Archived Newsletters
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July 2008
Who is in the Driver's Seat?
Who is driving your life? Have you ever asked yourself this question? Who is influencing what you do, what decisions you make and how you live your life? Are you making decisions or taking action according to someone else's set of beliefs? Or are you fully connected to the here and now and fully present in your own life going where you want to go?
These questions are important to ask yourself when you find yourself dissatisfied with the way your life is panning out.
When I was younger I realised that I did not have any clue about what I wanted to do, where I wanted to live, I didn't know which company I wanted to work for or what career path I wanted to follow, I didn't know how I wanted to decorate my house....and when I did know what I wanted, if a significant other wanted something else, I would give up what I wanted and do what they wanted.
I realised that everyone close to me was driving my life....I handed it to them on a platter and just tagged along. Then, when I was depressed about what I had in life I could blame them. Then I decided to take my life back!
The first thing you need to do before taking your life back is to be brutally honest with yourself and make a list of all the times when you allow someone else to make decisions for you....do you always let your partner choose the movie? do they suggest somewhere to go and you want to go somewhere else but say okay to their idea without saying anything about where you would like to go? If you just make a note of all the times you abdicate your authority over your life you will have a better chance to change.
Once you have an idea of what you are doing and the real impact it is having on you then you can start slowly deciding things for yourself and speaking up when you are asked what you want.
Awareness is the first step to getting back in the driver's seat of your life.
In love & light Jenny
June 2008
Change
What happens when things change around us and we have no control over the events or circumstances that are taking place?
Lovers leave us, our children leave home, our partner becomes terminally ill, the stock market takes a dive and our savings are drastically reduced - these are some of the times in our life when we don't have any control over the situation. So what can we do?
The first thing I like to do is breath......yes, just spend some time tuning into my own breath. Getting in touch with myself....getting into my heart where there is no fear. From this place of gentleness and stillness I can think clearly and therefore not make hasty decisions about what I need to do.
When we act without getting in touch with our hearts, we will find it difficult to make the best decisions about what to do next. When we are in our hearts, our right brain is in gear and we have access to the creative part of ourselves that is able to look at possibilities and not just the facts.
We need to use both sides of our brain, the left hemisphere, where we have cognitive reasoning and the right hemisphere, where our imagination lives. If we only do what is reasonable and based on our left hemisphere thinking we will miss out on lots of alternatives that are "outside the box". It is when we can think outside the box that new ideas come and we know that all is not lost - a right hemisphere activity.
So instead of reacting to the next change that takes place in your life, get into your heart and allow the right side of your brain to bring to you the new possibilities that your left side can't access.
You will be amazed at what you can do with the change.
In love & light Jenny
May 2008
One of the most difficult things to do when we are working on becoming more spiritually enlightened is staying in our hearts for any length of time. It takes considerable awareness and commitment to know when we are in our hearts, but it takes much more awareness to know when we are not connected to the loving kindness and gentle nature that we truly are. We ask ourselves "Shouldn't it be easier to stay connected to my true nature now that I have decided that's what I want?"
In my experience, I have had to work at my connection. I have had to admit that I am out of my centre when I had been doing so well. It is even more difficult because I teach this stuff, when my children announce that I am not doing what I preach!!!
So, how do we learn to stay in our hearts most of the time?
We become aware!
That's it. We become aware of ourselves.....and we practice being nice to ourselves along the way. We accept that whenever we are learning something new we will slip up and not get it right.
I like to treat myself as if I were observing a child learning to walk. I wouldn't admonish a child for falling over when it had only just taken it's first steps. Therefore, I don't demean myself for not getting it right when I am learning to be in my heart centre.
I remind myself that I want to live my life from a place of gentle loving kindness and I go back to it. I don't look back at what I couldn't do, I look at what I am able to do right now.
In love & light Jenny
April 2008
The amount of stress everyone is experiencing at the moment is a sign of the imbalances present within the life of the individual and also on a planetary level. We do not really have a huge amount of influence on what happens on a planetary level but we have great influence on what happens within ourselves.
Each person has a mechanism to guide them into perfect balance. That mechanism is the human body. It is designed to always tell the truth. It cannot lie. If we don't get enough sleep it puts bags under our eyes. If we eat too much over a period of time it stores the excess so we know to cut back. If we don't eat enough we get thin and scrawny and we are guided to eat more. If we don't deal with our anger and push it down we get depressed. If we are always angry we get frown lines on our faces.....I think you are getting the picture. The body doesn't lie and in fact it can't. Its job is to help you to understand that what you are doing is either in your best interests or not.
So how do we help ourselves to stay in balance?
The first step is to spend time with our bodies. I can hear you now - "I am always with my body, if I wasn't I'd be dead." But I'm not talking about just carrying it around. I am talking about being still and listening to what is going on inside of you.
To do this you will need to sit quietly and close your eyes. Then allow your body to become at ease and allow it to relax as much as you can. Next, become aware of any sensations that are drawing your attention such as tightness, tingling, tension, numbness, or anything at all that you may feel within you. You may become aware that you are feeling light and happy. Whatever you are really experiencing is what you want to find out. Then you just acknowledge the sensations and feelings. It is important that you just observe rather than try to figure them out - just acknowledge and feel. After a few minutes you can open your eyes. Write down anything that you experienced.
This process can be eye opening. Over time, as you become more familiar with your body you will start to know intuitively what it needs to stay in balance.
March 2008
As we learn to be more loving towards ourselves and less focused on the fear that seems to run our lives we discover that life really is good. That at every point we are being drawn into balance. We have the ability to accept, consider, and be responsible for ourselves and all that happens in our lives.
Fear is a major part of most of our lives. It determines where we go, who we see, what we eat, where we live, what type of car we buy - almost everything. Fear is also the motivator for a lot of us. When I hear about someone waiting until they have a serious illness before changing their lives I know that they are motivated by fear. Even those who think they are being motivated by love quite often are really motivated by fear. Take the man who decides he needs to lose weight (a loving thing to do for oneself) but is doing it because the doctor says his weight is causing high blood pressure and he is heading for diabetes. He starts losing weight.....but what is his motivation really? We have to be careful that we understand the truth behind our actions. It isn't love that is motivating him - it is the fear that he will die - that is his motivation.
So what can we do to get off the fear wagon?
The very first thing to do is to start to become aware of the control fear has in your life. To be able to name fear when you feel it. This can take time and practice for some people because they were told "don't be silly, there isn't anything to be afraid of" when they were growing up and they have pushed the fear down so far they can't recognize it anymore.
And if you don't think you are afraid of anything know that -
Anger is always a disguise for fear!!
If you have anger and don't think you are afraid you are in denial. Whenever there is anger fear is always underneath it. The person who is angry uses the anger to stop themselves from feeling the fear. In my own life, every time I have been angry fear has been lurking under it. For example, If I am angry with my children for not hurrying up in the morning, I ask myself what am I afraid of? The answer that comes to me is that I don't want to be seen as a bad mother so I want them to be on time for school. If I was in a loving space instead of being in fear I would allow them to be late to let them experience the consequences of their behaviour.
Once I have acknowledged that I was afraid rather than angry I have a choice about how I behave. If I don't acknowledge my fear then I am under its control and I have no conscious choice in how I behave I just rant and rave. It is as if I am possessed by it and it has control over me.
When I know what I am feeling I have choice, I can accept myself for where I am at, I can be responsible for my actions, I create a loving space around me and I am at peace and life really is good.
In love & light Jenny
2009
On Oct 6, 1727, Alexander Pope wrote, "Blessed is he who expects nothing, for he shall never be disappointed."
Initially, this statement sounds like doom and gloom; don’t expect anything and you’ll never be disappointed. Don’t get your hopes up!
But nothing could be further from the truth. Our freedom lies not in expecting things but in being real and alive and open to possibilities.
What I have learned is that whenever I have had expectations that haven’t been met, I have been disappointed. When we expect things to be a certain way, and we put all of our hope in that outcome, life teaches us, over time, that this is not the way to peace and love and serenity.
How many times have you expected the same thing over and over, only to be disappointed every time? You expect your spouse to get home in time for dinner and he/she is always late You expect your children to clean up after themselves and yet they never do. You expect a work colleague to pull their weight and they surf the internet all day long.
What happens when you expect these things and they never happen? It causes stress. You might get angry. Or you might get frustrated. Or you might give up. Whatever you do, it isn’t good for you. It causes tension in your body and eventually disease.
I see this all the time in my practise…..People come in and they are suffering from stress…they have physical symptoms of stress like high blood pressure, or anxiety or depression. All I have to do is ask them what is happening in their lives and it isn’t long before they talk about their frustrations. They say their children or spouse or workmates or family are not doing what they think they should and that is the reason for their misery.
What I find fascinating, is that the person with the stress keeps expecting those around them to do what they think they should. Every time this doesn’t happen they get frustrated and angry. They quite often spend a lot of energy blaming the other person for not doing what they should.
I don’t see this kind of behaviour as very spiritual! And yet, a lot of us, who are trying to be more spiritual, struggle with this dilemma.
Blaming someone else for our disappointment is neither loving nor fair.
This is such a common problem that I think it is a major task of anyone on their spiritual journey to become aware of their expectations and therefore the disappointments they are suffering. And suffer we do until we figure out a more loving, beneficial way.
I know from personal experience that expecting that which is never going to happen can never lead to a life of peace and serenity. Never!
I have had my share of crazy expectations. I spent quite a lot of my life expecting things to be easy. I expected to be able to get a good night sleep after my first child was born. I expected that she would sleep like the books said she would – 18 hours a day. What a laugh! I expected my husband to come straight home after work every day and help me with the children. I expected that my boss would only give me the amount of work I could handle in a day. I expected that shop assistants would be nice all the time. I expected that my friends would always be kind and loving. I expected, I expected, I expected……
I was disappointed, disappointed, disappointed…..over and over again.
As you can imagine, this made me angry and I was stressed, I would talk about the people who disappointed me and say how disrespectful and uncaring they were. I didn’t take any ownership of the problem, I just kept thinking that if they would do what they were supposed to then everything would be fine and dandy and I would have a lovely life.
Well, was that the craziest thinking anyone could ever have...?
It took me a long time to learn that anything that is in my life is for my benefit. Damn!
So, I began looking at the times in my life when I experienced disappointment. What an eye opener…..
As the weeks went by I realised there was a pattern emerging. I realised that before every experience of disappointment there was a definite expectation that things should be a certain way.
What surprised me was the fact that all my disappointments seemed to be fear based. Every time I felt the disappointment underneath it was fear. It was quite an irrational feeling but a very real one. Every time I was disappointed it felt like something terrible was about to happen. If what I had expected didn’t happen, I was doomed. I didn’t understand what I was afraid of at first, but over time I came to realise that I was afraid that I wasn't loved.
I realised that every time I expected someone to do something and it didn’t happen it meant that they didn’t love me. This seems crazy, but it is true.
It is our unmet needs, usually from childhood, that sets these crazy thoughts in place. It took a lot of courage to admit this to myself but when I finally got it, it felt like a weight was lifted off me. Things became very clear.
So, I realised that when my daughter didn’t sleep though the night, the meaning I ascribed to it, deep inside me, was that she didn’t love me. When Harry came home from work late, he didn’t love me. When my boss gave me too much work, she didn’t love me.
It is really hard to connect with God and Truth, when all the time inside me there was a voice saying, see they don’t love you; they are not meeting your expectations!
I realised something very important - that I had been taught a very strange way to measure love. I had been taught that love comes from outside of me, and I had no reference point for love from within me.
Over the next few months, I spent lots of time talking to myself, saying things like – just because Harry is late doesn’t mean I am not loved, I love myself.
It was a great turn around for me…I learned that to “expect” meant I was looking for proof that I was not loved; that I was relying on other people to prove my worth to me.
This is impossible. I can’t let in from the outside what I don’t recognise within me. I can’t feel the love of others if I don’t have it for myself first.
I found that as I let go of my expectations, I was less disappointed. I felt free and could see others as being just what they were…..rather than thinking they were just doing things to upset me. It is amazing how much more loving I became, just because I was not expecting.
I have been asked many times “Aren’t we supposed to expect things from others….shouldn’t we be able to rely on them to take responsibility?” My answer is always the same. “No, it isn’t okay to expect. Expecting shuts us down to all the possibilities that life has to offer us. If we only have our eye on one outcome then we are closed to all of the other outcomes that are available. This is not how God wants us to live our lives. We are meant to be open and ready for anything.”
I was told a long time ago that the definition of insanity is: Doing the same thing over and over again and yet expecting different results.
I was insane for a very long time in my life…I expected things to be a certain way and wasn’t open to the possibilities of life. Life was trying so hard to teach me and finally it got through. I am so glad it did.
If you are inspired to look at your disappointments and expectations allow yourself plenty of time, possibly 3-4 weeks. Each time you feel disappointed, note down what you think you were expecting. Do this for a as long as you need, wait until you are really clear and allow yourself to see the patterns before moving forward.
Also, be aware that what you are afraid of may not be that you are not loved, as it was for me. You could have any number of non-helpful beliefs blocking you. Be open to receiving whatever it is you need to move forward.
It is important at this time, as the vibration of love becomes more intense, that we are aware that anything that is not of love is being revealed. All that is not authentic and true is being uncovered and exposed. This means we have a huge opportunity to heal the old wounds that hold us back and move forward into the light of who we really are.
When you no longer expect things to be a certain way, the energy within you becomes lighter and you shine. This also allows you to see the light of those around you more easily. When your mind and heart are clear you are able to be the love you were intended to be and you heal the world just by being in it. You are no longer causing disharmony.
And this is a beautiful thing.
In love & light Jenny
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