‘Those Were the Days (My Friend)’ is ringing in my ears, a Mary Hopkins hit in 1968. Mary Hopkins’ record was a free gift on the front of Woman’s Weekly or some such magazine, in the early eighties. I used to lie and listen to it over and over in my grandparents’ lounge on our Saturday afternoon visits.
It’s not a happy song, it’s written from the perspective of a lonely lady looking back at the dreams she used to have, feeling foolish that they are still in her heart. It makes me cry, whether for her loss or mine (my grandparents died soon after) I’m not sure, perhaps both. Thinking you need to give up on foolish dreams is among the saddest of things I hear. Your dreams are far from foolish; they are how you create the life you want to live. As I think back to those early years when my grandparents were alive, so many of my own dreams were born based on the inspiration I found in their company. The old musical movies from the fifties and sixties that I watched on those Saturday afternoons, were the source of my delight in glamour. Based on the casual ‘mum’ look I adopt most days you might not quite appreciate this part of my nature. However, the first time I attended a gala event for a work’s award ceremony I was so thrilled to wear a full length gown. I think it is a big part of the reason I kept participating in the years after, I have a wardrobe full of beautiful gowns now. It’s also undoubtedly the reason for the homely feeling I experienced when I first visited Waikiki Beach, it all felt so familiar after Elvis’s ‘Blue Hawaii’ movie. Trite examples maybe, but ball gowns and trips to the distant shores of Hawaii were not the stuff of my upbringing; they were the stuff of my dreams. If I had let ‘reality’ dictate what was possible, I’d be feeling frustrated, angry, depressed, some shade of grey. That is your cue that whatever you are telling yourself in your head about what is possible and what is not, is a crock. My thirst for travel, and to emigrate, was likely kindled by my grandparents’ annual holidays. While we holidayed on home shores, they took trips abroad. I remember gran bringing me back a doll from Denmark, I caught a vision for collecting dolls from all over the world. Dreams change, I didn’t follow that one up, but it got me dreaming of far flung places. They visited relatives in Canada; many of their brothers and sisters had immigrated there in the era after the Second World War. Gran herself was born in Davenport, Iowa, so to me the whole North American continent seemed magnetizing. When I first stepped foot on the streets of Chicago to visit a friend in 1993, I remember emerging from the Loop and just being in awe at the size of the cars and the buildings. Consumerism hadn’t quite hit the UK in such a big way at the time, so the size, choice and availability of everything were truly amazing to me. And so my dreams grew bigger. While I still love a bit of glamour now and then, I drank aplenty from the well of consumerism and those dreams have run fairly dry. I even have my much desired and researched diamond ring for sale, my dreams now are of a simpler life. I did immigrate (to New Zealand) and I do still hanker to travel more as our girls’ grow. But other dreams, invoked from that time, are the ones I now answer the call of. A little fridge magnet that said “Don’t judge a man until you have walked a mile in his shoes” sat upon gran’s fridge. When she died, mum gave it to me, knowing I had liked it. I love proverbs and sayings with wisdom like that; they resonate and create questions in my mind that I now like to explore through my writing. Often my 3-year-old will say “is it tomorrow now mum?” meaning “is today the tomorrow we were talking about yesterday?” Yes! Today’s life is the result of yesterday’s dreams. If your life today isn’t where you want it to be hurrah, celebrate, welcome to life! You came here to create, you don’t ever stop dreaming. Here’s the thing though, dreams, nightmares, they are made of the same stuff: your thoughts and the emotions tied to those thoughts. If you aren’t getting what you want in life, start to become more aware of what you are feeling a lot of the time. Work hard to feel as good as you can about yourself and your life as it is today, be thankful for the shades of grey on the emotional scale that are screaming “wrong way”. When you feel good, you are more open to the small serendipities and coincidences that you must follow like a treasure hunt. Dreams have a way of unfolding that is, in the main, rather unspectacular. It’s a phrase you read on a fridge magnet, or something you see in a movie, or a gift that you are given; it is one dot connecting to another dot and, before you know it, you look back at all the dreams that have come true. Your dreams aren’t silly, they aren’t frivolous, they aren’t unattainable, no matter how young or old, no matter how wealthy or poor. Where there’s a will, there’s a way, you are worthy and your dreams are your vision of your future… should you choose to go and live them. If we’re not already connected, just fill in your name and email at the top of the blog page to subscribe to my newsletter. I’d love for you to comment on, or share these thoughts with others, or contact me directly - shona@shonakeachie.com - I'm always happy to help.
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I had a flashback this week to a conversation with my mentor a few years back, to a time when all I wanted was to find some inner peace. I remember feeling that if I could find peace by my old age, I would at least feel like I’d achieved something. As I reflected on that I wondered at just how stressed I must have felt then, to have only aspired to peace.
You might be feeling the same thing yourself, it’s natural, and it indicates that you must be spending the majority of your time feeling various shades of grey on the emotional scale. Whether you are simply feeling doubt, disappointment, rejection, insecurity, loneliness, worry, impatience, frustration, irritation or pessimism much of the day, or you are feeling outright anger, rage, revenge, fear or hatred, or you are experiencing sadness, abandonment, shame, anxiety, feeling unloved, or worse, you are in down in the depths of despair, depression, disempowerment, grief or hopelessness, finding peace, that quiet centre of stillness, is a good place to aspire to. It’s been the best part of two years since I left my corporate job and I have reflected on those days a number of times in my articles. Suffice to say I knew my inner and outer worlds did not match, I knew I wasn’t being me, but I had no idea who that was. This week as I updated the home page of my website, I finally felt that all of who I am is right there, and I didn’t just feel peace, I have had a huge big smile on my face and in my heart since. What I’m experiencing more of the time now is the rainbow of colour, emotionally speaking, beyond the stillness. It starts with things like hope, acceptance, faith, encouragement or a positive attitude. Soon you find you feel more empowered, worthy, eager, at ease or light-hearted. Then there’s the realms of feeling inspired, confident, responsible, open-hearted, even serene. Beyond this there’s happiness, gratitude, compassion, courage and spiritual connection. Ultimately there are those emotions of love, joy, passion and freedom. We all spend time experiencing all of these emotions to one extend or another in any given moment of the day, but what are you feeling the balance of the time? I once heard a spiritual master say that freedom is our basis, joy our quest and growth and expansion is the inevitable result. The entire emotional spectrum we experience is in relation to how we perceive our control levels over what we are experiencing. So strong is the connection between our thoughts and our feelings that over 90% of your thoughts just keep subconsciously fueling the same emotions over and over. The vast majority of your negative thought patterns are embedded in your subconscious mind, they are rooted in early childhood and reinforced many millions of times throughout your life, like attracting like, and the same thoughts lead to the same behaviors, resulting in the same experiences. You don’t need to unpick all these thoughts, you just need to become aware of them. Awareness is the trigger to change, it slows and eventually stops the momentum of those old thought patterns. It allows you to shine a new light on situations, to look for thoughts that feel better. Better feeling thoughts, lead to better outcomes, always, there are no exceptions. Think about those times in your life where you have been ‘flying high’, the early days of a new romance, a sought after promotion or new role, a business or physical triumph. When it’s good, it’s good. Your goal is to get there and stay there for as much of the time as you can. It doesn’t mean you won’t experience challenges, it means that your perspective changes. The more aware of your own thoughts you are, the more control you have. The more control you feel, the better you feel, and the better the experiences you attract into your life. I’m excited about life now, and its possibilities and you can be too. If we’re not already connected, just fill in your name and email at the top of the blog page to subscribe to my newsletter. I’d love for you to comment on, or share these thoughts with others, or contact me directly - shona@shonakeachie.com - I'm always happy to help. We have come to view perfection as an end state, something that can’t be superseded in any way. Yet, given that nothing – zero - in this life is permanent, how can anything remain perfect? Is it time to redefine the way you see yourself in relation to this unattainable goal of perfection?
What if you came into this life already perfect? There are many who subscribe to the idea that they have to be or achieve something in this life, to grow in some way. What if you just came for the ride? What if there is nothing you need to be, do or have in order for you to be perfect just as you are? Often I hear my partner sigh as he heads to work, he’s frustrated because he’s not yet where he wants to be. But that is today’s desire. Today he is right where he wanted to be yesterday, metaphorically speaking. Frustration is just the feeling that tells you there is a new desire in the works. You would think we would have enough evidence in our lives by now to show us that we are in a permanent cycle of wanting, allowing and having. Look at your own life, what has changed in the last 10 years? What has happened in your relationships, career, finances and heath? Chances are, some things will be the same, but a lot will also have changed. So it makes sense we should have enough faith that, whatever we are frustrated about will come to pass, in fact it will likely be part of our journey to better things. Yet we struggle with it, hold ourselves up against some impossible measure of perfection and feel that we are somehow failing. In recent times I’ve come to understand the power of the subconscious mind, and how it is rooted in early times in our lives where we recognized well meaning guidance and discipline as strong messages that we are less than perfect. You have spent most of the rest of the time between then and now gathering many millions more examples of just how imperfect you are. Some of us show that imperfection to the world, others maintain a shield around it; it doesn’t much matter, it all has the same roots. If you are feeling less, understand that you are more. Certainly with all the layers of beliefs you have wrapped around yourself since the moment you were born, you are likely to be an overburdened version of yourself. Learning to listen to your inner wisdom rather than the voice in your head is the single fastest way to bypass those layers. Your emotions are the perfect instrument of guidance in this. If you think something about yourself and then feel bad about it, I guarantee that thought is not true. Case in hand, if you think you are less than perfect and – as a result – that is causing, say, anger, frustration or depression, that is your inner wisdom telling you the thought pattern is not true. In contrast, your mind will be automatically stacking up the evidence (all that stuff stored in your subconscious) and you will probably be falling for it again. The best way to change is to see the perfection of who you are, where you are and the guidance you have within you. When you catch yourself thinking negative thoughts, try out some reverse thoughts until you find one that feels better. When I started publishing articles I’d get hung up on how many people engaged with them and, if numbers were down for a long period, I’d wonder perhaps I wasn’t meant to be a writer. That thought didn’t feel good, I enjoy writing, so one day I decided to change my thought to “there are people who are waiting to read what I write, and place value on it”. It feels better and it’s true. In your state of wanting and creating new things, there’s no need to use their absence in the moment as some sign that you are less than perfect. Get over it; you are perfect, you just need to be more conscious of those thoughts in your head and how they are making you feel. If they feel bad, keep trying until you find a thought that feels better, that is the healthiest change you can make. If we’re not already connected, just fill in your name and email at the top of the blog page to subscribe to my newsletter. I’d love for you to comment on, or share these thoughts with others, or contact me directly - shona@shonakeachie.com - I'm always happy to help. I used to ask “what do I have to do today?” until I realised the most important question was “how do I want to feel?” Having figured that out, it led me to another question “what am I going to create today?” We all like to feel that we have achieved something, but if it’s just a list of ‘stuff’ that you have to tick off, chances are you will be left feeling short changed.
I can remember the commute home from work in my last job, when I was still immersed in the corporate world and running from meeting to meeting day in and day out. Sitting on the ferry, Smartphone in hand, firing off emails to get in motion whatever actions I’d taken from the meetings before they slipped from my mind. After I got home and got the kids to bed I’d sit down exhausted, device in hand again trying to plough through the rest of the day’s emails and edit any communications due to go out. At some point after falling into bed and sleeping for a few hours I’d generally wake up, my brain having started to defrost, and think of more ‘crucial’ things that I needed to get in motion. Every day I’d know I was busy, productive even, but I’d be left feeling empty and dissatisfied. I could ‘get things done’ with the best of them, but what things? What difference was any of it going to make? Honestly, I can recount only a handful of times I felt good, joyful even, about what we created in the work space; the rest felt like a hamster wheel. That isn’t how I want to feel, so I’ve switched focus. I want to look forward to each day with eager anticipation, and I want to feel sated at the end of a day, like I’ve achieved something. Not just once in a while, every day. Each time I write something, and I let myself pour out through the words, the process of creation is so satisfying it fuels any other task on my list for the rest of day quite easily. But even then, I’ve started to look at other tasks through new lenses. Looking after the kids for one. Back in those days of corporate life, I used to look upon my job as a break from the relentless and tedious nature of looking after very small children. At least I get to use my brain I’d think, have adult conversations. However, living a life where I’m now looking after the kids for a bigger chunk of the day, it's made me take a look through new lenses. I smiled as my clever daughter explained how the circle of stools blocking the walkway through the lounge, tied together with ties from our dressing gowns, and a whole bunch of plastic food scattered across the floor beneath them, was in fact the ‘vegetable patch’ she had ‘planted’. The complex net of dressing gown ties were ‘tree branches and vines’ with fruits that grew in this way hanging from them (a plastic banana, bunch of grapes and an apple). The other pile of plastic food I’d nearly tripped over on the way in was a clever ploy to distract ‘crows’ away from the vegetable patch in lieu of a scarecrow. The other day they made a ‘boat’ then, as they left for kindergarten, asked me to leave it out for them to play in later, so I did. It lay ignored upon return in favour of a ‘campervan construction’ built in the other lounge. The joy is in the creation. That is why so many of us revel in the process of making holiday plans, or pulling together a celebration, while others love cooking a meal or planting and tending a garden. Often the satisfaction in the thing we create is short lived in comparison to the joy we had in creating it. That is normal, it’s life. We are creators, we think therefore we create. What we create is of course entirely within our gift. You can create consciously or unconsciously, either way you are creating. Unconscious creation results in more of the same, whatever that is for you. Conscious creation is where the greatest satisfaction lies, whether you are trying a new recipe or painting a portrait. It’s where you stretch a little, grow and feel like the life you are living is worthwhile and meaningful. Conscious creation is where you find your bliss, just doing something, well, that is rather hit or miss. So what are you going to create today? If we’re not already connected, just fill in your name and email at the top of the blog page to subscribe to my newsletter. I’d love for you to comment on, or share these thoughts with others, or contact me directly - shona@shonakeachie.com - I'm always happy to help. shonakeachie.com is both a place where you can continue to read my articles, and it’s a portal for potential clients to get insights and connect with my consulting and mentoring services. It’s aimed at those who want to create change in their life or those seeking to evolve their business. I was watching a documentary recently on a study known as “The Dunedin Study”, now the world’s largest and longest running study of human behaviour, or something to that effect. They have been following and tracking the development of more than a 1000 children born in Dunedin in 1972, and the study is now widely accepted as relevant to the entire western world.
The other night I attended a meeting at my daughters’ school, the head teacher made an interesting observation about how the children of today are different than the children who came to school 10 years ago, or 20 years ago. Therefore, as interesting as the Dunedin study is – especially to those of us born in 1972 – it’s really just a marker in time. Consciousness evolves, and today it is evolving at a faster rate than ever before. Why? Well first of all let’s say that why is less important than how we adapt. As the teacher said, the education system, especially for teenagers, has not changed much in the last 50-100 years. The examples that particular teacher gave were things like how open children’s eyes are, and how closed their ears. Anyone with young children or grandchildren at this time will likely be nodding their head fervently; cloth ears now seem the norm. These children are very visual, and pay the least amount of attention they can to what we have to say. Other examples she gave were of the introduction to their first teacher, children used to look in awe, now they want credentials; they want to know what their teacher did before and why they are doing this now. These no nonsense children are becoming stronger at maintaining their own will. I think it’s a marvelous change. Frustrating as a parent, of that there is no doubt. We, the parents, gain a new depth of understanding when we look at our own history. I am a 1972 child, born into an era where parenting still involved hitting, schooling still allowed corporal punishment. Control was king, will was to be broken. What the Dunedin study does demonstrate, beyond anything else, is how vital those early years are in shaping us as an adult. The accuracy of the predictions from kindergarten to adulthood in terms of success in life and and crime rates etc are phenomenal. Those early years are when your subconscious mind starts to develop. Given the limitations we experience as adults based on what our subconscious tapes are playing (bearing in mind your subconscious accounts for over 90% of the thoughts running through your head each day), your environment is important. Many of us in adulthood have learned some version of “you are not worthy” from those early years. While we are aware of the particularly destructive environments that, while too many are subjected to, form the minority of human experience, we are less aware of the chronic effects of ‘normal’ well meaning childhood experiences. Parenting is a skill like any other, we predominantly learn from experience; our own experience as children and, if we are open to it, the experience that our own children are giving us as they are growing up. Too often though we default to the behaviours that are most familiar, those we were brought up with. Thoughts drive choices, therefore behaviours, which then drives your experiences and emotions; this then perpetuates the same thoughts. So you go round the loop again reinforcing those old subconscious tapes that have a lifetime of examples to give you about why you are not worthy. In our well meaning, a true desire for our children to be safe, happy and healthy, parents try to control far too much of our children’s experiences. From what to touch, watch, play with, through to what you eat, who you see, what you wear, what you say. The underlying message for the child, however well meaning its intention, is that they are not worthy of making their own choices. And so it is we now breed children who will not listen, interesting isn’t it? Nature’s way of lessening the effects of what we ourselves have had to deal with in order to be happy and successful in our lives. We cannot deconstruct our subconscious, we can only become aware of the layers and layers and layers of beliefs that are now planted there that are not serving us. In a bid to find our authentic selves, to become the person we were born to be, we have to start creating new tapes to play in our head, tapes that reinforce the self worth we were born with. The number one regret of those who are dying is living life to the beat of another’s drum. Most wish they had done more of what they wanted to do rather than things to please others. The way we came into the world, the sense of self worth, of connectedness, of pure love and joy are all too quickly smothered. In their place develops the ego, the doubts and the inhibitions. As adults we have to deal with our own layers, and at the same time, try our best to allow our children to make their own choices. It’s a tough balance, but it seems we are being helped out. If children being born today are coming with some protection mechanisms in place, then that is good news. I need to be reminded in the moment. As I look at my upended lounge and see that the chairs have – for the third time in 24 hours – all been moved into the walk through area to create a ‘car’, my daughter promising to clear it all up before school, I sigh. I am far from perfect, like you I have layers. Like most of us, I’ve no doubt already created a myriad of them in my daughters’ subconscious minds. As frustrating as it is when you are trying to get a child to do something and they are just not listening, think about the future of that child, of our society. A society with children who have a healthy sense of self worth, who have a will and determination to see through their own path, is a society evolved from the one we live in today. It’s not to say its utopia, but it’s a step towards a world more conscious of itself. Being who we are, allowing our children to become who they are, is one of the kindest and most important things we can do for ourselves and our planet. If we’re not already connected, just fill in your name and email at the top of the blog page to subscribe to my newsletter. I’d love for you to comment on, or share these thoughts with others, or contact me directly - shona@shonakeachie.com - I'm always happy to help. shonakeachie.com is both a place where you can continue to read my articles (and even watch videos...soon), and it’s a portal for potential clients to get insights and connect with my consulting and mentoring services. It’s aimed at those who want to create change in their life or those seeking to evolve their business. Have you ever stopped to think about the sheer number of conditions you put on your own happiness? We all have preferences, they abound in every moment in every day and they are entrenched in how we think others should act.
I happened to dip into a workshop that was being broadcast of Byron Katie challenging one of the participants on the feelings she was having towards her brother. The starting point was her sense of him being selfish and disrespectful. She was recalling the year she had gone travelling as an example, she had bought all his presents in advance and was feeling hurt that he neither reciprocated nor acknowledged the gifts she had thoughtfully bought. In her head she could imagine him opening the gifts and tossing them aside in a ‘couldn’t care less’ kind of a way. What she was being challenged on was whether her feelings were caused directly by her brother, or whether they were caused by the conditions she had placed on the scenario and the stories she then told herself. It’s good food for thought. I could see the young woman wrestling with this, the assumptions that arose like “it’s about respect” and “surely it’s just common courtesy to thank someone”. Many would agree, because there are common social conventions that many adhere to, that’s why they are common. However, what the young woman was in effect saying to her brother was: I am giving you these gifts on condition you show some appreciation and reciprocate. Of course she didn’t actually stipulate these conditions to her brother. What happened was that neither of these conditions was met and that reinforced her feelings towards her brother, based on prior experiences where similar conditions had remained unfulfilled. Here’s the thing though, whether she is right or wrong, is she happy? It is easier to change our perceptions and behaviours than it is to change others, in fact we cannot change others as our divorce rates attest to. That said, it may be easier to change our perceptions and behaviours than to change others, but given the latter is impossible (in terms of intrinsic change rather than forced short term compliance), it doesn’t mean your own task is actually easy, far from it. It starts with awareness. The realization that we do not all think alike, that the social standards we subscribe to are not in fact subscribed to by everyone. Furthermore those that do sort of subscribe to the same ones as us may have completely different interpretations of them. In my mid twenties I was exposed to a lot of personal development, and while it is now twenty years ago, I remember the ‘ah ha’ moments like they were yesterday. Listening to Florence Littauer explain the different personality types, to Alan Pease talking about why men don’t listen and why women can’t read maps, to John Gray talking about why women are from Venus and men are from Mars and reading about the different ways we experience love in Gary Chapman’s Five Love Languages. I couldn’t believe that, as smart as I was, it had never occurred to me that we are all wired differently. That the lenses we look upon the world with are all so different. While we come into the world with different talents and traits, as newborns we also come into the world loving unconditionally and with a healthy sense of self worth. Left to our own devices, with only unconditional love beaming back at us, this would remain. However, that is not our experience. We all want to be loved unconditionally and we would all like to think that we give it unconditionally, but we live in a very conditional world. From the moment we are born there are expectations placed upon us and slowly but surely that beam of unconditional love in the newborn starts to fade. I have been reflecting a lot on the relationship I have with my kids lately, and pondering how to just get out of their way rather than be the bulldozer stopping them in their path and knocking down all their ideas. Even though my driving force as a parent is to let my kids be who they are, I know my own conditioning (the tapes playing in my subconscious mind, rooted in my own childhood) results in behaviours and emotions that are far from my intent. I constantly hear myself reshaping their demands into requests, telling them not to touch this or that, telling them what is and is not appropriate behaviour, the list is endless. I know I love my children, but I also know that I have expectations – particularly about respecting people and things – that are a condition of the love I express to them. When asked my daughter will say I’m sometimes happy but usually grumpy, that is a reality check. In my heart I know the love for my children is unconditional, however, it’s what is in my head that stops me expressing and feeling it at all times. Every day and in every way we place expectations on ourselves and others. Expectations that range from courtesies while driving, to those in line at the post office, to the intricacies of the social networks at school or the office, to the minefields of families and intimate relationships at home. Those expectations are born from your early experiences, the expectations placed upon you, mixed with your the unique traits, talents and preferences you are born with, which give rise to the beginnings of a subconscious mind that gathers momentum over a lifetime, attracting many more examples to reinforce your expectations and experiences. It’s not a simple thing to overcome, those subconscious thoughts are playing in your head more than 90% of your day (and you think 60-70,000 thoughts a day). So step one is simply to become aware. We can’t delete those thoughts in our subconscious, but we can create newer, stronger ones over time. Once you are aware of your thoughts you can choose ones that feel better. What I mean by that, is to choose thoughts that feel better than the ones you are aware of. In the example of the young woman and her brother, she has so many examples of his selfish nature from a lifetime of experience with him. She needs to go more general with the thought, start revisiting it from a different standpoint. What if his behaviour wasn’t a sign of him being selfish, what are other possible reasons that could be driving his behaviour that feel more laudable? If you can attribute the best possible motive to someone, you will start to feel better about the circumstances. It doesn’t mean that motive is true either, it’s as fictional as the first one you attributed, but at least you feel better. People are a complex mix of their unique wiring and the experiences that have happened to them from birth, you cannot ever hope to understand the ‘reality’ of each circumstance, especially when you are so wrapped in your own experiences; your lenses are tainted, accept that. However, it is true to say that most people do generally act with best intentions, and we generally do things for ourselves, not to others. Feeling better is the key; it unlocks the love that wants to flow, your natural state. It doesn’t mean you suddenly become some beacon of sainthood. This isn’t about you foregoing your judgments and conditions placed on others to let them off the hook, this is about you loosening up your grip a little on the stories you are playing in your mind in order to let a little more happiness into your life. If we’re not already connected, just fill in your name and email at the top of the blog page to subscribe to my newsletter. I’d love for you to comment on, or share these thoughts with others, or contact me directly - shona@shonakeachie.com - I'm always happy to help. shonakeachie.com is both a place where you can continue to read my articles (and even watch videos...soon), and it’s a portal for potential clients to get insights and connect with my consulting and mentoring services. It’s aimed at those who want to create change in their life or those seeking to evolve their business. |
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