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Life, It’s Not Really Complicated

June 25 Dawn

I’m sure you’ll be able to remember a time as a child when you didn’t understand the rules of the game and played anyway.

Perhaps you can remember the long school-free summer days (away from the prying adults with the permission slips), and along with your besties you made up games from scratch, including the rules, played it for 8 hours straight, and then the next day a completely new game, with new rules was introduced.

You didn’t stop to think, ‘Well, shall we debrief play from yesterday, have a meeting and review the impact of the game on our childhood memories and how we can improve on our play efficiency?‘ No, no, no, you played first and ironed out the details as you went along.

Rules were always being rewritten, the concentration and focus was applied to the game, not always the details.

Explaining was easy.

Changing path was easy.

Rule writing was easy.

Switching the rules was easy.

Seeing it work first was easy.

Complex problems were easy.

Finding a way over hurdles was easy.

Improvements along the way was easy.

Less talking more doing (playing) was easy.

Okay, you’re an adult now … details are (sometimes) needed, I’ll agree.

Making a career move isn’t the same as Hide and Seek in a corn field. Planning a new business isn’t the same as building a den made out of sheets and the wood from an old shed from the house five doors up.

But how different is it really?

Where do you deliberately create hard and complicated for yourself? Is there another reason behind it? Are you stalling, putting off, procrastinating for something not yet clear to you?

“Look at life with the eyes of a child”, Henri Matisse said.

Or, even better if you have one hanging around your home, hire them as your coach for 8 minutes.

Children keep it simple. You were a child once.

They don’t have the vocabulary to confuse (yet). They sure as hell don’t worry about every move. They think in pictures, as writing isn’t easy communication for them.

They see the end and work backwards. They make it up as they go.

Resisting?

I’m not saying you are a child. I am suggesting you are, and always have been, highly creative (including problem solving, ideas, planning, seeing in pictures) … I’m asking you to remember that.

How?

Start with the end in mind. Ask yourself, ‘What’s my shortest path?’. Take it. The hurdles that were going to appear will. See yourself past them at the start, even if you don’t know how.

Try not complicated for a while. See life through the eyes you had as a child.

Thinking Makes It So

June 25 Dawn

Here’s a few things that aren’t real and don’t exist,

Horrible weather
Bad days
Hump Day
Monday Blues
Bad hair days (I type reluctantly)
Weird dress sense
Good news
Bad news

I know, how dare I suggest there is no such thing as bad news, or good news? Shakespeare wrote, “Nothing is good or bad, but thinking makes it so.” Spot on Mr S.

While you and I have probably said, ‘Feck, what a bad day I’ve had’, I’d bet my bra, that the 7 billion or so that lived the same date as us, there will be a few where the reality was different.

While we have interpreted a day as awful, some folks may have had very different experience: joyful, happy, amazing … one of utter wonderfulness.

So, that can’t make our perception the truth, can it?

And weird dress sense, it were the truth then everyone would have to agree it were weird. But what’s the likelihood there? And who decides what is weird and what isn’t? Maybe someone else would interpret it as fashionable, quirky and beautiful.

If the weather were horrible, then we would all have to agree on what we define, and what would be classed as horrible. When you are upset it’s raining, someone depending on the rain for their crops, may be doing back flips at the wet stuff falls.

The people who love what they do and get paid for probably don’t even think about Monday being a colour. What one person defines as a good day, another will perceive it as a waste of a day.

Even two people who have a similar experiences on the same day, one can say that was nightmare and the other could say what a great learning experience.

It’s all perception and interpretation.

These generalisations don’t exist.

You may or may not buy into them. You may agree with some (that fit your map of the world and the scripts we live by) and shun others.

And there you go,

There is always, always, other ways to look at things – a single way for each mind that wanders this planet. That’s a lot of ways.

Why would you choose to look at life as a hard, cold, negative, devaluing, and willingly agreeing with a way of thinking that diminishes, hurts, and puts down who you are? Why would you accept for example phrases such as ‘this is the way life is’ and ‘things aren’t ever going to change’ for your life. Why would you do that?

What would it take for you to ask, ‘Is there another way of looking at this?’ And to actually look.

You are always in control of your own thinking. Always. You can choose what you want to feel, how you look at things, and what state of mind you want.

Alas, many don’t believe that.

Or they think that they need trained to do it. That they need to learn a set of skills, how-to’s and techniques to get them to the point where they have passed some test, stamped by someone else that say they are, and always were, in control of their own thinking.

The first step is not just believing in the power thought, it’s believing that you have the power of your own thoughts. Believing that you not only can think what is possible, but it is possible for you. Can you see the difference?

When you start to believe, you then start to feel. When you start to feel, you then can create and try. And when you try, you become more skilled and confident. Eventually, all this negative talk and thought diminishes, your generalisations and limitations you placed on you and your life cease to exist.

There is always another way to look at things, you have the power to make that so. Trust it. Believe it.

You Get What You Think About

June 25 Dawn

When you think about your future, what picture do you see? Do you have hope, faith and belief that no matter what you have to face, go through, experience you will always be able to handle it?

Or do you see it as hopeless, with dread, and that things will never change for you?

How do you cope with adversity? How well do you go through the ups and downs of the human experience? How do you handle life challenges and pitfalls? Because it’s all determined by how you answer those questions, fuelled by your beliefs.

You move toward (and become) what you think about, and your present thoughts are determining your future.

As humans, you and I are goal orientated by nature, and we think in pictures. If I were to say to you pink elephant – you wouldn’t see the text pink or elephant – you would picture an image of a pink elephant.

Silly picture?

Is it though? Only because you have already made and have an association, understanding and interpretation of the colour pink. You have given it the meaning it has for you, based on what you were taught, you know ‘pink’ because someone said to ‘this is the colour pink’.

You don’t see with your eyes, in order to see, there must be light.

Light reflects off an object (and if you’re looking at it) — the light enters the eye. Eventually the light is focused, converted into electrical chemical signals and then delivered to the brain where what you’ve seen is decoded and interpreted.

That decoding and interpretation and the image you see will all depend on how you have been conditioned to translate the light, and give what you have seen a meaning for you.

Words create vivid pictures, and you are always drawn towards the pictures in your mind.

Have you ever heard the saying, ‘I am giving everything I see all the meaning that it has for me’?

Another way of saying that – you are interpreting, placing value and meaning on what you are looking at.

If you see the world (and your future) as hopeless, cruel, non compassionate, unloving, and you keep telling yourself, ‘It’s just the way it is and nothing is ever going to change’ … your brain will search and find for you all the evidence and proof you need to back up those beliefs you have, based on your past conditioning and experience.

You will be drawn and bring towards you a hopeless, cruel, non compassionate, unloving experience … you are creating it because that’s your interpretation of the world you see.

Eventually, you will have sought out so much so called truth that you can’t do anything but believe it.

This is called self-fulfilling prophecy,

‘I knew it was going to be a bad day as soon as I woke up this morning’. Guess what? A bad day. You move towards what you think about. Your thoughts are creating your reality. You’re getting the picture you asked for.

‘There is no way that I will be ever able to change career’. Guess what? Nope. No way. Not until you change the picture. And it sometimes doesn’t take much to shift it, in fact sometimes we aren’t even aware of the moments of change.

‘I hate cold calling so much, it’s never successful’. Guess what? It never is. Unless it’s a day when you actually don’t hate too much. Funny that.

You get what you think about, you get your interpretation

You can create more positive, inspiring, self-fulfilling prophesies. If you see the world as hopeful, loving, compassionate, empowering – and you are contributing to it – you will start to see more of it happening all around you.

What do you believe though? Do you think it’s just as easy to see the opportunities and possibilities around you as it is the horror?

Whatever you think about, your brain will start to find proof, that you will begin to observe it all around you. Most of us want the proof first.

You are drawn to what you are thinking about. How do you switch from one belief system to another? How do you set positive intentions for yourself instead of negative? How? Set the intention of the world you want to see and the pictures you want to be dominant. Declare it.

When you see (interpretation) pictures that are destroying your confidence, esteem, growth, potential and efficacy, question the picture. What you see can only ever be interpreted by you.

Take a look around your life, when someone pays you a compliment, what do you see? A genuine word, or someone wanting something? When success happens for you, what do you see? Congratulating yourself, or telling yourself it’ll never last?

Take Away/To Do

Words create vivid pictures, and you are always drawn towards the pictures in your mind. What words are you using to create positive, inspiring, confident and fearless pictures?

It’s Never Too Late (But One Day It Will Be)

May 22 Dawn

You’ve heard that saying ‘it’s never too late to be what you might have been’, yes?

(I like to add at the end, ‘but don’t leave it a moment longer’).

It’s a goody.

But it’s not the truth.

It’s one of those quotes that give us the illusion that we shall have enough physical time to get all the stuff (stuff = everything) we want to do actually done: to allow ourselves to get focused and paying attention to all those dreams, goals, desires that we have for our life.

It’s one of those quotes that we get squeeee-inspired with and the next minute we find ourselves planking on the coach with a bowl of Frosties watching repeats of Friends and Greys Anatomy.

We exist in time.

Your physical body (which allows you to experience this life thing) has an expiry date.

Your experience of you will end.

Oh, grim, grimmy-grimmy.

Hear me out.

Most of us are eating cereal waiting for life to start

Waiting until we become the other idea we have of ourselves before we can really live, ‘When I get that job, that relationship, that career, that client, that qualification, that home, that car, into that size of jeans, that reading on the weight scales, when I sort out my confidence, when I have more money, more time (eh???), when I’m ready, when I [insert your own reason here]…then my life will really start’.

Many people who swing by Living Moxie say, ‘I’m worried that this is it’.

(I’m worried that this is it means: feck, I’ve really screwed up this life thing, I’ve been playing at, doing stuff that I really didn’t want to, I’ve wasted so much of my time, listened to folk I shouldn’t have, and now I’m so far in it, I have no idea how to get out!. Happiness? Peace? Joy? Where’s mine?)

News: This. Is. It.

Did you just glance past that last sentence?

And one day it will be too late.

You are everything that your life is waiting for. Everything. Change that to I am everything my life is waiting for and you have a great affirmation (click that link and you can download hundreds of them).

You have the wheel. (Permission is yours: not your parents, carers, grandparents, aunts, uncles, siblings, partners, high school teachers, friends from the playground, bosses, ex-workmates. dog or cat…well, maybe the cat has a little of you, but hey that’s cats for you.)

You’re driving.

Optimism bias would suggest that you think you are going to live forever-ever-ever. That exits happen to other people, not you.

Nope. You don’t escape that door. There isn’t enough time for you to try ALL options. Take one.

Don’t wait for life wake up calls. What if it never rings? Then what are you going to do?

You don’t get a new life. You have one.

Quit living in the past, stop projecting into the future. You want a loving life? BE love. You want a happy life. BE happy. You want a peaceful life? BE peace. And on it goes. Be = live it now, not when you’re finished your cereal.

Stick a stake in the ground and claim your life. Own it. Give yourself full permission, it’s the only permission you are waiting on.

Carry on.

Do What You Love Interview: Meet Victoria Cunningham-Downey, Pilates and Yoga Teacher

May 22 Dawn

Next up in the Do What You Love Interviews is Victoria Cunningham-Downey, entrepreneur and owner at StretchBodyMind (based in Glasgow), Yoga and Pilates Trainer & Teacher, Business Mentor ‘helping people in healthy careers to live healthy lives and full time themselves’ and a full time student.

The reason I asked Victoria for an interview was because of her the path: many taken but all leading her back to her first love of Yoga.

If you are in the middle (or start) of a career change/transformation…

and you are asking the, ‘What is my thing?’ question. Ponder this one: is there a thread tying your story together? Is there a common factor in all that you have been doing up to this point. Is there something so simple, you could maybe be missing it because you think it’s too easy? That thread, it could be trying to tell you something.

Victoria, introduce yourself and tell us what ‘doing what you love to do’ means to you?

Okay, I’m an avid yogi, aspiring writer (I will write my book in 2014!) and trainer for people who want to become Yoga Teachers or Pilates Instructors.

I have been practising yoga for over 25 years and teaching for almost 15: teaching Pilates since 2005 and training teachers since 2010. I am a Senior Yoga Teacher (1000+ hours) and because of my own training and practice you’ll find me teaching Yoga and Pilates at all levels.

For me, doing what I love means that in addition to my business, teaching, training and coaching I can keep on learning, right now I am also currently studying Complementary Therapies at college here in Glasgow.

What were you doing before this?

This is a difficult question for me because I have been practicing yoga since I was 13, I was asked to do teacher training at age 18.

At that time though yoga did not have anything like the popularity it has now, and so my reaction to my teacher asking was, ‘No thanks. I’m off to uni to study and then I’ll get a real job.’

Little did I know that yoga was eventually going to become my real job!

So, after 10 years of being youth worker by day and teaching yoga by night I developed successful charity Stretch & Play for children and young people back in 2006.

I then created Stretch NI (Northern Ireland) in late 2009 to work specifically with adults, late 2012 we left Northern Ireland and moved to Scotland to create Stretch Scotland.

In the last 9 months I have expanded this into online and offline personal and professional development through StretchBodyMind.com.

How did you make doing what you love to do happen?

It was a scary step to move from full-time employment into self-employment even though I had been teaching Yoga part-time for over 5 years.

I had a great idea to work with young people when they were children to address their low self-esteem and rising obesity levels so I created Stretch & Play to provide yoga and drama to kids.

This award-winning charity was ahead of its time in its aim and its scope, but I ended up overworking so much so that I had a nervous breakdown in 2008.

However, I picked myself up, made the difficult (and yet right) decision to let the charity go and started teaching adults again – my love – and I’ve been doing that ever since.When I began training people to become Yoga Teachers and Pilates Instructors it felt like I’d finally “come home” to what I was meant to do.

Can you share the good, the bad and the ugly when you made the decision do what you love to do?

The good.

Was winning an UnLtd Level 2 grant, worth £20,000 and an all-expenses paid trip to Tamil Nadu in India to watch entrepreneurs from another culture in action – one of the best experiences of my life.

The bad.

Being on my own and knowing that if I am not present I don’t get paid. I have addressed this by offering my online courses such as the 21 Day StretchBodyMind Body Bootcamp or the Stretch & Play Facilitator Training course.

The ugly.

My breakdown in 2008 and subsequent diagnosis of bipolar disorder was pretty hairy.

It took me some time to accept that I could be a Yoga Teacher and Pilates Instructor and encourage healthy living, while at the same time taking medication to safeguard my own mental health. Today, I am entirely open about my health issues and my clients appreciate my candour, when I tell the story it somehow opens up others to share theirs.

What were the biggest hurdles, challenges and barriers you had to overcome?

My biggest hurdle was allowing myself to let go of my parent’s expectations of me.

I have an MA Honours degree in English Literature and Sociology as well as an MSc in Marketing and a number of diplomas and certificates and I think my parents were expecting me to have some sort of corporate career.

I did try it initially and worked as a Consulting Associate with a very large corporate company, it only lasted 9 months (and it still feels like the longest 9 months of my life).

What led you to this love specifically?

I am obsessed with yoga and have been since I started practicing when I was 13. I can’t imagine yoga not being part of my day so I am thrilled to be sharing my love of yoga with those with the same passion.

What would be your top 5 pieces of advice, or suggestions, words of wisdom you would like to share?

My favourite piece of advice would be from that seminal classic by Susan Jeffers “Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway”.

It can be scary to leave the comfort and relative security of a so-called real job but in my story it has allowed me to have experience I would never have dreamed of if I had stayed ‘safe’ (like my trip to India or you know, even a client’s look of joy when she successfully attempts a challenging yoga pose).

I love being able to do what I love on a daily basis.

While I may not have the security of a pension plan, I have the freedom and flexibility to choose my next move, some of which has been quite lucrative.

Another piece of advice I would give is to never stop learning.

All of my courses have an element of personal development in them, even if they are career courses such as Pilates Matwork Instructor training and in my last Yoga Teacher Training course I had a couple of students who attended simply for their own development – I LOVE that!

What has been your biggest learning in your journey so far?

Throughout my journey I have constantly upgraded my skills and knowledge through all sorts of training, including my current Complementary Therapies course which is putting me back into the role of student after being the teacher and trainer for so many years. This has been a huge learning curve for me and one which will, my wish, a better teacher.

What’s next for you on this path?

After being a lone wolf for over 8 years I am planning to do much more co-operative working, setting up a new Yoga Studio & Complementary Therapy Centre with a colleague from my course as well as offering more face-to-face personal and professional development training with a fellow Yoga & Pilates teacher.

I have also committed to writing my first book by the end of this year for the Stretch Barre Method – my unique blend of Yoga, Pilates and Ballet Barre exercises.

What was the biggest piece of learning you picked up and ran with?

Self care is essential – in life and business.

Having worked myself into a breakdown in 2008 I gently picked up the baton and started again in 2009 and now I am so much more careful about taking time for me.

My self-care routine includes a little bit of yoga (10 minutes maximum) in the morning and maybe meditation or tapping, depending on what mood I’m in. I also switch off the computer an hour before bed so I can get a good night’s sleep, which is essential for a person with bipolar disorder.

Pick a quote for life, and explain why it hits a home run for you?

My quote is one I found on a calendar back in 2003 and I can’t find the person who said it but it goes like this:

“It is a great relief when we find that we cannot, nor should we be able to, control everything in our sphere of operation.”

This is perfect for me! If anyone knows who said it please let me know.

Lastly, where can people reach you?

If you are interested in Pilates and Yoga Teacher Training, workshops and classes, the best place to get me is on the StretchBodyMind website. On Twitter I’m @victoriastretch and here on Facebook.

Live In the Questions

April 28 Dawn

We identify with our cherished beliefs – we may not like to admit it but – the world we see creates our point of view.

Moment by moment you’re constantly seeing and taking in proof and validation that your world view is the correct (or you’ll fill in what you want to see) way of looking.

What we see depends mainly on what we look for. ― John Lubbock

But I’m open-minded!

I say that too, until someone or something comes along and challenges my truths on how I see the world, then I can/may/possibly catch myself defending my beliefs – especially when they don’t agree with me and my script of how things should be.

“I mean, how can what they are saying be true? It just can’t be, not when I know what I am saying is the truth. We both can’t be correct. I have it all figured out, so they must be the ones in the wrong, right? They must have it screwed up. I don’t need to change my belief, they do.”

This way of thinking doesn’t half close us down to the endless possibilities and opportunities surrounding us, plus ideas, suggestions and other ways of looking at and living life.

As soon as you identify who you think you are with a belief you will search (and always find) all the evidence you need to confirm that what you believe is true. You won’t see another way because you don’t think you need to see it (until you decide to change the belief).

Live Life In the Questions

One of the ways to identify if a belief is really true for you is to live your life in the questions.

What questions?

You could try:

Am I seeing this correctly?
Is there another way to look at this?
What ways can I think differently about this right now?
What would it take to see this another way?
Am I giving this the correct meaning?

There’s five for starters.

And then?

Don’t go seeking for an answer. The habit many of us have is asking a question (especially when we are stuck) and then go on searching through our current belief system for an answer, you are going to come up with the one you started with. You can’t help it because you haven’t created a new belief yet, or another way to look at the world.

We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them. – Albert Einstein

You are the leader in charge. If the world you are seeing (living) is not what you want to look at (experience) you could try living in the questions until you start to collate other evidence that your current belief system isn’t 100% accurate.

“This always happens to me!”

Try: Am I seeing that correctly? Ask: Always? Does this always happen to me?

My life is just a mess!

Try: What would it take for me to see this another way?

I’ll never find the career of my dreams!

Try: What would it take for me to see the career of my dreams?

I’ll never make it!

Try: What ways can I think differently right now?

I will never have the courage or confidence to do that!

Try: Is there another way of looking at this?

Play with it. Practice. Have meaningful conversations with yourself. You may stumble upon a great insight and discovery.