Be The Change

Your new-found understanding will not only transform your relationship with yourself, your health, body and spirituality but with your partner, friends, family and colleagues…

You will find that it helps with everyone in your life.

For instance, when we embark on a relationship, we don’t tend to think about the relationship we are also entering into with their family. You may be blessed with wonderful families-in-law but a great many people come to me because they’re struggling with the criticism, judgement and interfering they’re experiencing. Unfortunately this can often have an unwanted knock-on effect on your relationship; a common complaint I hear from new clients is that their partner sides with their family rather than supporting them.

Another challenge could be if your parents or children have started a new relationship and you suddenly have a stranger to accept.

Situations like these usually become a much larger bone of contention at special times of the year, with the dreaded question of where you and your partner will spend Thanksgiving, Christmas Day or New Years Eve.

Greatly encouraged by the media, we put a ridiculous amount of pressure on ourselves at those times of year, with presents to buy, food and drink to be bought and prepared, parties to be organised and attended, decorations to be hung up…all of which are both time and money consuming; it’s hardly any wonder that feelings run so high.

Of course, you now know that none of these things can have any effect on you if you don’t let them.

Nevertheless, occasionally you may be aware of the beginnings of overwhelm. Please remember, during those times, that you can simply observe how beautifully human you’re being and treat yourself and all concerned with understanding and kindness. People won’t all see what you now see, so gentleness and patience may well be required – for everyone’s sake, including yours.

When your partner, parents or children feel torn and decide to support others over you, understand that they feel confused and fearful.

When a new member of your new family treats you with less than compassion, realise they feel very insecure and are frightened of losing someone they love to you.

We all do our best with what we have available to us at the time. You will surely have acted in the past, in ways you wouldn’t now. That doesn’t make you a bad person, any more than it makes others bad people when their best doesn’t seem good enough.

We are all on a journey…some of us grasp it with both hands like you and I have, others may not be ready for that yet, or have chosen another path, but that is not our concern. If you ever feel it is, step back a little and observe that they are perfect just as they are, that they are doing their best in circumstances they are finding tortuous to navigate.

Once you start to see that others are not out to get you but merely not coping very well with their perceived threat, you will find you can connect to them as fellow humans…joined with you along your dance of life. Once you allow yourself to stop seeing them as the personification of all things wrong with the world, you will begin to see their strengths and wisdom. After all, they molded your partner, or were chosen by someone you love, so they can’t be all bad, can they?

You can choose to see your similarities rather than your differences…to remember our oneness.

When you demolish the walls you built when you believed you had to protect yourself from them, they will slowly allow theirs to crumble away too…and you might just all find new and rewarding kinship.

If you have children or choose to become a parent, there is no greater joy than making a brand new life, but additions to your family can be expensive and stressful. They can bring two partners closer or put a very great strain on a relationship for many reasons and the practicalities of growing a family can be very tricky….but, thankfully, you now know they don’t need to be.

Families today are much more complicated than they used to be with the high divorce rate, meaning that many partners bring their children from previous relationships into the equation, and new partners move in with a ready-made family they don’t know very well.

Jealousies can arise between siblings, fighting for attention or superiority with their blood and step brethren, causing their parents concern.

Often the crucially important issues of whether you want children together or what each of your parenting roles will be in a blended family, aren’t discussed before marriage because each of you assumes the other feels the same way as you.

Sometimes, even when it has been talked about, and you find you are in disagreement…you think your partner will change their mind at some later stage.

The problem is, of course, that you can never make them change their mind, unless they want to change it…

All ages of children bring with them delight and laughter, new experiences and challenges. Just like with everything in your life, you can choose to concentrate on the fun or the difficulties. Never is it more important to living in your precious now than with children; they change very quickly and they’re grown-up and independent before you know it.

Children are uniquely skilled at demanding attention, often until their parents are beyond exhaustion. Mothers and fathers can feel as though they’re teetering on the edge of a querulous mountain side, ready to tumble off if they are pestered just one more time. They can feel there is already too much pressure on them to care for those around them whilst doing everything else that is required of them; that there are only so many hours in a day.

What a sad way to remember your young one’s young life! Parenting, more than anything, shows us how valuable time is. How wonderful that now you know how to choose to enjoy every second of it.

There are a tremendous amount of special moments to enjoy as a parent. Just a few you may find particularly meaningful are –

Your baby’s first smile

The first time they crawl

When they first sit up

And stand

Their first steps

First words

Their first day of nursery

At school

At big school

Educational achievements

People who haven’t been through this program, can easily miss any of these or the millions of other magical moments because their minds are filled with unnecessary thoughts and overthoughts.

You can now go about your life, safe in the knowledge that you can meet each and every moment with grace and love.

Self-care is a current buzz word and means anything from brushing your hair to taking a holiday. It is the acknowledgement that we cannot run on empty, that if we keep pouring glasses for other people, without replenishing our own, we will be depleted.

Whilst mankind has been pushing their bodies further and further to run faster, to jump higher, to lift heavier, to be awake longer, we have been brought up to accept and expect our bodies energy and other resources to be limitless…

Believing this, has put our physical bodies under enormous duress. Self-care advocates tell us that it isn’t just okay, but essential, to rest our bodies when our muscles fatigue, before we become exhausted.

Many of us are taking this advice yet, unfortunately, we don’t treat our minds with the same understanding; we pour evermore complicated data into ourselves, juggle families and careers, say ‘yes’ when we’re internally screaming ‘no’…until our stress levels are at breaking point…and still refuse to believe we can only be pushed so far.

In an evermore competitive world where others seemingly manage to fit more into their days, earn more money, provide for their families better, push the bar up even higher; something has to give.

Heightened anxiety and panic attacks are our warning signs, yet still we persist in taking on more, doing more, proving we’re as strong or stronger than everyone else, refusing to show ‘weakness’.

At what cost to our mental and emotional as well as physical health?

We get so focused on our goals that we forget to view the bigger picture. Fail to notice that our lives are crumbling around us.

I do not hold with the old fashioned idea that life is ‘hard work’, but I do believe that if we don’t take time to extend compassion and love to those closest to us, there is no connection…no love. Just as we need food and water to survive physically, we need love and compassion to survive emotionally. We each need love for our happiness, we are not islands nor machines.

When we give ourselves the space to allow love to flow into us, through us, we become nourished; we become peaceful.

What you consider self-care is personal and unique. You have your own preferred way to relax, unwind and enjoy. Whether you’d love to make time for a massage, a swim, a film, a meal out, a walk in nature, a picnic by water, a yoga session or literally anything else, make that time!

What is stopping you? Or rather, what do you think is stopping you?

Not being prepared to allow other parents to buy more things for their children than you?

Not being the top sales achiever in your company?

Not being able to rest until you have as expensive a car as your neighbour?

Or some other nameless threat that causes you to push on, regardless of the effects on you?

Exactly how important are you allowing these things to be?

Are they really more important than your happiness?

Than your children’s happiness?

Do you want to be the richest guy in the cemetery? What is the point of monetary reward without joy?

Ask any child.

I notice that a lot of self-care promoters miss the point of the deep and fundamental need for relaxation in our lives. It’s as if yoga, gymming, running, visiting a spa, journaling, chanting, meditating, or having a massage magically remove all your stress.

Self-care, executed in a superficial way can actually cause more stress, anxiety, frustration and unhappiness.

You know how I feel about strategies, techniques, tools and methods. They look great on paper, but no matter how well we learn them, they are simply not available to us in an emotional situation and therefore incapable of transforming us profoundly or permanently.

Following a surface-level self-care routine without doing the inner work….without the understanding and intention around it, can be no more beneficial than anything else I refer to as busy-work. You know, the things you do when you’re putting off doing something you should be doing?! Keeping yourself busy with self-care, makes you think you’re doing something to help…whilst actually doing the exact opposite.

If we don’t understand that we are not our thoughts…that we can be peaceful and happy whatever we do…no amount of ‘self-care’ will help.

I now choose to use some so-called self-care methods because I enjoy them, not because I need them….and that’s a VERY different energy.

I prefer to call ‘self-care’ done correctly, self-love.

So have fun and enjoy every moment of your life.

Whether you are at work, doing the laundry or having a massage…be present…be peace…be joy…be love.

How many things can you do for you today?

Make a list of all the treats you enjoy….and then start introducing them into your week….whilst of course being mindful and present.

Have fun!