Category: Purpose

10 Reasons Why You Feel Disconnected to Life.

Do you feel out of sync, not in tune in some way to your life, your career, your relationships?

Do you feel like you are constantly thriving and never arriving at a destination or achievement that will bring ultimate joy and happiness?

Or do you feel like you have lost your energy, identity, spark and that each day you are just going through the motions?

I get it, I felt like that for a long time and living this way created a lot of stress and fear in my life. I was overwhelmed with all of the things in my life and it took me a long time to understand what was amiss.

Through a LOT of inner work, reading, learning and listening I realised that I was out of tune with myself. I was disconnected from me, the real me. I had lost sight of my unique essence and soul purpose.

I was so busy doing and following the expectations of all the people in my external world that I had lost sight of what I wanted to do or achieve in my life. I was living a life of pleasing others and forgot about pleasing myself.

When we live our life with our focus on our external world (jobs, TV, parents, teachers, partners, family, friends, money, religions etc) we detach from the inner signs and signals that our mind, body, heart and spirit is constantly communicating with us. Our external world becomes so loud that we spend our life reacting to the things around us instead of responding with intention or compassion.

Here are 10 reasons why you may be feeling disconnected in your life.

  1. You are living a very stressful life. Stress is the predominant theme in your day and from the commute to work to the deadlines and personal commitments it is all very overwhelming.
  2. Your life is on fast forward, filled to the brim with ALL the things to do. You are so busy trying to fit everything in. Your days and weeks are so jam-packed that they distract you from and limit the time you spend checking in with yourself.
  3. There is less movement throughout your day or week, probably because of 1 and 2 above.
  4. You don’t spend time in nature that often or at all. Your days are spent indoors with no fresh air or connection to the world that you live in.
  5. You have little or no time for fun and play. Maybe you can’t remember the last time you laughed or played around with something new. The seriousness of adult living has taken over and fun and play has been shunned to the side.
  6. You haven’t allowed yourself to be creative and create something new. Busy lives and jobs take up all of your time and you have put your love for drawing, music, painting, singing, crafting etc into a box under the bed.
  7. You are over-consuming information and media around you. You spend hours in front of the TV or on social media, disconnecting you further from your true self and your needs.
  8. You are living your life based on past experiences or future worries and concerns. This makes it impossible to enjoy the ride and appreciate all the wonderful people and things of the present.
  9. You’re goals are not really aligned with you, they belong to society, your parents, your boss. Have you felt yourself ticking boxes of adult life rather than living the life you want? This is because you have been working towards someone else’s goals or dreams.
  10. You don’t make time inward reflection and connection. You don’t know what lights you up or gets you down. You haven’t asked yourself what it is you want in life, work, relationships and because of this you spend your life reacting impulsively instead of responding with intention and insight.

If you want to reconnect and realign with your true self explore one or all of these 10 points. Ask yourself is this true in my life? If it is ask yourself how can you make small changes to realign with your true self.

Ultimately we do things in life to make us feel better, when we are aligned with our true self we feel better. When we are spending more of our time doing things that make us feel better then our lives look very different.

In tuning into our true self we take back our power, we feel free, joyous, peaceful and content – who doesn’t want more of that? When we are in alignment with our heart and soul we can navigate our life with intention and meaning.

Mel x

Check out more blog post like this one to take a deeper dive into realigning and remembering the real you – blog

Healing, Forgiving and letting Go.

healing 2

We go through many experiences and situations in life that cause us pain, hurt, anguish and heartache. Somethings hurt more than others. Sometimes we know exactly where the pain originated from and other times we just feel it and try and work through it.

Often, we push it down, suppress it and pretend it’s not there. We push it into the shadows in the hope that it will stay there quietly and let you get on with your life. We forget that the shadows are very much part of ourselves as a whole and that we can always light a candle in a dark room.

Emotions and thoughts are strongly held and felt within the body whether they are positive or negative in nature. They affect us on a mental, physical, emotional and indeed spiritual level. We are often so unaware of our patterns and mental chatter that we do not see the toxic effect it is having on our physical, emotional and mental bodies. When we are not aware of our thoughts and emotions and when we don’t give them the time and space to heal, they are stored in the body, stored until we are ready to deal with them.

We create ways of dealing with these emotions as we encounter them in different situations. Every habit or condition we have in our lives serves a purpose in the initial instance but after a while we no longer need it. We developed that habit or way of thinking as a means of protecting us at that time, as a way to cope with the situation. Like biting your nails, as a child you may have done it as a source of comfort or to ease your worrying thoughts. As an adult you may want to stop the habit and realise that although 5-year-old you had a good way to ease the worry when you were 5, adult you has a better way of dealing with it.

When we choose to ignore the thoughts and emotions a couple of things may happen. Similar things will continue to happen in our lives, repeating the pattern until we are ready to deal with the lesson that life is giving us. We may be blocked from moving on in our lives and remain stuck in a life that we are not happy with as we continue to believe ‘This is just who I am’, ‘that’s just the way it is’.  Sometimes pain stored in the body or a long time can manifest as disease or illness within the body. A lot of people see disease as dis-ease within the body, the symptoms are telling us that something is imbalanced, blocked or damaged. This is happening because we are holding on to something that is not serving us anymore, something we need to let go of, something that we are still in pain over and needs healing.

Have you ever suffered with back pain?

Have a look at this chart and see if the area of pain for you would reflect some of the possible reasons cited below.

BackPainImage

Our beliefs are shaped by our thoughts and emotions. Our beliefs are just thoughts we think over and over again. However we came to that belief isn’t as important as the knowledge that we can always change our beliefs. It takes time and consistent effort, but we CAN change our thought patterns and our beliefs to help us to live a happier and healthier life.

Your story to date is important but you don’t want to stay in the past chapters of your life. Your story is an important tool for you to use to see the things you want in your life and the things you don’t want in your life. However, you cannot affect change in your life if you keep thinking the same thoughts, none of your power is from where you are backward. ALL of your power is from where you are now, moving forward. The more you focus on the unwanted, on your story, on your past experiences the deeper you dig into a hole you are trying to get out of.

We know that the plant cannot survive without the root, so to change the thought pattern, you have to go back to the root cause. Again, you don’t want to get stuck at the root cause or caught up in the backstory because then you can’t move forward from there. Many of us know someone, ourselves included, who have got stuck in a backstory and tell it over and over again. They wear the badge of that situation and refer to it whenever something goes wrong in their lives or when anyone will listen. Essentially, they are just using it as an excuse and getting in their own way of moving on and moving forward. Every moment is a fresh start of where you are and where you want to be instead of where you were and where you got to be.

 Louise Hay, author of Heal Your Life, is famous all over the world for creating a reference of the most common illness, diseases and health issues, their probable causes and life changing thought patterns to help us rewire our way of thinking.  She speaks of the four main thought patterns that cause the most dis-ease within the body as criticism, anger, resentment and guilt.

If we think of all the situations and experiences we have been through in our lives then it is very probable that we are holding onto criticism, anger, resentment and guilt from ourselves or others, maybe even from our childhood or past lives. The more we are aware of these thought patterns, the more we can clear, heal and live a happier and healthier life.

When we are aware of the thought process and the probable cause we can then start to work on changing that thought process. Sometimes awareness in itself can be curative and alongside the new thought pattern change can come very quickly. Other times we need to practice the new thought pattern every day, consistently until they become natural to us. Rewiring the brain to change the thought processes is not easy work, we literally are breaking apart neurons that may be wired together for years. And often we need help from a practitioner, to help us to heal and let go.

When the physical symptoms occur again we are aware of what is coming up for us and we can quickly adapt in whatever we need to so ease that pain. However, I believe the most important tool to healing and pain is forgiveness.

Forgiveness is the most powerful tool you can give yourself. If you can’t learn to forgive, you can forget about achieving true success in your life – Wayne Dyer.

Forgiveness is not only a powerful emotion it is a powerful and empowering choice to make for ourselves.  Forgiveness is a huge component in our overall happiness and healing from past situations and experiences. When we choose to forgive we are not saying that we condone the behaviour of the person who caused us pain and hurt. We are not saying that we will reconcile, become their best friend and pretend like it never happened. It also doesn’t mean that we have to publicly ‘show’ our forgiveness, there is as much power in silently working on it ourselves. When we choose to forgive we choose to let go of that anger, hurt, regret, blame, resentment, the story. We choose to remember that no one is perfect and that we have the courage, guts and strength of purpose to practice forgiveness and let go, especially when there is anger and resentment within us. We take responsibility for our part in it, our reaction and our holding onto it and instead decide to make the change and reap the benefits.

When we are angry, bitter, resentful, hateful towards a person or situations (ourselves included) we are the only ones feeling that negative and destructive emotion. The other person does not feel or is not ‘punished’ because we are feeling this way toward them. In fact, when we feel this way towards someone it is like making a poison of hate for someone and their behaviour towards us and drinking it ourselves. Forgiveness is a gift of peace of mind and heart you give to yourself. It is a gift of health and happiness instead of a life of resentment, anger and hate.  It is not easy, but it can be achieved with intention and practice.

Wherever you are on your path please know that there are tools and therapies that can assist you in letting go and healing from whatever past trauma or pain you experienced. In seeking help and healing you are essentially taking back your power, your inner peace to live a happier, healthier life instead of a life of pain and resentment.

Please share this article on to someone who you think may benefit from it and subscribe to my mailing list for articles about becoming a healthier, happier version of you.

Mel x

How to Live a Happy Life of Meaning & Purpose

There is so much to gain from writing out your thoughts about anything and everything or about something more specific. The words flow, the mind, heart and soul release simultaneously and together in some beautifully intertwined dance. The mind understands more, the heart heals deeply, and the soul gently says, ‘you have all the answers, you know the way’.

Read More...

What Masks are you Wearing???

In a world of filters and Photoshop it has become glaringly obvious that we don’t want to have to analyse the stories and posts we scroll past to see what is real and what is fake? Calling out, judging and shaming people in the media and our immediate worlds has become the norm for most people whether they do it openly in the comment section or silently in their minds. We are crying out for the truth in every corner of our lives. But mostly we are just living a life in drag, portraying carefully constructed, entertaining characters to the world.

Read More...

6 Ways to Change Your Lifestyle Habits

Happy New Year everyone!!

acj-2410-happy-new-year-2018We are now nearly a week into the New Year and over this weekend the last of the Christmas trees and decorations will be taken down, reluctantly by some and with relish for others.

New Years resolutions that were so confidently and adamantly set earlier in the week are either propelling us forward with abundant positivity into 2018 or hanging over us judgingly as we tuck into the last of the selection boxes or skip the gym session to binge watch a whole series on Netflix.

After the overindulgence of Christmas and the irregularity to our routines, starting fresh on New Year’s Day with a list of positive resolutions as we detox from all the festive food, alcohol and cheer (or stress) can seem like the best plan. However more often than not, we set big tasks to achieve, without really thinking through what we want or how we will do it. Meaning by the 3rd of 4th week in January we are frustrated and irritated and call off the whole resolution thing as a load of B.S.

2018-01-05 12.19.46We are creatures of habit and we operate consciously and unconsciously from this primal place within our brains all day, every day. We think, act and behave like this for years and it becomes our ‘normal’. To override these habits, we cannot rely on will power or a New Year resolution alone to change these deeply ingrained behaviours. These habits and behaviours have their own neurological pathways, some of which were created many years ago and they cannot be simply flipped overnight.

Instead we need to create new pathways, new habits and rituals but it will take time. When we repeat the same behaviour over and over we are tapping into our unconscious mind where those neurological pathways reside. We create new roads for us to travel and retrain our thinking and behaviour. Just like any skill or muscle, it takes time and consistency to see the change. If you do one cooking lesson or gym session you won’t be a top chef or Popeye.

intersectionThink about it this way, all your habits and behaviours are so deeply ingrained that they look something like a motorway, with roads leading on and off. Well maintained roads, no bumps or potholes as they are in constant use. Alongside this motorway is a forest and on New Years Day you decide to take a new route through the forest to a new destination. For the first few days, it is hard, you have to cut down all the trees and bushes in your way, to create your new path. It takes time and effort but your energy and determination are strong and you persevere. On your return each morning you see that some of the branches and bushes have fallen back to where they were originally and as you make your way along this new path you continue to clear them, so you can reach your destination. overgrown pathThis goes on for a couple of weeks and one morning, you wake up late and believe you don’t have the time to clear the path that day and instead take the motorway, the easier option. You go home on the motorway too because you are tired and what’s the harm, you already took the route this morning. For some this is the turning point in their new path, they either reset and get back to their new path with renewed motivation and enthusiasm or they call it a lost cause and get back onto the motorway where it is the same old story but at least it’s easy and immediate.

Our habits and behaviours all serve a purpose at some point and are not all negative or in drastic need of transformation. We just need to bring more awareness to the habits that we no longer need and override them to make room for new ones. When we take the time to see what is working for us and what is working against us, we can see more clearly what we need to work on, to move forward and grow.

Motivation is important too, but it has to be a REAL motivating factor that comes from deep within, at our core values and beliefs. Saying you want to get fit for the New Year because you have been sitting and relaxing for the last 2 weeks won’t serve as a motivator in a few weeks’ time. Sitting down to really think about why you want to get fit and realising you want to be able to run and play with your kids and not huff and puff as they run ahead of you, is a much stronger rooted reason that will give you that motivation you need on the day you are tired and don’t want to exercise.

Then we establish the way we can do it, the professionals we might need to call in and the support we will need along the way.

The key to starting new habits is to only take on one or two at a time. Trying to change your exercise, diet, personal development, relationship, world peace etc all on New Year’s Day is a little over ambitious. I have changed many habits and routines over the years but only by taking it 1 or 2 at a time, building up my good/new habits and behaviours until they become my ‘new normal’ and then I look for another new something to work on.

Here is how I suggest getting started…

  • Properly think about what you want to change and WHY (Tip – keep asking why and why again to each response until you run out of answers, there is always another reason behind the surface reason and this will help you to get down to the core reason.) Your why will be the driving force on days when you are tired or unmotivated. For example if you are trying to get fitter to be able to run around with your children, remembering that reason ,that ‘why’, will get you out the door and to the gym.
  • Write down what the overall goal is, be specific e.g. do you want to be able to run a 5/10 km race or lose X lbs?
  • Write down the steps you will need to get there e.g. do you have to research an exercise class or find a professional to work with? These steps will be like the directions you need to reach the destination, start at the start and keep going until you get there. If you take a wrong turn, no worries, just use your map to get back on track again.
  • Think about who is going to support you. This is a massive factor in your achievement of your goal(s). If you are cooking healthy meals every night and your family are turning their nose up at them it will get very disheartening and discouraging. Talk with your friends and family, ask them to give you the support and praise you need to keep going. Get them to join in or simply just ask (without judgement) how you are getting on.
  • Think about what problems or setbacks might arise in your master plan (because they will). Do you have a heavy workload in work approaching or a holiday away? Think about ways you can get around these setbacks or acknowledge that for that week you might be very busy in work, but you will still commit to at least 20-minute walk to clear your head and be active.
  • Most importantly be gentle on yourself. You will have days that are not as good as others but the important thing is that you don’t dwell in self judgement or criticism. If you revert back to the motorway for a few days just wake up fresh the next morning and get back onto your own path (Don’t wait until Monday).

dont-call-it-a-dream-call-it-a-plan-quote-1Instead of changing everything on New Year’s Day or in the first week of January, why not give yourself a couple of weeks to get going. I feel we are still in hibernation mode as the evenings are short and dark and January always seems a little low and flat after the high of Christmas without sprinkling self-judgement and criticism all over it too.

Why not give yourself a few weeks to really think about what you want to change and what the destination will be. Create the map and the directions to get there, then set the wheels in motion and enjoy the journey and be proud of your growth.

 

 

Best of luck,

Mel x