My mind is a busy monkey at present. Integrating my Bali reality with this current New Zealand reality. I’ve been trying to pin point the words, to somehow capture and solidify my experience. In doing so, hoping to find some sort of solidarity that I can grab a hold of with both hands. But it’s …
coaching
Use this simple tool for Negative Self Talk
Here I share a super simple tool you can use every time you observe a negative thought, or witness a story you know is not true.
By doing so, you program your mind to chose the thoughts you want to align to.
This isn’t about negating what is, it’s about acknowledging it, and coming back to what you DO want. Simples. So it should be.
Join the Be Your Own Guru Community here
Chat with Heidi here
how these tiny words will change your life || guru tip #1
Language is powerful, words can change your life. They have the capacity to tear a person down, or build them up.
Words illustrate how someone feels about them self, their beliefs in life, their fears, conditioning, patterns that play out, just to name a few.
Here are 3 examples from a sea of many;
1. TRY (in the context of a commitment to a task or goal)
I consider the word try, to be a swear word – actually that’s really just something I heard elsewhere, but it stuck. If someone says they will ‘try’ to do xyz, be sure that they are not 100% committed to the outcome.
There is either CAN or CANNOT – there is no try. Try is a cop out of a word that means you don’t have the integrity to say yes or no and own your commitment completely.
Notice WHY you might not want to commit to a solid CAN or CANNOT. Build your integrity by communicating any resistance you might have.
2. SORRY
The word sorry, usually learnt through conditioning. Have you noticed how often you say sorry? Why do you say it, and do you really mean it.
It is way over used and used far to inappropriately.
Dig a little further and ask WHY you or others use it. The initial answer may be ‘I don’t know’, but dig behind that.
Often it can represent a fear we have for getting in the way or feeling like we aren’t enough.
Challenge yourself to not say it when you usually would. What comes up for you?
3. Think vs Feel
When listening to your response, or another’s response to a question or conversation. Note whether you say “I think, or I feel” as the starting sentence. When we say Think – it usually means our answer comes from the head with something we already know or think we know. When we say Feel – it usually means our answer has come from within our heart or body.
Depending on the context of the conversation – our response can denote where our answer has come from and the potential truth of it. Our bodies never lie. Our heads are pretty practiced at it.
Neither is right or wrong, just all lessons to enhance our listening skills and be open exploration.
For further tools to support exploration of your words and thoughts, read Transform Your Thoughts, Transform Your Life available here.
What is our purpose in life?
What is our purpose in life? Today’s 99 Million Dollar Question right?!
I’ve been working with this questions quite intimately these past months here in Bali land. Knowing for a long time there is much more to living life than just hitting the daily grind in exchange for an income.
I know this – but such is life – continuing to learn lessons, plugging along & asking life purpose reflection questions.
Each question has created an opportunity, a stepping stone to the next. Each stepping stone has requested courage & fear acknowledgement. But here’s the thing, they ARE stepping stones. We are never given what we cannot handle, and so we get to choose in each moment whether we continue with what we know, or step into that which we don’t.
Bali was and continues to be a gamble.
I have no idea what I’m doing & showing up for on a day to day basis, but I do, because sitting here in my life, I cannot & will not go backwards.
If I ‘went back’, this might look like returning to Australia or maybe New Zealand, getting a J.O.B in exchange for my life hours and a small wage in exchange for such un-priceable value. I will not do it. (Well – it doesn’t feel like my here & now calling. Although I have learnt to be open and step into what is needed in each moment.)
The Silent Retreat was tough. It was an inner boot camp of looking at fears, demons, and a time out & deconstruction of everything I knew to be true. The living paradigm of J.O.B working. Compartmentalizing life. It has since spat me out, in which I am SO grateful for. Day by day, now some 10 days on or so, life continues to show up for me because I am choosing to show up for it. I am in the hands of something far greater that has me in it’s arms.
How am I sustaining myself?
Friends, more friends, small savings & trust.
Do I know what I’m doing tomorrow?
Hell No!
Am I happy & excited?
Hell YES!
Do I get to live my life on my terms?
HELL YES!
Am I safe? A roof over my head & food to eat?
Everyday!
This is life!
This is living!
My dear chicken friend reminded me last week. There is no separation between work & play. There is only life. We shouldn’t have to invest in one to have the other. They shouldn’t need to be mutually exclusive things.
Life is life. It was given to us as our birthright to enjoy, explore, learn & play. Not to live by rules & patterning passed down from generation to generation. But the sad thing is, unless you don’t start to question, you will never learn any different, as we only know what we know. If we knew what we didn’t know, there would still be more that we didn’t know. And so on & so on, x’s infinity! Where does the mind go with the limitlessness of that!?
I’m reading the book “Cashflow Quadrant by Robert T Kiyosaki” right now, and a passage he shares within it is;
“We all know people who make a lot of money, but hate their work. We also know people who do not make a lot of money and hate their work. And we all know people who just work for money. A classmate of mine realized he did not want to spend his life at sea. Rather than sail for the rest of his life, he went to law school after graduation, spending three more years becoming a lawyer and entering private practice in the Self Employed Quadrant.
He died in his early fifties. He had become a very successful, unhappy lawyer. Like me, he had two professions by the time he was 26. Although he hated being a lawyer, he continued being a lawyer because he had a family, kids, a mortgage, and bills to pay.
A year before he died, I met him at a class reunion in New York. He was a bitter man.
“All I do is sweep up behind rich guys like you. They pay me nothing. I hate what I do and who I work for.”
“Why don’t you do something else?” I asked.
“I can’t afford to stop working. My first child is entering college.”
he died of a heart attack before she graduated.
he made a lot of money via his professional training, but he was emotionally angry, spiritually dead, and soon his body followed.”
Whilst this story is extreme, doesn’t it hit hard? I mean, I’m sure we know people in our sphere’s like this right? Living the daily grind, surviving not thriving.
There is no blame or finger pointing here. This situation is what it is because we know no different, but is merely an opportunity to be open to reflect on HOW we could live differently? What would I really like to enjoy in my world? It can be a big question that brings forth a blank canvas. I know it did for me for a long time, I’ve only known that the old didn’t fit and I needed to move towards something new , un-created & unwritten.
Question with me, create, play & explore.
Life took a drastic turn
So days ago, in fact the day after I wrote my previous blog, my life took a drastic turn.
I have been spending extended time in a Silent Retreat, on the magical island of Bali. It’s been a little over 8 months so far, hence my previous blog post. (You can read that blog here.)
Upon returning from Australia, I was met with changes in my exchange at the retreat, to which I decided to step up into. I imagined that there was a higher purpose for me being here, you know, to create something of my own contribution towards this retreat space and the hundreds of courageous souls who visit.
The next day, a whirlwind happened and I was let go! A mass of incorrect communications took place. Different perceptions of the same words, catapulted into miscommunication which resulted in this action. It was wild, it was crazy, there may have been some angry words said, all necessary in the transition of this lesson.
But the strange thing is, I am not upset about it. It feels right and I am in total acceptance that this was what had to happen. And so now I sit in a space much like the butterfly does, as she allows her wings to dry before taking flight into a new adventure.
Mostly I feel excited and optimistic, though occasionally I feel nervous.
I want so much to step into an exciting opportunity that nurtures my soul to the highest extent. I just want to get going, but equally flit with days of simply just needing rest and feeling exhausted. What a ride this is.
Today feels more optimistic. After a chat with a friend, I’m being reminded of processes akin to nature. These support me to accept what is and to not work against my own unfolding.
Se are human beings and we have an ego. The ego likes to know what is happening. I know mine does.
– Where am I going?
– What do I want to do?
– How will I have money?
– Do I put my energies into Be Your Own Guru?
All these questions and more are humming along in the background that I am acknowledging.
Still I wish to act from love. I wish to take action as & when it feels right. Acting from fear only gets in the way, and prevents what really needs to drop in to arrive and be heard.
I explored websites my friend shared, and worked on my primary values – to help manifest & gain clarity of my next step. These are the only steps available right now. This, and to honor how much my body needs rest. I nap each afternoon & am moving very gently.
One can only work with what is available & be in the dance of co-creation. Good things take time & everything has a natural rhythm.
– BYOG
Grief Friend you are Welcome
Have you noticed how grief can be a trickster at times? Disguised in one form, dressed as another. Like an unannounced house guest, he knocks at the door, packed bags in hand, you answer in your underwear, the house a mess, you’re unprepared. “Hello friend, I am Grief.” He has come to visit. To turn him away …
Being your own guru – within your family unit…
Well let me tell you, I’m sure this topic has been years in the making! I left New Zealand when I was a mere 20 years old. Bright eyed and bushy tailed – ready to take on the world. I had a one way ticket to London, England and all I knew was that I …
Why I question EVERYTHING!
For the love of god! Question EVERYTHING! A few conversations have popped up at work recently where I hear people answer; “they said we can’t” “we’re not allowed too”, or variations of these sentences. I always like to reply back to this statement with; “why?” “who is ‘they’?” “what is the reason?” Working within a …
A story for you my sister…
A reoccurring theme has been emerging in my dreams for some years now. I had another last night, and when I awoke, spent some time reflecting on it. It connects to an experience I had during my teenage years. In these years, it involves my friends not inviting me to join them for a spa …
Not having a Dad has become my greatest gift
Neils’ Dad has been here visiting for the weekend. He lives in Campellville, Ontario. I’ve met him twice before when Neil & I visited for Christmas & the packing down of his Mothers’ Condo in Milton. He’s a lovely man, a real Dad type. I guess what other type is there really? I think I …