Moxie Living: Courage and Confidence

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Please Realise This Deeply…All Your Moments Matter

October 30 Dawn

Hello you, how are you?

I’ll just dive straight in with this … I’ve been wrong, no, I’ve changed my mind. As I’d rather be happy than right, it’s time for clarity. I’ve said often that I can help you ‘create a life/career/business that matters’ or ‘create that life, the one you really want’ (real coachy-trainery-in-diapers language). It suggests that life now doesn’t count. That’s just not true. I was thinking about it last night, hence ….

It’s 3.25 am, I am sitting in my living room.

On my left is my older dog Amber, she’s finally asleep. Sleep is rare because of doggy Alzheimer’s, or doggysheimers as I call it. The name change is so I don’t get caught up in the fear and distress of the dis-ease that has turned night into day, and day into night for her, and me.

This moment, right this second, I’m grateful that her little brain is letting her body do what it wants to do.

On the sofa opposite sleeps my sisters dog, her legs are twitching, perhaps chasing rabbits or her nemesis Maxwell (the new cat addition in my house since my friend passed away). Max is asleep behind her. It’s a bold move. His black coat camouflaging him.

On my right is Inca, my collie nemesis, she’s upside down and snoring, still holding a sock in her mouth. If I move, she will. I’ll stay here wedged in a little longer.

And I’ve just read a quote and deepened my love for Rumi further, ‘Live life as if everything is rigged in your favour’, only I’m questioning it’s authenticity, would Rumi have used the world rigged? I’m lost down the Internet for clarification.

Just life. Ordinary. A moment in time. Mundane detail.

We all have normal and ordinary, unusual and extraordinary.

We each have a story being penned, and within the main framework are millions of little chapters all playing out. We don’t usually speak about them, let alone notice them.

And at the same time we have thoughts of standing by our core, to know why we are here and what we’ve to do, live our function.

To not waste our time available. Among the daily details we caress and go back and forth with thoughts of wanting to change, to grow, transform, to live a life that truly matters. To create. To do work we love. To love deeply. To remember who we really are.

Through the ordinary routine we want to be brave enough to take the solitary journey inside, to enter that place alone and have the courage to look at who we really are. We want to accept where we’ve been, put down the past, and quit wasting time living in (or being scared) of the future. We want to let go of what we constantly hold on to that know longer serves us.

In among the humdrum and everyday we want to choose Love not fear. To not feel separate, alone and isolated. To live long enough, forgetting the reasons we cried and remembering what made us laugh.

In the middle of middling through it all we want to return to real happiness, peace and contentment, for those to be our first thoughts. To explore the unknown territory within us. We want to face our truth. Laugh. Love. Forgive. Share. We want to to feel love, be love, express love.

We want to own and acknowledge how we really feel, not hide behind a put on brave face. We want to make mistakes, and not be condemned for learning through them. To take risks.

Even in the midst of doing the dishes, making beds and going shopping we want the courage and confidence to follow our convictions, to be unconventional, question the rules we didn’t agreed to, stand up for what we believe in and all without the worry of what others are thinking and saying. We want to find out who we really are, to listen to our inner wisdom, and trust that we can make the best decisions for us.

To live in a way we add extra to the ordinary.

All that, and be grateful when an older dog falls asleep so she can have a good day tomorrow .

We tend to think the million little ordinary details aren’t as valuable compared to the longing to find our core, and that’s not true.

Every moment is needed to experience all life. The quality of your life is in how you live, not in how you are going to live.

It’s all included when you want to face the truth of who you are now, this instance, you have to be the honest witness of the life you have. To acknowledge that all the details are important when writing the only and final version of you.

Real change and transformation occurs when you can first accept, and then learn to Love the life you’ve got. “We cannot change anything unless we accept it”.

Please realise deeply, that there is here. Then is now. Everything matters, nothing is wasted, until you decide and value what is more important than the other. Your task, your only task, is to embrace and say yes to all of it. All. Of. It.

Inner courage is welcoming all life as it happens and unfolds.

To accept what is – acceptance does not mean that you like it, agree with it, or want it – it is simply the act of accepting it, it is the way it is, and when you accept it and not fight it, peace enters.

None of us have any place else to go.

Stay with the moment.

In each one you have the opportunity to transform.

Wake up.

Watch.

Normal, ordinary, unusual and extraordinary are happening all at the same time.

A life well lived – and lived well – is seeing the big things in the small things and finding the extraordinary in the ordinary.

Lots of love,

Dawn

4 Confidence Lessons a Fancy Dress Competition Can Teach You

October 17 Dawn

Confidence Lessons Small towns in Scotland have something called Gala Days, usually held on the wettest days in Summer.

If you watch Downton Abbey or Midsomer Murders, think a Crawley garden party without the victoria sponge cake and servants, or the never ending village fetes Joyce Barnaby attends, but with no murder.

Our tiny village had a Gala Day. Well, we had a shared day with the other village 2 miles away otherwise it would just have been a few folk in a field on a wet afternoon jumping in sacks.

The night before the official Day of the Gala there was always a Fancy Dress Competition (part of Gala week celebrations) for the whole community to enjoy.

1981, night before the big Gala Day, one hour before the judging started, my best friend and I decided we would enter.

We rushed home and informed my parents.

Met with the, ‘Are you having a laugh? It starts in 50 minutes!’ from my Mum, my Dad was up and out his chair and away on the hunt for a costume or two. He’s like that my Dad, he’s one of those people who can make a picnic table from two hangers and shed roof. So two fancy dress costumes were a breeze to him.

30 minutes later we were standing in over sized black and grey suits (stapled up at the trouser hem to save us tripping over and breaking our necks), black waist coats, black ties, white shirts and a couple of bowler hats, and we were informed we were going as Laurel and Hardy.

‘I’ll be the skinny one’ my friend cried. Followed with her pouting her mouth, scratching her head and starting to pretend cry.

I instantly got shoe polish attacked by my mother as she smudged a mustache on my face, ’cause the fat one had hair fuzz.

We were then handed a tin of shaving foam and a few paper plates from a left over birthday party, told to make pretend pies and throw them in each others faces at the end.

All the way to the hall we practiced our moves: a dance, the banging into one other, the head tilts, the looks, the slapstick.

All was well.

High spirits. Confident. Laughing. Courageous. In the zone.

But,

When we arrived at the hall our confidence dwindled rapidly.

Superman was there. Greek Goddesses in their taffeta/net curtains. One kid was a cat (made out of furry car seat covers) with impeccable meowing. Dorothy from Oz in the room clicking her red (tap) shoes. Egyptian Pharaohs (let down I feel by the tea towel head dress), and a wheen of others, including the token kid-Robot dressed in boxes which were wrapped in tin foil.

Our bubble was burst.

They looked amazing.

We looked like two kids in bowler hats and over sized suits.

The one in hair bunches and red tap shoes asked us, ‘Who are you meant to be?’

We talked about just leaving it.

Going home.

Towel in.

What’s the point? We’ll never win! Look at everyone else, they are so good! This was a stupid idea!

10 years old and already we had learned how to fail before even starting.

‘Let’s just have fun! We’ve got shaving foam!’ I said.

Decision made.

On we went.

We looked terrible but the dance, the slap stick, the movement, we went for emphasising the positives.

Everything worked a treat. People laughed. We owned the space (school hall).

It was one of those nailed it experiences.

Until the end.

Shaving foam of the 80’s wasn’t so gentle on the skin. Part blinded, part covered in hives we needed to have an eye bath and wash our faces. Mrs P, the Janitor guided us to the room that doubled in school hours as a first aid room and a tuck shop for some ablutions.

What the hell has this got to do with you, your courage, your confidence, your life, your business, your career?

Lots.

You must stop thinking that you aren’t good enough for what you really want to do.

I really mean, stop being the person that goes so far with their ideas and plans, sees a hurdle and then quits.

I really mean, to acknowledge that you have the right to be in the room along with everyone else.

And what I really want to say is, unlearn already failed thinking just because you have a challenge to face you didn’t expect or even see when you started.

Make a Decision

Then, make another decision that whatever comes up you will solely focus on your own stuff. Even if you don’t feel ‘dressed’ for the part yet.

What others are up to is none of your business.

This is especially important in careers and business. Sometimes you can feel like the ‘kid in a stapled costume’, not good enough compared to ‘Dorothy in her gingham dress’.

So many people look outside themselves and think that others are more capable, ready, have a right to be there and they make up their minds they don’t.

As soon as you decide, you will start to see things you didn’t see before. Why is that? Because you’ve simple made a decision to focus. You are going to bring into your awareness all the things that always been there but they weren’t important for you to pay attention to them.

Emphasise the Positives

My friend and I looked stapled.

But we did know the slapstick. We knew how to engage with people (although we wouldn’t have said that at age 10), we made people laugh.

Do I mean play to your strengths?

Sort of. Example, say you are going for a new career gig and you don’t have one of the things asked for by those hiring. But you know you could learn it fast. If in a scenario like that explain the time when you did learn fast and the outcome, and then go on to say why being able to learn fast would benefit that company in the long term.

Quit focusing on what you don’t have, and look at what you can do now.

Stop thinking that others are better because of who they are and where they have been, you are allowed to get into the arena.

Redefine Perfect

Oh-oh. The old perfectionism one. I remember the above experience as being a complete shambles – and lots of things since.

If you can’t move forward with your own stuff because you are so worried about how you look, how you come across, or if what you are doing is perfect enough, may I recommend that you take some time to redefine perfect.

Perfect is a creativity killer.

You know that already. But when are you going to get it?

It becomes a problem when you’re constantly in not ready or good enough yet thinking.

Allow yourself the risk to be imperfect.

The risk is this: what you actually end up creating compared to the idea you first had may not match each other 100%.

You never know, risky as it seems, it may turn out 100% better than you could ever have thought up.

That’s the risk. And it’s a good one.

Own Your Space

I have the right to be here.
I belong.
I am worthy.
I show up for myself.
I stand up for myself.

I did a little digging around Google for own your space, and many articles speak about owning a physical space around yourself, a zone if you like, an imaginary circle around you that belongs to you, where you are mighty powerful.

I don’t mean that exactly.

A quick story. A few years ago I was in London visiting a friend. Out at the street market one day (yep, like the film Notting Hill) we stood aside onto the pavement as a funeral possession passed by.

Leading the show was a woman in a red coat, long fitting dress, hair jet black pinned back off her face.

Unusual because I had never seen a woman in this role before, and also because she completely owned her space.

Striking. Captivating. I remember her holding my breath. She did own her physical space. But there was something else.

And it took me a long time to work it out ad put my finger on it.

She nailed it. I am sorry, pardon the funeral pun.

Confident in her role. Completely at ease. Powerful. Serious because of the content. In control. Belonged to that possession. Safe.

Own your space. Own your thinking. And do both of those by owning your state of mind.

We were kids in bowler hats. But (unknowingly at the time) we owned the space. Have you ever felt that? A time when you felt completely comfortable, confident and centred in your skin and in your thinking at the same time?

That’s what I mean. Own your space – inside out.

How? Start in every situation you find yourself in. Even the supermarket queue. Breathe.

Tell yourself you are ‘in the right place, at the right time’. Breathe into it.

Ask yourself, ‘What state am I in?’ and if you don’t like it change it by choosing a different state. How? Change your mind. Choose again.

PS: We won. First prize. £1 in a little brown envelope. And then went on to win Overall Prize, £2 in another little brown envelope.

PPS: If you aren’t thinking of entering a fancy dress soon, but you do want to learn how to reclaim your confidence and courage (make better decisions, own your space, redefine perfect, emphasis your positive and more) The Moxie Project (6 week course with group coaching£147) starts on November 4th, you can read all about and sign up here.

Say Yes to Your Greatest Goal

October 1 Dawn

Say Yes to Your Greatest Goal

“The greatest goal is to find out who you really are”

Now – as far as goals go – most peeps would probably think it’s a darned good goal. The Ultimate.

I read this the other day,

“Enlightenment is a destructive process. It has nothing to do with becoming better or being happier. Enlightenment is the crumbling away of untruth. It’s seeing through the facade of pretence. It’s the complete eradication of everything we imagine to be true”

I don’t know how you define enlightenment, and let’s face it, it’s a pretty loaded word that many of us don’t visit: too weird, to far out there, to woowoo, to other worldly, linked heavily to religious traditions, something only ‘very spiritual peeps’ reach.

And yet, ‘the crumbling away of untruth’ is how you find out who you really are. And surprise surprise that journey isn’t all butterflies and roses. Thorns in abundance.

In fact, if you asked any of the people just finished Creating Courage (no longer available), they may say to you “it (taking the wool from your eyes) can feel like you are putting a bomb underneath everything you believe, seeing it explode and then starting to build again.”

And why would you really want to do that?

My guess, because there the time has come for you, where you now realise that the maintenance of being what you are not is so darned hard. And it’s the untruths that are keeping you from saying yes to your greatest goal.

You maybe want to say ‘Yes to yourself’, but not feel you have to sacrifice, or loose out if you say yes to the destroying of what you believed for so darn long.

Who do you think you are?

Without the labels and roles?

If you want to know, you don’t have to look too far, you only need to look out at your life right now, because what and who you think you are is right in front of your eyes.

You’re living exactly what you think about you, right now.

Perhaps for you, that will be a beautiful observation exercise, or you may want to look away because there is stuff happening that even you can’t bear to look at because all you see is horror on a mammoth scale.

Take heart, see what you can do when you put your mind to it!

It’s a mess!

But see what you can actually do. Can’t you see how powerful your thinking is?

In order to find out who you really are, you have to remove the layers of what you are not. Look, I’m not one for telling anyone what they have to do. But, this one, removing the untruths and lies, it’s a have to.

How do you do that?

Start with the inside. Thoughts. Don’t go trying to change and tinker with the outside: you would never repair the washing machine when it’s the cooker that’s not working. It seems to me that to find out who we are, we go looking in the strangest of places.

Too simple.

Yes, it’s simply.

But it’s not easy.

It’s not (usually) quick.

It’s not instant.

It’s a crumbling.

And a decision you must make.

To find out who you really are you have to let go of everything you are not – not a little bit, the whole shebang.

And what do you know, the ego mind isn’t that willing to give up all that it’s placed value on without a fight. And, I promise you this, it will fight, at first.

How do you start?

First, you have to choose what you are saying Yes to (Love or Fear), you can’t fail to get to the truth if you ask for it – even if you make (many) mistakes, mess up, screw up, trip, fall, start over, make a complete old hash of it.

Change the inside and the outside will change accordingly.

Can I make a suggestion?

Start with this question, ‘Why does it matter to the loving part of your mind to find out?’

What Makes the Possibility of Rejection Worth It In Your life?

October 1 Dawn

Rejection A No Is The Best Motivation There Is

Listen or Read:

I was speaking to a friend (a business coach) the other evening who shared she’d poured her heart and soul in her recent newsletter, and she had a couple of unsubscribes.

She was devastated.

She skipped over the part that she also had a lot of replies from people who took time out their day to email her and say, ‘Thank you for the honesty’ and ‘I don’t feel so alone’.

She focused on the rejections, ‘It’s so painful! Why is that rejection so painful? I’m more afraid of rejection than failure!’

Rejection stories

When I was 17 I applied to a drama college here in Edinburgh.

My talents were rejected. I was told to go away and complete another course then try again the following year. I did that. Applied again. And my talents were rejected one more time.

Then I tried another college. Not only did my talents get a rejection, but I was also told to work on my speech impediment. I didn’t know I had a funny thing with my pronunciation of S’s, but according to the Head of Drama at that school, I did! Who knew?

Someone did eventually say yes but by then I had changed my mind.

Over the years there have been plenty jobs where I’ve received letters with the opening line ‘Caliber was very high and it was a difficult decision to make. This time, we regret to inform you that you have been unsuccessful’. Otherwise known as ‘The Rejection Letter’. Capital R! Capital L! That letter. Comes in a small brown envelope.

There have been personal relationship rejections. I remember asking a boy out at age 13 because my friends said, ‘He really fancies you Dawn’ only to hear, ‘No!’ followed with, ‘I would never go out with that!’ Nice.

Then there’s the rejection of other things: proposals, projects, ideas for courses, important plans, special relationships, unsubscribes of newsletters. You know general rejection stuff!

The fear of rejection

Isn’t it funny how the majority of us have a fear of rejection (even secretly)?

Secretly?

Hell yeah, I know plenty of people who say to the outside world, ‘I don’t fear rejection, it gives the opportunity to find out who my tribe is’, and then they are brought to their knees when they are rejected.

Ah, rejection stories.

I’m sure that you have a few.

Do you? No? Oh. If not. Stop reading.

It’s so easy to help (read: try and fix) another humanoid who is experiencing rejection (in whatever form) because we can think we can relate to our rejection feelings to theirs when someone or something said, ‘No way sunshine‘ to us.

We say, ‘It’s not you’, or ‘It’s not personal’ or, ‘Oh, don’t worry, they didn’t want you but that’s freed up space for others to find you’ or this one, ‘Let it gooooooooooo’ Yep, add emphasis on the go it helps! Not.

Even now, writing this, I’m giggling because I have no idea where my next rejection is coming from, and I have no idea really if I will just shrug it off.

Maybe that’s a good point to make – maybe it matters where the rejection is coming from? Maybe it matters more if we have invested so much of ourselves in what could be given back to us.

Maybe it does matter what state of mind we are in when we hear, ‘No!’

I bet you’ve shrugged off some – let go of the rejection you weren’t emotionally invested in it, or where you weren’t really attached to the outcome.

Solutions?

Well,

You could avoid being rejected. That would be possible.

You could hide away. You could not go after the career you really want in case you don’t get it, that would remove all possible rejection.

You could sit on your ‘art’, keep it ‘for your eyes only’, you could do that, there is no way you could be rejected there.

You could avoid all contact with other human beings, refuse intimate relationships, stop talking to people full stop so that you never have to feel rejected.

Feck. What a life that would be though, huh? How dreary. How limiting.

Sometimes Letting Go Is An Act of Far Greater Power

Let’s transform our thinking about rejection (a little bit)

Before we go any further though, have a think about these:

What does rejection feel like for you?
Are you ‘hiding’ any parts of your life because of the fear of rejection?
When rejected, do you only focus on that one rejection, or run riot in your head with every rejection you’ve felt and experienced?
In what others ways could you interpret rejection?
What has been your best (hindsight) experience of rejection?
Where has a rejection led you to a deeper understanding of who you are?
How do you react to a rejection (feelings, behaviours, thoughts)?
How would you like to respond to rejection whereby you can grow from the experience?

Rejection isn’t personal (but the fear of it appears very real)

‘It’s not personal’, it’s thrown about, intellectually we get, it’s well intended.

However,

We have spent years (lifetimes) following the rules of not upsetting people, not causing a scene, pleasing others in order to gain their love, years seeking validation and approval from others that we are ‘good enough’, ‘worthy enough’, ‘valuable enough’. We spend time making sure others are happy before we consider our own happiness.

Think back now. Can you see any pattern in your life? Can you remember when you first experienced rejection? Perhaps a time when you took an action, behaved in a certain way and the love, approval, validation was stopped for a while?

I bet it didn’t feel good or make sense. Especially if you were a child.

Maybe at a young age, you hadn’t got a clue about what ‘rejection’ meant, but you still remember how it felt when your folks stopped talking to you. Or when your ‘besties’ in the playground decided one day that you weren’t ‘good enough’ to play with them anymore.

Obviously, we can’t cover every experience of rejection that everyone has felt here – we would be here for a very long time. The content doesn’t matter. The feelings do. The left over beliefs we can address.

Do you embellish the rejection? Read between the lines in your head?

Say you’re an artist and you show someone a piece of work you’ve produced and they say to you, ‘Oh, I don’t really like it’.

Instead of just accepting they don’t like it, which they have every right to say. You add to it. You add to it by thinking. ‘They don’t like my work! That means they mustn’t really like me. I’m not a good artist. In fact, I’m a terrible artist, obviously, if someone doesn’t like my work. They think I’m useless!’

What?!

Or say you go for an interview and it’s the big ‘No’, they tell you it was close. Between you and someone else. But the other person had more experience. You don’t hear that. Instead, you embellish and add to it by, ‘I didn’t get the job. I don’t enough experience. There will always be someone better than me, ‘I came last. The other person must have been more likeable. I’m not likeable’.

Insane thinking!

The pattern here is simple.

You read between the lines. And write your own script.

You make up untruths.

You tell yourself stories with no proof or evidence whatsoever.

Why?

Have a wander in the past. Take a pen and write down those times you experienced rejection. Write out the phrases you told yourself at that time. And those you heard. Do you still use them today? Are you using the same thinking you had 10, 20, 30 years ago?

In other words, have you pushed all your feelings and experiences of rejection into one big ball of rejection mushiness, and when you hear a rejection coming back at you, you automatically pull them all out?

Yes! But I can’t get rid of them!

Don’t try and get rid of them but see them with new eyes (not literally) and get a different perception. I mean, can you accept that in the past you have experienced rejection and you have a pretty good idea of what it feels like? And can you accept that the reason you don’t like rejection today is probably because you are still using the same thinking as you have done for a while now?

Here’s a question, to simply to help you start thinking differently about rejection …

“What makes the possibility of rejection worth it in life?” – what would your answer be?

Have that conversation with people who you value.

The more I thought about my answer to that, the more I thought I would use every possible situation to not hide who I really was. That I would never please everyone and I would no longer try to. That the possibility of rejection is worth it because I won’t wait for permission slips to create.

Each day we are faced with the fear of people saying ‘No’.

We are faced with people giving us back our ideas, work, plans, projects, courses because they just aren’t interested.

How are you going to face them? What are you going to tell yourself now?

You always have a choice on how you react and respond to rejection.

Instead of making up stories, embellishing, where can you take personal responsibility for how you feel about rejection, today, not yesterday?

And answer it,

What makes the possibility of rejection worth it in your life?

A Donkey, A Man, His Son & A Lesson In Trying to Please Everyone

August 29 Dawn

A remix of an Aesop’s Fable …

Once upon a time…

Well, let’s say in 1167, a man left his farm to collect supplies and buy new stock from market. The market was held weekly in the fairy-tale walled city of Carcassonne in Southern France, a three day walk away.

He and his son traveled together, along with their donkey.

When they entered the fields outside the ramparts the man was riding on the back of the donkey, and his son was leading with rope.

They made their way between workers tending to crops, and no sooner had they passed they heard a woman say, ‘That’s disgraceful, look at that vile man, what kind of a man is he, how selfish, him being carried and his son walking’.

The farmer felt so guilty he got off the donkey, put his son the back and he took the rope.

They crossed over the lowered bridge to the ramparts, where local food sellers were setting up for the busy day trading ahead.

No sooner had they passed when the farmer and son heard a passer-by shout, ‘What an ignorant child, look at him sitting on the back of that donkey and his father having to walk, he need taught some manners?’.

Pin Image

The boy was embarrassed and ashamed so he asked his father to join him and the ride the rest of the way, both on the back of the donkey.

They entered the square whereby a group of women, setting up their produce to be sold pointed at them both screaming, ‘You should be ashamed, both of you sat up there, that poor donkey. You are both pathetic creatures’.

They both decided to get off and walk the rest of the short way.

Outside a local inn people were eating and drinking, upon seeing the boy and his father they started to laugh and point, bringing out others to look at the sight, ‘What a fool. An ass. A perfectly good donkey and they walk!’

The father turned to his son and said, ‘Nothing we do is right. Someone will always disagree with the way we are doing things. Even without the full picture. From now on we make up our own minds of what we believe to be right’.

And the moral is?

Yours, whatever you want it to be.

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.