Recently I’ve realised just how much my body has been living in a state of chronic stress for much of my life. In the last few years, having broken away from the corporate world, my lifestyle has been much less stressful. Given that I still reside in the same body and mind, this change has given me more clarity on how and why stress still occurs.

For me, a large part of that is my inner critic. I was listening to Matt Khan talk this week about the words I am. He distinguishes between two versions of who this I is, one lives in our heads (the one criticizing, judging and seeing itself as separate from everything else) and the other is the broader part of ourselves that knows only love (and feels connected to everything else).

There are many words used to differentiate between these versions of ourselves. I think of it in terms of there being a version of me that has become encumbered and unwittingly enslaved by my life’s experiences, versus a more authentic version of me that knows only how to love me and others and retains just the wisest parts of all my lives’ experiences.

Becoming aware of these differing perspectives has created such an enormous shift in my own life. I resonated with Matt Khan as he talked about our goal as being, in that broader awareness, to embody and bring that perspective of love into our day to day experiences; rather than continue to beat up, reject and disown parts of our self.

Matt also talked about the need to train our nervous system to deal with sustained periods of higher vibrational energy. Our nervous system can’t hold that energy for long as it is too powerful and feels unsafe.

My nervous system has been screaming for attention lately with neuralgia and a dying nerve in my tooth. So each time I hear the words nervous system, it gets my attention. Just this morning I received an email that started by talking about how beneficial meditation is for calming our nervous systems.

However, the other important word that keeps cropping up is the concept of safety. Only a couple of days ago I listened to a talk by the wonderful Wendy Palmer, about how to shift from our small, reactive self to our expanded, universal self. She refers to that small, reactive part of us as “the personality that references on creating security, using the strategies of control, approval and safety”.

With all this in mind, the other night when I awoke in the early hours and couldn’t get back to sleep; my mind started ruminating on a conversation I’d had the day before. I had been waiting some time for that conversation to find its place to occur, to speak my truth on some important issues, and it had been satisfactory on the whole.

While there are things I wish I’d said, or said in a different way, I’m sure I understood many of the issues better from the explanations I heard, while managing to convey my own point of view, really it needed no further thought or action.

Yet I found I was obsessively going over it again and again in my head while simultaneously being aware of the now alert state of my body and feeling of tightness in my stomach. I’ve been here many times in my life and it wasn’t a space I wanted to be in, I wanted to relax and go to sleep.

I immediately recognised that, on some level, I was feeling unsafe. The fact that I could connect to my deeper understanding of the reason for that was helpful, at least allowing my mind to rationalise that the perceived danger was a conflict of opinion.  

As I said in Play Big in Life, Stand Up and Be Seen, I’ve spent much of my life feeling anxious because of the contradiction between what my parents/society would have me do/believe (the picture that is painted of what is good/right/intelligent), versus what I know to be true for me.

As a young child, like any other, dependent on adults for survival, I took any conflict of opinion very seriously. Unwilling to let go of my desires if I viewed them as important, I was always sure to fully prepare my case and rationale in order to hope for any kind of outcome more aligned with what I wanted.

So it was I had found myself ruminating on this conversation in the middle of the night, like the young child replaying again the pattern of justification and desire for approval. Recognizing how my body has been trained to respond in these situations, I thanked it for trying to keep me safe but now I know it is also keeping me small.

As I was lying there another visual came into my head from something different I’d heard just last week, talking about the solar plexus and the heart. The solar plexus was being referred to as the energy centre for the ego, the small self, and the heart as the energy centre for love, our expanded self.

Recognising the knot in my stomach is right in the solar plexus area, I lay there visualizing the energy moving and flowing up to my heart, while telling myself “Thank you for keeping me safe, I can rise up and shine now. I am safe, I am seen, I am loved” over and over. After a while, the words morphed somewhat and “I am strong” also got added.

This went on for quite some time and, of course, I instantly stopped ruminating about the conversation, it was done. As I dozed in and out of sleep, some part of me took over the chant and I felt the knot dissipate and something within me shift for the better.

In fact, I’d say I felt the love I had for the part of me that had stood up and told me truth, while simultaneously recognizing the difference of opinion and knowing I could do what I wanted anyway, I didn’t need this person’s approval.  As Wendy Palmer would say, “they get to feel how they feel, even if they don’t like you or agree with you, that is okay.”

I thought about what Matt Khan had said about our nervous systems needing retrained to handle higher energies, and there is was right there, the training in practice.

I also reflected on how sad it seems that retraining is even necessary. Our physical lifecycle begins in that love, the powerful and pure energy that babies carry is undeniable in my experience. Then through this process of socialization we become more and more weighed down; entraining our energy downward. So much so that when it experiences the power of love it feels dangerous to our nervous system, wow.

There are stressors that occur outside of that socialization process of course. Just breathing in the air in the urban environment I live in will no doubt be taxing my various bodily systems that have to deal with pollutants and high levels of radiation, and driving a vehicle requires my body to be in a higher state of alert than it would naturally.

But the stressor that has me on high alert too much of the time is that inner critic, those thought patterns that are outdated and still serving the child in me rather than the grown adult.

What are the patterns you’d dearly like to change? What would help reassure your body and mind that it is safe to do so? You will find there are many resources and techniques out there to help, find what works best for you and Reclaim the Sovereignty of Your Soul.

If you enjoyed reading this, you may enjoy You Know What’s Best for You, So Stop Giving Your Power Away. To be the first to receive these posts, you can also opt to subscribe to my blog.

A friend of mine has found her life put on hold lately to take care of one of her kids at home for an extended period. She is beginning to wonder whether her current preoccupation with the situation is making it worse.

As Carl Jung said “What you resist not only persists, but it will grow in size”.

In her reflections, she recognised that several other child-related issues (that had been taking up a lot of her energy until this point) seem to have resolved themselves since her focus shifted. She realized perhaps her life didn’t need to be quite so on hold as it has been with all the ruminating and worrying she has been doing about things outside her control.

This has certainly been my experience. When I switch focus (preferably to something more positive), my resistance drops and issues resolve. The best example I have was my journey to having children, as I refer to in What to Do if You Feel Trapped By Your Circumstances. My kids are pregnancies five and six and only happened when I finally switched my focus to my overall health and wellbeing.

Just yesterday my youngest child jolted me awake to the tune of (cue tired, whiny voice) “I don’t want to go to school today”. Her protests continued for almost an hour, valid protests that pull at my heartstrings.

She is struggling in these early years at school; the focus and attention required literally drain her of all energy. In her words “there is too much telling and not enough freedom, too much working and not enough playing, and I am sad and angry and tired all the time and I don’t want to feel that way”.

It’s an authentic voice that wants to be heard and I wholeheartedly applaud that. I think many of us recognise those words even in adulthood. The question is what to do about it?

My kids don’t have an issue with their school per say, they like their teachers and friends and the environment. What they have an issue with is what they regard as the overly onerous attendance requirements and curriculum, which basically just follow the norms.

My daughter’s solution is that I should home school, just like another parent opted to do with one of her classmate’s recently. We have been round this block many a time. It’s hard to watch my kids struggle and not want to dive in and solve things for them. Yet I know that will usually only hinder their growth. 

That hasn’t stopped me feeling stuck around this issue many times, but when I have tried to step in its only exacerbated the problem. As I explained to my daughter, I am a writer not a primary school teacher; I would not be very good at that. But what I can do is use my writing to let people know what it’s like for kids, to create awareness and insight and advocate for change.

I share their views and advocate for shorter hours in those early years, and more child-led learning (for those interested, see the articles under Education).

I suggested to her that maybe one of the reasons she was having a tough time is to build up a big desire within her to do something about it for other kids as she grows up. But in the meantime, since it’s a legal requirement, she will need to shift her attention to the things she does like if she wants to feel any better about it. Her resistance to school is making her feel worse, so we are working on things she can control, that she does like, to help her process all these big emotions she has going on inside.

That said, it’s not always the case that there are no immediate solutions in sight. Often when I am feeling stuck, there are solutions I call red-herrings because they might address the immediate issues but they don’t solve the root cause.

I feel our culture values taking action beyond all else. But when I get stuck, it might be my circumstances that need to change or it might just be my perspective, but it is always my feelings.

There are many times in my life I have changed my circumstances and, after the excitement of new beginnings starts to fade, still felt the same swathe of negative emotions return that I had been seeking to resolve. When I’ve left relationships behind, or places, or jobs, and still come around the same loop – different time, different place, different person, I finally got the message that the answer was about changing something within me.

While I don’t always have all the answers in my head, I do have the answers in my heart and I’m getting better at listening to it. Whatever circumstances I am in, there may not be something I can immediately do to change those, but there is always something for me to learn.

This is where articles like We May Not Relate to Everyone but We Might Need to Hear What They Have to Say and What Do the People in Your Life Have to Teach (Good and Bad)? have come from. I recognise life is a mirror, and the players around me are reflecting opportunities for personal growth back to me  – usually about some aspect of my self worth.

Someone asked me the other day whether I’d reconsidered coaching or launching some sort of business in relation to these life lessons. I won’t deny the question of what I’ll be doing in the future is certainly of eternal curiosity but, rather than focus on things which I have no immediate answers to nor energy for, I have decided this year to focus on something I could steer and feel good about, my own health and wellbeing.

Having finally managed to create, grow and deliver new humans into the world and nurture them through these early years, my body would very much appreciate a bit of attention. In the last year I’ve returned to a loved activity, swimming, and listened to my body’s desire to eat more natural foods and cut out the more processed ones.

That is just for starters though. I’ve been paying more attention to the aches and grumbles that had somehow managed to become background noise for decades. When I’ve asked around for recommendations about health practitioners, I’ve let my heart take the lead in choosing them.

​Along the way I’m even learning about new modalities of healthcare, the different cell memories in my body and the interconnectedness with different events, slowly beginning to defrag myself towards the best health I’ve had in years.

Switching focus from the agonizing question of life purpose to doing everything I can to be in the best health now and moving forwards has changed my perspective significantly. It’s created a shift from resistance to open curiosity, and I am able to be present in the here and now for my kids, friends and family.

Life is out there to be lived now, not to be put on hold for some future moment. If you are living in the now, you are on purpose. So if you are currently feeling stuck, where is there an opportunity for you to switch focus and do something more positive for yourself?

​If you enjoyed reading this, you may enjoy What to Do if You Feel Trapped By Your Circumstances, We May Not Relate to Everyone but We Might Need to Hear What They Have to Say and What Do the People in Your Life Have to Teach (Good and Bad)?. To be the first to receive these posts, you can also opt to subscribe to my blog

Usually the expression playing big is about taking risks. However, the specific risk I’m talking about here is being true to your authentic self.

Everything in life works in cycles I’ve noticed. Certainly when I’m learning something new it takes a while for my old habits to disappear, they sort of swirl around like an echo slowly fading as I recognise and observe rather than react. Then finally, one day, I stop even noticing.

Therefore it is fitting in my most recent growth, learning as a student of anger while becoming its master, observing its echoes in a familiar recurring cycle. Each month for as long as I can remember, in tandem with my hormones building up and releasing, I go through a phase where everything irritates me more.  

I was curious about how this would go after doing a lot of work lately to understand and release a lot of anger. As always, I remain grateful my friends and I have cultivated a metaphorical ring, into which we can throw anything we are currently tussling with, in order to gain a fresh perspective.

So as I was busy throwing a lot of stuff in the ring that I was getting really irritated by, I recognised the correlation immediately. Wisely one friend observed how the stuff I was getting sidetracked by, while admittedly annoying, was keeping me playing it small. So what was the real issue? Why has this become a pattern?

I stayed with the feeling of anger and observed that, sitting right underneath it, was a feeling of immense sadness. What reverberated were words from my childhood: “Don’t get too big for your boots” and (sarcastically) “Shona knows it all” and “Shona knows best”.

I recognise that sadness has kept me small, not in the sense that it’s ever stopped me doing what I wanted nor standing for what I believe in, but  the stance from which I’ve played the game. Coming to mind is the image of my youngest daughter yelling “Hi-yah” as she runs around karate-chopping at everything.

The opinions of those around me kept me feeling small and kept me acting from a point of defence as I grew.

Inside, while I never doubted what I knew, I just got sad others didn’t seem to see things the way I did, I felt like a bit of an outsider and was afraid someone might see me as too big for my boots, and neither was I usually allowed to honour what I knew was best for me without a big fight.

So I asked myself, in light of the memory of the childhood taunting, what do I have to say about the “Hi-yah” tactic now? Here is what I heard:

It served you once, but it is keeping you small, play big. Stand tall, step up to the light and take your place. There is nothing to fear.

As soon as I heard that, it unlocked the tension within me, the fading echo was suddenly gone, I could no longer hear it.

Playing it big doesn’t mean I just break rules willy-nilly, it means I take fear for what it is, as the acronym – False Evidence Appearing Real. True fear is designed to trigger me into flight or fight mode, if my survival is being threatened from, say, a tiger attacking me.

The reality of the fear I have mostly felt for the majority of my life, is more an indication of my authentic self screaming for its survival, knowing I’m being tricked into believing something that is not true for me.

To say it more plainly, I’ve spent much of my life feeling anxious because of the contradiction between what my parents/society would have me do/believe (the picture that is painted of what is good/right/intelligent), versus what I know to be true for me.

Playing big means figuring that out and honouring what my inner voice actually has to say.

What are my truths? Might I actually know what is going on in my body without a doctor telling me? Might I not believe in some kind of judgmental hierarchical truth without being struck down or going to some hell? Might there be another way for me to learn than rote learning?

I could go on, and these are all very big questions, just like What Is the Deal with Conspiracies? But it also applies to more mundane issues too. Might a person be able to thrive in this world without a traditional education and career? Might my kids be able to watch TV without it creating some irreversible neurological damage? We each have our own beliefs and they are worth unpicking.

So what is keeping you playing small this life? What are you afraid of? Pay attention to those things, they will be your undoing – and can be in a good way if you can unravel your authentic self. You didn’t come to play small, you came to play big. Even if you are shy, at least when you occasionally stand up, let it be the authentic you that is seen.

If you enjoyed reading this, you may enjoy Looking Back to See the Clues to Your Destiny and  Build a Healthy Self Concept. To be the first to receive these posts, you can also opt to subscribe to my blog

I was putting my youngest child to bed this week and she asked me with sincerity whether aliens were real. Her dad had been watching a 2017 documentary called Unacknowledged, an exposé on the veil of secrecy surrounding UFO’s and, although she hadn’t seen it, the thought of meeting an alien scared her.

This gave me pause for thought. From my perspective, as I look out into the night sky and see the thousands of stars that represent the millions I know are out there, it just seems logical to me to conclude that there is likely intelligent life on other planets.

It would also seem logical to me that these life forms are likely more evolved than ours if they have managed to traverse to our time and space, and most likely peaceful. I could write a whole article on how I’ve arrived at those conclusions, but the point is that you should come to your own.

I’ve listened and read enough on the subject (and related subjects that involve lots of scare mongering) to have thought the issue through for myself and arrive at thoughts that resonate for me.

What was of more concern to me was that my little one has obviously been suffused with this fear at such a young age. I’d say it’s mainly through watching children’s TV shows that depict the power struggles between various goodies and baddies, often portrayed as differing species.

That she wouldn’t welcome the chance to meet and converse with another intelligent species kind of caught me off guard. But it was also a stark reminder of the messages that get played through mainstream media if you are submersed in it.

When a friend recommended watching Unacknowledged, I commented that the biggest conspiracy is the creation of the idea that believing in conspiracies is a pathological condition. I remember being convinced myself as a teenager and young adult that anything that smelled remotely of a conspiracy was unworthy of my time and attention in case it made me look less credible or intelligent.

However in the years since, as I have withdrawn my attention from mainstream media and began to dive deeper on many different topics that interest me, there came a point when I realised what had been hiding in plain sight all along.

There is a saying that Truman used many years ago to describe the unscrupulous tactics of his opponents “if you can’t convince them, confuse them.”  The moment I heard it, it resonated it deeply.

The tools used are wide and varied, but they run off of and perpetuate one thing – fear.

I have read and watched the (often successful) attempts at debunking, discrediting and ridiculing well respected academics and scientists who get too close to the truth and can’t be bought off in many fields.

Inventions that would allow giant leaps in technology and resolve our environmental impacts are purportedly not ever allowed to see the light of day at the Patent Office because of the detrimental impact it would have to the economic dynamics where much is in the hands of the few, who want to keep it there.

High ranking politicians and leaders are potentially puppets and pawns at best, often kept in the dark.

It is conceivable that mainstream media is infiltrated and corrupted at the highest levels to ensure that confusion and fear reign among the masses on many profitable topics. And with as much valid information on the internet as there is contrived, people generally are maintained in a state of confusion, tending to believe what credible sources tell them.

Credible being defined as media sources and professions we have been brought up to trust through the debunking and ridiculing of others that may have valid viewpoints and skills to offer.

It is my belief that there are many good leaders, politicians, academics, scientists and journalists out there, but I have no doubt that for most of my life what I’ve been fed through mainstream media, education and culture is utter garbage.

Put another way, it is pure spin that is designed to keep me feeling small, scared and enslaved to the economic machine that feeds a small group of greedy people who think power is amassed by taking it from others.

This is the stuff of science fiction, or so I would have been led to believe, which is why there are more programs and movies that are designed to perpetuate the confusion and fear than there are those which open our minds and hearts to other possibilities.

What if most things ridiculed have some basis in truth? What if we already have the technology to solve world hunger, poverty and environmental impacts? What if we have the technology to deliver free energy at our fingertips? What if it’s being suppressed so that the rich are getting richer and – they think – more powerful?

What if your body has the power to heal itself? What if pharmaceuticals and conventional medicine are making us sicker? This is a topic particularly close to my heart and one I’ll be diving into in more detail in a 3-part series in the next few months.

What if you already have the whole of human knowledge contained within you at birth? As my eldest daughter says, it makes no sense to her she has to be rote taught number and letter systems, when humans have been calculating and communicating for a long time and she has the power to do and fathom everything else for herself when exposed to the right conditions.

This tussle to control others had been going for millennia among humans, played out for a long time through churches, but in our most recent period of history is far more heavily influenced by big money players.

My lesson in all of this is that there is only one credible source, and it lies within. I can observe, I can listen, I can be curious and investigate. I can be sure that anything portrayed as fearful requires a much closer look. But through all of it, it’s my inner guidance that reveals what I believe as my truth.

When I watch something like Unacknowledged, which I felt was well laid out and presented, it reminds me of all the garbage that gets fed to unsuspecting humans. I get a familiar feeling inside, like a tight band around my gut, and it reminds me of feelings I’ve had like that in the past. There have been many times in my life when I’ve felt I’m supposed to look intelligent and agree yet knowing something was amiss.

But decide for yourself, wherever you land on these issues will be your truth and your truth will either keep you chained up in fear, or it will set you free.

Some of those talking in Unacknowledged conclude this dynamic will require a revolution. But I believe pushing against something we don’t want gives it more power, I say instead Be an Evolutionary (Rather Than a Revolutionary).

Learn to read your inner signs, trust your natural (not learned) instincts, and learn to think things through for yourself. What have you bought into that might not be as it seems? Once you can tap into your own power of discernment, no one else can impose their power upon you, because you will know the only true power lies within.

​If you enjoyed reading this, you may enjoy Reclaim the Sovereignty of Your Soul and Base Your Actions on Love Not Fear. To be the first to receive these posts, you can also opt to subscribe to my blog