by admin | May 27, 2022 | Simple Self Help
Seriously! How are things with you? Feeling good about who you are and how you are in yourself? Yes? No? Maybe? Confused?
Welcome to the human race my friend! So often you might catch yourself during the day being concerned about the things in your life that seem to be unresolved, that cause you stress or worry and which you will rightly want to give some time to. The issue is that while so much is not dealt with it can indeed be difficult to even think of yourself, let alone to consider the relationship that you have with yourself.
Answer this question for yourself:
"Today I feel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . ."
Fill in the gap with a stream of thoughts and allow yourself to notice the feelings as they come up for you. You may find this a potentially uncomfortable exercise to begin with as it is very unlikely you have deliberately given yourself time for yourself before. This is OK and totally natural. In quiet time for yourself you will be able to listen to you talking to yourself and hear what it is that you are carrying around with you all the time.
Allow yourself and your spirit the time to let these thoughts flow into the present. Listen to yourself without judgement and just accept what you hear your thoughts telling you. Let these ideas, thoughts, apologies, sadnesses, embarrassments, affirmations and statements of fact be shared with you just as they are. Let go of the need to filter or change them. Simply receive and accept them.
Knowing these thoughts now, give thanks that you are aware of them and consider the impact that such thoughts will have been having on you for as long as you have been holding them. At the very core of your relationship with all the people you come into contact with is this relationship that you have with yourself. Whether you are loving, hateful, caring, doubting or kind to yourself, there is a way that this fundamental relationship with yourself is carried out into the world with you.
Begin to explore the feelings and thoughts, the considerations and the emotions that come up for you in this quiet reflection time that you are engaging in today.
Do not be in judgement about what you see and hear in this conversation with yourself. Simply resolve to take the points you observe and make use of them in a gentle way and in a manner that with you allow you to come from the greater perception you now have of yourself, taking this into your daily experience.
Move forward from this place and determine to strengthen the relationship with yourself from knowledge of yourself.
You are an amazing person simply by being here in this moment. That you are here at all is a miracle of biology, nature, survival, determination and of the power and expression of love.
On those days when you might allow yourself a down moment (and we all have times like that), just consider the miracle of your being here at all and it might allay a few of your own doubts, fears and concerns and reveal them for the insecure moments they represent.
The relationship you have with yourself is the most important of all, for if you do not come from a place of love and respect for yourself, how then do you find love and give respect for another? If you already have a personal source of internal motivation and self-respect it becomes so much simpler for you to provide this to others. You do this through a sharing of a part of yourself, by revealing some aspect of who you are and what you stand for.
Of course, you get to that place through questioning yourself about who you are and who you have become so far in this journey we call life.
There is no need for you to now become quite so hyper-analytical that you are someone else.
Be easy on yourself and simply accept who you are and what you are here for. Perhaps not the simplest quest to find the answers to! There is great opportunity here for you and the act of having a great relationship with yourself can come from beginning to at least starting with your focus on a good relationship. You can improve the whole thing and move onwards and upwards from there!
Above all, be a source of your own love.
by admin | May 26, 2022 | Declutter
There will be some elements of your past wrapped up in your current 'grown-up' world of hanging onto things or even to obsessive hoarding. Taking time to look at these and to journal about what you observe and learn can be very helpful.
I gather books around me like they will never be printed again! Pens fill my house. Stationery is something I value as a jeweller might adore diamonds. If I take these three points of clutter I can see where the root of my addictions begins. It starts with childhood.
As the first of seven children there was always a younger sibling who would see something I had and want it for themselves. It was often a pen or pencil that I used for schoolwork which would disappear to be used for scribbling or colouring in a book. A book I had been given when pre-school and which I remembered even then having read to me by my Mum or Dad, would be pulled by a brother or sister and the pages would be ripped or smudged or be covered in their food. At some point I must have had the thought that "I need more pens because they are always being taken" or "I need to put my books out of reach so that my sisters can't get hold of them". And so my gathering of books and stationery began. My problem is that it has never stopped!
When I am in a bookstore I go weak at the knees with the desire to buy at least one book and take it home. Often for the reading of the story that I am attracted to from the cover blurb, but always more for the sense of ownership, of being able to declare that"these books are mine". I have exactly the same sensations when I am in the stationery department of a store, or even better, if I am in a shop that only sells pens. Biros, fountain pens, brushed metal pens, gel pens, propelling pencils, erasers, pencil sharpeners. Surrounded by these I am in heaven.
Look for the evidence of hoarding.
Consider this ridiculous piece of information which is totally relevant to this article. I am working in the local library this morning and my pen case is next to my laptop. Given what I have just been thinking about I have emptied the case onto the table and find I have eighteen pens with me. Not a couple but eighteen, for goodness sake!
For evidence of my OCD tendencies (at least I can embrace it) here are the details:
4 fountain pens, blue ink.
5 gel pens, black ink.
5 biros, black ink.
4 felt pens, red, green, brown and blue ink.
Why do I have so many pens around me? I am writing on a laptop at this stage of the book before I print and then do an edit by hand and with a pen. I use a paper diary and can use that with just three pens of different colours. Why don't I have just three pens with me today when I am primarily putting my thoughts down on a laptop?
Looking at my own past and seeing the stationery addiction, all this makes perfect sense. I have so many pens precisely because their presence gives me a sense of who I am with the "I am a writer" part of my identity, but also because I made the decision as a teenager that I would always make sure I had enough of what I wanted and which other people could not take away from me. Even now I am protecting myself from fear of loss.
That's an interesting observation for me to add to my journal later! Things like this will continue to surprise you as you start and then add to your own journal as you go through this process of Letting Go. We learn from the very same insights we can help ourselves to reach.
For that same journal here is a simple question for you to consider:
"What can I learn about my hoarding behaviour by exploring the past that has shaped me and my approach to possessions?"
Good luck with seeking help, and also for finding practical support with the clearing of things that are covering up surfaces and filling the cupboards and storage areas of your home. You can do something about this where it is causing you to feel overwhelmed and lost. Don't be slow in coming forward and seeking support and guidance. When you take action, by dealing with just one shelf or one drawer at a time, you will make progress. Make your decluttering behaviour consistent. Over time this positive action will combine to give you increasingly good outcomes for you and the space you can enjoy living in.
by admin | May 19, 2022 | Simple Self Help
The old saying goes "If it's to be, it's up to me." I think nowadays that it should perhaps also say "If it's to be, it's up to you too!"
No matter what life throws at you, presents gently or serves up on a platter, how you respond is something you have total control over. There is nothing in your life that you cannot change, that you cannot act upon, that you are unable to see in a different light and take some level of action about.
No matter how difficult the situation that you find yourself in, regardless of any negativity that you live with daily, and in spite of some temporary destructive environment that you may be experiencing right now, there is a better place for you and there are better opportunities. It is simply that they are just beyond your current ability to see them.
Change your way of looking just at the actual challenges that face you. Acknowledge them, of course. You must do this or you will be in denial. But don't look at them as cast in stone, as something permanent or fixed or as the only single reality there is. You have to see that these circumstances can be changed and that you can make progress beyond them. None of who you are is so fixed that you cannot create a different and better set of circumstances.
Of course there is choice and you are the one person that gets to do the choosing. There is no reason for you to settle in the place of second best or to allow bad situations to persist in damaging aspects of your life. Instead identify the ideal picture of how good you wish that thing to be, of the way that a certain outcome might change so many things for the better.
But the first requirement is that you recognise what it is that you have and from this be firm about what you do not want, about what is dysfunctional or that does not serve you in any positive way. Be clear that you are willing to let these non-beneficial things and circumstances go, let them fall away from you.
We could be talking of a clunker of a car, of a distressing home situation, of a malfunctioning and distorted relationship, of a job or workplace where you experience inappropriate behavior or simple bad practice. You may want to break free from a crippling cycle of debt or from a relationship where there is neither love nor scope for change. It might be that you are in a place of personal despair and lack of any hope.
Begin to make a shift in your situation by stating clearly that you no longer want to put up with any of the things that you have considered and which you have written down on a list. By getting to a state of clarity about the things that you do not want you are at the same time creating more space for the right things, the right people and the right circumstances to come into your life.
So start with identifying what you don't want.
Now move quickly and clearly into what you do want. Enjoy describing the detail of what you want, and go to work on the process of asking the world to provide you with these.
The Universe likes a person to ask clearly for what they want as it then has clear instructions on what to do and will always work at providing you with what you ask for. If you make your list and do the asking and what turns up seems at odds with what you asked for, rather than blame the Universe for giving you the wrong stuff, first check what you asked for. So often people will think they asked for X when actually they asked for Y and a bit of something else or for Y with a little distortion. When you get something that seems different you should always check the original list you were working from!
Do those things that will take you closer to your goal of creating, attracting and then receiving the life that you wish to experience.
Remember that making choices is about deciding from a set of those things you do or do not want, from a choice between what calls your attention or what propels you in a different direction and towards something else.
Making choices is also about coming up with some detail so that you are not just guessing for things.
Sometimes you will need to expend energy in work or labor towards a goal. At other times the goods will be delivered to you almost instantaneous to your wish for their existence.
In each case the deciding factor is the detail that you put into your request and the choices that you make from the options available to you. The biggest mistake would be to think that your choices are limited when in fact they are abundant.
When things are going the way you want, remember that you are in control. And do not forget, that when things are not going the way you want them to, that you are also in control!
by admin | May 12, 2022 | Declutter
The simple act of owning something can create in your brain the perception of value. There are thousands of identical books to the comic book you have or that edition of a monthly magazine, but your mind will assign value to it precisely because it your copy of that book or magazine. The sense of owning something and attributing it a value, is referred to as the Endowment Effect. We give that value to something because it is ours.
House builders want to get you in the show house because it has been made to look real, it has been decorated and filled with gorgeous furniture. This is done so that the endowment effect will work in your brain and emotionally push you forward to where you imagine yourself owning it. The same is true of a car dealership where the sales person wants you to sit in the vehicle and drive it. This way you get a physical as well as deeply emotional sense of what it would be like to own the object.
You can break down the power of the endowment effect by asking a simple question:
"How much effort would I put in to get hold of this, if I didn't own it already?"
The hoarder holds on to things that are easy to acquire rather than items of value which require money to be spent or effort to be invested. Associated with this ease of acquisition you will see the link between hoarding and gifts that are given to us.
Often we will hang on to a wedding present, even if we don't particularly like it, because it came to us easily and there was no effort involved. Part of this equation is the ease with which a hoarder accumulates things, but the other issue is that of the guilt we feel we would experience if we were to throw away or donate the item. All of this is in your head by the way. None of it is real. You own a set of crockery that came as a gift. Smash it up. Throw it away. Donate it to the goodwill shop. There is no guilt attached to the plates. It is only your thinking that is applying this. Other people just see a set of plates.
Surf the Urge
Games we can play with our mind in order to reduce the impact of accumulated junk in our lives can include the process of moving towards the item we think we want, but with the consideration that we are just in a game. We can pick up the item and hold it. How does it make us feel? How does it then feel when you place it back on the counter or put it back on the shelf in the bookstore. When I am in a large city centre I enjoy browsing in the bookstores and sometimes I commit to going in and just looking, to knowing that I will wander around the store and leave without purchasing a book.
Interestingly, in a small indie bookshop, and especially in the shops that sell second hand or vintage books, I don't feel the same urge. In a big bookstore of new books I will find a few books of interest and take them over to a comfy chair. I will spend twenty minutes looking at the books and their content, at the author bio and the jacket blurb. I will satisfy the urge inside my brain that loves the smell of freshly printed clean pages and a cover that has no blemishes or rips. Then I will leave the store and congratulate myself on having enjoyed myself without spending money.
Walk Away from Hoarding
I have been to the edge of the thrill, but faced the addiction and walked away from it. I have surfed the urge. I have not succumbed to the temptation to own the item. Do this for yourself and find the correlation between getting the mental high from taking yourself to those places where you are normally driven by your brain to buy things to satisfy what your brain suggests you need, but then walking away.
Never an easy thing to do, we need to find ways to let go of our clutter.
Specifically related to hoarding here are some questions which might be useful for you to work through :
- "If I had to buy this object with my own money, would I do so again?"
- "If I can I create just two rooms without clutter in my house, which rooms will I choose to work on first?"
- "Can I invite a good friend to help me deal with removing items from my house, for just one hour this week, and book with them to do the same again next week?"
Admitting the existence of the problem is a huge aspect of freeing yourself up emotionally to deal with the clutter that is swamping your house. Opening up to friends and family to speak with them about how you feel over the issue of your junk swamping your living environment is a strong way forward. You are dealing with a state of mind that is recognised as an aspect of mental health.
by admin | May 12, 2022 | Simple Self Help
And when you have been together with them, don't let it end there. Pick up the pieces and take responsibility for being in contact with them until the next time you manage to meet up.
"It only takes a minute" might be a great musical lyric, but it could just as well be the catch phrase for a person getting in touch and staying in touch.
I know that sometimes you have to grit your teeth and smile at the thought of seeing Aunty Mabel and Uncle Charlie, but guess what? You just made their day by making them feel worthwhile and special. It might have been the case that another member of your wider family might have been over to see them, but it was you turning up the way you did, with a smile, a hug, some flowers, a magazine, that actually did happen and brought some joy into their day for the visit you made.
With text messages and email you can act quickly on the thought about getting together, planning something and organizing something. Better still pop into a shop in your lunch hour, buy a card, choose a nice postcard or gift and post a personal message. Heaven forbid, you could even go and visit them!
The spread of the internet and the opportunity to connect with old friends and former schoolmates or work colleagues has been an amazing gift. The click of a button can put you back in contact with a dear friend from years ago, and when meeting up with them, either virtually on-line or in person. Contact can be as if the time that passed since you last met has never existed and what used to be an important bond or relationship comes back to you with the strength of years, further enriching the life you have now and allowing you to give grateful thanks for what has happened before.
Build the experience and the memories by getting together. It helps all of us to realize we are part of a global community that connects first and foremost at the very local and personal level.
If you doubt any of this then take an hour to sit quietly in the corridor or day lounge of a home for the elderly and ask them whether having a visitor is important. Ask them if they care about whether their visitor brings a gift or how they feel about knowing that someone cares enough to remember them. To them what matters is simply that someone has taken the time and energy to make contact and to get in touch. The presents mean far less than the contact, and the contact is a reinforcement that someone cares enough to be thinking of them.
