Relying on others.......

Relying on other people in life, unfortunately, is sometimes unavailable.
When it comes to your dreams and that thing that 'makes the world go round' - #Money, things can be particularly tough. When your dreams coming true are partly reliable on other people, you do not have full control and this is very hard! I have read so many things about generous people, people getting funded via crowdfunders etc. RAKtivists and so on but I am finding that peoples generosity is not stretching to my project. Yes people are happy to fund movies and video games but when it comes to a project that is going to (hopefully) help and inspire children.....the pennies are not being shared. This then makes me think....is it me? am I doing everything I should - and believe me I am doing things because I want it to work! why aren't people willing to back my good cause? Why is it that where I genuinely want to help young children with my project others cant see my vision? I realise that 'Ranting' is probably not going to do me any favours, but why shouldn't I share my feelings? Some people say that you do not need money to be happy - I agree, however it is true that you do need money to help to make (some) things happen. I hope that one day my vision can come true and that I can for the most part get there on my own....but while I don't currently have the funds I will continue to see if there is someone generous out there who is willing to help.....if this is you then please visit ~
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1108103567/esther-esteem
I thank you in advance on behalf of myself & Esther Esteem.

It's my birthday & I'll cry if I want to!

So I haven't blogged in a while....... and believe me it's not down to keeping my readers in suspense! 
I suppose I didn't realise what a commitment blogging was when I started. Lately I have been thinking about the things that I am committed to in my life, you see at the end of last month I turned 33; Nothing particularly special about that? but when I found out that someone who used to be in my primary school class passed away shortly after Christmas, I count my blessings to still be here. 
So as my birthday arrived, I like many people (I presume) did a little reflecting. 

Looking back at my life I thought about the things I have done, the things I haven’t; where I am now at this point in my life, and the journey it took me to get here. 

I am a great believer that it is the mixture of the good and the bad things, the encounters both positive and negative which build your character and make you who you the person that you are. When people think about this however, they often say “I wish I could change the bad things”; but if they did then their character would change. You see sometimes we do not realise that things are even are affecting us, but they are, in some way or another it is all adding to our ever growing, changing character, and the situations and circumstances continue to build and build on our character for the duration of our lives. We need to take on board our experiences, as they happen, and learn from them, reflect on them when they have passed, it is when we do this that we can become the best character we can be, if we were to go back in time and change an event then we would change the person that we became in the future. 
I also thought about life ahead of me,  what will I do? what will happen? When you are a child things seem so simple. but as you age you realise more and more that if you want things to happen in life then you have to take charge, you have to take control of your life! 
A question often used in life coaching; If you could go back in time what would you say to your past self? I thought about this question as I typed it just now, it's a tough one, you see I'm happy with Me, right now, and I know that everything that has happened to me, although it may have taken me a while to realise, has made me ME, so I suppose I would be reluctant to go back, for fear of changing myself. 
Upon looking at my life I also realise that not only do I have a great responsibility for my own life, but a great responsibility to my daughter, to pass on my knowledge of life, to tell her that she is stronger than she feels and braver than she thinks, that life is precious and that she must live in every moment, I suppose when I think about what I have just written, it is not dissimilar to me going back in time and telling my past self these things. So whatever my future brings, I know that it is not just me that I need to look out for, but my family, my friends for people that come into my life, whom ever they may be, in continuing Random Acts of Kindness, Happiness Club and Life Coaching, a career I never though I would have but always dreamed I would. I only ask that in my future I can be happy, and if I refer myself back to my previous Blogs, I know that whatever happens in my life, it is ultimately down to me.   

Radio Gaga

When you see yourself in a different light it can be quite empowering, you can really learn from it providing that you are willing to take on board both the positives and negatives. Last week I took part in a radio blog interview, my first radio experience of any kind!

The interview I was told would be held for one hour, that it would be me and the host, and in order to keep the ‘flow’ of the interview I was not allowed any pre hand knowledge of what I would be asked. Although I could anticipate what might come up, I was not near enough as prepared as I would like to have been. Listening back on the interview, sat on my sofa headphones in, I was equally unprepared for the additional grammar – from me! The “ums” and the “you knows”! I’m not even sure I remember actually speaking the words! I certainly don’t use them frequently in my day to day language (or do I?!), so I put it down to nerves. Remember, and I pointed this out in the interview itself, that Life Coaches are only human and we experience the same range of feelings as everyone else, needless to say that I was quite nervous! Yes I answered the long winded questions in full, yes I sounded as though I knew what I was talking about (or so I’m told!) in that I shared my knowledge, experience, future plans, and yes I think overall it wasn’t a bad first effort.

Sure enough I will put it in my bank of experience and keep it there, so that next time, if there is a next time, I can improve; I will know what to look out for and feel confident that I can do it better, although I’m sure I won’t come round to liking the sound of my own voice any time soon?! Am I a perfectionist, no more so than anyone else I guess, however as a professional I would like to think that I come across so, it’s also important to me that people have confidence and belief I what I am saying.

I know that despite my minor faults the interview went well enough, why then the reluctance to share it? The interview IS out there and if you look ‘not that hard enough’ I’m sure you will come across it, after all I took part with that intention. I cannot answer except to say that from this experience I recognise my flaws, this is by no means a bad thing, and I know that I would not, at least at this point in my career, make a very good radio personality! Does this make me more relatable? Perhaps? Would people see past the grammar? Perhaps? Will it affect my ability to coach people either way? No. Have I wasted my time? No. But still I do not plan to post the link today, a mistake on my part? Perhaps. I could not say for sure.

Who's in control?

Who’s in control?

We sail through life in a flurry of life events and situations, often feeling as though we are being pulled out of control, that we are being swept away from our normal life towards events we do not wish to venture.   

But who is in control of it all? What if I were to tell you that it is, in fact YOU? That you have control over your life? Would you doubt me?

It is true, and inevitable that life throws things at us, but we have choice; we can choose the direction we take after the situation presents. Whilst we cannot control the situation itself, we do control our thoughts over it, and we control our actions and reactions thereafter. This is why two people may react differently to exactly the same situation. I call this a Gene Kelly moment; I’ll explain – two people wake in the morning and open the curtains to discover that it is raining. One rolls their eyes in despair and declares their whole day ruined! The other choose to ‘Sing in the rain’. You see it is not the rain itself, but our thoughts towards it that creates our mood. This therefore applies to many situations we find ourselves in, even when faced with a phobia, remember it is not the spiders’ fault that you are afraid of it! If we apply our thoughts logically, if we view things from a different perspective we could unlock a whole different view of life!

Richard Carlson PhD. once wrote “Once you see that your thoughts cause your negative feelings, you can watch yourself creating your own misery”. He goes on to write that people are completely unaware of the effect that thinking has on their life, ‘that people need to catch themselves thinking about an issue and then dismiss the thought from their mind’. Ironically the person he refers to is called Katie! Despite writing this and sharing the knowledge with you, I can confess that I sometimes fail to catch myself. Refer back to my last Blog, ‘Are you living like a Human?’ In the blog I go on to state that negative emotions are ok! What then is the purpose of this Blog? Although I stand by my previous blog, what is the harm in applying ways in which we can avoid the negative emotions becoming too much and engulfing us!? Because nobody wants that. I would go on then to state that negative emotions are alright in small doses, but if we can avoid them, then why not?! Next time you find yourself in a negative mood, catch yourself, think about the situation from a different perspective, think about someone you admire, how would they act in the situation? Remind yourself that YOU are in control of your thoughts, your actions and reactions, that YOU choose how you are going to deal with the situation that has presented itself. To quote Richard Carlson again, “The thoughts that you should pay attention to are the thoughts that brighten your spirits, pay attention to the thoughts that are based on wisdom, gratitude, perspective and common sense. Ignore those grounded in low pessimistic mood, thoughts of gloom and doom, fear, lack of appreciation, hopelessness, despair, negativity and anger”, how ideal this sounds! Of course, and I refer once again to my previous Blog, that there will be times when we find this difficult to achieve, but if we just try and remember that things will get better, we are already half way there.

And how do we know whether we are paying attention to the right thoughts? By how we feel of course – because “you feel the way you think!” Richard Carlson 1961-2006, an inspiration. 

Are you living like a Human?

It’s 4 days into the New Year, are you living like a Human?

So often we hear “Smile!/be happy/chin up/it can’t be that bad/get over it!” It often feels like we have to programme ourselves like Robots, that we have to remove negativity from our hard drive in order to act and feel a certain way, that if we have an ‘off day’ that we have somehow failed as a Human Being, that negative emotion is not permitted! Well I'm here to tell you that it absolutely is OK to have an off day! That we are allowed to feel negative emotions, that they are necessary to life and that we should give negativity the same acknowledgement that we give positivity in order to manage our emotions better. It is vital though that the balance between positive and negative is in proportion, with I think we can all agree, positivity being the predominant of the two in the long run.  

We all feel the pressures of everyday life and if we kept all of our negativity inside and did not let a tiny bit out every now and then, it would all get stored up until we could no longer contain it and then more than likely; Boom! We’d explode! emotional chaos ensuing because we have not managed our feelings in an appropriate manner. We often believe that if we get mad or sad or angry that this is a failing of some kind, that we will require forgiveness for ‘slipping away from positivity’; whereas actually these are all natural Human emotions! We need to accept that negativity is a part of life, that we could not fully appreciate positivity without its ever lingering presence.   

Although I am a huge fan of Happiness, there are of course genuine circumstances where sadness, anger, fear, annoyance, disappointment etc. are all frankly very valid emotions to be displayed, there are certainly circumstances where they are not. I do believe however that if we manage emotion properly then we all can live our lives utilising the whole range of emotions that we possess and not feel in any way ashamed or remorseful in doing so, that we can have our ‘off days’ and not apologise for them! All we ask for is a little understanding when doing so. This is of course on the premise that you are not holding onto the negative feeling for weeks, that you are able to get out of bed on a morning, that you can stop crying in order to hold a conversation. We will find instances nonetheless where people find managing emotion difficult, some that cannot get out of bed in the morning, they may be aware that their emotions are ‘out of hand’, and they may require intervention and support. I also clarify that I do not condone in anyway violent or illegal behaviour, and by stating that I believe for example anger is ‘allowed’, I do not give approval to use it illegally. I simply suggest that we are all wired with these emotions and that it is not a failing if we display them, providing that we are not breaking the law or hurting others in the process. We are simply conveying our natural Human behaviour and although it would be extremely welcome, we cannot always live up to the expectation of being happy every single day.

So go on, take the pressure off, live like a Human today and fulfil your criteria, because we are after all, all Human. 

A New Year

Well 2015 will soon be coming to its end, opening its doors to a new year ahead, to 2016.

A new year brings with it the idea of all kinds of possibilities and wonder. What will happen in the next year of our lives? A new chapter. This brings me to the idea of New Year resolutions. Why do we make them? What is it about beginning a new year that urges us to seek change? Sure enough a new year presents a clear date from which to begin our change, it also presents the idea of a new beginning, a fresh start, but along with the new year a certain pressure arises that this year must better than the last, that this year ahead will bring with it everything that the previous year did not, and that we will work harder, play harder, exercise, save more money, and achieve what we did not, for whatever reason, in the last.

How many of us have made New Year resolutions in previous years? Do we stick with them? Are we making them for ourselves or for other people? This is an important point which applies to many aspects of life, if we do something for ourselves then we are more likely to see it through, it is when we start doing things for others or for the wrong reasons that plans can go awry.  

Of course change can happen at any time of the year, but it is often the significance of an event which drives us, not necessarily a new year, perhaps a birthday, or even a death; it is often these landmarks in our lives which make us ask ‘am I living my life the way I really want to?’

I am currently reading The Schopenhauer Cure by Irvin D Yalom, in the book there is a sentence in which a person suggests that we should live our lives in such a way that we would be happy to repeat the same life eternally, how interestingly thought provoking! How many of us would genuinely be able to say that we would be happy to live our lives exactly the same, with no changes, over and over again and again?

That fact that we seek change, we continue to better ourselves, enhance our knowledge through work and education, that we hope to earn more money suggests to me that the majority would not be thrilled with this idea, that we would welcome the opportunity to live again to right the wrongs; to have another chance at it, to learn from our previous experiences; to do it better. But we can learn, we can use our experiences of the years past to start afresh in this New Year ahead, and whatever it is which motivates and drives us, we can strive to live a happy, if not necessarily better life.

Whether you choose to make New Year resolutions or not, I hope that you all have a happy new year. Will I be making any? I strive to be more organised in my work, is it a resolution? Not really, more of an ongoing aim! I’m a great believer in SMART goals! My only goal for 2016 is to be as happy as I can be, I don’t think that this is too much to ask?!