Face Your Challenges With Confidence

Life is full of challenges. Some people seem to meet every challenge with confidence, while others struggle to overcome them. Determined people especially get a sense of satisfaction from facing challenges head on, it brings a sense of accomplishment and can be very fulfilling. On some level, you actually seek challenges. Your highest self wants you to learn and grow, and life’s most effective tool toward growth is experience.

The problem is that all too often you might find yourself faced with the same challenges over and over again, and that is when you start to lose motivation to face the issue and you lose sight of the potential lesson. At that point, challenges can become problems that can spiral you into despair and frustration.

As a co-creator of your own reality, you have the ability to overcome these challenges. It is with this sense of responsibility and awareness that you can begin your journey into a higher state of consciousness where challenges are no longer challenges, but opportunities to get a glimpse of your highest self.

Here are some ways to better accept and meet your personal challenges, whatever they may be.

Face the Challenge

In many cases this is the most important step, the most obvious step, yet it is also the most often missed. People spend time looking for a way around the issue, or wallowing in despair at the enormity of the challenge, instead of facing it. Even mundane things, like a pileup of laundry or work, get ignored. Putting a challenge off does not make it go away. This is true of big challenges, as well as the small ones. The most important thing you can do is face what is in front of you head on.

Be Present

Do not underestimate the power of being present. If you make a practice of facing your challenges, even in failure,with full presence and awareness, you will find most challenges are not challenges at all. Instead life’s challenges become messages from the universe. Meditation can help you cultivate silent awareness and is a good tool to help bring that focus to yourself during difficult times.

You can ask yourself questions that help you better understand the problem and how it affects you.

• Why is this a challenge?
• Do I believe that I am capable of being successful at this challenge?
• What are the possible outcomes if I succeed?
• What is the outcome if I fail?

These questions are not meant to solve the problem, rather they are meant to help bring you into fuller awareness of the challenge itself and your emotional reaction to it.

Look to Your SELF for the Solution

Others can help you arrive at your own understanding, but no one ever solves your problems for you. Even in circumstances where someone else is acting as an authority or partner, only you can decide for yourself how you will process the situation. The longer you spend searching for guidance outside of yourself, the longer you spend ignoring the problem. Even those who appear to help are only acting as instruments in the greater process of love and grace that is the true nature of your relationship to the universe.

Stop looking for the easy way out or the wise words that will show you the way. Assess the situation, your resources, and your abilities, and then act. Your action may include enlisting help from others, but it will be your challenge to solve. The sooner you take up the challenge, the quicker it stops being a problem.

Know Yourself

There is a reason why certain challenges seem hard to you while others breeze right through the same situations. There is a reason why you put off a task for weeks that can be done several times a day by someone else. It is not because they have anything over you or are better than you. And it has nothing to do with a particular skill set or know how. It is all about consciousness. Those who face challenging tasks have found a way to avoid seeing those activities as challenges. 

Challenges are opportunities to grow. That growth takes place out of potentiality, your potentiality, which is infinite and highly active in every moment of life. Come to know yourself as that. You are pure potential experiencing life through what seems like limitation. Challenges are spikes in that imaginary limitation barrier that guide you to awareness.

You decide: Are you limited or are you an ever expansive growth of consciousness and love? Choose the latter, and taking another look at that so called challenge you have been facing. With your potential, you can turn a mountain of a challenge into a speck of dust. Take that dreaded project and turn it into that thing you did before lunch today.

Detach From the Outcome

Stressing about the potential outcome is often what turns a molehill into a mountain. Once you shift your focus to the thing you are actually doing, instead of the result, the most intimidating parts of the trial start to disappear.

When you attach emotions to the problem, it has power over you. If you simply perform the task at hand without worrying about the outcome, you have power over the situation.

Some challenges seem enormous and harsh, but if you remain centered and full of awareness, no challenge is too big to meet with power and grace.

With thanks to Leo Carver 

https://chopra.com/articles/how-to-face-a-challenge-with-confidence 

Turn Crisis Into Opportunity

The coronavirus lockdown has been a crisis in itself. Coming out of lockdown, after being safely cocooned in our homes, mixing with other people, is going to create another crisis for us.  How we cope with it is the important thing.     

Crises come into our lives, no matter how we may try to avoid them. They are troubling, unwanted experiences or events that take us way out of our comfort zone. Typically, crises result in some type of loss. The very nature of a crisis is antithetical to our core values of certainty and predictability as they vanish in an instant.

We desperately try to restore order to our lives, as chaos seems to prevail. Yet, if we learn to reframe how we see crisis, we might actually take advantage of it. There is the potential for alchemy as the crisis unfolds into a gain, provided we learn to stop resisting the unwanted change.

The crisis may be of a financial, relationship, health, or spiritual nature. Those crises that are internally driven tend to be relational, psychological, or emotional. Ordinarily, we try to avoid these upsets as best we can. Yet, upheavals are at times leveled upon us and may not be of our making. We may feel like victims of the circumstances, as we struggle to hold on to life as we knew it.

Typically, personal change requires our motivation and intention to serve as the catalyst to power the transition. Crisis, on the other hand, removes the self motivating requirement as it places us squarely outside of our familiar zone. The crisis literally removes the boundaries that have circumscribed us.

It is as if a tornado has swept in, and when we open our eyes, everything has changed. The maelstrom places us well beyond the bounds of the known. We typically find ourselves wanting desperately to get back inside the comfort of the known. But the crisis precludes that option. There is no going back. But that is where the opportunity lies.

Breaking Free 

Growth and fundamental levels of change only tend to occur when we are out of our comfort zone. We can refer to this as being far from equilibrium, where certainty and predictability no longer reign supreme. So we might look at the crisis as a blessing in disguise, albeit an unwanted one.

Steve Jobs might have felt self defeated and victimised after he was fired from Apple many years ago. He chose otherwise. After his dismissal, he grasped the crisis by the horns, seeing opportunity where others did not. He went on to lead a small animation company and turn it into the juggernaut that is now Pixar. When The Walt Disney Company bought Pixar in 2006, Jobs immediately became the largest shareholder in Disney. The moral of the story is that unwanted change happens, look beyond it and embrace the discomfort.

The crisis is but a snapshot of a moment in time, and one we would prefer to avoid. But to achieve self empowerment requires looking beyond that snapshot and envisioning what door of potential has just flung open.

The individual whose spouse initiated divoce or left them for another person feels betrayed and perhaps heartsick. After a time, though, they may, in fact, come to feel thankful to be freed from an unworthy and inauthentic relationship. This is particularly true if they evolve through the loss and benefit from a new and healthier relationship.

Every crisis presents an opportunity. Crisis and opportunity are merely different aspects of the process. Do we choose to focus on the crisis and freeze in fear, or do we inquire as to what the opportunity may be? 

Illuminating Crisis 

Crises tend to present themselves as either acute or chronic circumstances. For example, the fall out of the coronavirus is not just the heartache and pain of the loss of thousands of people, but also an economic upheaval that is driving the world economy into highly volatile perturbations, with both wealth and employment literally disappearing. In the lives of most people, this is an external crisis raining upon them, typically not of their own making. Yet, through these losses, many people are coming to reflect on their values and choices and are making adjustments due to the crisis, that in the long run may actually benefit them. 

Take for example the high powered Wall Street executive, who had hardly a spare moment for his family, as he was ever consumed with achieving more and more. The loss of his job at first paralysed him with fear. After a time, however, he was able to re-evaluate his priorities. He now works from home in a small business he founded, and he and his family have greatly benefited.

An unexpected health issue or the death of a loved one may bring anxiety and/or loss. However painful and stressful these challenges and losses may be, the opportunity to be in the moment and value life from a differing perspective can prevail.

Chronic crises are more personal as they manifest thematically throughout one’s life. Relationship struggles or battles with self esteem or depression tend to recur throughout life. These patterns are perpetual mini crises awaiting a more fundamental resolution.

Learning to look at the larger themes and patterns that set up these challenges will help develop a vantage point from which you may break through the struggle. In other words, what are the recurring stories of your life? What is your participation in this storyline?

Likewise, relationship difficulties tend to self-perpetuate until a turning point is reached. Often, the relationship crisis launches the couple into new territory, whereby growth may finally be achieved. The pain endured through the crisis may actually enable this gain. For example, infidelity can be a horrific experience, but it may also open the door to a more authentic examination of the marriage and the possibility of a hopeful resolution.  Couples who are prepared to take the time to work through this travail can transform their relationship in a healthy way.

Where Is the Opportunity? 

Let us delve a bit deeper into the opportunity that prevails through these hardships. A crisis is defined in Webster’s Dictionary as: “a crucial or decisive point or situation; a turning point.” If we focus on the phrase “turning point,” we might ask ourselves, “Toward where are we turning?”

It is in this non reactive contemplation that we may elect to seek opportunity. This potentiality becomes obscured when we are mired in the loss of the familiar as opposed to venturing into the new. This tipping point is precisely where transformation occurs.

Do we gaze into the unfolding potential of change, or  focus on the loss of the familiar? Your answer reveals your relationship between loss and opportunity. Ultimately the question is whether we choose to freeze in the panic of the unfamiliar or seek to opportunise the new territory that is unfolding for us. The former presents anxiety and retreat, the latter evokes growth. Release your hold on loss and embrace your relationship with opportunity. They are inversely correlated.

The only constant in the universe is flow. What we call crisis is simply the occurrence of change. We are not the masters of change, and if we release our need to control it, we can ride the waves of change and often turn it into opportunity.

As George Harrison sang, “Sunrise does not last all morning.” Change happens. Prepare for it.

With thanks to Mel Schwartz L.C.S.W 

https://www.psychologytoday.com/gb/blog/shift-mind/201110/turning-crisis-opportunity

Trust Your Intuition

It has been a while.....

So often we are told to “Just trust your intuition,” but what does it actually mean and more importantly, how do you do it?

Gut instinct, or intuition, is your immediate understanding of something, there is no need to think it over or get another opinion, you just know. Your intuition arises as a feeling within your body that only you experience. Because the feeling is so personal, no one else can weigh in to tell you if you are in touch with your gut instinct or not. You alone have to make the call. Because of this, trusting your intuition is the ultimate act of trusting yourself.

Listening to your intuition helps you avoid unhealthy relationships and situations. Throughout your life, many people will have ideas about what is best for you, some held with good intentions and some coming from a place of deceitful, harmful, selfish intent. It is sometimes hard to tell which category someone falls into, but if you put aside all of those external opinions and instead listen to the advice of your own intuition, it will guide you to what is truly best for you.

The process of trusting your intuition is not as simple as the phrase implies, though, especially when certain habits and circumstances pull us strongly and often unconsciously in the opposite direction. Luckily, our intuition is so deeply instinctual that even if we have been out of touch with it for our entire lives, it is still there inside of us, waiting for us to summon its wisdom.

Here is how you can carve a clearer path toward your own intuition and begin to draw it out regularly in your life.

Your intuition is like your own personal North Star, but there are many obstructors that act as clouds dimming its light. Once you are aware of them, you will better catch yourself when you are headed in the wrong direction for the wrong reasons so you can then take the appropriate steps to realign with your intuition. 

Here are some of the most likely culprits:

Overthinking 

Since intuition is defined as “the ability to understand something instinctively without the need for conscious reasoning". Overthinking is one of the biggest interferers. Putting excessive thought into every decision and walking through countless scenarios and outcomes can lead you away from your gut instinct, especially when you are overthinking in order to rationalise or justify something. In these cases, your thought process is not flowing freely or organically but is following a very specific agenda to build a case for something you have already made up your mind about. 

In other cases, the flood of possibilities and considerations that overthinking generates can overwhelm and confuse, leaving you in a dizzying circle without clear direction. This state is referred to as analysis paralysis. No matter the exact process, overthinking leads you to the same place, out of touch with your gut instinct.

Indecision

Often enters the picture when you are overthinking and other times when you are outwardly focused. For example, if you wonder, “Will someone else like me if I do this?” In these instances, you are thinking about your behaviour in a lens coloured by the rules, preferences, and expectations that someone else has set rather than looking inwardly and allowing your own thoughts and needs to guide your behaviour, which would lead you to ask a very different question like, “How will I feel about myself if I do this?” because indecison shifts the focus away from you, distants you from your intuition.

Prejudice and Unconscious Bias 

Even though prejudices and unconscious biases are in some ways the opposite of overthinking, they have similar effects on your intuition. As opposed to overthinking and over analysis, prejudices and unconscious biases operate from quick judgements that the brain automatically makes based on past experiences, stereotypes, and background instead of based on reason or actual experience. As a result, neither of these culprits allows space for you to tap into the experiential nature of intuition.

Loved One or Authoritive Figure 

Often, the person who has the greatest power to eclipse or cloud your gut instinct is a loved one or authority figure whose love or approval you wish to win over, for example, a parent, significant other, teacher, or coach.

When you badly want something When you are really hungry for something, whether love, acceptance, children, social status, or something else, your strong desire to fill that gaping need can cause you to overlook or ignore any red flags along the way. Being laser focused on satisfying a need you deem worthy of almost any cost leaves little opportunity to acknowledge or follow your intuition, especially if that gut instinct is at odds with something or someone closely aligned with this need.

Previous Trauma or Abuse 

Perhaps the most complex and powerful of all the culprits is having experienced abuse and trauma as a child. Why? Because childhood abuse can leave a lasting impact on a person that remains even in adulthood. Growing up experiencing physical, emotional/psychological, and/or sexual abuse can cause children to distrust their experience and blame themselves. Since trusting your intuition is the same as trusting yourself, tapping into this gut instinct can be a struggle.

How To Cultivate Your Intuition

Slow down and clear your mind When you are living in a cloudy haze and rushing here and there, whether physically or mentally, you miss information. Slowing down helps you better recognise and process the information you receive, not only in your mind but also in your body. To do so, you must mentally and physically clear away the clutter. In real life, it might look like pushing back a deadline to remove urgency from a decision. It could also mean stepping away from a situation in order to gain further clarity, for instance taking a vacation before making a career change or spending some time apart from a significant other to determine if you are right for each other.

Slowing down means purposefully making space for your intuition to occupy. The slower pace helps to shift your perspective and clear away distractions so that you can see and feel what truly does matter. Explore meditation, yoga, mindful breathing exercises and other practices that move your focus from darting thoughts into a deeper space of calm and centered focus within you.

Notice Sensations In Your Body 

Intuition is grounded within the sensations inside of the body, so learning to recognise what is going on within your body, i.e. what you are feeling, is key to developing your intuition. While we might use the terms “feelings” and “sensations” interchangeably to describe intuition, note the slight distinction here. 

Specifically, we are more interested in understanding how your body feels in response to an emotion, for example, anger feels tight, sore, hot, and tingly, rather than simply naming an emotion like sad, angry, or frustrated, and stopping there. A great way to practice is to label the emotion in the moment when you experience it, e.g. anger. then feel what sensations arise within your body that are associated with that emotion. such as your jaw is tight and shoulders are raised and tense. Doing so helps you stay out of your head where you risk being swept away by thoughts and instead tune into your body where your intuition resides.

Begin practicing as a novice observer, merely noticing with interest what is happening to your body in response to different stimuli and emotions. Guided body scan meditations are especially helpful in sharpening this skill. So exercises are where you bring to mind a specific memory and then label and feel the emotions it elicits within your body. In all of these exercises, pay particular attention to your breathing, muscles, and heart rate to see how your body reacts and what that reaction tells you. The information it holds is crucial to devising action that is meaningful and relevant to you.

Focus On You 

Ask yourself, “What do I really need here? What is important for me?” This is one of those times when it should be all about you, so give yourself full permission to do so. If you find your focus shifting to other people and their needs, notice and purposefully return your attention back to being curious about what you need and want, because that is where you will find your ntuition. Concentrating on these needs helps to more easily pave the pathway there. 

To clear the air around your intuition, it might be helpful to first go through the list of culprits above to identify the external factors influencing you, acknowledging them so that you can then put them aside for the moment. Your intuition is part of your highest, wisest self, so make sure the focus is squarely on you.

Take Action 

The feeling of intuition is like an ocean current navigating you toward a purposeful life. Once you discover it, you still need to jump in a boat and set sail in order to derive its full value. After you answer the question “What do I need right now?”, do something to give yourself what you need. It might be the tiniest step, but size does not matter here. Small steps can actually be beneficial at first to gradually build trust with your intuitive self whom you may be meeting for the first time or becoming reacquainted with, after an unhealthy relationship separated you. What is important is that you are following your intuition.

Remember that trusting your intuition is a journey which will lead you back through these steps often as circumstances change and life continues to move onwards. Consider your intuition as a muscle to strengthen. With purposeful practice and frequent use, it will become more powerful and better serve its purpose, guiding you home to yourself.

With thanks to Emily DeSanctis

https://www.joinonelove.org/learn/yes-trust-gut-heres

The Power Of The Mind

Mind power is one of the strongest and most useful powers you possess.

This power consists of your thoughts. When you add focus and feelings, thoughts become powerful.

The thoughts that pass through your mind are responsible for everything that happens in your life. Your predominant thoughts influence your behaviour and attitude and control your actions and reactions. As your thoughts are, so is your life.

Be Careful What You Think

Thoughts are like a video that plays on the screen of your mind. What you play there, determines the kind of life you live and the experiences you meet. To make changes in your life, you have to play a different video, one that you like more.

Thought Is A Creative Power

You can train and strengthen this power. You can use it to make changes in your life, and to influence other people's minds.

If you plant seeds, water them, and give them fertiliser, they will grow into healthy and strong plants.

Thoughts, like seeds, have a natural tendency to grow, get powerful, and manifest in your life. This happens when you feed them with attention, interest and enthusiasm.

Your thoughts pass from your conscious mind to your subconscious mind, which in turn, influences your actions in accordance with these thoughts. Your thoughts also pass to other minds, and consequently, people who are in a position to help you, might offer you their help, sometimes, without even knowing why.

This might seem strange and unbelievable. You do not have to accept these words, but if you analyse the kind of thoughts you think, and the kind of life you live, you will discover interesting things about the mind.

The power of your mind is part of the creative power of the Universe, which means that your thoughts work together with it. You are a manifestation of the Universal mind.

When you repeat the same thought over and over, in one way or another, this mighty power helps you make your thoughts come true.

Using the power of thoughts effectively, is an act of "practical daydreaming".

Ways to Use the Power of your Thoughts 

Visualise a perfect scene of whatever you want to accomplish.

Put a lot of detail, colour, sound, scent and life into these mental scenes.

Repeat your visualisation often, with faith and attention, and your subconscious will accept these mental scenes as real experiences. The subconscious mind does not distinguish between real and imaginary experiences, and accepts both as real. It will start making changes and attracting opportunities, to make your reality match the images in your subconscious mind.

Actions, situations, and objects that you visualise frequently, eventually, manifest on the material plane in a natural way. This manifestation does not happen overnight. It needs time, and depends on how ambitious and sincere you are, and how much time and attention you put into this action.

You can use this process to change negative habits and build new, positive habits or skills. You can also use it for attracting money and possessions, for promotion at work, for building  a business, improving health and relationships, changing circumstances, and for practically almost everything.

Pay attention to the thoughts you think. Do your best to reject negative thoughts, and allow into your mind only thoughts that bring good, happy, and positive results.

With thanks to Remez Sasson

https://www.successconsciousness.com/index_000086.htm

A Time for Renewal

Easter is usually thought of as the time for a break from work, Easter eggs, hot cross buns and DIY. But it is so much more, it is one of the most special holidays of the year. Of course there is a special significance for Christians celebrating Easter and Jewish people celebrating Passover. But, there is also something in the air for everyone.

As the mornings and evenings grow lighter and as the last of the winter frosts disappear, there is a great feeling of new beginnings. The first trees are in blossom and the others have green buds. The grass is starting to grow faster than even the most avid gardener can mow it.

This is a great time of the year to look back at those New Year resolutions, to review progress and to take any corrective action needed.

The seasons can affect our feelings and attitudes. The chances are that you made those January resolutions in the midst of a cold, grey and wet winter, that probably made your emotions and optimism pretty cold, grey and wet too.

But, when the natural world is bursting with the promise of a glorious spring and the warmth of summer, this is an ideal time to decide that you too will start over and put right anything that you feel needs correction in your own life.

Unless humans interfere with nature, it has its own graceful balance. The old and used makes way for the new and the vibrant. Anyone can do the same with their own thoughts and attitudes. Perhaps those fondly held beliefs that served you well in the past are due for an overhaul. Perhaps it is time to restore your own natural balance.

Balance means harmony rather than discord. This should include a brief but thorough examination of all the areas of your life, relationships, career, health, finances, leisure and talents.

This is an example of how easy it is to get out of balance. A businessman was successful by most material measures. Despite his large house, ample income and luxury car, he was an unhappy person. He had spent so much time and energy building his business that he had no time left for all of the other aspects of his life that were also important . He decided it was time for change and began working on restoring balance into his life. Within weeks he had found happiness too and without putting any of his material gains at risk either.

You would have to be a very cold person indeed, to totally ignore the promise of Easter. So take some of that promise for yourself and then make sure it is a promise that is delivered. You deserve nothing less.

Happy Easter - Happy Pesach   

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