Is the world doomed?

Thank you to Seth Wilson for this chart

I joined an art group as I was approaching my crone years. No more belief in the words that my art teacher told me when I was 12 years of age.

I had always loved art as a child and have been excited about being creative my whole life. It was time to just do it anyway, even if it was not to someone else’s liking.

While in class the other day, creating a painting of colours between black lines, I asked my teacher how I would best do my black lines “with paint, pencil or pen”. She said to me “paint, then you can choose how it comes out and also because it is best to not use black on its own – usually you would add another colour like purple or green or red etc. otherwise it will be too sharp and will take over the picture creating too much contrast“.

It lit up a space in my mind and got me thinking about the profound message behind her words.

Can life be lived through black – the absence of colour – the absence of light, the negative or the NO? I think not. It is possible of course but does it make life too sharp; create too much of a contrast?

Have I chosen black at times where a little colour could have made all the difference to the overall outcome? How often have I been there in that black black existence sucked into its allure, allowing it to take me in while all the colour and light around me gets washed away?

I know people who have been there. And have heard stories about some who have never returned.

Humanity seems to be drawn to this ‘going for the black’. There is something magnetic about it isn’t there. Maybe we do not know about this rule of adding colour to change the picture? Outlining our lives in the starkness of black and highlighting the contrasts of our lives. Discounting the need for colour, allowing our lives to become washed out.

The way that we are focussing our efforts in our lives and the subjects that we are focussed on in the global community looks to me very much like choosing black. With hopefulness and grace, living in these times might bring us to a consideration of the starkness of these choices and eventually may help us to see that we cannot live without the colour.

Are we as a people geared towards living this way? I think not.

One thing I know for sure is that life sustains itself and life cannot be sustained from Black, the negative or NO. There is no life in NO. Finding the negative in the situation, focussing on the problem or absence of the solution, fighting for our side and telling someone else NO. It absolutely takes us away from enjoying the full picture, from enjoying what life has to offer. Trying to live through NO simply means that we remove ourselves from life. Living life through the absence of YES is just plain empty.

By just choosing to add a little colour to the blackness in our own lives we can gain a richer perspective, a more beautiful life as we paint a more integrated, inclusive and pleasing picture.

The nature of life carries these messages for us where ever we care to look.

So next time you find yourself saying NO rather than YES, check in with yourself, does it feel like you are choosing black and need to add a bit of colour to it. For what would life be like without gratitude, joy or the wonderfully rich differences between ourselves and others?

Carolynne

The Wellbeing and Life Creation Coach ®

Transform your energy; Transform your life.

Live Well, Share Love, Be the Change.

 

The Three Basic Fundamentals that calm Fear and Stress

The greatest action is not conforming with the world’s ways.

                                                       Siddhartha

 

Fear is the biggest problem on the planet today. The impact of our fear is having a huge influence on our choices both personal and collective. The world seems to be split in two – there is us and there is our opposition or our enemy.

 

Transform fear and you transform the world.

 

Fear is based on nothing but a belief that we need something. Either we think we need to hold onto something or that we do not have something. It is based on a false premise that we are not enough and do not have enough. The reality is that our true needs are very simple and are already provided for. And everything that we desire, we can create and let go as the flow of life demands. All things come and go. All structures are unstable as Eckhart Tolle explains in his book A New Earth. Fear itself is a construct.

Through our evolution we have come to an understanding of the concept that if we want to transform the world we must think globally and act locally. It is time to embrace this concept in its fullness and look within (locally) first.

When afraid, ask your-self: What am I thinking that I need, and is it possible that I don’t really need it? Is what I think I want so important that I will allow myself to remain in this fear and create (my) life from the stance of fear?

Believing the source of my joy comes from outside of me, I remain in fear.

We are living in a time of great change. Our continued life on this planet (Humanity’s life that is! Life will continue with or without us.) requires a shift in our consciousness.

We can easily observe where these shifts need to occur whenever we watch the News or observe and listen during kitchen table discussion (meaning much of what we hear and say).

If we take the view that the News only shows us what is going on out there and that it is occurring to someone other than ourselves, we are blind to the truth. The News is showing us what is going on Within – that is within Humanity and within us as a human being.

If we have something to say and engage in kitchen table discussion it is always useful to be considerate of what is going on within. This exposes the real problems. BE PRESENT.

Breaking into a system or exposing its weakness is a good thing because truth and knowledge must win out.

                       Dan farmer

We are witnessing more and more the disharmony that we have created for ourselves on our home, Planet Earth. The extent of the disease is flowing to the surface for all to see as new issues surface daily. The issues we are confronted with in our lives tell us about the inner conflicts that lie within humanity – and this means within ourselves, as opposites play out in the world and in our daily lives.

It will never be possible by pure reason to arrive at some absolute truth.                                                                                                                  

                                                        Werner Heisenberg

Truth does not come from one side winning over another. Reasoning and argument are not the best tools we have available to us to heal the wounds of the world, just as we would not expect them to heal a cut on our body.

In order to heal and live happily ever after we need to look within, with care and kindness, to allow the natural healing processes to occur. When we do this, we find that it is just our balance that is out in some way and nature always restores balance.

In our most natural state of kindness our uninterrupted Inner Voice is the only thing that can guide us joyfully out of this mess.

It requires a process to be ignited within each person. Our evolution on this planet compels that each of us do this now. It is happening regardless of our presence to it. It will happen more easily with our presence, or uneasily when we choose to stay in fear. Hopefully we each come to the realisation that the first option is the most fun and cool way to proceed.

It is a very simple thing for each of us to begin right now. It is a matter of making the choices that serve us each and all. And this takes a realisation that has been beyond the majority of people on the planet till now. That is, Personal Happiness comes from taking Personal Responsibility through focussed Personal Awareness and Insight, and that this is what benefits the whole(Universe). When the Whole (Global) is valued we are free to be happy individuals. It is a guaranteed way to provide a Win for everyone.

Responsibility –We can either blame the system, the companies, the government, the past, or the Other and continue to look anywhere outside of ourselves to find the problem and the solution or we can stop and check in with ourselves. Unfortunately, it has become second nature to pass the buck or try to buy our way out of the destruction we have caused for ourselves.

Responsibility is Wisdom and Freedom.

The things we really truly want: Happiness, Abundance and Wellbeing are not products. You cannot buy them. In our consumer based society we have fallen into the trap of giving up our power and have relinquished responsibility for our own part in our wellbeing and the fate of humanity on this planet.

Unless we become personally responsible, the pains and dysfunctions will continue to impact our lives. If we keep getting others to ‘fix’ things, we keep getting a temporary fix as this only treats the symptoms and not the cause of the issue – which always lies within. Of course we need others and they help us to see what is possible, but in the end it is You that must decide and live with the consequences.

Where do you need to take personal responsibility?

 

Awareness – this tells us what to do. We are designed to withstand life. However, we believe we are unable to cope or that nature or some enemy has it in for us. We have developed the Victim stance so strongly that we no longer use our abilities each day – we have become untrained, unskilled and unable to cope, and we feel stressed by the daily events of life.

We can resolve to do something out of place of deep understanding of our own needs, while doing the things that are necessary to support wise decisions for the whole. We are then able to stay aligned with our higher purpose and deeper goals and live in a state of balance. We need to learn about becoming aware of who we are, our abilities to meet our needs and how integral these things are to our continued wellbeing.

And practice awareness always. Moment-by-moment decision-making is what allows us to stay on track.

Awareness is Intuition and Wisdom.

 

We Do Not need to overcome or control anything we live in a perfect system we call Nature.

 

Love – Without love we have only one thing –FEAR.

We are now at a full circle moment in our history, where we must stand together in order to progress. We must work with nature and our nature as Human Beings to be different. As we become one we become strong – this is true for the whole we call humanity, the whole we call Earth, and the whole we call ME. When strong our intuition and wisdom shine. We make decisions from our strength which is Love. When we become aware of ourselves, we can no longer deny responsibility or our Love. We see that each of us including ourselves has inherited our particular identity and beliefs and that these things are our point of difference that make up the Whole. When we support others differences it gives us permission to be our (unique) selves. We then choose to serve the Whole because without Me there is no Whole.

 

That’s the beauty.  We are a mosaic of gifts & each of us has our inner beauty no matter how we look.

                                                                                                                                                 Mattie J.T. Stepanek

 

FEAR –Replace with: Fix Everything with Awareness and Responsibility

Carolynne

The Wellbeing and Life Creation Coach ®

Mind is an Abstract

Mind is an abstract.

Not an abstract in concept (although it can be looked at this way) but an abstract of reality.

We can look at it like a great abstract painting that has never been finished and the onlooker (you) can make from it whatever it sees. But it is much more than this.

Mind is a reality, but a reality that cannot be conceptualised because it has no parameters. Therefore mind is nothing that we can imagine, as well as anything that we can imagine, as well as the unimagined and everything in between and outside of this. It cannot be defined.

Mind is all that we are – it is us in our fullness.

When we see our mind from this point of view we shift our perspective, we get a better picture of who we truly are.

Mind is all there is and it is us.

From this perspective we see that we are all one, and part of the same abstract.

Mind has a function.

From a physical and even a spiritual perspective we can consider mind to be a device or mechanism that builds life.

It is the most precious thing we have, in fact it is the only thing we have as, in truth, we can only ever have what we are. Please reflect on this now.

Mind is all that we are – it always is, was and always will be- it is us.

Contrary to the way most of us think about our mind we cannot lose our mind and our mind does not have its own way or ever have control over us. It is an abstract and therefore can only be what we imagine it to be. However our mind can create anything. And it does, as this is its function. It creates whatever you/we put into it. Or looking at it in another way what you/we project onto it. It is automatic and never stops.

Just like an endless movie on a screen.

The mind brings into reality whatever we imagine. Yes that means that whatever you/we are imaging about life, yourself, others –anything in fact – if it goes into mind it is! – and it will be experienced eventually in our physical reality if we put enough attention on it – it will be so.

Thankfully it is a shape-shifter and only the things we truly focus on come into our concrete world.

Each of us is part of this great abstract happening. With every thought that we have we shape this abstract into a thought form and then eventually make it real in form. Think about that for one minute. What world is inside your mind? Is it the one that you want to be in there? Is it the one that you want out there? That is the only one that mind knows how to show you – that is its function– to create your life as you the onlooker instructs it.

The only reality that you will ever know is the reality of your own mind.

Operating from a world mind you will only reproduce the past – a world you may or may not like based on the problems or joys of the past – this is a mind being directed by a toddler.

By bringing ourselves into a physical/concrete existence we have claimed a portion of this mind which we call ME. In this aspect of mind we see in a very limited way as we no longer experience from the abstract and only sense things instead from a field of perspective. This perspective can only be subjective (inside me) or objective (outside me), neither of which are true as mind is everywhere.

Perspective is the life experience that we are living. We find it essential to decide; choose; debate etc. the opposites of this experience that we call life but is in fact not life only perception/perspective. That is the good/the bad, the light/the dark, and the have/have not and so on. We hare a false them and us perception. This perception makes us feel vulnerable because we do not have the full picture only our perspective.

Sages have told us throughout the ages that we need to go beyond perspective to see the truth ie. the good/bad are two sides of the same coin. This may seem like jumping off a cliff to someone that loves perspective and their own perceptions, but we need to lose perspective to gain insight. There is no other way around it.

In your worldly mind you may be savvy enough to set in place a new future using skills that help you to let go of the pictures of the past and focus on an imagined better world. Depending on your skill level here and where you are with this practice you may be like a child, a teenager or an adult.  We may call this the level of consciousness.

Although this is a big step forward even consciousness only gets you part of the way. Stay there and you stay stuck in the box; in an endless loop.

But awareness – Awareness: that is the way. When you practice stilling yourself you become witness to the concrete rather than part of it. You can see how you are part of the conflicts in your life – you experience from the abstract.

Operating in your right mind (the connection with mind that we re-establish through meditation) you see only from a pure awareness and therefore experience only in a state of impartiality, abundance, and happiness. From this state you make better choices by operating from the awareness of the whole – the abstract. You establish a mindset that directly connects with the essential and natural flow of function of the mind to create life in an harmonious way. As we practice this it begins to happen automatically and we leave behind the need to direct. We do away with the variables and mishaps of the concrete and allow mind to create through the blueprint of life itself.

Old habits die hard as they say. This is only because they are rooted in old mindsets that we have placed there to protect our concrete world of me, mine and other.

Once you truly get this you are almost there. Then it is time to reach for the stars and surrender to the abstract world that lives within. There within our reach is a beyond-significant support to redirect our lives for the better.

The Wellbeing and Life Creation Coach ®

 

Getting comfortable with uncomfortable

STUCK Part 2

Full expression of emotion, in a safe environment, without shame, fear or resistance is a catalyst to healing.  Add love and you have a miracle of healing.

I am fortunate enough to have witnessed this miraculous process not only in in my own life but also in helping others to develop their presence.  From my experience, I have found a definite difference between those clients that heal quickly and those that do not depending on their resistance to explore their inner world.  I am honoured to be present in those moments of great vulnerability for I know that the flimsy crystalline barrier has been broken through and they are beginning to be in their true power, having personally experienced this transforming of energy myself many times.

Healing is not always easy.  However it is the natural instinct of all life to do so.  The process begins when we get out of the way, get out of our persona-lity (it is an illusion), and get out of our thinking mind (talk is cheap) and our random ‘doing’ of habits (conditioned behaviours).  Thinking fails, doing fails and ‘I’ fails because they leave out the rest of being and keep us stuck in a false story; a loop of fantasy.

Our real power happens when we surrender our post and let other parts of our-self become known to us.  Silence.  Stillness.  We now move towards reality and meet with our true self.  Nothing is left out.  This is the space where miracles are made.

The Course in Miracles states in the first line – “There is no order of difficulty in miracles.”

This is not just saying that all miracles are the same but also saying that there is no difficulty.

Simplicity.  Let go of the complications and you are in the process.

My own stuckness became very apparent to me following a close encounter with a near death experience.  If you ever need a wake-up call that will do it.

It reminded me to focus on shifting my perception to an inward and expanding awareness, as I have done many times before.  I was ready.  I was willing.  I stepped off the treadmill of endless thoughts and of my story and turned towards reality where I know Peace, Love and Joy reside.

The clue that I was not in my own power was when I noticed that I was ‘stuck’ in a heightened state of ‘doing’ that was getting me nowhere.  If ever you notice that you are stuck in any way in your life, you can be sure that you are pressing down events and emotions and trapping them in the form of stress and tension in the body.  This stress and tension is a normal part of living and comes from our instinct to self-preserve.  However it is not the best use of our energy and if not released leads to all sorts of health issues.

It was time to take responsibility.  Meaning that I needed to get in touch with my self and what I was doing with my energy – you could say it was time to  ‘mind my own business’.  No more casting myself into the exterior world trying to resolve this.

I sat with my body in stillness, allowing my energy to move and take me into the crack of crisis.  I knew that from here an opportunity sits waiting and that important insights and healing would arise from there.  I meditated often, in a state of ‘compassionate abiding’ with my emotions.  My energy shifted and spoke to me.

I moved into a state of awareness.  I was like a droplet of water that had been cast onto a rock by the massive force of the flow of the river.  Feeling like I had been cast aside and unable to move myself back into the flow.  A realisation occurred to me that from this vantage point I could see a new perspective and look at the movement of the river and all the beauty surrounding it.  This could not have been possible from my previous limited position of flowing down the river and I would never have known of this greater whole had I not had this experience.  I moved into a state of knowing.  I was still part of the whole but was now looking at it from a new wider viewpoint and realising I will again be returned to the river when the flow washes over me once more.  I was ‘minding my own business’.  Virtues arose like little gems from the flow of that energy and I was reminded of who I am.  I was back in my power.

For those of you still stuck – it is OK – an opportunity lies awaiting. Obstacles are an important part of the process of living, growth and liberation.  They signal the need for movement of what has become static and crystallised within.  Only your small ‘I’ can stop you from getting unstuck and this may feel difficult to give up, so just become present to that.  – you are only a perception away from healing.

Carolynne

The Wellbeing and Life Creation Coach ®

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Stuck?

Stuck – Give yourself permission to BE human

Bring your treasures to the light

We’ve all been there.  And we have all probably read and reread all the great tips about getting unstuck.

They can be very helpful and sometimes awakening.  And often while reading them we may even say to ourselves ‘I knew that’.

But how often do we actually go ahead with the advice and do it?

If you find yourself taking the time to read the tips but not following through, then maybe you are just not ready! That is actually ok.  Too often we think that we have to fix something, and all too often this point of view just provides us with another reason to stay stuck.

Awareness is almost always the first step so put your attention on the ‘not being ready’ instead.

Def: Hu meaning God or No-thing

Gem hunting is a passion of mine. As a child my family used to travel around parts of Australia looking for specific types of minerals, rocks and gem stones just for fun.  The Earth has created so many wonderful treasures through natural processes of heating, cooling and pressure. You only need to know where to look and become attentive to find them.

Firstly you need to get into the physical zone and then the mental zone.  As you wander around or sift through soil, sand and water in silence, you become so ultra-focussed; gem stones can be easily found.  I still find all this fascinating but now I find my greatest gems come from the passage of my life (and others lives) and the exploration of my inner self as I meet with the ups and downs and all the bits in-between.

These kind of hidden gems come from the heating, cooling and pressure that we all experience in life and the most valuable gems are often forged from the resistance to change that we call ‘stuckness’.  Little do we realise that there is a diamond mine in every stuck (crystallised) moment.

I myself have been stuck in a loop – I have started many blog posts over the past couple of months only to get distracted midway through and then not return to finish them.  I have had so many great insights to share and yet I found myself skipping from one subject to another, from one insight to another, excited about the next one coming and totally foggy and aloof towards the last one.

My mind was not on the job and my body creating adrenaline.  I was filled with the desire to begin and the intense thrill of a new beginning – but each time I was unable to finish and share my thoughts as the adrenaline wore off.

All this doing was just keeping me in inertia and a sense that I would never get off this merry-go-round. I needed to face my past in my present.  To do that I knew I needed to stop and create a space in the present with what was happening inside me – with my stuckness.

Inside of us and through our difficult moments we actually form crystals – the carbon in our body turns to little crystals as we solidify our moments lived and turn them into memories which crystallise in our mind and body.  They feel uncomfortable to us as they become hard or sharp and there are reasons for this – it is to get our attention that there is important information that we are missing that will help us grow and shine.

We may choose to keep these information crystals buried and allow them to silently direct our lives and from time to time we may bump into them and probably see them as an obstacle on our path and/or we can do a little gem hunting and soon enough ‘sitting in’ with our present and with the right attitude, we find the treasures that we have been holding inside.

When our amazing awareness embraces the stuckness and as we ‘witness’ the alchemy of this process of turning pain into jewels we transform.  Until we are again ready to share our selves anew back into the world.

The perfectly formed facets of these gems act like a thousand mirrors and they shine as we bring them to the light where their beauty and wisdom are finally revealed, and even enjoyed and celebrated.

So in the stuckness is when we see things for what they really are, and we can choose, as we may, to witness them with curiosity, leave them where they are to be found again another time, or integrate them into our lives(and the new perceptions that come with them).

I knew there was something that I needed to connect with here. It was showing itself to me over and over. I needed to STOP.  To be present to it.

To be calm in the centre of this whirlwind.  To let this situation show me what I needed to see/ to know.  I needed to give myself permission to BE in the confusion, the fog, to really become part of it.

I began by dedicating a small amount of time to this, whenever I noticed it happening and then connected with it many times throughout the day and now I have several days away from my usual routine as I have volunteered myself to farm-stay for a week. As well as an adventure and helping out a friend it has given  me a great opportunity for some dedicated ME time.

I am sitting at my friends’ farm in the hinterland, surrounded for 180 degrees by beautiful countryside and trees, watching alpacas and dairy cows roam and listening to the sounds of the Australian bush.  I am focussed now and letting my past catch me, pin me down and allowing my present to take over and reveal and heal.

I allow myself to be vulnerable.  I give myself permission to be human.  I take the time and the space that I am being called to take.  Be with myself as I find my gems and re-form.

And there are uncomfortable feelings and emotions and I welcome them as important and powerful messengers to guide me as I process my life and release it into the world.  And there are tears, but tears are the lava that moves the needed hidden ingredients from the place where they slowly boil my centre and keep me on alert and distant at the same time, either until they are ready to boil over to form a new outer layer or until I am ready to witness and collaborate in the change that is happening to me.

A new less perfect; and more perfect me; a new different me.

We may choose to expose our crystal treasures by bravely embracing and sharing them in their natural rawness and beauty or we may see something more special trapped inside them (like Michael Angelo found in the stone from which he carved David) and we may decide to polish or refacet them to our own liking.

If you are stuck there are crystals from the past that are stuck in your present and keeping you from your greatest future.  And this has happened so that you can easily and in your own time take a good look at the events that have solidified within you.  Hopefully you will take a moment in the present and find in them a precious gem.

So connect with what is happening in your present – this will reveal your past.  If you find yourself lost in this stuck feeling, don’t try to get out of it or avoid it, just be present with it – there is a gem there.

Until we bring our past into the present we cannot free ourselves to move forward.  The present is the only place where we can find the gems.

Part 2 later………………..

The Great Pursuit of Happiness and Success

Our own happiness is a very important thing.  Joy. Bliss. Peace.  These are our natural state.  We lose this state to the extent that we take on the conditions presented to us by the world plus the faith/belief we put in them and then the lies we tell ourselves, to keep this all in place.  And we do this constantly many times a day.

In my own life I have realised to experience this state I had to become conscious of the conditions that I was keeping in place and see them from a new perspective – a perspective of truth – and this could only come from deep within me.  This takes practice and courage and determination but it is also very simple and natural (more natural than not doing it) and worth it.

When we are not in our own truth we attach ourselves to positions and we hold onto them.  And we hold ourselves to them in a kind of co-dependent relationship.  We think they are important/real/necessary/are us.  It is this deception that keeps us stuck in the problems we face in our lives.  But if we step back and become centred we can see and acknowledge that we have a truer self within us and this gives us an opportunity to view the surrogate self we have been using to live.

Happiness is always there, with us in our centre it cannot go away, it is us.

What could be more important than happiness?!

Do you believe this? Do you question it? Do you diminish or even deny this? Or maybe you have come to agree with this statement and my hope is that you are totally cool with it.  Well done if you know this most of the time.  If not you may be conflicted about it, possibly feeling fear and excitement at the same time.

If this is happening to you, you are like many people, who still at some level wonder if it is even OK to entertain the idea of this statement.  I am here to tell you it is OK and necessary to own and advance your happiness – through your truth channel.

Until I found my truth channel these are just some of the lies that I believed were true but were in fact keeping me stuck in life.  Moving to a happier state requires an honest look at what you have surrogated for the truth. You may relate to some or all of these things in your own life:

I don’t have time right now to look at this.  STOP and look at this untruth. Really? All you have is time.

Someone else has the answers.  WRONG, the longer you look outside yourself, the longer you miss the messages you hold within that direct you towards your own great life.  Your life belongs to you and you do not need permission from anyone else to honour that.

If I just think this through I will work out the answer.  I bet you feel stressed just thinking about having to think it through until you come up with an answer.  Happiness is not in the past or the future which is all the mind can think about, it is here and now where thinking does not exist.  Thinking and working at it means we believe we have a problem to solve – this causes more struggle and stress.  Believe it or not all of this is actually optional.  In the here and now we are our being and we can do with/from our being.

It’s complicated; my issue is different or special.  NO.  It is actually simple!  However, if we hold onto these beliefs we make it complicated, different or special – then yes it is these things.  We forget or maybe have not yet come to the awareness of the truth, that all of us feel the same things.  The outer facts do not matter at all – humans have always felt this way and will always continue to feel this way, this is being human – we can get great comfort from this realisation.

I don’t know.  It is OK not to know when you have dissociated from yourself.  However the truth is, Who else would/could know?  This your body, your mind, your life (only you are living it yes?) and you would not try to find the answer for someone else would you?  STOP, be present to yourself, you will come to know.  By placing yourself in the ‘not knowing’ you create a vacuum that attracts knowing.  Our opposites unite.

I cannot hear my inner voice. It is in the quiet stillness, the silence.  It is also in the struggle as a mirrored or opposite picture – it is everywhere you go, look and live.  You will first notice that your voice is being drowned out by the noise of the world, that is, all the thoughts and ideas that the world has ever uttered to you and continues to project to you – in an endless replay it yells over the top of your beautiful voice.  Most of what we claim as ‘our thoughts’ belongs to someone else.  The world does not have your answers.  You have your own truth.

I don’t want to go there – Meaning into the pain; or the stillness, or the stoping/not doing.  If we are distracted by doing (and doing what we think we should do) and therefore not being, how can we begin to know who and what we truly are.  Being honest with ourselves is essential – as the saying goes ‘the truth will set you free’.  Busyness and distraction create a false sense of security and leaves no space for our awareness to come through to touch our lives.

I need to try something else – keep searching.  The search must begin and end within.  When we get frantic and keep looking for “the knight in shining armour to rescue us” we are not aligned with ourselves and our purpose, instead we continue to scatter our energy and go in all different directions.  You have all the tools and your own calling under your skin.  All that is happening is that your energy is just not centred and so your focus is in the wrong place – in this condition, awareness cannot be.  If you react instead of sitting in it, you end up living from reaction (from a decentred position that you are trying to desperately hold to) rather than acting from your centre.   This is the world’s crisis.

It takes courage to face your inner self, your sacredness, only because you have to give up something.  This something is not what you want but you hold onto it anyway.  And still your inner self is where your happiness waits.  Nothing else will steer you right.  Without it you remain without a compass; a ship without a rudder; a racing car without a steering wheel.  You have it right under your nose and it will give you everything you truly want.  Get to know yourself beginning right now.

Here is an exercise that will help you to begin.  Write this down and then go outside.

Find a place to sit in nature.  You may be in a natural setting, a garden or a city where you can see the sky, trees/plants, birds/insects or something else living and natural.  It does not matter just see and be in nature.  Connect with it.  Breathe it in.  Get as close to it as if you were meeting and greeting someone you know well and are excited to see.  Now continue to use your senses to experience it and then at the same time go inside yourself with your conscious awareness and feel what is going on inside your body, just notice.  Continue to connect with the natural world around you and at the same time feel inside your body the sensations – just let everything be as it is, just continue to see and feel.

So GO RIGHT NOW!

If you have any questions or would like to share your experience please do so.

Inside you is the gateway into being human, to being the real you and to the answers you seek and all the tools you will ever need.  Happiness cannot be taken from you, it does not change with changing fads or circumstances, it is always with you and it does not want for anything except to be united with you.

Carolynne

The Wellbeing and Life Creation Coach ®

 

 

FIRST STEPS for HOW TO FOLLOW YOUR INNER COMPASS

 

 

Thanks JanetLeeLogan for sharing this picture on facebook

How often are you tempted to take that shiny offer or maybe continue in a job or relationship that looks on the surface really good but feels really bad?  We all have been there I am sure and some of you are even there right now.  We can go around and around in circles looking at the pros and cons and making up reasons why we are where we are or why we should do what we are about to do.  For to entertain the alternative is just too plain scary, so scary it feels like we might even die.  And when faced with this choice the shiny offer or unsatisfactory relationship or job looks good – really good, doesn’t it.

We settle for the comfort of ‘just leave things untampered with’ scenario – we just want this horrible feeling to end.  And “Ahhh”…… instant relief – not necessarily because it was the best decision but because it was a decision and the conflict is no longer there.  However the prize has been rejected and we have been left with the fake golden egg and our beautiful 24 carat egg that is our birth right is respectfully but not silently (we can still get in touch with it anytime if we have the tools) sitting just below the surface waiting for the next opportunity to show the way.  And it will come up again; it never actually goes away because it cannot be separated from us.

So next time you find yourself in conflict, notice the physical and emotional feelings that are trying to guide you towards your true path.  Know that you cannot keep these feelings down for long.  They are built into each and every one of us, they are part of us; they are us.  Know that for real!  This is your truth.

Not long now and once again that conflicted, stuck and unhappy feeling that has been pushed below  personal consciousness will rise gently to the surface to let you know that you are going in opposition to your true self.  If you can catch it there and then – guess what no more conflict.  The calling speaks to you and it asks gently over and over – Can you FEEL me?

In my coaching practice I see the effects of this resistance over and over until my clients truly step into themselves and trust that the guidance I have shown them is their own and can be fully trusted and followed.  We are not taught in our society to follow our truth, our inner knowing and we naively follow the paths that we believe society has forged for us or expects from us.  This is done very innocently until we see and feel the cost or come to realise there is a better way, a truer way for us to conduct ourselves, live our lives and find the true happiness that is already within us.

Sometimes you may realise that something needs to change but what – ‘what is it I just don’t know’ or ‘I can’t figure it out’ many of my clients say.  And the reality is that they always do know but this reality seems so confronting it is difficult to come to terms with.  We will do virtually anything to prevent the ‘change’ and the ‘being real’ and true to ourselves because it scares the crap out of us.  As Marianne Williamson wrote and Nelson Mandela spoke

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate, our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us…..”

My passion is to turn people towards the peace and happiness that is within.  Through the process of loving who you are, a portal is opened for the light within you to come into and shine on this world.  I see this light in every one of my clients as they sit with me and the only way for them to know it is there is to be ready and willing to look at themselves closely and honestly.  And those that do this; they very quickly see the change and begin to see their truth.  It is that simple but for many it can be terrifying and they choose to return to the way things are and hope for the best.  Others however see a glimmer of what could be and can no longer ignore those murmurs they feel coming from their heart.  And I mean this both figuratively and literally.  Our hearts do connect us to our joy and they give us life – we feel this longing through our hearts and the heart sends our bodies a soft and gentle guidance towards our joy.  Listen now! ……………..So, What did your heart tell you?  Love for you to share, I wait in anticipation……

Carolynne

And one final and most important thought so perfectly put by an unknown author…

“Everybody Knows

You can’t be all things to all people.
You can’t do all things at once.
You can’t do all things equally well.
You can’t do all things better than everyone else.
Your humanity is showing just like everyone else’s.

So…

You have to find out who you are, and be that.
You have to decide what comes first and do that.
You have to discover your strengths, and use them.
You have to learn not to compete with others
Because no one else is in the contest of “being you”.

Then…

You will have learned to accept your own uniqueness.
You will have learned to set priorities and make decisions.
You will have learned to live with your limitations.
You will have learned to give yourself the respect that is due
And you’ll be a being that’s vitally alive.

Dare To Believe…

That you are a wonderful unique person,
That you are a once-in-all-history event,
That it’s more than a right, it’s your duty, to be who you are.
That life is not a problem to solve, but a gift to cherish
and you’ll be able to stay one up on what used to get you down. ”

 

The Wellbeing and Life Creation Coach ®

Transform your energy; Transform your life; Live Well, Share Love, Be the Change.

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The Secret Key

I am a bit late in writing this month. Following a challenging year last year I have been spending as much time as possible in refilling my empty vessel. I am spending much of my time in nature, meditating and focussed on vitality. Also at this time of year I get pretty busy with my work as a Wellbeing Facilitator as people (as we all know) get busy focussing their need for change in the New Year.

Meditation has been a real lifesaver for me and a realisation that it is the key to creating a space for change in our lives. The benefits are so far reaching some may look upon it with distrust or dismissal however this is because they have not practiced it and therefore remain in ignorance of the reality of the broad change that is possible by a consistent practice of returning to that still place inside.

For anyone that is a meditator and would like to be part of the global awakening, you can contribute to an event that will be recording the effect of meditation on changing the world.

If this is of interest to you I have included the information here as follows below. You may like to join me and can respond to my blog or check out my website. I would love to hear from you.

———- Forwarded message ———- From: Katelijne <qyocean@gmail.com> Date: 23 January 2015 at 09:58 Subject: Global Consciousness Experiment To: imta@meditationteachers.org

Dear Friends

AWAKEN – time to evolve is a celebration of the planet’s evolution to an age of peace and prosperity through a shift in the collective consciousness.  The main objective of the film is to show beyond any reasonable doubt the great transformational power that meditation holds to uplift and ultimately bring peace to the whole world. The intention is to bring the knowledge of meditation to the world stage in a very positive and inspirational way.  Among other things, the film will feature scientists, celebrities, practitioners of meditation as well as several moving accounts of regular people who have been transformed against all odds through the power of meditation.  The film is much more than the power of meditation and will include amazing findings to help inspire and bring greater awareness of the collective consciousness and our connectedness with each other.

We are teaming up with many meditation groups around the world to hold a Global Meditation Day for this experiment and would be super-pleased if your organisation would support this day by participating.  The experiment will demonstrate the power of the collective consciousness (http://noosphere.princeton.edu/; http://www.glcoherence.org/monitoring-system/about-system.html) and the impact of the day will be used to measure any drop in global negativity.

We are aiming to have 5 million meditators in many different countries around the world.  The day will create a powerful and unified focus for peace and would demonstrate a tremendous sense of unity and love, motivating and empowering others to help usher in a world of harmony.

The day is scheduled for Wednesday 22 April 2015.  The meditation can take place in any chosen location, or anywhere the participants are at the time so long as they can sit quietly and meditate for at least one hour.  We have over 200,000 people taking part so far.  The scheduled time is from 0930 – 1730 Thailand/ICT – Indochina time.   The 8 hour duration is to help as many people as possible to meditate for as long as it is possible for them on the day.

I hope that your organisation will be interested in taking part on this auspicious day.   All those interested can be directed to the following website for this information, where they can also sign up so we know how many in total will participate on the Day.   The Time Zone converter will show the corresponding time in your city/country. http://www.awakentimetoevolve.com/global-meditation-day/

If you would like to forward this information to your sister organisations we would be most grateful.  All meditation groups will be credited in the film and those with significant numbers will also be mentioned, giving the name and numbers participating.

I do hope that we can unite on this day and have your support.  I look forward to hearing from you.

With Joy and Peace

Katelijne Van Look

Assistant to the Producer

Broxstar Films

Peace on New Earth 2015

I would like to bring some focus to the New Year and to this New Earth that we are now creating with New Thinking and New Practice.

You may have all noticed that the problems of this world are more evident than ever. The entirety and significance of this global village of ours is now no longer invisible to us.

Most of us on the planet now have access to the information regarding the state of our world and our planet. And this can be very overwhelming if we think we need to fix or right what is happening ‘out there’ and so we might return our minds to the safety of our own life for the time being and get on with it.

In doing this we have overlooked an important step and we have not acknowledged our role and our ability to do something to create a better world. We have been changed by witnessing these things even if we think or believe we have not, and if we do not integrate them in a healthy way we have not used this information wisely. What I mean by that is – The information has been received by you and responded to. How did you use this information? Was it in a healthy way or non-healthy way? It is now part of our experience whether we like it or not.

For instance – you may see war happening in a particular country. It may frighten you or you may find it distasteful, you may think it is terrible and that you can’t do anything about it. If we look at this as information coming into us and our response to it we can see it as our record keeping and storage system. Because that is basically what has happened and we have classified and filed it under the headings War, FEAR, Distasteful, Terrible, Can’t be changed or maybe No Hope, My do not like list, Ignore and so on. When we look at where we have stored this information within us it gives us a better picture of not only what files we are keeping within us but how we are dealing with the information we are receiving and how we will let it play out for us.

Looking at our information gathering in this way and the choices we make about where to place it, gives us a simple way to make better choices and decide consciously to create health and happiness and wellbeing or not. In this example you could ask yourself:

“How can I best use this information for peace (as war is not what you want) now that I am aware that war exists?” please write some ideas down right now

You may ask “Where am I at war in my life?

Or if I take a particular position about this war does it create more war or more peace?”

And so on.

Let me give you another example of an everyday personal issue. For instance you may think – gee I am so unhappy, I look terrible, I have gained so much weight I do not know if I can lose it. Then the next step you take is to decide I am going to stop eating bad foods and begin to exercise more.

Let me tell you have set yourself up for a fall. You have filed your decision under unhappy, terrible, gained weight, lose, stop, eating bad foods, exercise more.

In order to reach your goal your perception first needs to shift and then taking your first step towards your goal must be based on this new perception which is always felt in the positive and not the negative.

I would like to suggest beginning this year in a conscious way by first listening to the language that you speak, whether out loud or to yourself and just note how many times per day that you use words that make you feel horrible, afraid or not so good or some other sinking feeling. How often do these words take you to the next decision you make?

Wishing you all a safe and joyful 2015!

The Wellbeing and Life Creation Coach ®
Transform your energy; Transform your life.
Live Well, Share Love, Be the Change.

Life’s most powerful teacher

I did not write a blog article last month.  I have just not been inspired or motivated to do so.  I have experienced another huge loss.  The loss of my 24 hour a day companion for the past 16 ½ years, my dog, and it has left a hole too great to fill with words.  I sat with my feelings, and took time to honour the memories, and find a new centre of balance.

This has been another defining moment in my life.  His passing has invited me to grow spiritually and emotionally in a whole new way.  When I lost my Mum and also my childhood friend earlier this year my dogs companionship and physical presence was a constant comfort to me but now he was gone and I had to connect with him in a whole new way.  His furry smiley face, his nudges, his familiar smell and his unconditional presence was no longer there to soften the pain.  Our pets are so good at being present and providing us with that warm fuzzy feeling no matter what, aren’t they.   Remembering these things allowed me to virtually bring him back to life.

My dog, Inu, has been one of the great loves of my life and I would say so far in my life, my greatest teacher.  But it was not always this way.  We started out together on very shaky ground.

I love animals and I really wanted a dog, so when a friend from yoga class told me her daughter had taken in an abandoned female dog that had birthed 6 pups I took my husband to have a look.  Of course once you see puppies you can’t resist.

I had my eye on a quiet little girl pup, but my husband wanted the independent, boisterous puppy with a cheeky curiosity for the world.  So we compromised – I got a puppy and he got to pick.

Well we thought this puppy was going to be small to medium from what we had been told about the likely father of the brood.  However, a couple of days later when I took him for his Vet check I soon found out that he was in fact going to be a Large dog – with a capital L.  Our Vet said ‘’Look at the size of his paws”.

I had never taken care of a large dog before.  As you pet lovers may know, they need to be well trained and under control or you can get yourself into much trouble with other people and dogs.  So I was a bit scared about what we had gotten ourselves in to, but up for the challenge.

At home he was full on.  He either wanted to explore, and he was free to go outside whenever he wanted and would often bring in to the house, huge tree branches that had fallen, or he wanted to be alone and would lie down in a corner far from where we were, or he wanted to play.

And he played rough!  You could not just cuddle him or play with toys or throw a ball, no he wanted to wrestle and bite – I still have the scars from the sharp little teeth on my forearms and feet.  We tried everything to train this out of him.

As he grew we took him to lots of different places to socialise and adjust him to different situations.  He always got really hyped up and it was an effort to keep him calm and engaged on the leash.

He was always happy to see other dogs and wanted to interact, but over the space of that first year he had been attacked 4 times and even mauled by other dogs that were not as happy to interact with him.

He began to put up his defences at contact with some dogs and be friendly with others.  With human adults he would often be nervous of them touching him and started to get up his defences around people too – we were confused and took him to obedience.   To cut a long story short, obedience training was not for us or him. The regimented restrictive code confused him more and isolated us, even more, from being able to help him.

At this time I was working as a volunteer with a boy with autism and learning all about interaction through play and acceptance using non-traditional learning methods – the Sunrise Program.  I felt there had to be a better way to teach my dog and I discovered that obedience training was not right for many dogs, often scaring and even scarring them.  Training was best done by working with the dogs natural abilities.

This fitted in very well with my learnings and my philosophy and I began to see Inu in a whole new way.  He was a highly intelligent dog but was afraid and needed love and understanding and not obedience and control.  This was a turning point for the two of us.

It wasn’t till later that I realised we were divinely connected to each other.  He was my petty tyrant and we were both here to teach each other and learn about love. There are many powerful tools of transformation but maybe none as powerful as having a petty tyrant. It may even be the only tool necessary to achieve total freedom. As Carl Gustav Jung stated:

“There is no coming to consciousness without pain. People will do anything, no matter how absurd, in order to avoid facing their own soul. One does not become enlightened by imagining figures of light, but by making the darkness conscious.”

Here is the run down on the idea of a Petty Tyrant.

“A petty tyrant is a tormentor…….Someone who either holds the power of life and death over warriors or simply annoys them to distraction.”–Don Juan

The petty tyrant serves you by illuminating your judgments of the “wrongness” of behaviours and emotions in yourself and all humans, as well as events, ideas, opinions, wars, and nature.

The petty tyrant is like a mirror that reflects back to you the parts of yourself you agreed to send into exile. Don Juan says that the warrior/ess goes into the world in search of petty tyrants, and they are not hard to find! S/he does this with enthusiasm knowing that anyone who judges the way she acts, dresses, talks, eats, frowns, thinks, or votes is her unique personal petty tyrant. Anyone who irritates him, annoys him, triggers him, or pushes his buttons is a gift offering personal growth and transformation.

The petty tyrant is exposing the reflection of a child part and presents face to face like looking in a mirror of the truth of what s/he has been rejecting and judging. We can see the petty tyrant as a way to highlight inner friction, fear and negative emotions that are to be transformed.

In his writings Carlos Castaneda accounts Don Juan’s teachings: the warrior recognizes that his petty tyrants are getting to do things or behave in ways that he does not allow himself. Every disowned part of herself will show up in the petty tyrants of her world. When she is triggered by someone who is messy, she sees the reflection of her own exiled messy part. When he reacts to a companion’s burst of anger, he sees a reflection of the anger he has denied to himself.

The usefulness of the petty tyrant for growth is enormous. My dog Inu gave me the greatest gift I could ever receive. Some of the negative emotions I experienced were anger, frustration, resentment, fear and even hate.  As Don Juan told Carlos, petty tyrants are gifts and in the end, reacting negatively won’t solve the problem; it will just get us sick.

And this struggle was making me sick.  My mind was not clear and free and my body was definitely feeling the effects of the struggle.  To have continued to see things as I thought they were (and indeed listen to the populous view), I would have stayed in a resistant fearful state reinforcing my pain and would never have received the gift.  This is how it was explained by Don Juan (Sharman):

As Don Juan listened to his apprentice Carlos Castaneda, reeling from an encounter with a fellow apprentice he laughed and told Carlos how lucky he was.  Carlos looked at him as if he had lost his mind.  How can I be lucky?  This woman is crazy.  All she strives for is to aggravate me!  Why?  What could I have possibly done to her? His laughter increased and he says not to pay her any attention just understand that she is his petty tyrant – a person who teaches us important lessons in how to be detached, and to remove yourself from the illusion of how you tell yourself that the person relates to you.  Any attachment to this person has a corresponding effect on how you perceive yourself, exposing to you in the form of a mirror what you have disowned about yourself.

So the idea is that, you need to be detached from the illusion that you see/think.  You need to remove yourself from the illusion of how you tell yourself that this person relates to you.  When you are attached to the illusion, in whatever form, it automatically diminishes your view of yourself.

Inu exposed the area that was a false belief – he does not love me so I cannot love him and not loving him makes me love myself less.  In reality, these are ALL thought forms that only exist in our minds.  They are illusions or dreams of how we, “the self”, perceive our lives.

This helped me to identify a part of myself that was not being fully expressed, which is exactly the role of the petty tyrant, reminding us in the midst of turmoil and complaining to detach from the illusion.  Once this realisation is reached we can transcend the moment and rise above it – clarity is restored.  For me it became so clear that the only ‘fix’ for this situation was to LOVE MORE.  I decided that it was I who needed to give all the things that I was expecting from my dog.  Every day I chose to love him, cuddle him and tell him that he was the best dog in the whole world – even when he did not live up to that or love me back. 

So I decided from that moment onwards that I would love and understand him.  This was the great gift he gave to me – he gave me back the love I was closing off from myself and now that I was giving this love, my life became filled with love.

Miracles do happen as they say.  He became the most loving and caring dog I could ever have asked for and to me he is and will always be the best dog in the whole world.

Do you have a petty tyrant?  How might you see your situation differently now that you know it is an illusion?  What might the hidden gift be?  I would love to hear from you about it.

Carolynne

The Wellbeing and Life Creation Coach