Summer is coming to an end. Autumn is around the corner. For many Sepember stands for new beginnings, a new school year, a new cycle. This might be a good time to look back at what we have achieved so far this year and to set new intentions and goals for the remainder of the year. If there’s something you’d like to work towards, make a plan, otherwise it’s just a wish.
What steps do you need to take to achieve your desired outcomes? Then schedule specific actions and put them into your diary. Also, be clear about the reason why this goal matters, this is a powerful motivation booster.
When looking back at the last few months, I noticed a few positive changes in my dog Charly. He seemed happier almost as if it had finally dawned on this lovely rescue pooch that he has really found his forever home. Somehow our bond is now even stronger. On 26th August is National Dog Day, so we went to celebrate and I donated to the Charity that rescued and brought us our Charly.
Finally, going back to setting intentions, taking actions and schedule them, I’ve done this and have scheduled my next two Reiki trainings in Eastbourne: Reiki Level I takes place on 3rd-4th September and Reiki Level 2 Practitioner training takes place from 24th-25th September. If you’re interested, please get in touch.
Wishing you all a lovely bank holiday weekend. I hope you use the time for your own end of summer reflections and set intentions for the rest of the year.
Yet another lockdown has been announced and I can almost
hear all the many desperate voices saying “Oh no, not again!” Even though I
expected this announcement, I admit that I noticed an immediate blow to my
mood, a sinking feeling, worries coming up regarding my business, my clients
and loved ones and I just needed a day or so to gather my thoughts and process upcoming
feelings.
I’ve recently noticed that I’m not my usual happy self and feel a bit out of balance, so now I’m making an extra effort to look after myself, my mental health and emotional balance. Luckily, I’ve got all the knowledge and tools to help myself and others and have, in fact, been teaching them for years. Now, that I’m feeling much better, I thought I’d share a few tips that helped me to get out of the lockdown blues! Perhaps this will help you too! Try my alphabetic ABCDEFGHIJ approach! Here is the short version of my favourite ten tips:
1. Acceptance is the key! Denial, distraction or ignoring
a situation and especially our feelings towards it is not going to help. My
motto is ”accept what you can’t change and change what you can’t accept!”.
So, I can’t change this lockdown but I CAN change how I feel about it. After allowing
myself a bit of time to accept, acknowledge and feel the feeling, I then move
on, tap or dance it away.
2. Deep focused breathing is one of the best
ways to regain calmness and balance. I love 7-11 breathing and heart-centred
breathing. These wonderful exercises certainly help me feel better whenever I’m
not at ease. If you’re not familiar with them, then just take a few minutes and
focus on your breath, perhaps count to five or six with each in- and outbreath and
observe the movement of your body. Most negative feelings put us into fight or
flight, which means we can’t think clearly and might tend to catastrophise. Yet
calm deep breathing takes us out of this cycle, helps us relax and get our positive
brain power back. Do this regularly or whenever you feel anxious, sad or
stressed.
3. Reach out and connect to others. A sense of connection is an innate basic need that we all have because we are social beings. This is not the time to crawl into a cave and wait until this is all over. You’re not alone and not meant to be. Let us all reach out to one another, talk to our loved ones, set up video calling, a WhatsApp group and share precious moments even if it’s in a socially distant or digital way.
4. Dance all your worries away! Nothing lifts my mood
as much as putting on some of my favourite music and dance around my living
room, normally only when I’m alone. I know it sounds crazy and it might take a
few minutes to get into it but try it and perhaps get the whole family
involved. I have friends who’d make a zoom party out of this.
5. Use EFT tapping! I love using EFT to tap on any negative
feelings and released them. So, I label the feeling, focus on where it sits in
my body, I measure its intensity on a scale from 1-10 to get clarity and then I
say out loud “Even though this situation makes me feel …., I accept how
I feel right now” and I tap through the points until I feel better.
6. Have some fun! I know it’s hard when you’re feeling a bit down but think of the things you enjoyed as a child. Be creative, use your imagination! It could be as simple as dressing up as someone else, find your old skipping rope, make a collage, watch your favourite film, eat your favourite food, bake a cake, write a story, dye your hair, repot your plants, dance in your living room…. The list is endless!
7. Focus on gratitude and count your blessings! If
you get caught up in negative thinking, just say “stop!” Thoughts can spiral
but we have the power to intervene. We can choose our thoughts consciously. By
counting your blessings or naming at least five things you’re grateful for, you
can shift your thinking from negative to positive. Start a gratitude list and
add more items every day, put it on your fridge or above your desk and read it
often to remind yourself of all the good things in your life.
8. Have a hug! The lack of human touch can have such
a negative impact on our mental health. I know we need to accept the social
distancing rules but if you have people in your household or social bubble, make
sure you hug them and receive one in return, provided it feels safe! If it doesn’t
hug yourself, hug a cushion or a teddy bear and close your eyes while imagining
it’s a loved one or offer to take a neighbours dog out for a walk and pet the
dog and play with him.
9. Use your imagination! Our minds are more powerful than we know. We can conjure up positive and negative images which then affect our mood. So why not use the lockdown to engage in some daydreaming or imagine a few wonderful scenarios that will make you happy. The aim is to feel good!
10. Do more of what brings you joy. This is in line with number six above. We can’t change the past, we don’t know what the future will bring, we just have this moment right now, so why not conjure up a few moments of joy, even if it’s just sharing your favourite anecdotes or jokes with someone or your diary.
Just to let you know, I’m at your service and love to help and inspire others. I’m available for online sessions and have a number of online products available. Feel free to get in touch.
Hello again. I hope you’ve had enough time to work on your SMART goal action plan (as described in part I) and to observe your potential excuses and limiting beliefs (mentioned in part II) that stop you from 100% following that plan and achieving your goal. Now, as promised, I’ll outline how to overcome those challenges to bring about the necessary changes to make this YOUR best year yet! Of course, not everybody has limiting beliefs that prevents them from reaching their goals. If you don’t and the action plan is working out for you, great! Keep going! The type of goal may also play a role, for example, a small goal might not bring up any resistance, while a big life-changing goal is more likely to be (self-)sabotaged, on an unconscious level of course. Nobody would purposefully get in their own way. Our unconscious mind is usually trying to keep us safe and if the new goal requires us to stand out, to make changes and take risks, a bit of resistance may come up, especially if we had some bad experiences in the past, and who hasn’t?
Let’s now have a look at how to move beyond these limitations. Both EFT and Hypnosisare effective ways to overcome these (along with many other modalities that also work, these are just the ones I use and find extremely effective).
Now, take out your answers from the questions in part II below. These reveal your hidden barriers which can be tackled with EFT tapping. EFT stands for Emotional Freedom Technique and is a unique modality to release negative emotions, such as fear or anxiety which often come up when thinking of reaching a powerful goal. So, read out your goal aloud and then tune into your body to see how it makes you feel. If any fear or anxiety comes up (or anything else that is not pure enthusiasm) then we’ve got something to work on. Rate the intensity of that feeling on a scale from 1-10 and see where it sits in your body, whether it has a form, shape or colour. For some people it could be something like a ‘tennis-ball sized black knot of anxiety in my stomach’. The more precise the description, the better EFT works, so please take a moment to really tune into that feeling and write down the number and details.
Now, let’s get started. You can refer to the picture with the tapping points, if you don’t know them already or read the EFT page first for more information about EFT. We usually start with the so-called set-up statement which aims to tune you in as well as to acknowledge the feelings. Only if you can accept how you currently feel, you are able to shift this emotion.
Set-up: Tap on the outside of your hand and say: ‘Even though I have this …[add your description] I accept how I feel and I’m ok.’ Repeat this a couple of times and make sure you focus on FEELING that emotion in your body while tapping. Tapping points: Start tapping slightly on the top of your head and repeat the so-called reminder phrase, e.g. ‘this tennis-ball sized black knot of anxiety in my stomach’. Then move on to the eyebrow point and repeat the statement. Again focus on the feelings and watch out for any changes. Tap through all the points while repeating the phrase or adapt it if the feeling changes. Also keep looking at your written goal to make sure you target the feelings related to this goal and not any other feelings that are currently in your energy system.
After one or two rounds of tapping through all the points, measure the intensity on the scale again and see whether the colour, size, shape or location have changed. If so, you could do a second set-up statement, for example: ‘Even though I STILL have SOME of this ….[add your description]…I accept how I feel and I’m open to letting it go.’ Then tap through the points as described above. Continue until the number is very low or zero. Then look at the next question in part II and tackle those feelings in exactly the same way.
If any memories happen to come up, keep those in your mind while tapping; imagine telling a friend what happened in that memory and tap until you can ‘tell’ the story without any negative emotions occuring. This helps clearing negative experiences from the past which may prevent us from reaching our goals. The whole process can take a while, so make sure you set enough time aside. It is important to be thorough and tap out all of this potential resistance. Remember if you overcome the resistance you will be unstoppable! It’s worth it, believe me! If you feel unsure, how to proceed or feel there’s too much coming up or you feel a bit overwhelmed with emotions, keep tapping until you calm down, then consider working with a qualified EFT practitioner who can help you shift quickly and safely.
This is just a very simple introduction to EFT, there’s much more to it. Feel free to get in touch if you need any further information or assistance. I’m a qualified advanced EFT practitioner and trainer.
In my next blog post, I’ll tell you a bit more about how to use hypnosis and visualisations to achieve your goals, yet first move beyond your limitations, fears and doubts.
If this has been helpful, please leave a comment or get in touch if you’re interested in a session. I work in Brighton & Hove, East Sussex but also via Skype.
Best of luck with making this your best year yet! Let me know how you get on.
About 3 weeks ago I wrote about how to set goals and take action to achieve them using the SMART approach. If you haven’t read that article yet, catch up here. Today, the focus is on how to find and overcome limiting beliefs that lead to self-sabotage or procrastination. Have you taken action in the last few weeks? What have you done to work on your goals? Or have you simply not had time or forgot about it? Keeping busy and making other things and people more important can be a form of procrastination. If we have a clear goal, a step-by-step action plan and enough motivation to go for what we want, it should be easy to achieve our goals. Just get started, make daily improvements or contributions and over time, your goals will be realised. Simple, isn’t it? Then why do so many people never reach their goals?
There are surely a variety of reasons (or excuses) but in my experience there is often an emotional element that holds people back, more specifically an emotion caused by certain thoughts or beliefs. For example, ask yourself: Do I really believe I can achieve this goal? If the answer is anything else than an immediate enthusiastic yes, there might be a bit of doubt that’s holding you back. Doubt leads to fear of failure and when fear takes over people tend to procrastinate or self-sabotage so that it eventually feels safer to not even try. Or perhaps you do believe in your goal but are worried about what other people may say if you reached that goal? Could there be jealousy, disapproval or even pressure from others? Or maybe your goal involves becoming successful and standing out which can cause anxiety and doesn’t feel safe, so again fear interferes (on a subconscious level) and before you know it, you’ve only half-heartedly tried before coming to the conclusion that it won’t or didn’t work.
Two great ways to overcome these limiting thoughts and feelings are tackling them with EFT tapping and/or Hypnotherapy. In fact, both work wonderfully together. With EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique) we can release doubts, anxiety and fear. These act as blocks in the human energy system but can be literally tapped away by applying EFT. Once these energy blocks are gone you will be clear and motivated and a massive step further on the way to reaching your goal. If you then follow up with Hypnotherapy, which is like a guided visualisation, where you vividly imagine having achieved your goal and how wonderful that will feel, you set your whole self (conscious and subconscious) up for success. You sort of become unstoppable. Right, so let’s see what’s holding you back. Take a piece of paper and a pen and answer the following questions. If possible rate each feeling that comes up on a scale from 1-10 (one being low and 10 being very high) and give any thoughts or beliefs a percentage between 1-100% in terms of how true it feels.
1. Write down your goal. Read it out loud and then pause and see how your body reacts. Do you feel enthusiasm or anxiety? Does it cause tension? Where is it in your body? Give it a number.
2. Do you believe you can achieve this goal? Give it a percentage! For example, I’m 70% sure I can reach this goal. If it’s anything less than 100% start exploring what’s holding you back. In the above example: what do the 30% stand for? Tune in and write it down. Is it a belief or a feeling? Name it and then rate it.
3. How would other people (friends & family) react if you achieved this goal? Be specific and write down what you think the most important people in your life would say, and more importantly how that makes you FEEL!
In my next post, I’ll write about how to use EFT tapping to tackle those limiting thoughts and feelings. Make sure you have your list of thoughts and emotions and their numbers ready. Or if you want to start right away, feel free to contact me and book an appointment. I offer 1-2-1 EFT & Hypnotherapy sessions in Brighton & Hove, East Sussex or via Skype worldwide.
Remember to enjoy every moment, smile more and be grateful for what you have already achieved.
Love and light
Sandy
Please leave a comment and let me know if this post has been helpful. Thank you.
It is January, time to set new goals and make changes. Here are a few tips and ideas how to go about this and how to make it happen!
1. A few useful questions: What would you like to achieve this year? What would need to happen to make 2017 your best year so far? Who/where would you like to be in 12 months’ time?
2. Become clear: Just for a moment travel into the future, imagine it’s December 2017 and you’ve lived your best year so far. What does that look like? And more importantly, what does that feel like? What achievements would make you really happy and proud in December 2017? Become clear on the goals that would have the greatest impact. Just choose between one and three. Close your eyes and do this right now! Take a few minutes to daydream….. Seriously, stop reading! Do this right now!
3. Great! Now write down minimum one and maximum three of the most significant goals. If you find it hard to choose, rate each on a scale from 1-10 in terms of impact on your life or happiness and use the one with the highest numbers. Again, please do this now. This is important to write them down. Go ahead, I’ll wait….
4. Well done! Now, apply the (below) SMART checker to become crystal clear on your goal(s). Take a moment to do this. How much do you want to achieve this goal? Hopefully enough to take a few minutes out of your busy day to really work on those goal. A goal without a plan is just a wish!
Make sure you goals are specific rather than general. For example: ‘I will exercise for minimum 30 minutes twice a week.’ is better than ‘I want to exercise more’ (more can’t be measured). M stands for measurable, so you need a specific number such as number of books you want to read, the exact weight you want to achieve or the duration of the daily meditation you’d like to do. The next letter stands for attainable or achievable, so your goal has to be something that you believe is realistic and possible to achieve within a certain time-frame. R refers to relevant which means that it has to be your own goal, relevant to you and your dream, rather than something somebody else wants you to do. Only if you really want to achieve that goal you can get the necessary motivation to take action. Finally, T stands for time bound. You need a deadline or final date by which this goal can be realistically achieved. That’s the only way to kick into action as without that you might be prone to procrastination or even forgetting that. The deadline is your commitment to achieve that goal by that time.
5. Winston Churchill said: ‘Those who fail to plan, plan to fail.’ So, with an end date in mind you can then start creating an action plan, a step-by-step approach to achieving this goal. Start by breaking it down into smaller steps, then attach a deadline to each of them. Ideally write a schedule or create a timeline and put it up somewhere visible as a reminder. Take small daily steps toward achieving your goal(s).
Best of luck. Feel free to comment on this post or share it.
