As we looked at on page 31, our self-talk can be very limiting. I often hear comments such as “I can’t change”, “That’s just the way I am”, “I was born like this”, “I have always been like this”. However, fascinating scientific research is providing more and more evidence about neuroplasticity – the brain’s ability to adapt and change. The research proves that the brain can change and that it’s not static as once believed. Every time we repeat an emotion or a thought we reinforce a neural pathway, which means that with every new thought we start to create a new way of being.
One thing I stress to my clients is the importance of having a disciplined mind; if they want to change something, that means repeating positive thoughts and affirmations again and again. The hard part is that as we are trying to make changes we find the brain wanting to go back to the old way because that’s what it finds familiar. As Rick Hanson, Ph.D. and author of the wonderful book Buddha’s Brain, explains, the brain is bad at learning from good experiences and good at learning from the bad. The brain has a negativity bias, which was what helped to keep our ancestors safe from threat in the past, but now it’s more of a bug that blocks good and positive experiences. He also explains that we learn faster from pain than from pleasure and that negative interactions have more impact on relationships than positive ones.
So what we can take from this is that retraining your brain isn’t quick or easy. You have to be tenacious when making changes and be aware that they won’t happen overnight. But with perseverance, like anything you train to do, it becomes easier and eventually automatic the more you repeat it and rehearse it.
“A disciplined mind brings happiness.”
Buddha
YOUR TOOLBOX: TACKLING YOUR RESISTANCE
Let’s find out if you are resisting change. Answer the following leading questions in your journal:
• What am I resisting?
• Is making changes igniting fear within me?
If, yes, what do you fear will happen if you make these changes? Could you consider what is more fearful to you:
• Being stuck in the situation you are in and similar situations again and again?
Or
• Making changes and walking into the unknown? But with the possibility that awesome things could happen for you and everything could work out better.
If, for example, you are feeling lonely in a relationship, why stay for fear of being lonely without it? You are already feeling lonely or maybe worse anyway! You have everything to gain and really nothing to lose. In fact, taking that leap may give you the kick-start you need to go to work on your loneliness within and fill your own cup up with love until it overflows so much you will be happy with or without someone in your life.
“The people we are in relationships with are always a mirror, reflecting our own beliefs, and simultaneously we are mirrors, reflecting their beliefs.”
Shakti Gawain
YOUR TOOLBOX: STAYING TRUE TO YOURSELF
When I see a relationship break down, or misunderstanding and miscommunication, it is often because the values and beliefs are not aligned between the parties. Self-awareness also means we know who we are as people and what we are willing to accept and invite more or less of into our lives.
Grab your journal and write down the answers to the following questions, it will help you know yourself a little better:
1. What are your personal values? (The things you believe are most important to the way you live, such as respect, honesty, loyalty, commitment).
Make a list of your values.
Being fully aware of your own values helps you communicate more easily what you are looking for from the other person and notice quickly when this is not a match.
2. What are your personal beliefs? (What you believe to be true about yourself in your relationship to yourself and to others.)
Make a list of your beliefs about yourself in relationships.
Make a list about your belief about that relationship.
Examples of beliefs that can be damaging for you or your relationship:
• Jealousy – all men/woman cheat or jealousy shows that he/she loves me
• You can’t have everything
• The other person will change to suit you
• That a relationship doesn’t need work
• I won’t ever find anything like this again so I’ll stay
• I don’t deserve to be happy
• Nothing good ever happens to me
• I’ll never be happy
You may find that if the story you had created about yourself was not supportive, which we looked at earlier, there may be some limited beliefs here that you would want to reframe (see page 34).
Being aligned
When our values and beliefs don’t match our behaviour, we feel off or like things aren’t flowing for us. However, when we live in alignment with our values and beliefs, we feel good about ourselves and that things are fully synchronized. The same goes for any relationship; if we don’t share the same core values and beliefs, it’s difficult to really flow together and those relationships take more work, effort and energy. If, for example, one of your beliefs is that family is the most important thing and you are faced with someone who believes you should choose work above everything, or you want to have a child and your partner doesn’t, you are never really going to agree on that part. The same goes for the workplace – you may be expected to work 24/7 when all you want to do is work part-time. And you will have to come to terms with what you are willing to compromise on and what you are not. When you are at home with your family and it’s late and your boss calls you about work, do you ignore the call or take it? Start to really notice and become aware of how your actions make you feel when these issues arise, in the same way I asked you to become aware of your words. The feelings will reveal if you are living in alignment with your values and beliefs.
In the relationship you are working on – whether that’s with your partner, a colleague, or a friend – what do you believe are your strengths, limitations and qualities? You can extend this to consider the other person’s strengths and limitations, which will help you gain clarity on the relationship.
Manifesting what you want
Becoming self-aware and aligning yourself emotionally is vital to manifest successfully, which also means having the courage to walk away when you know deep down this is not your equal emotional match, or even a relationship you want to be involved in professionally or privately. As you’ve raised your self-awareness throughout this chapter, it has probably become more apparent to you what you really want to manifest into your life. However, if you let fears, including a fear of ending up alone guide you, I can pretty much guarantee you will not make the decisions that are aligned with your heart and soul.
What I live by and see every day in my practice with my clients is that you become a magnet when your actions are aligned with your heart’s truths. Your manifesting strategy doesn’t work when you feel one thing and do another. This is why so often people who are playing games at the beginning of a relationship end up completely miscommunicating and it ends up in tears. And when you want to manifest a great relationship, whether in love or your career, listen to your intuition. Sometimes we confuse our fear with the intuition so notice how your intuition is talking to you through your gut feeling and through your heart.
YOUR TOOLBOX: BECOME A MASTER AT MANIFESTING
To become a master at manifesting there are a few things to remember:
1. Align yourself emotionally with what you want to attract ie walk the walk.
2. Embrace an attitude of gratitude every time your thoughts drift into a lack mentality.
3. Know your worth.
4. Be present – practise through mindfulness or meditation.
5. Be open and aware of signs guiding you closer.
6. Be specific with your thoughts and words and be patient.
7. Tune into your intuition and listen.
; 8. Trust in yourself and the universe – your heart knows the way.
I have recorded a special manifesting meditation for you – just head to www.zenme.tv/mindtools to listen to it now.
Self-reflection
Spending time on self-reflection every day is a super-important self-awareness tool to help you better understand your emotions and learn about yourself and your strength and weaknesses. It doesn’t matter how long you dedicate to it, even 5 minutes makes a difference. What matters is that you do it, especially if there are certain issues and relationships you have been trying to work out recently. At the end of each chapter, I will ask you to take some time to reflect on what each part of the book has stirred up and brought forward within you in the hope that it will inspire you to create a similar practice for yourself to continue after you finish the book. And of course know that you can revisit the book and its exercises like a trusted friend and go through it whenever you have a relationship issue that’s bothering you, to gain clarity and deeper awareness of what that relationship is representing.
Self-reflection is not only a great way to honour our feelings, it’s a great tool to use to make sure we don’t just suppress them. As David R. Hawkins, M.D., Ph.D. explains in his book Letting Go, if we brush our feelings aside we still function but the pressure of burying those feelings can lead to irritability, mood swings, insomnia and many other conditions. He is not alone in writing about the effect that suppressed emotions can have on our health let alone our behaviour. Louise Hay and Deepak Chopra have shared their knowledge of this subject in their books and have hugely inspired me to listen to the messages my body is sending me. I’m passionate about the importance of the mind–body connection as I will talk about further in the self-love and self-care sections. As well as self-reflection, later on we will look at ways to become better at observing and accepting what arises using mindfulness tools.
YOUR TOOLBOX: RAW-FORM JOURNALLING – DOWNLOAD YOUR THOUGHTS
I’ve suggested you have your journal to hand as you do the exercises (see page 6) as it so powerful and helpful to write down your learnings, thoughts and ideas. I believe that something happens when we write things down – I call it downloading our thoughts. The process of journalling allows you to start to observe your actions and behaviours as you are writing them down, with a different perspective because you are not all-consumed by them. It’s kind of like if you were swimming through murky water unable to really see anything, let alone the fish around you, but you might be able to feel them and then suddenly everything clears and you can observe the fish with awe and be inquisitive of the many different types.
So it is with your thoughts – suddenly by writing things down everything becomes much clearer. I carry a notebook with me most days, or use the notes app on my phone, and I often find that journalling flows best after I’m more relaxed, perhaps after meditating or going for a walk, or after having a hot bath or sitting down with a hot cuppa. It’s important to write down whatever comes to mind without needing to judge or edit it, allowing it to flow in its raw form. Simply observe and be inquisitive of what you are writing – “That’s interesting” or “I didn’t know that bothered me as much as it clearly does” or “Why am I still obsessing over this?” and so on. This, combined with the other exercises you are doing, will gently help you move through the challenges. Some of my clients find it extremely helpful to journal in between sessions to heighten their awareness.
Mind Maintenance
To help you stay with this feeling of self-awareness, I’d like you to do the following every day for a week:
Meditate: Take a few minutes to connect to your breath by simply saying “calm” on the in-breath and “relaxing” on the out-breath.
Reflect: Start to reflect on the following sentence: I am ready to perceive this relationship differently and heal what is here to be healed within me.
Journal: Write down what came to mind, without judging it. Doing this exercise every day is interesting because you will slowly, over a few weeks, start to become more aware of your own behaviour and notice things you were unaware of doing.
“Knowing others is wisdom, knowing yourself is Enlightenment.”
Lao Tzu
Now that you have raised your awareness, are you ready to dive deeper? Let’s go. See you in Self-Acceptance.
2
SELF-ACCEPTANCE
So, great, you’ve worked through Chapter 1! It’s truly my hope that you’re feeling much more self-aware, which is a really powerful first step in coming home to yourself. I now want to look at accepting those things you’ve discovered, which can be a difficult but necessary process. Whether you need to accept something about a situation you’re in or something about yourself, we’re going to tackle it together here. Perhaps you’ve become aware of a life situation you need to change or improve on and it’s time to face up to the position you’re in, or maybe you’ve come to realize some of the repetitive negative behaviours that you need to address. Self-acceptance is such an important part of starting your healing journey to happiness and contentment. It’s a chance to take that step in the right direction with a fresh perspective.
“Greater self-acceptance improves emotional wellbeing.”
Srini Pillay M.D., author and Assistant Professor
of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School
Time for change
The moment we accept that something has to change can be painful. My clients usually book in for a session when they are literally up against the wall emotionally with nowhere else to go and the pain is too much to handle. That’s the moment they realize they are not super heroes, and neither do they need to be, and that something has to change if they are to feel better. You see, what’s so interesting is that we really are all a bit like super heroes every day – we are so amazing at coping with whatever is thrown at us. We even get used to navigating through and handling certain difficult situations because we recognize the pattern and have perhaps been used to doing so from an early age, but let’s remember that coping and actually living are two different things.
A few weeks ago, I went to another talk by the spiritual guru Marianne Williamson and she said something along the lines of “challenges and difficulty are never convenient – the wars were not convenient, illness and loss is never convenient” but now that the challenge has arrived we have to accept it and deal with it. We can’t just look the other way. She’s so right – the truth is we would all probably rather not have the rug pulled from beneath us and face going through a turbulent time, but accepting and embracing it, however painful that is, will help us get through it more easily and come out stronger on the other side, than if we resist it or pretend it’s not happening.
Accepting a situation
It can be so hard to accept that, no matter the amount of pain, frustration or sadness something or someone has caused, it’s out of our control to change it, especially if it’s something from the past. Choosing to accept is much like choosing to forgive (see pages 90–1). It doesn’t mean we agree with what has happened, but it means we accept what is and start from here. It means that we stop letting the past hurt our present.
Acceptance doesn’t mean becoming resigned to the fact that “This is it and there is nothing I can do about it.” It means saying to yourself, “Okay, this is where I’m at” or “This is who I am” and then asking yourself “Now what can I do with what I have? What are my options?” It can be the start of your journey towards all and more than you have ever dreamt of.
When we accept, we release the fear, anger, hurt and resistance that we have been carrying, which are all things that would otherwise act as a block to our personal development. You may have to accept that your relationship is over; that you’ve lost someone close to you; that you’ve had a disagreement with a friend; that you’re in a career you are no longer enjoying or that’s no longer for you. As we looked at earlier, often people wait for someone in their life to change – be it their partner or a dif
ficult colleague – because it would suit their needs better. Accepting that the person isn’t going to change and stopping trying to control them and their journey can be a huge step forward – and, more importantly, it frees you to focus on yourself instead. Similarly, in a work situation you may have to accept that this isn’t the career for you, or the right company for you. Accepting that and moving on, rather than waiting for change, is so empowering.
Let’s be real here. I know it can take some work to get to the point of acceptance. I remember clearly how it feels in moments of complete confusion when a friendship or business relationship is over, or the hurt and loss when someone suggests that you accept that, for example, a deep relationship is over, it’s done, it’s gone. WOW, those are probably the last words you want to hear in that moment and you feel more like telling the person to shut up than thanking them for their honesty and kind advice. It’s like literally being dumped into a big great hole alone, screaming for help, only to realize no one is going to come and save you – you are going to have to do it yourself. In that moment of acceptance you have two choices: you can give up and give in and simply wait for that saviour who may never come and even if they did it would be like putting a band-aid on the scab, or you can become resourceful and figure out exactly how to save yourself. It will empower you hugely knowing that you are the one to save you.
It's Not You, It's Me Page 5