Jun 11 2015

Talking of Lack

I am an avid reader of self-development books, of spiritual books, of positive thinking-hug a tree-be a unicorn type books. I love them. But a little revelation that has occurred to me numerous times over the years, which I tend to forget about and then rediscover, (and in fact, even mention in my book – The Elphite) is that for some reason, in general conversation, we mainly only talk about the things we lack, or complain about the bad things we have.

We learn that in order to manifest what we wish to have, experience or be, we need to affirm in a positive way that we have whatever it is we are lacking. And so we keep writing down, or affirming out loud – I am abundant! I am my perfect weight! I have a beautiful home! I am madly in love with my soulmate!

Yet often, these things don’t come to pass. Or they do, but long after we have stopped affirming them, and when we have forgotten our requests.

So why is this? When struggling with finances, I found that I talked about money a lot, in conversations with friends etc, and even though I was being positive about money quite often, it was a front, because I was still struggling. I did ‘abundance’ courses, read books, sought out new affirmations etc, but somewhere along the line something occurred to me – all of my focus on money was coming from a place of lack. And that genuinely wealthy and abundant people rarely speak of money – they are focused on their passions, on what they love in life. And if they do speak of money, they are not coming from a place of lack, but from a genuine place of abundance.

So how do you get to that space of genuine abundance when you’re lacking what you need or desire?

I’m finding that only talking about the areas of my life where I genuinely feel abundant is a good place to begin. Because then I am not speaking and feeling from a place of lack. And to relax, go with the flow.

I try to avoid small talk too. I feel that small talk keeps us small, because it make us connect to others through our complaining, griping and moaning. We share our stories of illnesses, woes and grief, because we know that others will relate to what we say.

It seems we don’t want to appear to be too happy, only speaking of what we love, in fear of looking to be better than/superior to/looking down on anyone else. (I’m talking from a British perspective here, things may be quite different in other parts of the world, I hope they are!)

But I feel that it’s only when we move beyond small talk that we can all grow and evolve and expand our thinking. Often, I will quite quickly get into a conversation about other worlds, angels, the afterlife and parallel universes, with complete strangers I’ve met minutes before, because it’s almost like we sense we can talk of these things, and neither will get ‘weirded out’. When I sense it’s not possible to bring up such subjects, I find myself lapsing into silence, in the hopes of not finding things to complain about in order to connect. But I do find it difficult!

Do you have any tried and tested ways to operate from that place of abundance? I would love to hear them if you have!

Mar 17 2014

Choosing My Reality

Last week, I finished the first draft of my latest novel, which I have called ‘I’m Here‘. The big push to finally finish it was provided by my sister, as we challenged each other to finish the first drafts of our projects by the 11th March, and both of us made it! In the last few days leading up to the deadline, I was writing anything from 3000 to 5500 words a day. I could have just written 1500 words a day for two weeks, but instead I preferred to leave it all to the last minute and write 15,000 words in just a few days. Anybody who has done Nanowrimo and loves the last minute, will understand this!

It was weird to finally finish the book, because unlike many of my other novels, this one took a considerable amount of time to come into being. I wrote down the idea for the book more than a year prior to beginning it. I then started to write the book during Nanowrimo in November 2012. But I hit a block and found myself unable to continue writing it. So I stopped and decided to write The Other Side instead. Then in November 2013, during Nanowrimo, I decided it was time to finish it. I cut the last chapter I had written the previous year, and started to write. But again, I hit blocks during that month and set it aside again. I was struggling to get it finished, and it was only the deadline imposed by my sister (and the promise of a homemade prize!) that got me to finish it.

One of the reasons I think I found it difficult to finish the book, was because over the last few years, I have noticed that many of the events that I have written about in my books, have actually come to pass. It might sound totally crazy, but not only have I met some of my characters in real life (with the same names, characteristics, appearances, personality etc.) but I have also experienced some of the situations I have created in my novels. So when writing this book, I had a vague idea of where it was going, and I didn’t want to write it, because I didn’t want it to happen in my own life.

Now, if you are into the law of attraction, or believe in saying or writing affirmations, you might not find this concept to be so crazy. After all, with every word we think or say, we are creating our own reality. We are choosing what we are going to experience. And when I write these scenes, these stories, I am in effect, calling them forth to me. This idea was brought home to me when I read the story of the author Iain Banks, who died of cancer shortly after writing a novel about a man who dies of cancer. In this article it is said that he had written 90% of the novel before finding out his own diagnosis, so it wasn’t based on his own experiences. Some people may be offended by the idea that by writing the book, he chose to experience the same fate as his character. And I do honestly hope that is not the case. But what if we do have the power to choose our own reality in that way? My new book explores that idea, that we do actually have a choice in what we experience in life. That our intentions become our reality.

When I was a child, I loved the cartoon Penny Crayon. She was a girl who had the ability to create anything – places, people, objects, by drawing them with her special crayon. I was fascinated by the idea as a child, because it somehow made perfect sense to me. Over the years, I have manifested many things, often with the help of vision boards or through writing down my desires in the form of a simple sentence – I choose to tune into the reality where… I have lost count of the number of times I have read back through notebooks and diaries only to find what I had chosen and written down, had actually become my reality.

I have also lost count of the number of times people have asked me to write a book about them winning the lotto…

The thing is, with this knowledge, you would think I would just write about the things I would like to experience, that I would craft the stories to reflect what I wish for in my life. But it doesn’t work that way for me. When I write, I have no real say in what happens in the story. I am merely recording, writing down, the story of the characters. I have joked before now about not being an author, but a spiritual secretary, just taking dictation from above. So I decided that whether I wanted to create the reality or not, the book needed to be written. I’m now in the editing stages, and am planning to publish it by April/May. I will post updates on the progress of it, and plan to post excerpts from it very soon.

In the meantime, I’m going to choose the reality where I have a cup of tea and a cake in front of me, and I hope you choose the reality where you have a fabulous Monday!

Wow, look what I manifested!!

Mar 9 2014

Sow the Seeds

In the last couple of days, I have begun my first foray into growing flowers, herbs and vegetables. In the past, my lack of green fingers has meant that most things that need watering that are left in my care surely die. So the concept of starting with a tiny seed (and in some cases, the seeds were as small as bits of dust) and getting it to grow into something edible, is pretty much beyond anything I have ever attempted before.

Here’s me, looking very glamorous!

While planting the parsley seeds, I started thinking about the part in Louise L Hay’s movie – Heal Your Life, when she talks about affirmations being the seeds to creating the life you want. She said that with seeds you plant them, water them, nurture them and basically, you expect that they will grow. But you don’t dig them up every few days to check to see if they are growing or not, because you will end up killing them off. The key is to just tend to them daily, and you will then be able to harvest and benefit from the crop.

[youtube http://youtu.be/2NiRvwmPDxo?t=4m25s]

Daily routines and habits is something that I struggle with. I find it easy to break a habit, and quite difficult to form one. I can do something every single day for a year, and then stop doing it, and forget all about it. In the past I have given up all sorts of things, with no problem at all. I have given up chocolate for a year or more at a time. Currently, I have not had caffeine for thirteen years, I have not had wheat or gluten for four years, I haven’t eaten meat ever, I avoid sweeteners like the plague, and I rarely eat junk food. (Most of it has wheat in it anyway). So it seems I’m pretty good at quitting stuff. I’ve also quit more jobs in my life than most people ever have in their entire lifetime. I tried to count the jobs I’d had once, and got bored after I’d counted 40. Some of them were short-term anyway, but most of them I quit. For a long time I just figured I had commitment issues, but I think it’s more of a case that I don’t see the point in doing anything I am not passionate about, because then it is not serving myself or others.

Which is why I think I struggle with exercising daily. I really don’t find getting out of breath or having sore muscles to be much fun. Even though I know that in the long-term, it will benefit me. And gardening? I think it’s a case of just not really knowing what I am doing that has put me off in the past. I still don’t really know what I’m doing, to be truthful. But I’m willing to give it a try. Perhaps if I can see these teeny little seeds growing into actual, edible items, it will make it easier for me to find things I can do daily to build my business and increase my readership etc.

What the garden looks like right now:

I’m reading a book at the moment, called Choose Yourself, by James Altucher. In it, he describes having daily practices, and I must admit, at first I was thinking – oh here we go again, yet another suggestion to do something everyday, something that I know I won’t ever do. But then I read the list of 26 things that he does every day. Out of which, he suggests people do a minimum of one thing from that list every day. And I realised that I already do ten of those things every day! Therefore, I have a daily routine. How amazing is that? I had a daily routine and I didn’t even realise it. Which means that I can do things on a daily basis. I plan on printing the list out, and posting it above my desk, so that it inspires me to try doing some of the things I don’t do on a daily basis.

This realisation has made me wonder how many more things there are, that I believe I cannot do, but in fact I can. So perhaps I can be a successful gardener, perhaps I can enjoy running, perhaps I can learn how to play the piano properly, and perhaps I can indeed be successful in doing what I truly love to do. All I need to do is to choose myself. And choose to love and believe in myself. And know that the only limitations in my life are the ones I choose to have. It’s time to let go of my old stories, my old beliefs, my old limitations, and become who I really am.

I choose myself. I choose to be awesome 🙂