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Getting Off the Negative Thought Train (& A Little Thing to Practice)

August 28 Dawn

You cannot hold two conflicting thoughts in your mind at the same time.

A little intro first …

The beloved and I are – if we were asked to choose – optimists – that things will work for the good.

But being optimistic doesn’t stop them accidentally stamping in dog poop when out for the evening doggy walk.

Not every night, but a lot they somehow manage it way more than other people. Aside: They don’t go looking for it or anything, it’s not some weird game they have going on with themselves.

One minute they smell lovely and the next I hear, ‘Oh, for fecks sake!’

I then watch them balancing on one leg trying to get their shoe off without touching the stink, at the same time frantically grabbing at a twig or some nearby leaf because that level of bark is sure to save them from hitting the ground in their cleaning balancing game!

‘Every fecking night!’, on they go ranting and raving. Before hopping to a patch of excrement free grass to clean the soles of their shoes. Then peace is restored.

I find it funny. Of course.

Much to their annoyance. Of course.

Just like they think it’s highly amusing when I scorch pots. Not slightly burn, I mean, charred. I swear I haven’t had a tin of baked beans that haven’t been flavoured with ‘Burnt ‘O’ A Crisp’ in about 4 years.

Point,

Choosing optimism doesn’t mean you’ll never stand in dog poop, or not burn your pots.

A whole walk isn’t bad when you have to take five minutes to wipe poop your shoes for a moment.

A whole evening isn’t ruined when you’re pulling bits of unrecognisable food out from between your teeth.

Well, wait, that’s not completely true, it’ll depend where you’re placing your attention (what thoughts you are focusing on), because the choice of ruined, a disaster, this is the way it always is … or not … lies entirely with you.

The other week we talked about nothing is good or bad but thinking makes it so.

I’ve witnessed (myself and others) people having one tiny everyday mishap – it didn’t go according to their script of how it should have went– who then ran with the thought of that one negative experience into the next one, and the next, and the next, and the next, thus ruining moments.

And that’s when days and walks do get ruined.

It doesn’t have to be like that, you have the power to change all your thoughts.

Here’s a little technique, obviously you need an experience to try it out with, but don’t go creating one, if you need to use it you’ll remember it at the right time,

1. Perceived negative experience happens. Don’t react, but notice the thought that is bothering you, feel what you feel.

I can’t not react!

Yes, yes, you can, you always a can. Simply a matter of choosing not to.

2. Name the feeling. Be honest. This is crucial, how many times have you heard someone say, ‘Well, I must stay positive!’ and they sure as hell don’t feel it? To deny how you really feel is insane. Be honest with the feeling, that way you take all energy out of it. It is okay to feel rotten, admit it, and give yourself some peace so you can change it.

3. Now we have to interrupt the perceived negative thought, so close your eyes if you have to, feel the thought, three deep breaths and at the same time create a picture in your mind of a flickering candle. Hold the picture of the candle and breaths deeply for another 3.

4. As you breathe deeply, see the light of the candle grow stronger, flickering stopped, it’s now offering a full glow. When you’re ready, and not before, with your last breath of the exercise gently blow out the candle.

Why this technique, and why a candle?

Choose anything you like to focus on, it doesn’t have to be a candle.

The why? Well, it interrupts you before you go tearing after the negative initial thought. When you choose to hold a negative thought in your mind, you will create a picture. If you allow yourself to follow that thought/picture, you will start creating other pictures that match or offer proof that the first is correct.

When you hold the thought, then choose to think of the candle (or something else that brings you peace) you are then changing the picture.

You cannot hold two dominant pictures in your mind at the same time: that is the key here. It’s one or the other.

You may find that you keep returning back to the original negative thought, perfectly natural to begin with, it’s the one fueled with the most emotion at the start, but stay on it, you can choose what you think about, always.

Example?

Yes, I have one for you, if the beloved and I have lost sanity for a moment and arguing, instead of heading down the path where we are hissing about the current thing, and then bringing up the stuff from the past – because that’s where the thoughts take us.

It requires only one of us to stop the madness. To say, ‘I’m walking away now, as this is not who I am’. And we walk. It takes only one of us to think peace.

I’m not saying don’t resolve that which needs resolved, what I am saying is to not resolve anything when you are, well, ‘out your mind’. Thoughts that come with anger (and any other fear) take you out your right mind. Right mind?

The mind that is peaceful is your natural state.

A Quick Lesson in Attachment Featuring Two Exhibits

August 28 Dawn

A lesson in attachment, please observe Exhibits A & B:

You, I’ll assume, aren’t attached to either exhibit in the pictures.

They have no meaning for you whatsoever, yes? Rightly so. Quite boring in fact? Excellent.

Exhibit “A” is the remainder of my glasses. That is what can happen to a decent (oh, still attached I see) pair of specs when you put them on your car windscreen, having stopped for a toilet break, only to forget you put them there.

You resume your journey at 50 mph with your glasses riding alfresco, at least until the currents whip them from their moorings and they fly off and into the path of an oncoming car which mercilessly ploughs them into the tarmac.

At this point I am ever so slightly annoyed but resign myself to the fact that “hey ho, such is life!” and declare inwardly that I must be becoming less materialistic and a slave to my possessions. Oh, how spiritually evolved I am!

Attachment level? I’d give it a 5% attached. Slightly annoyed, but they were a little scratched, I’ve had them for a while, and I know I needed a new eye test.

Exhibit “B” is the ring my Mum gave me as a present. 10 minutes after the glasses incident I noticed the stone was missing.

Attachment? Off the ‘friggin scale! Read: screams of a ‘Nooooooo!’ and all tears and snotters because it was my Mum – whom I deeply love – gave me it as a present. Her gifts matter to me. I place value on them. (Plus, having to attend her ‘show down’ when I told her it was lost did not create nice pleasing pictures Mother/Daughter bond at all). It’s not my fault the stone didn’t want to be still attached to the ring!

“Attachment is the root of suffering.” Buddha did say (Pali canon scriptures, Theravadan Buddhist).

Yep, I get it.

I love stuff, I lose the stuff I love. I suffer.

I like my things. My things break. I suffer.

I love stuff but stuff changes. I don’t want it to change. I suffer.

Lot of ‘I’ in there. A lot of me-me-me.

But it’s not just things, it’s not just the glasses, the ring, sofa the cat has shredded to paper, or the carpet I threw out when the dog was a pup and friendly with her ‘presents’.

Oh no, there been ideas. Ways of working. Plans. Qualifications. Job titles. Business. Websites. Words. Beliefs. Oh, this attachment thing is applied to everything .

[D]etachment means letting go and nonattachment means simply letting be. -Steven Livine

For peace all signposts point to: ‘don’t search outside yourself for happiness’, ‘don’t be attached to anything that isn’t permanent’ and ‘let all value go’ – but take the Exhibits above – just when I think I’m getting somewhere – up pops something to remind me ”Hey! You haven’t learnt it yet Barclay!’

And that’s okay. I’m not going to get attached to learning how not to get attached! How silly would that be?

Here end the trial, I’ll just finish with this from don Miguel Ruiz, Jr – The Five Levels of Attachment: Toltec Wisdom for a Modern World

By letting go of your attachment to what you think the melody should be, you open yourself to the potential to create a unique and beautiful song of your own composition or a collaboration that can be shared with others.

How do you let things just be?

Become Who You Came Here to Be

August 22 Dawn

So, on Twitter today someone posted ‘take the book nearest you, turn to page 45, and the first three words describe your life at this moment’.

‘Yeah, right!’ says thought.

But still, curiosity got the better of me so I picked up the nearest book the cat was keeping warm, flicked to page 45 and read the first three words which were, ‘Where Are You?’

Feck! It was spot on. Spooooooky.

No, not spooky, we can attach value and place personal meaning on anything we want to, that’s how powerful we are – by thought alone we decide this is valuable and means something, and this is not.

Defining idea: everything is valueless until we attach meaning to it.

(Which reminds me, I must write about my disaster day a few weeks ago and attaching self to stuff, ‘scuse me while I make a note of that).

Done.

Right, where were we?

Oh yeah, the 3 words, ‘Where Are You?’ my answer, ‘In motion.’

I’m at an end and at a beginning. Exciting times.

Have you ever felt something similar?

Where you just know (by that lovely gorgeous inbuilt wisdom you own) you’re at an ending, but you aren’t 100% clear of what you’re creating next, or where you’re stepping and putting your tootsies?

But you also know that the shifts are for your greater good?

One thing to do would be to ignore the feeling that something is most definitely coming to end and new is emerging, and plod on unconsciously with life as normal.

I’ve done that before – plodded unconsciously – even though I knew (hello wisdom/intuition/whatever you want to call it … we meet again) the new beginnings – although perhaps a challenge and uncertain – would have brought me closer to who I really am.

And here’s the insanity part … I didn’t walk that way.

There’s a saying ‘it’s easier to destroy than to create’. (Ever built a sandcastle – I rest my case).

But it’s a thread all through life – art, projects, ideas, relationships, connections, learning, work, intentions, goals, all areas- when we create unconsciously, not being present, truthful and mindful about the creation.

I mean, take relationships – maybe this is just true for me but I’ll eat my socks if it is (I won’t actually do that) – I’ve ‘fallen in love’ and created relationships unconsciously.

Translated, that means, what the hell was I thinking? I know what I was thinking now – not a heck of a lot – or more truthfully, I was thinking exactly what I got. Mmm.

And, like most things in life that we unconsciously create it isn’t long before cracks start to show.

Consciously creating is a soul-full work.

And surprise, surprise, surprise – we don’t seem to get round to it that often. Why? I think because we are so busy responding and reacting to out there we don’t have time to think what is really going on inside.

I mean to cease reacting to all and everything? Um, there’s a challenge, especially at the speed of which information comes at us and how it demands we pay attention.

You are in creation at every instance, of every day, we all are – how cool is that?

By thought alone you create. And you have many thoughts.

To consciously create takes courage as (let’s not lie) it can be uncomfortable, it can bring up for you all your vulnerabilities, fears, insecurity and doubts to make (be) that which you have never made (become) before, what a dare!

I’m in. And I’m playing. I’m accepting my own dare.

Where Are You?

Did you know the word courage is from the French word cor, derived from Latin it means ‘heart’ and with ‘soul or mind’? And that is where I am at on page 45, I fit a quote at the moment ‘let go of who you think you are so that you can become who you came here to be’.

Where am I?

Happily going through some transforming, endings, shifting and moving … putting more soul into what goes on around here … but that’s me, what about you?

Here’s an idea for you:

I’m not asking you to walk along with me (this is my path) but is there something in your life that you are holding onto so tightly but you know if you found the courage to let it go you will become who you came here to be?

Oh, that’s a question and a half, huh?

Do you have a little time today to spend on your courage (mind, heart and soul) consciously?

Can you give yourself the space in each instance to not react – even for 24 hours? Play with it?

Can you spend 10 minutes to consider where are you living by reaction: what you ‘should’ be doing, what you ‘have to do’ and how it’s stopping what you came here to do?

Are you able to take those same 10 minutes to consciously answer who’s expectations, dreams, goals and life are you truly living – are you creating it, or has/is someone or something created/creating it for you?

What’s in your life keeping you back from who you truly are, and you don’t even know how it happened?

Where are you giving enough time and space to becoming who you came here to be?

What are you paying attention to?

What thoughts are you splashing around in that are causing you forget you can actually swim?

Maybe you’ve just scanned the questions. That’s okay. I’m not that conscious when I’m sat at the computer or playing with my phone either.

Are you able to scroll back up, read them again, and let them sink in?

Along with this … you are not here to live, work, or create in fear (think I might get that tattooed on my forehead, I’m never done saying it!).

You are here to be uniquely you.

To live the truth of who you really are. (Second tattoo).

Your truth. Not one created for you.

I know you know that. But the world is designed (at present) to keep you separated and distant from knowing (unless you are consciously aware of it).

When you take your 10 minutes today think about this … what life would you be creating if you consciously aligned yourself with you truly are?

Email me your thoughts if you fancy, I promise to reply before 2020!

Oh, and don’t worry if your answers are foggy, cause the coolest part in all this is, your truth isn’t going anywhere, it will sit there, patiently, waiting for your return.

Where are you?

Stay conscious.

If Your Words Were Spells …

August 22 Dawn

Let’s see, the word you and I know as spell is derived from the (before) 9th century word ‘spel’ which meant incantation, charm, influence, magical powers, and fascination.

I bet you already know how powerful your words are and – when you hear certain words spoken by others (or even those you think about yourself) – you’ll know the effect they can have on all of your thinking.

But, no ‘word’ means anything, until we give it a meaning (or we are taught it). It’s our own perceptions that will decide whether or not we think a word is good, bad, loving, hateful, positive, negative, offensive, caring and so on.

With 7 billion plus people in the world, that’s a small 7 billion plus meanings and perceptions of all and everything. (And a lot of people being offended at stuff that’s, well, been made up.)

Your words (spells) are powerful, watch them, and listen to them, even the language you are thinking: that create pictures, then create meaning, then create feeling, then create reality. 50,000 thoughts a day we are making a heck of a lot up – we’re busy!

‘It’s easier to destroy rather than create’ says the quote. This destruction can also be you doing it to you. ‘Spells’ have the power to create love or to instill fear.

They have the power to generate positivity, compassion, warmth and understanding … or not. (Like, we didn’t know that!)

Sometimes we have created ‘incantations’ for our lives such as, ‘The world is a cruel place’, ‘Things are never going to change for me’, ‘I’m not good enough’, ‘Who do I think I am?’, ‘My life has no meaning’.

Such conjuring! Such influence! What power!

If your ‘spells’ (words) are not what you want to ‘cast’ anymore, time to mix up some new ‘spells’.

As another quote says, ‘I am are the two most powerful words in the world’. What is cast after them is the world you perceive, observe, live in, and ultimately experience.

Or, just ignore all the above – after all, like you, I’m just ‘spelling’ what I believe and perceive, and conjuring up a ‘spell’ that says, ‘Cast love, kindness and compassion on yourself first’.

Why? Because (my words) I believe (perception) the loving language you use on you … well … it works like a charm!

Live Life On Default

July 20 Dawn

I’m proposing a life on default.

Come with me for a minute,

Have you ever had to press the reset on your mobile phone?

Searched for a pin to stick in the little button at the back of your modem to take it back to the factory settings?

Or has your computer experienced the screen of death? Have you had to reboot everything, take it back to default settings, carry out a system restore and remove all the programs that you’ve ever installed?

Your default settings when you arrived were confident, courageous, bold, brave, joy, happiness, love, contentment, peace, belonging, worth …

… those settings were already built in.

You didn’t need to add them in – just like a brand new computer or mobile phone – your settings were working in tip-top condition before you started playing around and changing them.

Through life you started to add programs, or they were programmed into you.

As more things have been added – like what happens on a mobile or computer – space gets used up and things start getting a little slower, sluggish, less efficient.

To the point where you may have played around with so many programs that your original default settings appear overwritten.

Eventually, when you notice things aren’t working, you set out to ‘fix’ the ‘problems’.

But – like what many of us do when we intuitively know something isn’t working the way it was designed – that could be after some time spent with just living with it.

You find things to make the repair, of course you do, no shortage of information, ideas, tools and techniques.

What happens?

You add more programs into the mix.

You may learn you need to delete a few of the programs you put in.

Some you will be happy to press erase on, but others you don’t really (not really, really, really) want to get rid and let go off. You know they don’t work that well, but, well, you just would rather have them than not.

Then there are those programs that you think you have erased forever – just like using the Recycle Bin in Windows – but they never seem to be gone completely.

They can be restored.

Or there are little files that don’t get fully removed, and all it takes is something to pressed and then they are all back again.

You could even run a few through an anti-virus program (another program), but even you know yourself that things just aren’t as efficient as when it came out the box.

On it goes.

Deleting, repairing, fixing, downloading new stuff, trying new ‘tools’ to upgrade what isn’t obviously working.

It’s a never ending cycle.

Until one day.

A moment.

Sanity is restored.

It comes back online.

That’s the best day.

That’s the day when you’ve tried everything else and you’ve eventually get it that in order for anything to work efficiently you are going to have press the default button.

Restore completely the original settings.

Right back to the basics.

Love. Joy. Peace. Contentment, Courageous. Confident. Happiness. Worthy. And?

How do you press the default button?

My honest answer? It’s all in mind.

That’s no answer!

I don’t have ‘10 Ways to Live Your Life On Default’ or ‘Tips For Living Life On Default’.

All I know is my limited understanding, and this is it…

You are only ever one thought away from pressing default.

Just one.

xxx

PS: Here’s a a little something I’ve put together for you, 7 days of self exploration journal prompts exploring ‘Life On Default.

To Change, The Journey Is Never Outside Yourself

June 30 Dawn

To Change the Journey Is never Outside Yourself

If you had been at JFK Airport, late October 1995, boarding a plane to London, you may remember a couple of young woman crying because they didn’t want to get on the flight home.

Visas were up, flight was boarding, no pennies, but they seriously discussed their (limited) options.

However, they knew deep down they were going to have to step on board and make do with free gin available on the 5 hour flight home.

Gosh, I got so drunk that flight! What a state, we’d be put off in Iceland by a Flight Marshall today. Not for being rowdy, for the never ending weeping!

I’d spent six months in the US, working and travelling, and I met two people who would then become a key part of my life, even today.

I didn’t want to come home because I didn’t want to pick up a relationship that was poisonous, live in a home that held no love (with the poison), return to university to complete a degree that I even knew I didn’t want to do the day I began (referring my place for three years, was a big enough hint I didn’t take!).

In fact, I didn’t have clue what I wanted to really do.

Because I had went to the States alone (no one knew me) to teach drama (my love), all of that (percieved) yuckie life stuff was left in the UK.

You know the phrase I use a lot, become who you are, those 6 months I believe were the first time I understood and lived what it meant. I didn’t have the same understanding at the time, but now, yes.

Some would say it was just the holiday blues that I didn’t want to come home. No, holiday blues aren’t real and don’t exist.

What was real was the fact I was unhappy with the life I had thought up and created back in the UK.

What did exist was I had experienced and caught a glimpse of a picture of who I really was, and the picture of life back home sure as hell didn’t match it.

It’s holiday season in the Western Hemisphere, schools are out, people boarding flights, ferries, trains and automobiles. Some will use the time to rest, restore and revive.

And others will see at as an opportunity to ‘get it away from it all’, to ‘have a break for a bit’ so they can ‘leave their worries behind’.

Like I did, you may not want to return, or when you do you’ll probably want to hold onto the picture of the you that can do and experience peace, relaxation, carefree, fun, enjoying every moment, eating well, sleeping soundly, a happier you.

What if … and this is for all of us … holidays or not,

What if that’s the way life was meant to be all the time?
What if ‘real’ life wasn’t something you had to ‘get away from’?
What if, you didn’t want to ‘have a break from real life’, because it was to good to be separated from?
What if, worries didn’t exist, never mind being left behind?
What if, there is no distance or a journey to take to become who you really are, you were already here?

Now, depending on your thinking, you may have completed resisted my questions.

That’s fine. I understand. I remember when I came back from the US I thought I left that person (I liked, and loved) over there.

When I returned, I automatically bought into people telling me that, ‘It’s back to normal’ and, ‘You can’t live the freedom life forever’.

Today I would ask.

Normal? According to who’s definition of normal? Can’t be free? Why not? Who decided that one? Is that not how we arrived? I signed nothing to say otherwise.

One of the reasons I do what I do (including these blog posts) is because I believe in us, that who we really are (confident, free, fearless, courageous, and all other moxie stuff) isn’t at some other destination, it’s not a 4 hour flight away, or a suitcase packed with your finest, nor is it in India, Peru or Brazil.

It’s also not in our worries, fears, doubts, what everyone else says the rules are.

My intentions are genuine, I want to provoke you in a nice way, inspire you, and yes … motivate you to question and then act.

So,

Without getting a flight, The Moxie Project starts the 2nd of July. And yes, I do hope you make the non-distance journey.

Why? Because there is a massive difference from ‘being you’ for a few weeks a year, to being you … all year.

You aren’t here to live, work, create in fear. You are here to be a full on unapologetic of your gorgeous amazing self. All time. Not just some of the time.

I hope you can join us.