Tag Archives: balance

Straight and Narrow

A Balanced Life, Coaching, ,

perspective, straight and narrow thinking

Life can be perceived through various lenses, each offering distinct pathways and outcomes. One approach is the straight and narrow perspective, which emphasizes adherence to familiar routes, structured routines, and well-established beliefs. This method of viewing life can provide individuals with a sense of security and predictability, as it offers clear guidelines and boundaries to navigate the complexities of existence.

For example, many people find comfort in following traditional career paths, such as pursuing a stable job with a consistent schedule, which can lead to financial stability and a predictable lifestyle.

In contrast, an expansive, open-minded approach to life encourages exploration and the embracing of new experiences and ideas. This perspective involves questioning established norms, embracing change, and considering multiple viewpoints. By doing so, individuals can foster personal growth, innovation, and a deeper understanding of the world and themselves.

For instance, those who opt for this path might choose to travel extensively, engage in diverse cultural experiences, or pursue careers that challenge the status quo, such as in creative industries or entrepreneurial ventures. This approach can lead to significant personal development and a more comprehensive view of the world. Statistics show that individuals who adopt an open-minded attitude often report higher levels of life satisfaction and well-being.

 Ultimately, the decision between maintaining a straight and narrow view or adopting an expansive perspective is influenced by personal preferences and life circumstances.

Each path offers unique benefits and challenges. For some, a structured approach may provide the stability they need, while others may thrive in environments that encourage exploration and innovation. Finding a balance between these two perspectives can lead to a fulfilling and enriched life, allowing individuals to experience the security of routine while remaining open to growth and new possibilities.

Emotions

Emotional baggage, , , , ,

art and emotionsAs emotions arise from our thoughts, then it is more than likely that they are influenced by events, people, places and circumstances that we have experienced from the time we are born until the time that we die.

By helping you to examine the thought processes around your emotions and looking at the beliefs around the feelings generated and subsequently changing those beliefs, a better understanding of the emotions experienced is possible. Some emotions however, are elicited by an unconscious reaction to a stimulus.

It is my role to help you discover the original stimulus even if it were long forgotten or experienced at a time when you were non-verbal. Art therapy allows you to access these unconscious stimuli through the creation of images and subsequent analysis and interpretation.

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Ending and Beginning

Goal Setting, , ,

A timely post – seeing as I haven’t posted for some time. Tonight’s Full Moon in Gemini is a time of letting go of the old to let the new come in. In Victoria we have had 100 days + of lockdown and no new COVID cases for some weeks, so we’ve certainly had time to audit what is working for us and what isn’t. A Full Moon is time for ending and beginning something new.  It’s about being aware of what we can release,  let go and what we can look forward to in the coming months. For me, it has been a time of both ending and beginning – just as Victorians ended lockdown, I began my own extended time of “lockdown” with a broken lower leg. Another 6 weeks of keeping pretty much to myself and physically restricted from moving about or driving.

I had kept myself busy during the official lockdown with my Art Therapy studies and am pleased to announce that I have completed these and will be offering some Art Therapy workshops in 2021 as well as a new Stress Management range of workshops.  A wonderful ending and beginning!

So what will I be doing later this evening as the Full Moon rises? After I’ve put my crystals out to bathe in the moonlight, I’m going to meditate and then journal on what I want to bring into fruition over the next few months. Then let go of any baggage around the last few months.

This can be as simple as taking a clean sheet of paper and writing down – in dot point or single words – what it is that no longer serves you. When your list or paper is full (& mindful of fire restrictions for your area) – set a match to it and burn it …. offering it up to the Universe to deal with. Put the cooled ashes onto your garden or a pot plant to return them to the Earth.

Once done, have a shower/take a bath/have a swim/splash water on your feet or face. This symbolically washes away the emotions that you have attributed to these things.

If you did a New Moon intention, look back over that and see what has already manifested and tick it off. In the New Year I will be running Vision Board workshops that go a little deeper and will help you to develop a regular plan to bring in abundance.

Thirty Days of Gratitude

gratitude, , ,

Day One of Thirty Days of Gratitude

Day One of 30 days of gratitudeAs I embark on my latest Thirty Days of Gratitude exercise, I have discovered that my answers have changed as much as I have over the last few years. In previous years I would have nominated Summer as the season to be most grateful for, with the wider range of fruits and vegetables and outdoor entertaining.

As Australia enters into what seems like a long hot summer, with drought and bushfires affecting much of the country,  I have changed my mind. The season that I am most grateful for is Autumn. I’m looking forward to the cooler nights and hopefully, freshly picked and home grown apples.

I do love Spring as well, but the weather is a little more variable and the pollen is abundant.  Great for bees and butterflies and other pollinating insects, not so great for the hay fever sufferer!

As I embark on the next Thirty Days of Gratitude, I invite you to follow along on my Facebook page (Balance4Life Programs) and share what you are grateful for as well. However, as this is an occasional blog, and the journalling is quite personal, not every day will be recorded here.

Mastery

Energy, Reiki, , ,

I do so love teaching Reiki. It doesn’t matter what level it is, each training has its own special insights, both for the student and for me. My current student is learning how to be a teacher and I feel I have learnt as much from him on this journey as I may  have shared with him. Like me, he never set out to be a teacher and was a skeptic at first about distance healing, until he got feedback from clients he was working with.

Teaching is not for everyone and often it takes another person to see the talents and inner qualities that we don’t acknowledge in ourselves. For me is was waiting until the children were older and for this student, it was a chance comment by his long time friends that brought him to realize that he has so much more to offer by becoming a Reiki Teacher.

Revisiting each Reiki level brings new insights and each training brings about wonderful changes for all involved. It is as if a little bit more information is being revealed each time. Reiki helps both teacher and students to slow down and relax. The preparation for lessons and sessions is a special time. Meditation and setting the intent to work with Masters present and passed and Guides is a time to create peace both within the room, for students and myself.

Reiki energy is always gentle and will go to where it is most needed. I find that once you get yourself or ego “out of the way”, the energy flows with ease. A participant in a Reiki share commented that as she had only done Level 1 and the other participants were all Master Level or Teachers, that she was worried that her energy wasn’t as much. It took some convincing to let her know that the Reiki energy is the same for all of us regardless of what level we have studied to and that it is not our personal energy, but universal energy that we facilitate for the client. A healing session with someone who has taken Level 1 can be profound as the energy doesn’t discriminate.

Taking a step back…

crossroads, Energy, Life balance, Spirituality, ,

The most recent visit to the retreat was after the olive trees were planted and they looked as if they had settled in quite well. The grass in the labyrinth had grown by about a foot and it seemed an ideal time to use the newly acquired whipper snipper to good use.  With a brisk north wind blowing and forgetting that I have a rye grass allergy, I had a shot at redefining the paths. After a short time, I had to retire to re-hydrate and to take some antihistamines!

The antihistamines went to work, but I couldn’t shake the tiredness and a cough had developed. Returning to the city, I grabbed some take away for dinner, but didn’t have much of an appetite and went to bed quite early by my standards. Monday morning I tried to get a doctor’s appointment, but no luck. Probably something to do with the political announcement that doctors fees were going up because of the government restructure of Medicare.  I stayed in bed…. by Wednesday, I knew it was time to see a doctor. Again, no appointments available at my usual GP, so off to the bulk bill clinic down the road.

Pneumonia was diagnosed….. just what I didn’t need with a busy Reiki teaching month and hypnotherapy clients coming up.  After a bout last year, which took ages to recover my energy from, I decided then and there that I had to take a deeper look into why I was manifesting this. Being in an altered state from the illness has given a different perspective and rather than wanting to be in a state of helplessness, I decided that I would use this enforced “time out” as a positive exercise.

Louise Hay in Heal Your Body sees pneumonia as being “tired of life. Emotional wounds that are not allowed to heal” – her aphorism for this is ” I freely take in Divine ideas that are filled with the breath and intelligence of Life. This is a new moment”.

Debbie Shapiro in Your Body Speaks Your Mind goes a little further, suggesting that we need to look at what might be so deeply inflaming our feelings about breathing…. or if it is something within that we are unable to express. “….there are hot emotions her, as well as pain and exhaustion, depleting our energy. The act of breathing is the act of living. Are you feeling exhausted or overwhelmed by the burden of having to keep going? Is there a longing to stop and take some time out?  ………The relationship of breath to spirit is often seen in this illness, as mystical or spiritual experiences are not uncommon in those suffering from pneumonia…….”

Caroline Myss in Why People Don’t Heal and How They Can, states ” When an illness is part of your spiritual journey, no medical intervention can heal you until your spirit has begun to make the changes that the illness was designed to inspire…..the most effective healing option. when you are facing an illness as a spiritual challenge, is to rely on your spiritual practice to bring you the insights you need. ………Seeing illness as a spiritual challenge does not reduce our chances of healing, but we need to understand that spirituality is first and foremost the path of gaining inner rather than physical strength. Physical healing can certainly follow, but whether it occurs or not is part of one’s spiritual destiny………..”

She continues….”healing requires a willingness to make changes in both your physical and spiritual ways of life. Healthy changes of lifestyle and spiritual practice are parallel roads leading to the same goal, and each road needs to be driven along every day.”

So in the company of good teachers, I’m taking a little time out to make some changes with both the physical and spiritual ways of life.

Start of Autumn

Abundance, Autumn Equinox, business, , , ,

There’s a sense of sadness as summer draws to a close although here in Melbourne the heat remains – the days grow shorter and there is a certain lassitude in the air. Yet, I find that work has been more productive than ever. There has been a lovely balance of Reiki treatments, Hypnotherapy and Supervision sessions, interspersed with some valuable networking.

The move to Body Balance Wellness Centre has worked out well so far and I’m enjoying being able to wander around the Mt Waverley shopping village. Today I treated myself to a scrumptious vegetarian bento box for lunch at the local (authentic) Japanese takeaway. An added bonus is  that I also get to brush up my very rusty Japanese – they are very patient with me!

The home office is now tidied up again and there is a temptation to open the door and spend a bit more time in the little garden outside it. There are still 7 or 8 pomegranate saplings that grew from the seeds I saved about 6 years ago and they will need thinning out so that they can grow taller.  I thinned the group out last year and took 4 up to the retreat, but one has succumbed to the high temperatures and lack of water, as have more than half the oak trees. Once the weather cools down and these ones lose their leaves, I will transplant them to the retreat as replacements. Hopefully because they are more advanced, they will survive the extremes better.

There are a couple of Casuarinias, some Japanese Maples and a Jacaranda  seedling that I have grown from seed, but will continue to nurture here in the city until they are a little bigger and more likely to survive if they are more established.  I’ve acquired a Robinia seed pod, but am unlikely to plant that as they can grow to be very big and they sucker readily.  I found some interesting seed pods on a council street tree the other evening and might try growing some of those as they look as if they would provide some good shade and good compostable leaf litter.

 

Focus

balance, calm, Choice, conversation, , , ,

FocusWhich senses do we engage when we focus….. truly focus on something?

We can focus our eyes on something….I’m long sighted but have also developed a strong peripheral vision, which is useful when giving a public talk, wandering in the bush or just being aware of what’s going on around me. It’s kept me safe in dark car parks late at night.

We can focus our hearing… and as I become more aware that I’m losing some hearing in my left ear, it becomes important to place myself so that I do hear conversations. But listening isn’t just about what we hear, it’s also about “listening” to our inner voice or intuition.  When we listen to others it’s important to not only hear what is being said, but what is not. It’s about being present for the other person whilst putting our own inner chatter on hold as the conversation progresses.

We can focus on what we feel….. this could be a simple touch, a brush of a soft silk scarf or an emotion. Some emotions can catch us unawares, like the sudden gut wrenching sadness as we grieve the death of a loved one, a rush to the heart of love as you look down on the sleeping face of a young child. For some people, experiencing strong emotions are taking them into uncharted waters and when they let go and surrender to them, rather than being scared or uncertain, having a sense of wonder as they allow the energy to lead to personal transformation.

Transformation can be as quick or gradual as you allow it to be. It can be a pleasant journey into the future as we set down the burdens or baggage of the past. Forgiveness and gratitude are two companions that make that journey easier. Taking time to rest and reflect are also helpful in your quest to move forward. The letting go of what no longer serves you, perhaps participating in a “cutting the ties” visualization, remembering to breathe deeply and open yourself to new beginnings.

Focus on the breath…… What do you feel?

Close your eyes and breathe deeply again…. What do you see?

And once more…… eyes closed, breathe deeply…… focus……. What do you hear?

Setting up for New Year

Abundance, balance, Coaching, extraordinary life, , , , ,

Within youThis time of year can be filled with frantic activity to finish off chores, projects and to socialize, eat, drink and be merry.

It’s important to look after yourself and part of doing the best you can is to make sure that you don’t “burn the candle at both ends” and end up exhausted. Depleting your energy will leave you open to various ills, chills  and mental lethargy that seems to abound at this time of year. Not only that,  both your body and mind need to take a rest so that you can accomplish your future goals. This is particularly important with the round of New Year’s resolutions about to be made. Start your planning now to make realistic and achievable goals.

Firstly, taking time out to rest and rejuvenate is a way of showing love and respect for yourself. Sometimes others may not understand the need for this, but to be able to construct effective goals for the coming year, it is vitally important for you to identify what stressed you out in 2014 and ask yourself a couple of questions,  “What do I really want?”  and ” Why do I want it?”
Once you have the answers to these, write them down. This is the start to an effective goal setting strategy.

Meditation is a great way to have a fresh and rested mind and by setting the intent to do so you can release the worries from this last year with some simple visualization techniques, such as letting go of balloons that have your worries written on them, or clouds scudding across a sky and disappearing over the horizon.

What obstacles are in your way to creating a better year for yourself in 2015? Are they procrastination, being “busy”? Name the obstacles, in order to better plan around them or circumvent them popping up again. Awareness is the key to removing or resolving obstacles.

Who can help you achieve your goals? Or perhaps there are things that you need to put in place……  Be clear about what you want and communicate your needs with courage.

And finally you need a plan of action steps to take ……  there is no point in having goals if you are not going to DO anything.   You can dream all you like, but deep down you know that a goal is a dream with a deadline.

When are you going to implement your goals? Be specific. Take baby steps so you don’t get overwhelmed….. break it down so each step is achievable and moves you closer to your end goal.

Remember to plan for yourself, not what you think others would like you to do…. it means that you are stepping out of your integrity. Embrace the goals you have set for yourself, take a risk, acknowledge yourself and take action and let the universe reward you with abundance and transform your life…..

It’s THAT time of year

Abundance, creativity, dreaming, Insights, lifestyle, Philosophy, spirit, Spirituality,

It can be a challenge to maintain balance in your life at this time of yearbe kind, with parties, pressure to complete tasks before the end of the year and emotional responses sometimes muddled by over indulgences.

Take some time out to nurture and care for yourself and nourish both body and soul by choosing healthy foods and taking a long deep breath and letting go the difficulties that may have come your way. Whatever these may be, respond rather that react in ways that may hurt others. Being sensitive to your needs as well as letting go of self-criticism is one of the best gifts that you can give to yourself and others.

Listen and learn to trust your intuition…..there’s a benefit to it!

Creativity comes from trust. Trust your instincts

Rita Mae Brown

This time of year seems to magnify the challenges and difficulties  as the energy of the Solstice coincides with the religious festivals that start in early December.

This year Bodhi Day, celebrated by Buddhists, coincided with the Full Moon in Gemini.

Hanukkah begins on the 17th December and for the Pagans, Yule is celebrated with the Winter Solstice. In the Southern Hemisphere the opposite festival, Litha & the Summer Solstice is celebrated, which this year is at the same time as a New Moon.

Remembering as well the Christmas energy which builds up to Epiphany, on January 6th, celebrating the arrival of the Three Wise Men who brought gifts of Gold, Frankincense and Myrrh. The first Full Moon of 2015 is on this day as well.

Whatever problems you may face during these next few weeks, change your mindset to see them as challenges and use the experience and learning from them as stepping-stones to a transformation.

Allow yourself to be vulnerable, as when the heart is open, spirit connects. Use the energy of this time of year to dream….acknowledge your dreams…. trust your instincts and follow your heart’s desire.

The care of your soul is one of the greatest gifts that you can give yourself and by enthusiastically cooperating with your inner being or soul, you will light a spark of creativity, perhaps magic or divine, to shine on  the road to fulfilling your goals.