Category Archives: Designs On Life

Designs On Life, Living and Loving Blog

Brace Yourself. Here Come The Summer Holidays

The Summer Holidays when living with Autism.Blog 31

To go with the beautiful weather we’ve been having here in the UK in the last few weeks comes the school summer holidays too. Now I know what some of you are thinking and it goes a bit like… “Aaarrrggghhh No, what am I going to do for the next 6 weeks / How am I going to keep my child happy out of the routine of school / Where can we go that isn’t full of people, is safe and secure for my ‘runner’, is not a sensory overload from the noise of other children… “ and the list could go on.

I understand. I’ve been there too and the thought of the next 6 weeks could be enough to throw the whole family into a state of fear and dread. But you know it really doesn’t have to be that way.

Tommy is 8 now and the last 4 years of summer holidays from school I have been in exactly that state of mind, and to be completely honest it does come back into my thoughts quite frequently now as we enter this one. However, I have made a commitment to myself, to Tommy and to the family that I will embrace these school holidays and take the gift of this time I have been given to spend with him and make it count.

So does that change everything? Does just thinking ‘it will be great’ instead of ‘it will be awful’ change anything at all?

In my experience of times when I have made that shift in my thoughts and beliefs in other areas of my life, yes it does make all the difference. It doesn’t necessarily change the options you have about what to do or where to go (although it can help as I will explain later), but it does create an expectation of how things will be and that naturally sets us up for better things to come into our lives (and our school holidays!).

Put it this way. Have you ever thought that something is going to be dreadful and it turns out just as you expected? Have you ever thought (and truly believed) that something is going to be fun and fabulous, and it turns out just as you expected? It happens all the time and it is a natural law of nature that we will attract the things that we are thinking about the most in terms of how things are going to turn out. Some people call this a ‘self- fulfilling prophecy’ and it works like this:

When we think negative thoughts or have negative beliefs about how things are, it creates negative expectations in our mind. These in turn influence our behaviour and we do things that are self-defeating because the part of us called our ‘ego’ wants to be ‘right’ more than anything else. When we go around with self-defeating behaviour we end up getting a poor outcome or result, and you know what? We end up being right about our expectations and our beliefs that it was going to be awful.

Now think about it this way. When we think positive thoughts or have positive beliefs about how things are, it creates positive expectations in our mind. These in turn influence our behaviour and we do things that are self-motivating which in turn results in a great outcome. Again, we end up being right about our expectations and beliefs about the situation.

So tell me. Which would you choose?

Is it really as simple as that? Yes it is that simple, but not necessarily that easy. We are creatures of habit as the saying goes and it is very true. Our lives are governed by the habits we’ve created for ourselves and if one of those habits is negative thinking then this can cause all sorts of problems in all areas of our lives. This can be cured though! All it takes is 21 days of consistent action to form a new habit (and I’ve just thought of another blog post which I will write soon on this very thing). In a nutshell though it’s about practice and re-training (or un-learning).

So back to the thought of the summer holidays and the next 6 weeks before the next school year begins again. I have a choice to make, as do you.

I cannot change the fact that Tommy is now off school for 6 weeks and it is totally down to me to plan this time out. I cannot change the fact that most places where children can go to play, be entertained and use up their energy are not appropriate for him which makes our choices more restricted. What I can choose though is my thinking about it and how we can begin the holidays with a positive expectation which will make the time more enjoyable. Plus, positive thinking comes with a great bonus too. When we expect great things to happen, places to go, things to do, invites and opportunities to spend the time will come to us out of the blue.

So go with the flow. Have a great expectation that the next 6 weeks will be full of fun and fab times. Enjoy your summer.

With love and gratitude

Nadine.

Designs On Life, Living and Loving Blog

Quality of Life

Quality of life. What is it? How do we know when we have it?Blog 32

Everything we do we do to try to get a good feeling. That is what we ultimately are after as human beings is to feel good feelings.

Many say they strive to be happy – but it is actually the good feeling that happiness brings

Many say they want certain things, like cars, houses and other material stuff. What they are after are the good feelings they believe these things will give them.

Many strive every day to make money, often the more the better. What they are after is the money to buy things that they believe will make them happy and give them the good feelings.

However a few of us know that what really gives us good feelings is simply allowing ourselves to feel good by choosing to feel good.

In the dictionary there are 15 descriptions of the noun ‘quality’ however in this context the one that is most relevant is “A character or nature with respect to fineness, superiority or grade of excellence that distinguishes something”

What comes to mind for you when you think of quality? If we believe what the advertisers tell us then maybe a large detached home, a high-end car and expensive clothes are synonymous with quality. Or does Quality just remind you of chocolate! But can you only have a quality life if you have these things? I don’t think so.

My take on the above dictionary definition is more “the nature of how we live in a way that has a grade of excellence to it” But one person’s definition of excellence can be another’s nightmare. So who says and what defines what is excellent in my life or yours?

For me the quality of my life all comes down to how I am feeling. When I have good feelings I can say I am happy and life is good .When I am not feeling so good that doesn’t mean I do not have quality of life, it just means I’m not feeling good.

Our feelings and emotions are the real currency of what is going on for us and determine our quality of life.

So what makes me feel good and what makes me feel not so good?

Let’s take the emotion called ‘Happy’. Now as we’ve grown up we have learnt some ‘rules’ about what has to happen to make us happy. These have come from our parents, friends and family, educators and all kinds of other people that have had an influence in our life. We have learnt that when these rules are met we can be happy. For example the material things I discussed before may be a rule we have created that puts a condition on our happiness. It’s the “I will be happy when…. syndrome” that many of us believe in and that the marketing that bombards us every day re-enforces. They say, “buy this car and you will be happy”…

But really? In this consumer world it can certainly bring some happiness, but it isn’t really sustainable because you have to keep buying new things to keep that sort of happiness up.

What’s your rule for happiness? Put another way what has to happen for you to be happy?

If I asked you to feel happy right now could you? If you have ever been happy in the past then you know what it feels like, so can you access that feeling right now without anything ‘making’ you happy?

How easy have your rules made it for you to be happy? Just a hint, but if your happiness is conditional on certain things then you haven’t made it easy.

Now let’s take the emotion called ‘Sad’. We will have rules about this too, so what has to happen for you to feel sad? Is it easier for you to feel it than happiness?

If I asked you to feel sad right now could you? Can you access that feeling right now without anything ‘making’ you sad? If your sadness is unconditional then you have made it easy to be feel it more often.

There are many feelings and emotions we can choose from, but are we really choosing them or are our ‘rules’ dictating this for us? Think of it this way. As we grow up we create the script of the life we are playing out. All our experiences are building up this script which defines the role we are to play on the stage (called life). So if we would choose happiness over sadness, but we can only feel sad, it is that script we are playing out and it’s a script that we wouldn’t necessarily choose as it has been written for us by those that influence us.

However, I am not saying that it’s not ok to not feel ok. As a mum with a very challenging son on the autism spectrum my days can be extremely stressful and often start with a lack of sleep. But if I am not feeling ok, then I am ok with that. I don’t beat myself up because I am not full of the joys of spring. I am just ok with not feeling ok and refuse to buy into my script that says I should be miserable.

Ok, lets move on and talk about a chap called Maslow for a minute. Maslow created the ‘hierarchy of needs’ that says that we are satisfied at various levels based on the needs we have met at any one time. At the basic level when our physiological needs are met and we have food, water and enough sleep we can say our needs are satisfied and this can we regarded as a level of quality in our life. However when our needs are met at this level we strive to satisfy the next and hence we move up the hierarchy to meet our need for safety and a roof over our head. Again once we’ve satisfied that we carry on up the hierarchy to get the next level of need met in order to be satisfied, moving through our need for love & belonging, for self-esteem and for self-actualisation. We all meet these needs in different ways, and like emotions we put our own conditions on when each need is ‘satisfied’

So say you have reached one of the higher levels in this hierarchy and overnight you find yourself struggling to meet your needs at a basic level? In trying to satisfy your need for water and shelter would you be as concerned to satisfy your need for a new shiny thing? The thing is as soon as these needs are satisfied again we move swiftly up until the new shiny is the thing that’s required to satisfy us and provide the quality of life we desire (or so we think).

Somehow we have equated this satisfaction of needs in this hierarchy to happiness and quality of life and as we move up we also put more demands and conditions on feeling good about ourselves and our lives.

I believe that the more external conditions you put on your happiness just drives happiness away, and when you remove these you allow yourself to have a good quality of life regardless (to an extent) of your life situation.

What would you prefer? To be happy and loving life with very little or be striving in search of happiness with the next new shiny you want to buy? Let me tell you now, if it’s the latter then you will never get there as the goalposts will keep moving and that isn’t sustainable. You’ll keep telling yourself “It’s ok, I’ll get there!” but you know what… you’re already there and always have been.

Before Tommy was born my husband and I had a typical kind of life, both working and striving to earn more to buy more to be happier. The more we achieved and the more external shiny trophies we were able to buy to prove our success to the outside world the happier we became – well that was what I was led to believe would happen – but it didn’t – and so I thought we needed to strive more, succeed more, get more things because we obviously haven’t got there yet. I know now that we would never ‘get there’ because finding happiness this way is just not sustainable. It’s the sort of happiness that is short lived and only ever creates the need for more and more like an addiction you keep needing that fix to sustain you.

Our world had changed when we had Tommy but his diagnosis rocked our world completely. All the conditions I had programmed into me about what I needed to live a happy and quality life just went out the water. But now I can honestly say, hand on heart, that Tommy has given us the best gift in life, and that is the experience of pure love and wholehearted gratitude for everything we have. He has taught us (and continues to teach us) that our happiness and quality of life comes from within us, not from the outside world.

That does not mean by any stretch of the imagination that our days are all happy, bouncy, fluffy or pink. We have really challenging days with him. He is nearly 9, still in nappies at night, still smearing, lack of verbal or any ‘system’ of communication, is extremely aggressive towards me and we have some sleepless nights. He head butts me, the walls, the floor and in meltdown it is totally heartbreaking to see. He is tall and he is strong and can pin me down and can run much faster than I can too.

But I still say we have a better quality of life than the one we lived before. Purely down to the fact that I can be happy when I choose to be, and I choose to be happy every day. My circumstances, Tommy’s behaviour or anything else for that matter doesn’t need to have a bearing about how I feel. Because I don’t put any conditions on my feeling good, I can feel good often.

Meltdowns, aggression, dealing with all the authorities to get the things we need are all challenging, and if I could wave a wand I would choose not to experience those things. Regardless of these things I can still be happy.

I referred to the gift Tommy has given me earlier and it really is the ability to feel gratitude for everything, to see the beauty when it’s not apparent, to live my life with no conditions on feeling good and to have a quality of life I could only have previously dreamed of.

It takes a mind shift for sure. It takes a lot of un-programming of what I believed to be true. It takes a serious effort to be calm and connected some days. But it is worth it, it can be done and I thank all those on the autism spectrum for showing me a different perspective on life and on the values we hold.

With love and gratitude

Nadine.

A to Z of Conscious Living, Designs On Life

A for Awaken. The A to Z of Conscious Living.

Awaken.A to Z - A

Living consciously is living in the state of being awake.

Not just awake as in not in bed asleep, I mean really awake and consciously aware of what’s around you, your behaviour, your thinking, your reactions and your daily choices. That may sound obvious yet most of us go about our daily life in pre-determined sequences and patterns that we no longer question as to whether it is what we would really choose for us and our lives.

Look around you. Do you see others really taking in the world around them in amazement or do you see people going around as if pre-programmed to do, think and behave in the way they do? It may be understandable that as we travel down the same road to school or work each day we no longer stop to see what is around us, as we believe we already know. We therefore filter out our environment as we repeat the journey each day. The same goes for the way we think about certain people, situations, environments (such as our workplace) and the way we react almost automatically to the things we see, hear and read.

Take the example of driving. How many times do you ‘wake up’ and wonder how on earth did you drive the last few miles? You were on auto-pilot driving with your sub-conscious mind until something brings you back to the ‘now’ and you wake up and begin to drive more consciously again. The process of driving has become so second nature (a well-used pattern programmed in) that we often go into this sub-conscious state until we need to become alert again.

It’s just not when we are driving though. Too many times during the day we go into this sub-conscious world and exist on auto-pilot, reacting the same old way to situations, and thinking the same old thoughts about the conversations and interactions we have. But are those behaviours and thoughts really helping us to live a fulfilling and happy life? Because of the society we now live in I am going to take a guess and suggest, for the most if us, not.

The patterns we repeat are well rehearsed reactions (as in the driving example) and over time become the ‘norm’ as to how we live our life. This leads to us being asleep most of the time and what that means is that we are not awake to the possibilities and opportunities that pass us by, simply because we do not see them. Our filters tuned them out long ago. That is also the very reason we hear people say that “great things never happen to them”, or that “they always seem to attract the bad and negative things”. It is simply because their filters are programmed in a way to ‘see’ what they expect to find. When living sub-consciously and half asleep we are merely following old programmes that were installed long ago.

Conscious living is a choice to be awake more of the time, to see the same things with new eyes and notice the wonder, the possibilities and the opportunities that are always ever present should we choose to see them. Being awake allows us to consciously make choices about our behaviours, our thoughts, our reactions and choose ones that serve us.

Awaken to the amazing world we are living in right now. If you can’t see it, or if you get that automatic reply in your head that says “don’t be daft, the world is awful, what’s so amazing about….”, then just notice that it’s just your old programming that is getting you to think that way. If your filters are set on noticing the negative, then that is all you will see while you remain half asleep.

Awaken to what is possible for you, your loved ones and the things that are important to you. By waking up and consciously living your day you will be amazed by how the same things appear so different and wonder how you missed seeing that before.

Next time you are in the supermarket, notice whether the people you meet are walking around half asleep, or wide awake. You will notice those that are awake as you can see it in their eyes and the energy they have will cause them to shine.

With love and gratitude

Nadine.

A to Z of Conscious Living, Designs On Life

B for Being. The A to Z of Conscious Living.

Being A to Z - B

We are human beings, not human doings.

When I first read that a while back now, I had to stop and think about what it meant. I kind of got that as humans we are ‘beings’, and that we are always ‘doing’, but it was to take some time before it sank in for me.

I seem to be always rushing around. From the time I wake up I am needed by someone in the family for something. All day I am then doing stuff, going places, talking to people, then I come home and the doing continues until it’s time for bed again. A classic case of the ‘do do’s’.

Not once did it occur to me in the day to stop and ‘be’. Just be still with me. Take time out to ground myself, take deep breathes and take in what’s around me. To notice what I was doing, and for what reason. To be aware of the choices I was sub-consciously making about my thoughts, behaviours and reactions to things – actually being consciously awake as we covered in blog A for Awaken.

We are not just ‘beings’ in the sense that we exist. To be is to live with presence. To be in the now. To have awareness of the moment we are living, each moment at a time.

For some that may seem quite a bizarre thought, as for the most we tend to either live in the past (remembering time gone by, whether good times or not), or we live in the future (hoping and wishing for something to come along, or fearing what might happen). Rarely are we present in the now and accepting this moment for the gift that it is.

My beautiful son has a natural gift for living in the present. He has Autism and while that brings with it so many challenges for him and us, it also brings some lessons for me too, and one of those is his natural way of being. He can be in a meltdown one minute, and then the next laughing his head off to Peppa Pig.

While we might remember something in the past that stays with us often for a lifetime, he doesn’t dwell on anything that has gone. This is a great gift that means that his future is not determined by what has been before.

We also have a great tendency to live in our future. Whether this is in the “I will be happy when…” mode or in fear of something that will never actually happen. This takes our life force away from us and puts us firmly in the land of ‘doing’.

To live with presence and awareness of the moment is a natural default mode for all humans. As we are born we begin living in the now. Just being who we are and noticing all around us. Yet over time we take on this concept of not being happy with ‘now’, and move from ‘being’ to ‘doing’ so that we can get to another moment in time instead. Now that is bizarre.

Living consciously is living wide awake and in the present moment. Being here, right now, noticing what you are feeling and having a clear awareness of your present situation and choosing the thoughts, behaviours, feelings that serve you right in this moment. Then the next moment. That is being.

B is also for ‘Broadband Consciousness’ or BC for short. 

This is taking consciousness to the next level… going broadband with it. BC is the amazing programme created and run by two great friends of mine Richard Wilkins and Liz Ivory, who live and teach this every day. Richard is the self-proclaimed Minister for Inspiration and you can find out more about these real life Superheroes at http://www.theministryofinspiration.com/

I’ll write more about BC in the next blog: C for Choosing (and Cosmic Google!)

With love and gratitude

Nadine.

A to Z of Conscious Living, Designs On Life

C for Choosing. A to Z of Conscious Living.

Choosing (and Cosmic Google)A to Z - C

When we think we have nothing, we always have choice.

The question I ask myself a lot these days is “What would I choose?”. This is a question that was asked of me the very first time I met the founders of ‘Broadband Consciousness’, Richard Wilkins and Liz Ivory. A question that never fails to bring me back to my consciousness and realise that I have the ability to choose how I feel about absolutely anything I am facing.

Almost daily I am challenged by living with autism in the family. My son was diagnosed at the age of 2 (in 2007) and it has been a rollercoaster of a journey since. We experience incredible lows and exhilarating highs and every day is a new day on our journey.

On the days when the challenges become almost unbearable, this question of what I would choose comes to mind more often. My thoughts go down the road of ‘I cannot cope anymore / why is it happening to me / wish this was all over… “ and with those thoughts come feelings that I don’t want and wouldn’t choose to have. Then I ask myself “So what would I choose?”. This provides me with a break in the pattern of my sub-conscious thinking that takes me on auto-pilot to the pits of my mind. That break wakes me up so that I am conscious about what the situation actually is and allows me to breathe, notice and then really allow myself to feel what it is I am feeling.

When in this conscious state I can then answer that question. “If I could choose, and I am not saying that I can, but if I could, what feeling would I choose right now?” I would then think about a more supportive feeling such as gratitude for being here to support my son. I can then drop from the thoughts in my head to the feelings in my heart and begin to lift myself up from the place I was at.

It all sounds a bit too easy doesn’t it? That’s because we are conditioned to think that it isn’t easy to change our state of mind just like that, so we have to get over this belief first. The great thing is that changing a belief like that just takes a few successes to shift it. This is another good example of ‘what would I choose?’ So, would I choose to believe it was easy or hard to make my own choices about what to think and feel? Logically I would like to choose it was easy. That then makes me more consciously on the ‘look out’ for evidence to support that choice, so with a few successful shifts in choosing my feelings I can choose to believe I can do this at any time.

It can apply with any situation. If you could choose, would you choose to be happy or sad? If you would choose happy, then why when we are sad can’t we always simply choose happiness instead? Whilst we have the power to choose a more positive feeling over a negative one, and sometimes that creates the shift we want, often something else is at play and I will write more about this in the upcoming A to Z blog; ‘S is for Script’.

C is also for Cosmic Google.

We can’t get away from the internet these days if we want to get hold of all the many resources to help us with the task in hand. What use is a computer nowadays if it doesn’t have internet access? Sometimes when we are living consciously we also want quick and easy access to new thoughts, ideas, solutions, and guidance. Just as the computer needs to be connected to the internet to access google, we also need to be connected so we can ‘download’ new and creative thoughts and feelings to inspire and motivate us. This is broadband consciousness, tapping into ‘cosmic google’ and the connection is with your higher self. I will write more about this in the blog ‘E for Energy’

With love and gratitude

Nadine.

A to Z of Conscious Living, Designs On Life

D for Dare. The A to Z of Conscious Living.

DareA to Z - D

Dare to believe you are not who you think you are

Do you think you know yourself?  In the first blog A for Awaken, we touched on the concept that for most of the time when we are not really fully awake and living consciously then we are half asleep and living from our sub-conscious.

Our sub-conscious holds all the programming of information, sequences and patterns that we have been taught as we’ve grown up and we are also taught to think that this is who we are.

When we are born we only have the fear of falling and loud noises. So where did all the other thoughts, fears, beliefs and values that we have come from?

Basically all the things we think we know about ourselves, our values, our beliefs, our behaviours and everything else came from  others around us. Our parents, carers, teachers, peers, environment, society, figures in authority and anything and everyone else we were taught to listen to.  Some of this was good stuff, however a lot of it isn’t exactly what we need to be ourselves.

In essence, in our thoughts we are the culmination of everything we have taken on and believe to be true about ourselves and the world around us. And that’s great if all these things are truly supportive, encouraging, uplifting, inspiring and motivational, and they give us great feelings about ourselves, our family, community and the world.

If they don’t then like the majority of us, we have thoughts and beliefs about ourselves that are less then encouraging and supportive, and these can lead in some cases to all sorts of damaging behaviours and actions that we don’t feel proud of.  But here’s the thing. That isn’t you.

What if I was to tell you that what you think about who you are, is not who you are?  In the blog S is for Script, I will go into detail about who you think you are, but for now I invite you to think about who you really are.

You are everything that’s good. A spiritual being having a human experience on this earth and at your core is the very thing that created you which is Love.  Thus you cannot hurt yourself or another when you understand who you really are.

Ok, is this getting a bit deep here?  Think about this.  As a baby you had simple needs, to be fed, watered, have a safe place to live, be loved, to sleep and go to the loo. To begin with we really care about little else. We behave instinctively to get those needs met and for most we do the same things.

As we grow up we add to those needs with being valued, feeling significant in some way, having some certainty, connection with others, desire to grow and also to contribute back. As we grew we learnt to go about meeting these needs differently, in ways that we were taught and influenced to.  We took on others beliefs, for example from our parents those own beliefs have been passed down generations, and then we think that we ourselves created them in our mind and must therefore represent who we are.

If you have ever said something that you didn’t really believe. If you have behaved in a way that you really know wasn’t you. If you ever have thoughts that you feel frightened that you could think.  Then know that these things are not coming from you.

Dare to believe that you are not who you think you are. You are the absence of all the things you wouldn’t choose (see C for Choosing) to be, do or think.

You are quite simply awesome.

With love and gratitude

Nadine.

A to Z of Conscious Living, Designs On Life

E for Energy. The A to Z of Conscious Living.

EnergyA to Z - E

We are all just energy. Vibrating at different frequencies we are simply a mass of energy and together we create all that is.

Quantum Physics has now proved that while we are made up of atoms, those atoms are in themselves just pure energy. So each one of us is a mass of energy interacting with other masses of energy in a world that we create together which is a bigger mass of energy made up of all things within it. So what on earth has that got to do with living consciously?

In Blog C for Choosing and Cosmic Google, I mentioned the fact that we need to be connected so we can ‘download’ new and creative thoughts and ideas to inspire and motivate us. Broadband Consciousness is about us tapping into ‘cosmic google’ to access all the possibilities and opportunities there are out there in the greater Universe, and while the computer accesses google via the internet, our connection is with the higher energy source that we came from which we can access when we reach a higher state of conscious living.

I am not talking about any religion here (read more about this in H is for Heart and Humpty). I am talking about the Universe itself of which we are an energetic part, and together with everything else on the planet that vibrates as energy we are integral to this Universe.

And it’s the Universe that holds everything we could ever wish to know, learn, feel, think and have. So isn’t it great that we can get a clear connection from us whenever we need to – and that is tapping into Cosmic Google through our consciousness (that’s gone broadband).

Let’s bring this back to earth for a moment.

When I write, I start with not knowing what it is that will come out from the keyboard onto my screen. Even as I am writing this now, I have no idea of the words to come in the next sentence. I have an idea in my mind about the concept I want to get across or the story I want to tell, yet I really don’t know what I will write until I write. It’s as if I am being dictated to and my fingers tap out the words as they come into my mind. I choose to believe that when I write I am in a state of high consciousness, very aware, awake and noticing all around me, and in that state I have tapped into the Universal source which guides me to write the words to convey my message.

When we are living fully awake, we can experience times like this more often. The moments that suddenly give you a thought or idea that literally ‘pop’ into your mind about the situation you are thinking about, and guides you to a solution. We believe we need to ‘think hard’ about solutions to our problems, and yet the most effective way is to allow those solutions to come to us. The secret is though is to be in that receiving state and that can only happen when you are ‘connected’ and awake (living consciously).

Energy is what we are, and we cannot survive alone, so we connect with other energies, typically those that are vibrating at similar frequencies as ‘like attracts like’. That means that as humans we are mainly attracted to others that hold the same outlook on life and values. People who generally have a positive outlook will attract others that have positive thoughts, and similarly negative people do the same. This then perpetuates in the groups and communities we hang out in, supporting the continuation of the way we are with the world. Waking up and living consciously though, allows us to be aware of this and consciously choose.

The topic of energy is just so fascinating, and as we begin to understand it more, we begin to uncover some of the mysteries of life. The one thing that has completely changed my own outlook on life and death is this fact:

Energy never dies, and so as energy we can never not be.

With love and gratitude

Nadine.

A to Z of Conscious Living, Designs On Life

F for Feelings. The A to Z of Conscious Living.

FeelingsA to Z - F

Our only real goal in life is to feel good and feel proud of ourselves.

Often we think of goals as more material things, like a new home or car, or maybe a new job or promotion. Often our goals are focused on other areas of our life like relationships or our personal appearance or health. There are so many things we think we need to do and to achieve before we can say we are successful and feel good.

But where do feelings come from? In the above list are all external things that you may think are what makes you feel what you want to feel. Yet, feelings themselves come from within us. So why do we often live our lives thinking “I’ll be happy when… “, or “I’ll feel good about myself if… “

I call this conditional happiness, which the majority of our society has bought into. Certainly the consumerism society has, as we are told time and time again to “buy this car and be happy”, “use this face cream and be beautiful and that will make you happy” and the list goes on. If you look at any commercial advert these days you can see the emotional hook they are looking to get us with to buy their stuff, and do you know what? It kinda works… that’s why they keep doing it.

But if we are living consciously it loses its grip. When we awake to this we can clearly see that while a new mobile phone will make us feel wonderful for a while, it isn’t the road to sustained happiness.

Our feelings tell us all we need to know about how life is for us at any time, and for as long as we believe that external forces create any of the feelings within us, we will be trapped and living half asleep in sub-conscious land. Living consciously however changes all that and puts us clearly in the driving seat of all our emotions and feelings. When we are awake we know that all our feelings come from within, and when we choose, we can access any one of them to give us the experience we are after.

Now does that mean that living consciously is the answer to continued lifelong bliss, happiness and never will we have a negative emotion again? No, not at all. Even when living at a higher state of consciousness there will be days when we are challenged, pushed, and access those less than desired feelings that we simply can’t seem to choose our way out of. At these times there is something else at play which we will cover in S for Script. However, living consciously does provide more of the happy emotions, and gives us a way to deal with the others too.

Our feelings are always with us. All of them lie within us just waiting to be called upon. They create the all the experiences we have. Learning to choose which ones we want to use and move away from the auto-pilot reactive way of feeling is part of the journey to living at a higher level of consciousness.

When we are awake, our feelings intensify for a better life experience.

With love and gratitude

Nadine.

A to Z of Conscious Living, Designs On Life

G for Gratitude. The A to Z of Conscious Living.

GratitudeA to Z - G

When you want to shift your state to a more positive one, gratitude is the best state shifter I know.

When I am having those days with my mind firmly stuck in the pits and I can’t seem to easily ‘choose’ a better state, feeling thankful for all around me always makes a shift.

When I am grateful for my current situation, whatever that might be, it always lifts me, and there is always something to be grateful for in every situation, always.

Richard Wilkins, from the Ministry of Inspiration, talks about his visits to the local hospice and how he often finds the people there more happy than those in the checkout queue at the supermarket. When we get to an acceptance of where we are on life’s journey we don’t need to fight it. When we learn to live in the moment and just allow ourselves to ‘be’ with no judgement from the past or fear of the future, we can begin to truly accept ourselves and our situation in the present and be peaceful and happy. In blog B for Being we saw that living consciously in the ‘now’ is all we really need to appreciate – a gift that’s called the present.

Another great example from Richard about gratitude is his description of his morning exercise routine. He explains that when we wakes up, often even before he has opened his eyes, he pulls his arms up in front of him with elbows to the sides. He pushes his elbows out to each side pulling his arms away from each other, a couple of times. He then says that if he can’t feel a box then it is a great day.

No matter what is going on for us in any particular day, what challenges we have, what things we have to face, we can be grateful for being alive, and for having the opportunity to live another day. Even if the day we are having is shit, we can still be awesome because we are not our day. We are not the weather, we are not the economic situation, we are not any of the things we are told are not great, so we can consciously separate ourselves from these things and choose to feel grateful anyway.

Every day at home I am reminded of the challenges my son has, and we as a family have, living with Autism and other associated conditions that affect us all. Yet even on the darkest of days I can take moments out to be awake, raise my consciousness and choose to feel grateful for the safety of our home, the food we have in the fridge, the connection I can make with friends if I want to, and when I literally count our blessings the challenges ease a little.

A dear friend gave me a ‘gratitude book’ a few years back now and although I don’t write in it daily, I do pick it up to write and review past comments on a regular basis. The idea of a gratitude book is to write on the left hand page the things you are grateful for right now, and then on the right hand page to write, in the present tense, the things you are grateful for in the future. When I do have a look back on the things I have written I am always amazed at the ‘future’ things and how they have come into existence.

Have a think about what are you grateful for right now. Does that lift your spirits?
With love and gratitude

Nadine.

A to Z of Conscious Living, Designs On Life

H for Heart. The A to Z of Conscious Living.

Heart (and Humpty)A to Z - H

Our heart works in the background keeping us alive. It’s not something we have to think about, in fact if we had to keep ourselves alive consciously, we wouldn’t last very long on this earth.

There are many things our body does so incredibly well that we often take it for granted. At a conscious level we do not know how to keep our bodies alive. We don’t know how to beat our hearts, turn the food we eat into fuel, keep nasty things out and healthy things in, and we don’t know how to renew our cells, grow our nails or fight disease.  Yes we may have learnt how all that works however the actual functions are taken care of for us at another level that isn’t conscious.

The heart is said to be our soul. It symbolises love and from love we come into existence. I choose to believe that we are our true selves at our soul (at heart) and that our bodies are the vehicles we have been given for us to have this human experience. In E for Energy I spoke about us being just a mass of energy and as energy can never not be, we are eternal in our soul. Spiritual beings having a human experience. Our bodies may be the vehicle that as time goes on grow old in age and eventual die, yet our souls as the core of our energetic selves moves on.  I understand that this belief may not be shared by everyone, and I am not going to go into any religion here. It is simply my belief that I choose because it serves me to do so.

That brings me to Humpty. I will refer back to Richard Wilkins here and tell you the story of Humpty. Richard and Liz are the founders of Broadband Consciousness and regularly run their flagship BC course for a small group of people. On one particular course Richard was talking about energy and the Universe and mentioned God. Someone on the course had an issue with Richard saying that. He really didn’t like any mention of God and asked Richard not to use it again. He complied and said he wouldn’t. After some reflection Richard asked him if he any problem with Humpty. From that day Humpty has become to represent for me any greater or higher self than you that you choose. For some it is God, for others it is another religious figurehead, and for me it is simply the Universe which I see as the collection of all that is within it, including ourselves.

When we are living more consciously and wide awake, we can be guided by our heart and soul. When we are choosing we connect to the Universe (see C for Choosing and Cosmic google) to tap into the abundance of resources available to us, and then connect to our hearts to know what is right for us, what would give us the real feelings we seek and be guided by our intuition from that place to make our choice.

Knowing that I am supported by this at all times, I feel safe knowing Humpty has my back. In whatever I am doing, and any situation I feel a little uncomfortable in, I simply stop, breathe, and connect to the Universal energy for guidance, and then connect to my heart for the intuition to know what to say or do. This is a key part of living consciously.  The other way of course is to simply react to our situation without any thought or reflection, trust in our auto-pilot response to repeat all the patterns from before in how we behave – the trouble with that is that we will always get what we’ve always got, and we end up doing things that don’t make us feel proud.

I believe that over time and generations we really have lost the ability to feel from our heart, and society nowadays values more thinking from our heads. There is a place for thinking of course, however in balance with trusting our hearts response too. Our soul is desperately trying to communicate with us from that place in our hearts and too often we are just not listening.

With love and gratitude

Nadine.