It’s like climbing a mountain don’t you think? Now I know a thing or two about climbing mountains and asking YOU if you care enough about yourself is a valid question.

How often do you say to yourself and others, “I wish there were more time in the day!” I know you would be lying if you didn’t think this at least once a day. Correct me if I am wrong! Time is a very precious commodity that we never get back so use it wisely.

Being a work at home mum inevitably leads to being in the same surroundings day in and day out. Getting out of the house to work for me is a real treat and something I have scheduled in more often with my mobile broadband connection.

If you work from home, you can probably identify with this. The other issues are of course that there is always something to be done around the house and if you have young children, they need attention too. So how do we find the balance and care enough about ourselves to do something about it?

Here’s a question for you and I want you to say it out loud so it really resonates with you.

“How often do I spend time on myself?”

Is it an hour a day?

An hour or more a week?

An hour or more a month?

I think you get the idea. And by this, I mean time just for you and you alone. Whether it be taking a leisurely stroll, meditating, reading a book, listening to your favorite music or maybe sitting amongst nature and listening to the birds! Whatever it is that brings you peace of mind – spend time doing it.

Do you think about the food you eat and whether it is “good” or “bad” for your body? I use those words loosely as one person’s idea of good and bad can be different to the next person.

Do you exercise and stretch your body to keep it flexible and strong? Do you do Mentalrobics for the brain to keep it active? Is this too much of a list for you?

These are basic things we can do for ourselves in the quest to caring for ourselves. I know when I hit 40 I felt fabulous… now a few more years down the track… time seems to slip by me so fast that I can’t keep up with all I need to do!

Does it show to those around you?

Do you care enough about yourself that it shows to those around you? Do your friends comment on a great hairdo or a nice outfit you are wearing? Perhaps your skin always looks great and you receive compliments about this. Or perhaps you showed compassion to another and word got around. You may find that you have more respect than before. That’s not why you would it, it would be a consequence after the fact.

Now you might be asking “What does showing compassion to another have to do with caring about yourself?” Well if you didn’t care about yourself, you wouldn’t be showing compassion. By showing compassion to another, you would have put yourself in their shoes and whatever it was that prompted you to offer them help would have been something that happened to you in the past or to someone else you know and what they went through during that time. If you didn’t care enough about yourself, then how can you care for your fellow man?

Care Enough About Yourself

Some of the things you may want to take on if you care enough about yourself are things that you are passionate about and it really could be anything you find joy in doing and linking pleasure to doing it.

If the traditional way of exercising is not for you, think about taking a dance class like Salsa or Belly Dancing for instance. You will find muscles you never thought you had in those classes, or find someone that has group exercise classes outside of a gym if it’s the gym thing that doesn’t appeal. A simple brisk walk or light jog for 20 minutes everyday may do the trick too with stretching before and after the event.

When it comes to do the grocery shopping, do it after you have had a meal so that you are not tempted to buy extras that you don’t really need. Shopping on a full stomach will lessen the chance of buying something that may not be so good for you and your body.

Grooming is another thing to take note of. Having your hair tidy, makeup done (if you wear makeup that is) and clean well kept clothes also shows if you care enough about yourself. You don’t need to have the latest fashion as the latest fashion doesn’t suit every body or personality type. Wear what you feel comfortable in and remember to check your shoes too. These are things you may not consider on a daily basis and especially if you don’t have to leave the house to commute to work. It’s easy to become nonchalant in this situation and awareness of this is important… well to me anyway.

So do you care enough about yourself? If you don’t, then who will?

While you are considering this, here’s another dance you may be interested in and I look forward to your thoughts. Watch this video… um… you could get out of your chair and follow along… perhaps!

In my last post I talked about being an adrenalin junkie which made me stop and think about what I was actually saying. Through attending many personal development seminars and training with NLP (Neuro Linguistic Programming), I have learned that whatever you say you are, you are. This is not something new to me, and there are times when I do use the wrong language. I should know better you would think… well, I am human after all

Since then, I have had a paradigm shift. I had a dream last night that I was bird hopping along the ground not being able to make out the tops of trees, but instead, all I could see was the grass stalks and some twigs and leaves. When I flew up into the sky I could then make everything out. I could see the trees in relation to the ground and the grass. I could even make out a valley and a body of water. Things seemed much clearer from up above. I noticed that the higher I flew, the more of the landscape I could see. Even the approaching clouds threatening a change in the weather.

Why am I telling you this. I am telling you this because from a distance, I could see the whole picture and not just what was down on the ground level. There are times when all you can see is what’s right in front of you. All the menial tasks that must be done on a daily basis. These tasks are just as important as the big ones. I have read that the art of successful living calls on the ability to pull back and see the big picture… take time out to re-focus.

There are some spiritual disciplines that favor retreats to be able to reconnect with your Higher Self or Spirit, whichever you would like to call it. This is also another form of nurturing your emotional intelligence. If you can take the time off and make it to such a retreat, fantastic! If you are limited with your time because maybe you work on your own or you have family commitments that you cannot pull away from at the drop of a hat, there are other ways of re-connecting and grounding yourself.

Here is a list that may give you some ideas:

1. Take one day off and make it a vision quest where you carry one question in your mind – What do I do next? Let it simmer while you walk, meditate, swim or just stare into space!
2. Take one hour to sit in amongst nature – be it a park, the beach, or even your backyard – and just shut everything out. Don’t think about a thing.
3. Go and have a full body massage and DO NOT talk through the process. I say this because when I worked in the beauty industry and clients would come in for a massage, there were ones who tended to talk throughout the whole hour. Not very relaxing and they missed the point of having the massage… although, some would come just to vent their troubles.
4. Run yourself a nice, deep bubble bath and burn essential oils with candles around the bathroom. The citrus oils are uplifting while peppermint and rosemary are invigorating.

Pulling back and regaining your focus is a must to be able to function at your highest potential. If while you are working and you seem to be procrastinating, notice this and ask yourself this question: What can I do in the next 20 minutes that will take me in the direction I want to go. It could be writing a letter, making a phone-call, paying a bill, joining a gym or even enlisting the help of a coach. It will different for each of you depending on what your goals are. Think of it as writing an outline of a novel and not the whole book.

These are some guidelines to consider.

• Think big.
• Think small.
• Learn to go back and forth easily between your points of focus.
• If you dream too much, you may get lost in unproductive tasks.
• If you are run off your feet with details and other’s demands, you are in danger of losing focus on the big picture.

My goal is to follow and stick to these guidelines so that I may become someone whose bigger dreams drive and inspire others. Let me know how I am doing from time to time.

Change Your Thoughts and You Can Change the World

I would like to leave you with this video that shows how your thoughts can change your focus and in turn, change the world as you see it. Enjoy!

Following on from my last post about Forgiveness and Emotional Intelligence, I had some rather interesting responses which prompted me to write this one. We are close to the end of the year which is a time for reflection for most of us, and in looking back, there may be some aspects of your life that you wish to work on so that you can move forward to 2008 with your sights set clearly on your goals and what you really want to achieve.

Here’s a short summary of that post:

• The only person that suffers from NOT forgiving the wrong-doer or forgiving yourself, is YOU.
• The practice of forgiveness is a simple process which can be done on a daily basis (as long as you are willing to let go of the thing that holds you back.)
• Forgiveness is an integral part of your Personal Development as without it, you cannot learn and move on with mastering your Emotional Intelligence.

Forgive and Forget

An interesting thought that came up in the responses from my friend George, is that as a child, he always heard the saying as it goes…

Forgive, but don’t Forget. It has it’s sense. Sometimes forgive AND forget is also a good idea as you clear out lot’s of stuff.

However, I feel that sometimes NOT forgetting in certain cases is a wise decision just so you don’t get caught a second or even a tenth time by the same story. Sort of like headlights that help you avoid big rocks in the road.

This is interesting because more often than not, we make up our own story about how someone treated us. Something I learned at the Landmark Forum is that we tend to, as humans do, drag the past around with us. Just imagine carrying around a suitcase everywhere we went.

I take George’s comment this way. By practicing forgiveness, it will certainly make you a stronger person. By not forgetting and using it as a warning to not get caught up again in that kind of a circumstance, it is useful. It reminds us NOT TO GO THERE AGAIN.

So to forgive and forget can give us freedom to go on and live a happy and fulfilling life. Create your day with your intentions clearly embedded in your mind before you even get out of bed. Practice forgiveness a little each day… the process gets easier the more you do and remember that attitude of gratitude leads to a life of abundance.

Dedicated to Success.

Making a contribution to others is a great experience. Just last night, my partner was reading through some of my older posts. He doesn’t get much time to read my blog and so he thought he would make the effort.

I was out with the girls for dinner so he was left to his own devices, and he must have been missing me to do some reading. I received a text from him later into the night to say that what I wrote was really inspiring … and that’s coming from a man who normally reads the NBA news and results!

Today, I want to give you this inspiring story of life to pay it forward to your friends. Live your life and do the things you love before it’s too late. Show your enthusiasm for life so that others will be touched by what you do. Create your day from the moment you wake up and say I’m having a great day! The rest will follow.

I will leave you to enjoy this.

Better indeed is knowledge than mechanical practice (of religious ritual). Better than knowledge is meditation. But better still is surrender of attachment to results (of one’s actions), because there follows immediate peace.

Bhagavad-Gita

I don’t know about you but I seem to get so busy at times that I almost forget to breath. Taking time out in our daily lives for a little quiet meditation is a way for us to look inside ourselves and listen for messages from our hearts and minds. It seems that we are constantly looking outside of ourselves for ways to improve but wisdom comes from within. We have all the answers that we need and taking time out for meditation and just listening is a way to find these answers.

If you are not familiar with meditation, it does take some time to actually get it and to be able to sit or lie still in a place where you will not be disturbed. I found it difficult at first to just be and not let thoughts run through my head. There are some forms of meditation whereby you listen to different levels of frequency to bring you into an alpha state so that your awareness of surrounding expands and you feel fully relaxed. Another way to learn to meditate is to stare at the flame of a candle and get into a trance-like state so that it clears your mind which then enables you to find the answers that you are searching for from within.

The best time to practice meditation is to make it a part of your morning routine. When you awake, a glass of water is a good way to re-hydrate your body after you have been sleeping for some hours as is some stretching for about 5 – 10 minutes to get your blood flowing and keep you limber. Doing this makes you feel alive after some deep slumber so it is a good practice to get yourself ready for meditation.

If you are new to this concept, just try it for a 30 seconds to one minute to start with and build on this adding more time each day.  I found this was a good way for me to learn as I tend to let my mind wander with all the tasks that I need to accomplish for the day and wonder how on earth I will fit everything in.  We all have busy schedules and taking some time out first thing in the morning is a great way to get you through the day.

Following your meditation, another thing you could do is to have a journal that you write your thoughts in day to day.  There are no rules for what you write down.  This is also a way to let things out that you may be holding onto and you will be surprised at how the ideas and answers come to you once you have written them on paper and not typed it into your laptop, LOL.  The power of simple writing is a wonderful gift to release any fears or jot your thoughts for clarification.  Even business ideas or topics for articles you want to write about on your blog.

Your journal could also be where you write down things that you are grateful for.  If you list just 5 things everyday that you are truly grateful for, this puts you in a wonderful and happy state and sets your mood for the day.  Remember in The Secret movie that if you start your day off on the wrong side of bed, it starts a pattern for the day that will continue until you change your thoughts.  Instead, if you have a morning routine that starts your day in a state of peace and gratitude, that is what you will get for the rest of the day which is what the Law of Attraction is all about. 

If any of you have more suggestions or would like to tell me your thoughts on meditation, do not hesitate to leave me a comment.   I would be more than happy to hear from you.

I want to leave you with this short Angel Meditation video with thanks to Kathy Pinna to get you into the mood and start thinking about starting your own routine.

Create your day

How do you create your day. What is the first thought that you have when you wake up. The alarm clock goes off and most of you think ‘Groundhog day. Just another day. Same old routine. Get up and go to work.’ Sound familiar.

How about when you wake up you say ‘I’m having a great day.’ Say it out loud and clap your hands. I am sharing this with you because when you start the day in this manner, your whole mindset changes. Immediately you think I am having a great day. No matter what, you have to have a great day.

When thoughts are put out to the Universe, everything changes so that your thoughts are a reality. No matter what it is. Whether or not you want that reality, it is YOUR reality.

Voices in your head

We all have them and whether or not you choose to listen to them is your CHOICE. It’s like if I ask you ‘Chocolate or Vanilla, choose.’ Why did you choose that. I choose chocolate because I love chocolate. Wrong answer. Again. ‘Chocolate or Vanilla, choose.’ I choose chocolate because I like it better than vanilla. Wrong answer.

The correct answer is ‘I choose chocolate because I choose chocolate.‘ That’s right… because you CHOOSE chocolate. You can choose to listen or not and then that is what your reality is. When those vocies start talking and say to you ‘you’re not having such a great day because you got a flat tyre on your way to work, see I told you you couldn’t have a great day.’ Whether or not you choose to listen to that voice is completely up to you. You could instead say to yourself, ‘What is great about this.’

The Secret

It’s not such a secret anymore but some of you still refuse to believe in it. I spent this morning chatting with my tech guy, Basil, aka Jamie, because my blog decided to disappear. We talked about what it could have been and he was stumped. Now I’m not the most clever tech gal but I am into modelling my mentor, Sean. So I did some remodeling to my blog and I unknowingly broke the links.

So Basil and I were trying to figure it out and we got talking about The Secret and what’s opening up for him now that he has found it when all of a sudden, he worked out what I had done and it all got sorted.

So the Secret is to think of the things that you want and not what you don’t want. Be aware of your thoughts as your thoughts are things. Imagine yourself already holding or being what you want and the Universe will shape and shift to give it to you.

Love the life you live

Ange