon and I have only just sat down with an idea. I have felt out of sorts all week, difficult to write about keeping the bigger picture when I haven’t even noticed that there is one all week!

Nothing awful has been happening except that I have been in a situation where I have felt challenged by the people around me. I have felt that my time has been invaded, my priorities not honoured and I’ve generally been rather pissed off and definitely not very nice to live with. All the while this has been happening I have been justifying my bad mood all week, "it’s them not me, I’m perfectly reasonable!" However if I am really honest they have been nothing but nice and friendly. It was simply a matter of perspective.

This afternoon I pick up the Cygnus review and in there was an article about Byron Katie and her book Loving What Is - available from www.cygnus-books.co.uk. In it she presents what she calls The Work - just four questions that can change your world. They question our perception of reality and they help us to stop fighting it too. They are:

1 Is it true?
2 Can you absolutely know that it is true?
3 How do you react when you think that thought?
4 Who would you be without that thought?

These four questions when related to any negative experience that we are grappling with can shift our awareness immediately. They help us see that it is our thoughts about what is happening that create our experience

I was thinking “they shouldn’t be here doing that”, “they should understand that it annoys me and stop”. However when I applied the questions I could see that it was my fighting with the reality of the situation that was causing such upset within me. No-one else was having such a strong reaction, it was just within me. At the same time all this was playing out I knew that I did not want to be having this reaction, I knew I wanted to be more loving and accepting but I simply could not turn it around. The reminder of The Work is what shifted it. Asking these questions doesn’t create a right or a wrong. It simply shows us that if we are fighting with reality then we are going to lose. Loving acceptance is the key to understanding and loving our mind, and therein lies inner peace.

What reality are you fighting with right now? Who would you be without that thought?

One Inspired Thought

Twice this week I have been reminded of following up on that ‘one inspired thought’. A potential client wrote to me at 1.00am in the morning after realising that he really wanted to change some things in his life. Silence was the reply to my email inviting him to a free session, and when I called him he was already into avoidance techniques. Another similar reminder was in conversation with a friend. She told me about being very clear at 3.00am about a tricky conversation she needed to have with a colleague, but it getting foggy by 9.00am and she had to work really hard to regain the clarity.

I am a great believer that we are given these inspired thoughts for a reason. They often occur when our minds are not in full flow, especially at night, quiet times and after or during a meditation. Our job is to act! If we allow ourselves to think too much about them we will talk ourselves out of the action. What seemed so clear becomes muddied by the cold light of day. A reality check too far.

It is our ego, the part of us that is invested in us not changing, that persuades us that maybe it wasn’t such a good idea after all. It doesn’t make sense, it is upsetting the apple cart, and what’s more we have no guarantee that it will work! And so we stop, tidy the idea up and put it away in the drawer.

There is a lovely quote in The Secret DVD that says, “When you have an inspired thought you have to trust it and act on it.” Sounds simple huh? Well yes, but we need to make a commitment to ourselves to follow it. If we get an inspired thought and it feels good, then that emotional response is the green light. Anything that makes us truly feel good is indicating that we are on the right track. With that inner guidance of a good feeling we know we can trust it and it will give us the confidence and courage to act.

So be vigilant in the next week, look out for your inspired thoughts, even if they feel illogical, and don’t let it get caught up in the cold light of day. Don’t let it get buried by life. Instead act on it, immediately and watch the result unfold.