Ever just need some headspace?

Tired, worn out, run down, not achieving the things you'd like to? Never got any time for you?

Wonder where all of your energy goes? Have a think about where you put your energy, and whether it's worth it. Here are some common mis-uses of our energy:

So many times we find ourselves thinking about 'what if..?' scenarios. Come on, I know it can't be just me. All the time that we spend having that conversation in our heads, making things up that may or may not happen, is wasted time and energy.

Focussing your attention on others, wondering why on earth they behave in THAT way is another place that we give our energy away to. I know that sometimes we don't realise we're doing it, or are so baffled by another's behaviour that we can't seem to help ourselves, but the outcome is the same.

Worrying about others, again, I get it. I was always told I was a born worrier. It's taken me years to stop about worrying about the things I can't change and focus on the things I may be able to. Even so, there are still times that I focus all my energy on pointless worrying.

At an extreme, jealousy, anger, hatred, even fear all cause us to give our energy away. And then we wonder why we have none left for ourself. Mad isn't it?

Maybe it's because we're human. We have the power to think, so why shouldn't we? Maybe it's because we care, perhaps a little too much?

Maybe, if we focussed on ourself for a change we would have more energy to help the people and situations that we could do something about? Now there IS a thought.

But how? Here's an exercise that will help.

Next time you find yourself thinking, worrying, making stuff up in your head, any of the above in fact, as soon as you notice that you're doing it, STOP. Take a breath, stand up and feel your contact with the floor or the ground through your feet. Bend your knees slightly & rock gently backwards and forwards until you feel completely in balance. (You can be subtle about this so no-one really notices.)

Now look to the skies. Watch the clouds pass by, look for a rainbow, observe the stars, allow your mind to take in the extent of the universe. And breathe!

After two or three minutes your awareness will naturally come back to the present time. Ask yourself what is the most productive thing you can do now? What's next?

This is you time. It will lift your thoughts and help you to think more clearly & be more productive.

Enjoy

How sharp is your saw?

On Wednesday I was telling a fellow trainer that at the end of the week I was heading off to Scotland on an NLP practitioner training course.
"I’m not sure why I’m doing it or how I’m going to use it", I told him, "I just think that it will enhance everything that I already do. And may inspire me to do other things too." "Ah", he said, "you’re sharpening your saw!". "Yes, I am", I replied.
I would suggest that the majority of people overhearing that conversation would have thought, ‘What are they talking about?!’ at this exchange. But we knew…

In his book, ‘The 7 Habits of Highly Successful People‘, Stephen Covey talks about the importance of self renewal. He refers to it as ‘sharpening the saw‘. He tells a story about a man who is so busy attempting to saw down a tree that he doesn’t have time to stop and sharpen the saw that he’s using. A false economy that may be obvious to the outside observor, but do we notice when we’re too busy being busy to stop and sharpen our saw?

So what does sharpening the saw really mean?

It’s about re-balancing yourself, renewing your energy, your zest for life, keeping healthy, keeping happy, keeping your mind sharp.

It’s about ensuring that you have balance in the 4 areas of your life:

• physical (keeping your body healthy),
• mental (learning new things, reading, writing, teaching others)
  
• emotional (or socially, making new and meaningful connections with people)
• spiritual (expanding your spiritual side, spending time in nature or meditating, or providing service or charitable work to others)

By doing this you'll find that you stay fresh and rejuvenated, it will be easier to keep up your energy levels and it will encourage growth and positive change. You will be more inspired, more productive and more able to deal with the challenges that life can throw at us from time to time.

In short, you will create a more effective lifestyle.

Tomorrow is the first day of my intensive NLP course and I’m really looking forward to it. i'm off to do some sharpening. What about you?

(Written partly on a train to Glasgow & finished in a hotel room in the city.)

How to see the aura

Last weekend I had the pleasure of running a workshop for some lovely ladies interested in energy work and psychic development. This was the first time I'd run a full day workshop in this format, I'd previously run evening sessions of a couple of hours. It worked really well and I've had some great feedback.
The fun bit (for me anyway) is 'how to see auras'. I love teaching this to people as they can discover their abilities to 'see' the colours of others' auras very quickly.
The aura that we typically see is that of the astral or emotional energetic body. This is the 'bit' of us that exists at a higher vibrational level and kind of overlays our physical being. (There's a lot more to the theory of energy bodies but I want to share the practical stuff.) The aura given off by this energy body can be 'read' and seeing colours is one way that sensitive people can 'see' what is going on for someone. Colours mean different things to everyone but let's leave analysis for another time too. (This is a picture taken of my aura a few years ago.)
Another way that we can 'read' the aura of another person is by having a feeling. Standing next to someone means that your auras intermingle and, if you're aware enough you can often get a sense of what's going on for them, or what emotional state they're in.


So, how do you 'see' the aura?

• Have a go with a friend. (Don't do this to someone without their permission as they will find it intrusive.) One of you should stand in front of a plain pale wall. (I put sheets of flip chart paper in the wall to assist with this.)
• The other should stand a few feet away and allow their eyes to go out of focus. Gaze at your friend's shoulder, and then just pass it. Try gazing around their head too. Eventually you may start to see a thickening of the air just an inch or so around them. This is the etheric aura and is usually colourless. (It's like the Ready-Brek glow if you remember the adverts.)
  
• As you continue to let your eyes wander, softly out of focus, you may start to see colour around your friend. This is the aura. Congratulations.
  

This can take practice so don't be too disappointed if it doesn't happen straight away. Swap over and see if your friend can do it. You can practise with plants and animals too.

One of the reasons I love teaching others to see auric colours is that, actually, I very rarely see them. I do however sense them and you might find that this happens to you instead. Sometimes I 'hear' the name of the colour or just know that it's there, and whereabouts around the person it is. It provides a lesson in self-belief when this happens as you often think you're just making it up or imagining it. Once you learn to translate the colours into information or readings for the person you're working with, you soon get positive feedback that what you're sensing is correct.
Why not give it a go?

My 5, no, 6 top tips for empowering yourself

My husband says that I think too much. And maybe he's right, but last week I was asked to present at a company training about how I'd built my business. I though about it and realised that I'd mainly just been myself. That's not very helpful is it? So, I started to think about what being myself meant and how I went about that.

When life is working really well, everything is flowing, I am happy and have a sense of achievement, I feel empowered. I feel that anything is possible, absolutely anything. So I asked myself why is that? What happens, or what do I do that leads to that feeling? And I came up with the following top 5 tips. Then I though of another one so I added that too.

1. Be honest & ethical – now everyone may have different ideas of what this means but I try to treat others how I would like to be treated. I also have to voice my opinion or thoughts if I feel that not doing so would make me feel, or appear to be, dishonest. Basically I have to be able to sleep at night and not feel as though I've done someone a disservice, or that someone has taken advantage of me. It cuts both ways.

2. Look out for opportunities for others, put people together where you see or feel there is a connection or some synergy in what they do, or how they think. Network for others and they will network for you.

3. Credit where credit's due – whether its a pat on the back, an acknowledgement of a job well done, a thank you or telling someone how much they've improved, or how good they are at something, don't keep it to yourself (or just tell you friends and family about it). That's nice but even better is to tell the person concerned. All too often people only get feedback when they've done something wrong. Even the little things count and a thank you goes a long way.

4. Accept praise – When someone does tell you how great you are at something, don't deny it. Even if it wasn't up to your standards, they felt it was great enough to tell you. Don't dismiss their feelings on the subject. If you don't know what to say, just say 'thanks'. The first few times you do this you will feel strange and uncomfortable, but you'll get used to it. It does boost your confidence and it validates the other person too. So it's a win -win scenario.

5. Don't try to be someone else, but do aim to be the best version of you that you can possibly be.

Oh, and the 6^th one? Leading on from number 4, it's absolutely okay to say that you're good at something! Yes, it is! We are too quick to accept our own failings and shortcomings and nowhere near quick enough to accept the things that we are good at. And we're all good at something. Don't be arrogant about it, accept it and know it. And if asked, let it be known that actually you're good at that thing.

I wish I'd known, accepted and put these in to practice a long time ago. I may have done it unconsciously but as I've learnt them consciously throughout my life they have had a massive impact. I hope that maybe you can take something from them and feel empowered too. And maybe even help to empower others.

This post was adapted at too-early o'clock this morning from a presentation I did last Sunday.

Bowler hats...A sign from the universe or a new fashion trend?

I'm a great advocate for following your intuition and keeping an eye out for signs from the universe that indicate a particular direction I should take in life or to confirm I'm on the right track. But I'm really aware that I have to be careful not read too much into things (my husband told me, yet again, yesterday that I think too much).
When we see signs, symbols, repetitive messages in our life or even perhaps if we have an odd deam, we really want to know what on earth it could all possibly mean for us. I got a text from a friend today saying that she had seen two people in different situations on the same day, sporting bowler hats. Hmm, unusual. What could that mean?
I believe that signs, dreams and symbols are very personal and should always be related back to the person they're for. Yes, there are 'traditional' symbols and age old meanings and we can always look up someone else's definition in a book or dictionary of dream or symbol analysis. But the most important thing to ask is, what does it mean to you?
One symbol can have a hundred interpretations if you speak to 100 people. We all have our own associations, memories, experiences and frame of reference. So I don't think someone else can literally translate your signs for you. They can facilitate their translation though.
My friend and I had an extensive exchange of texts about bowler hats which rapidly went from the sublime to the ridiculous, attempting to fathom the meaning of her fashion-based message. It made us laugh which is always a positive outcome. And maybe she could take something from it. Or maybe they're simply making a comeback..?
(Inspired by my lovely friend DM and written on my blackberry while standing in the queue at my local Post Office, it was a long queue)

"Help! I need somebody"

I've discovered that I have what is known as a portfolio career. I didn't know that until last week, but apparently that is what I have. For others who haven't heard of it before, it is one whereby you do a variety of different jobs or skills, all of which you should love (otherwise you might as well just to do one thing you hate full time!)

The common theme through my 'portfolio' is that of helping people. While pondering this I realised that while we all like to help people we usually wait to be asked. And one thing we tend not to do is ask for help when we need it. Hm... a bit of tricky situation there then.

I do a fair amount of business networking to help my businesses grow and develop. The main questions we ask of our networking colleagues are, 'How can I help you?' and 'What are you looking for to help you develop your business?'

How many people right now could do with some help in their job, career or business venture? Would they tell you if they did need help? Would they ask you for help directly? Probably not. But I'm sure that if you knew more about what they did you would be more than happy to refer people to them who could benefit from what they offer.

Would you rather a large corporate, or even a small business owner who is a complete stranger to you benefit from your custom? Or would you prefer to help a friend out in their business? How would you feel if a friend was struggling, or worse, lost their business or job, and then you realised that whatever they were involved in, you could have helped them out by using them instead of another company, tradesperson etc.?

As a trainer with a major network marketing company I, and my colleagues often find a common theme of discussion at trainings. That discussion centres around individuals wondering why on earth some of their nearest and dearest won't try the services they are offering, when they will so clearly benefit from them. They feel as though some of their closest friends and family are saying that they don't trust them when they recommend what we have to offer. This doesn't just happen in our business, or even in our industry, it can be just the same for employed people. To be honest, many people don't even know what their friends or family actually do for a living, let alone know whether they could give them their custom.

For anyone who has ever been in this situation, in any type of business or job, I would like to set your mind at rest as to why it might be that someone close to you isn't one of your customers even when you have explained how it could benefit them. I have heard it said many times by a very eloquent speaker that I know and have the pleasure of working with, “No-one wants to be a part of your experiment” and this may be one explanation, especially if you are just starting out. However, I think that in some cases it can be that no-one wants to be a part of your failure. Now that isn't to say that if you're just starting out in a new venture, or even if you have been in business or your job a while, that you are going to be a failure. It simply means that they are thinking,
'As your parent/sibling/friend, I don't want to use you for XYZ or buy your product because if you were to fail in this venture, I would have been a part of it and as I'd been a customer of yours I would have been endorsing your failure. That would hurt me because I care about you too much so I'd rather not be involved at all'
To be honest this is probably very subconscious and they don't even realise they are thinking it.

Sometimes it can be quite different however. Chatting with a friend in my networking team a couple of months ago he told me an interesting story about a friend of his who he fell out with. My colleague had started working in our business and wanted to help this friend out by showing him how he could save some money at home. The friend took umbrage at this and thought it was terrible that he was 'selling' to friends. Interesting, he would rather pay through the nose for something to a large faceless corporate stranger than save some money and see his friend be successful in his business? Wow!

I think it's time to have a re-think. I think that we should encourage and support our friends and family and do all we can to help them succeed, especially in such trying economic times. We probably do just this in daily life and family stuff anyway, we just don't think about it from a work or business point of view.

So here's the challenge: We are coming up to a time when alot of socialising is done. You will probably meet up with people you haven't seen for a long time and maybe meet new people at Christmas and new year events. You will undoubtedly ask them how work is going, and do you think some people might be having a tough time,whether they are self employed, a business owner or an employee? Would you like to be a part of their success?

Why not make the time to ask your friend or relative to tell you more about what they do and how they are looking to grow their business in 2011. Then ask them questions such as:
'How can I help you?'
'What would be your ideal customer?'
'What type of business are you looking for?'
'Maybe I might know someone or could keep an eye out for opportunities for you, let me take a couple of your cards or your email address so that I can let you know if I do'.

Maybe this person could help you out now, or at some point in the future. Can you support them in their business or job by giving them your custom?

Wouldn't it be nice to know that you could be a part of helping them through a tough time. Wouldn't it be nice for them to know that you care? Wouldn't you rather help them to succeed than a stranger?

Let's help each other to be more successful.

What did you say?

On December 10th 2010 a phenomenon known as 'mercury retrograde' starts. It continues until December 29th. This is a time where, from our position on Earth, Mercury appears to be moving backwards on its path across the sky.

Personally I have found that this can cause problems so I'm just giving you a heads up. Whether you believe in astrological influences or not, it's worth making a note.

Mercury is a planet relating to communication and when it's in retrograde this is where there are problems. Computers, the internet and phones will go funky, emails won't arrive, travel arrangements will go pear-shaped and miscommunications can occur.

Now I used to ignore all of this thinking that it wouldn't affect me if I didn't acknowledge it. Unfortunately that didn't work so I had to learn to go with the natural flow of things and be more understanding of it.

How? Well. allow more time for journeys, jobs and projects. Save computer backups regularly (mercury retrograde can often see us having to do the same work more than once), clarify points of discussion and instruction with others to avoid misunderstandings and miscommunication. Write down instructions or have them emailed to you(if your email is working).

Sometimes mercury retrograde causes our perception or interpretation of an event or conversation to be skewed so don't rush into an arguement, seek clarity first until you understand the situation or facts fully.

Being more in the moment and focussing more fully on what you're doing will help greatly, and could in fact be the very lesson to take from this time. Along with being slow to judge, react or jump to conclusions which are all positive traits that we could do well to adopt and take forward on a daily basis as mercury begins to move forward again.

Use this time also to reorganise, reassess and reflect on your life and prepare for the year ahead.

And for those of you thinking that you've already noticed some of mercury's little tricks lately you'd be right. The affects of mercury retrograde started around the 22nd November and will continue in what's known as its 'post-retrograde shadow' until about the 18th January 2011, albeit with a lessening degree of influence.

There are loads of astrology sites and blogs which go into loads more detail if you want find out more. For now, tread carefully, be observant and take your time. Go with the flow of the universe and learn its lessons along the way.

Bright Blessings
Helen
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