A few years ago I was saddled with the knowledge that my team at work was going to be restructured. This meant that everyone (apart from my boss and myself) were going to be made redundant and then have to reapply for their jobs, the kicker being that there were fewer jobs available so some people would definitely have to leave the company. The knowledge weighed heavily on me, so that when it finally happened and we were in this weird phase where people were in limbo while they reapplied for their own job, I found it very difficult to talk to people and ask them how they were.

I decided that I would only mention it if they brought it up. I didn’t want to be insensitive and remind them of something difficult if they didn’t want to talk about it. I rationalised that if they wanted to talk about it they would be the ones to raise it with me. I felt very isolated from others at this time.

Three months later when the situation was resolved, I was suddenly made redundant from my own job. As there weren’t any posts available to apply for it meant I would be leaving the company within a few weeks and I was devastated. I had to continue at work while I was in the ‘at risk of redundancy’ phase and I noticed how much I appreciated people reaching out to me and asking how I was and really listening to all my mixed-up emotions and worries. What was more astonishing was that the people who didn’t mention it and either avoided me or kept a ‘business-as-usual’ approach seemed really cold-hearted to me, even though I knew rationally it was more likely that they didn’t bring up the subject out of sensitively or embarrassment just like I had done only three months earlier. I felt really let down by some of them who I had felt previously close because it felt like they were avoiding me.

Suddenly I got to be on the receiving end of my ‘no mentioning difficult subjects’ policy and I found that I really didn’t like it. When I was going through it myself, I didn’t want to be the one bringing up the bad news all the time. I suddenly realised that asking questions about difficult topics and listening to the answer is a lovely form of caring and done gently doesn’t have to the least bit intrusive or distressing for the person being asked. They didn’t need to worry about ‘reminding’ me of something distressing because it was all I was thinking about anyway!

As a result it changed the way I interact with people when I know they are going through a tough time. I don’t worry that my question will be intrusive or remind them of painful thoughts. Obviously it’s not a appropriate to got steaming in, but a gentle mention of the situation will most likely be very well received. It’s perfectly acceptable to say, “I heard your news and have been thinking of you.” If you like you can add, “If you don’t want to talk about it, that’s fine, I just want you to know I am here if you do.” You can then take your cue from them about whether or not they want to talk about it rather than just assuming you know what they want.

If you do reach out, then make sure you really listen to what the other person has to say. I’ve discovered that trying to comfort with general platitudes and attempting to ‘cheer them up’ doesn’t really work. Much better to allow the other person to express that pent-up emotion and eventually work round to action they can take to make them feel better. But again, don’t force this. Just listen!

So, is there anyone you need to reach out today? Sometimes lack of confidence holds us back from really connecting with others and we find reasons (excuses) like the ones I had above for not reaching out to others. You don’t need to worry about getting the words exactly right, or being insensitive. Make the connection. Hold the space for them to talk, cry, moan, laugh, plan, or whatever they need. Don’t let a lack of confidence or shyness hold you back from making a deeper connection with someone. Try it, see what happens.

When someone asks you what you want do you have a ready answer, or does your mind go blank?   Do you feel a bit of anxiety inside when out of all the options in the universe you have to narrow down exactly what you want?  Do you worry that you’ll end up with ‘buyer’s remorse’ and regret the purchase so much that you prefer not to buy anything?

Knowing what we want is so key to a happy life, it seems strange that for so many of us we are out of touch with what that is.   We allow ourselves to drift through life being buffeted by the desires of others.  It takes guts to really admit to our hearts desires.  We feel we might be judged for it, we worry we might lose friends if our desires change us too much.  It can feel easier to drift along without expressing our wants, than actively face up and get them.

At this time of year it is too easy to focus our wants onto physical gifts.  (Bath salts anyone?)  But when I really think about it, the things I really, truly want don’t come gift-wrapped.  I want more space in my life, a bigger sense of adventure and a lot more fun and laughter.  I don’t have to wait for Santa to deliver those things.  I can get started on them right away.  To that end, I’ve stopped reading the comments sections newspapers because I realised that it was really making me miserable to see people arguing and scoring cheap points.  I’ve instantly created some space and freedom in my life just by working out that’s what I wanted.  Having made the decision I feel lighter already.

So take a moment right now and ask yourself – what it is you really want out of life in the next three months.  Keep it a short time frame to really focus your intention, and not put it too much in the realm of ’someday’.  What would make you really happy?  What is the secret desire that you don’t even admit to yourself?  Maybe you want more love, more excitement, more confidence, more growth.  Then ask yourself, ‘What can I do today to get more of this in my life?’.  Take a baby-step every single day towards what you really want and you’ll be surprised how quickly it can manifest.

If you feel really blocked then a Soul Realignment reading or a coaching session with me can help put you in touch with your hearts desire and give you practical ways to manifest what you really want into your life.

So much of personal development advice takes a conscious mind approach, it follows the format of, ‘Stop doing ‘X’, do ‘Y’ instead’ where ‘Y’ might be ‘eat a healthy diet, pay your bills on time, make new friends, or say ‘no’ to a difficult relative’.  But what if you make every effort to do ‘Y’ and yet it doesn’t work for you? Maybe you can manage it a few times, but can’t sustain it.   Maybe you can’t get it together enough to do ‘Y’ in the first place.  What if even thinking about ‘Y’ has you hyperventilating with anxiety and then you start beating yourself up for not being able to do ‘Y’ and add another layer to the misery?

That’s not to say that kind of advice doesn’t have it’s place because sometimes a conscious mind approach works. Sometimes, all someone needs is to be shown a better way to do something that they hadn’t thought of themselves and – hey, look – success!  Sometimes it is possible to push through with a bit of willpower and form a new habit and create fantastic new results.   After all, the mind is there to direct us: we make a decision about what we want, think through the best course of action and off we go. It makes sense that this approach should work at least some of the time.

But what about when it doesn’t work?  When you have sabotaged your diet (again!), when you have caved in and said ‘yes’ to something instead of ‘no’ (again!), when you can’t bear to open your bank statements because the anxiety is overwhelming (again!)?  What is going on? You know that ‘Y’ is a sensible course of action and yet when it comes to the crunch you just don’t do it.

What is going on here is that you are fighting your unconscious mind.  Your unconscious mind isn’t some baddy out to get you.   Really what it is doing is trying to keep you safe and protected from something it associates with danger.   Somewhere along the line, you experienced something that made you associate danger with whatever it is you want to achieve.  So when you start directing yourself consciously towards your goals, your unconscious mind kicks into gear and starts sabotaging your efforts. You might get very anxious, you might start procrastinating or get distracted, you might actively sabotage your efforts.  If despite repeated effect you are not getting the results you want it is time to look at what your unconscious mind is programmed with.

Rather than trying for the umpteeth time to push through with willpower, you need a way to find out what is happening deep down.   Most therapies are geared up to bring the unconscious processes to your conscious mind so you can deal with them.  Many therapies are geared to bringing unconscious processes up into your conscious mind so you can realise what is happening, but that can take time and sometimes even the conscious knowledge isn’t enough to make the change you want.

What I find works really well is using muscle testing or dowsing with my clients so I can tune into what is really going on for them and find the specific statement they need to bring into balance.  The problem with trying to use your own conscious mind to delve into your unconscious is that you don’t get to see your own blind spots.  Your unconscious mind becomes ‘tricksy’ if you get close to anything deep it starts distracting you, throwing up red herrings, or ‘going blank’ when you get close to the root of the issue.  This is why I think it is so good to work with someone, a good friend or good practitioner, who will hold that space for you and help you go through the blank stage when you think you don’t know the answer.   If that person is proficient at muscle testing or dowsing and can tell you if you are on the right track it is even more helpful.

For example, I worked on a client this week and the statement that came up for her to work on is that ‘I am able to say ‘no’ when I need to.’  I was able to test to show her that although she said she wanted to say ‘no’, her whole unconscious mind was geared up in the opposite direction.   I tested to see what she needed to do to clear that statement and it turned out that she needed something called a ‘parts integration’ technique from NLP.   We started the process and it was taking a long time.  She told me that she didn’t think it was working, but through testing I was able to confirm that we didn’t need anything else, we just needed to be patient and allow the process to continue.  A few minutes later she had integrated the belief that she was able to say ‘no’ when she needs to.

There’s still more work to do with this client as we work through more aspects of her situation, but in one session we were able to make a lot of headway and significantly reduce the amount of anxiety that came of for her when she even thought about saying ‘no’.

It can take a few sessions to peel away all the layers of an issue, you still have to use a bit of willpower to hold fast onto the results you want, to consciously develop new habits and to keep doing the clearing work.  But it is so much easier to make changes when your whole energy system is in alignment with that change.  If you are experiencing resistance in making changes in your life you might find a session working to heal the unconscious processes that are blocking you to be a very effective way of making a breakthrough.

I have so much to update!

The money manifesting programme was great.  I got some wonderful spirit inspired synchronisities that came into being just as the money manifesting programme said they would.

Ideas came up for subjects to write about and how to marketing them came to me.  It felt like the universe was speaking directly to me through other people in where I should go next.

And then – I got ill.   I felt like I’d run into a brick wall.   I felt run-down and tired and I simply didn’t have the will or energy to continue with the money manifesting programme or want to blog.  I struggled with the direction I was going in.   I felt lost and confused.   I think I hit some pretty big emotional blocks about how I felt about money and I just wanted to run and hide from the world.

But, however much I wanted the ride to stop so I could get off and have a rest for a bit, the world keeps turning.   I got back on the manifesting programme and left it open to what would come.

One of the things that manifested was a request to do HypnoBirthing courses.  I trained as a practitioner in 2006, but haven’t promoted it as I wanted to focus on giving readings and coaching.  But suddenly people are phoning me asking for courses and I’ve been delighted to oblige.  I’m very much looking forward to the arrival of some ‘hypnobabies’ next month.  It just shows that having different channels to receive income is so important.  That was a very easy way to receive money as it was something I had already trained in and could do.

Also, I have manifested another income in the form of a job (different to the previous job I had).  It’s a great progressive company, a thoughtful and switched on boss, and interesting, creative work where I really believe I can learn and grow.  And the bonus is it is part -time so I can still continue with Soul Realignment readings and coaching too.

Since starting this new job I suddenly feel energised.  I’ve got a permanent smile on my face.   I know I am creating worthwhile work.  I feel successful and know how I can contribute to my own development and others. I feel like the pressure is off me with creating my own business.  I’d been ’shoulding’ myself somewhat into believing that my business model ’should’ be like the people who I admire in the business.  Whereas really, I can create it in the way that suits me and my clients best.  Suddenly I feel more playful about business. Because I don’t ‘have’ to do it now, I want to do it, it feels so free.

A year ago, getting job and wearing a suit to work each day would have felt like a failure, but now it feels very much like a success.  I know I am going to get what I need for my own development: new skills, discipline and routine.  I really like the fact I am meeting people every day in person, rather than online.   Having a year working from home has really made me appreciate the world of work more.  This year out of office work has enabled me to reflect on where I contributed to making my life difficult and where my easy-going nature and reluctance to be assertive set me up for failure rather than success.  Time away from the crazymaking in my previous job has helped me see things more clearly.  Running my own business for a year has increased my confidence.  I go back to the world of work knowing that I can handle the challenges I face and I know where I can add value and contribute.

I will still be doing readings and coaching so please feel free to contact me with questions or to book a session with me.   I’m also creating an ebook and audio programme about intuition and manifesting which I’m very excited about too.

Over the last couple of days I have been working on getting ready for the Fayre tomorrow and doing my normal work.

I had a great experience today.   I went to visit a friend of mine who is a fantastic healer.  She’s taught me so much about how physical problems are manifestations of conflict shocks stored in the unconscious mind.

Since starting the money manifesting programme I’ve noticed that my digestion has got worse and has been causing me some problems.  My friend used the principles in Meta Medicine to trace this back so a specific conflict shock I had several years ago.   On a very simple level, I just couldn’t digest the feelings I had about that particular incident and interestingly it related to my physical survival in the world.  Working on my business was reactivating all that unconscious stress for me and my poor digestion was struggling again.

We’ve done some work using Psych-K (which is fabulous for clearing unconscious belief and emotions) to heal that block.  It’s too early to say now what the results will be but I’m feeling really good about it and I feel like something big definitely got cleared.  I’ve done a lot of work on myself over the years – and this is an issue that hasn’t ever come up for me before.   That means it fits the criterea of doing something new to shift your energy as part of the programme.  I know the money manifesting programme says that you don’t need to do work on your unconscious beliefs to change your energetic vibration about money.   However, in this instance I think it has been very helpful for me.

I think it’s great that this healing has come up for me right now.  It feels like perfect timing for me.  Already I feel lighter and more excited about my work and the future.

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