ON AGEING
I recently celebrated a 40-something birthday. I would like to pass on a most memorable gift. My Mom called to wish me Happy Birthday as we finished the conversation she said "Now don’t go thinking of yourself as being old. When I was your age I used to think I was very old but now looking back I realised I was very young". How great the gift of perspective.

ON CONFIDENCE-
Many of my clients feel they lack confidence. All too often I hear the exasperated voice "if only I had the confidence I would do this … change that." So they put off the positive impulses of change believing that confidence must comes first.

Confidence is not like an apple that you pick off a tree. It is not something to get; to have, but more a quality that evolves. It is a quality that develops through experience. If you don’t push your comfort barriers, you stay where you are. You need to have experience to develop confidence.

For example say you are very shy and being in a group of people is very difficult for you. When we lack confidence we automatically put ourselves at the bottom of the ladder. Which means everyone around us is higher therefor better than ourselves. For the duration of the event (and probably before and after as well) we aren’t really partaking in what is happening around us as our attention is taken up by the negative self talk and judgement that is going on in our heads. It would make sense then as those social events are tortuous we stay away from them. But what exactly is tortuous?

What you are doing to yourself in your head.

So, how do we get off that ingrained track of thinking? First of all to realize that we can. Secondly to be aware of the negative self-talk and not support this self-negating habit.

Instead, recognize that in order to gain confidence we need to have experience. In other words we need to do the things we think we can’t. Let’s face it as a baby you didn’t all of a sudden one day jump up and start running. You had to go through the learning stages of learning how to walk. Confidence is the same process.

By putting yourself in situations that you have found difficult in the past you are putting yourself in a learning situation. Knowledge derived from experience equals confidence.

Don’t wait for confidence to fall in your lap to change your life. Listen to the part of you that is positive and wants to change and then support that feeling by action. Recognize just like learning to walk it will take time but the steps you get under your belt will strengthen the muscles in order to run.

Oh yeah, just when you thought you had confidence remember when you find yourself in a totally new situation, you can feel like you lost it. You haven’t. You are just learning a bit more about your life and how to handle it.

ON SELF-ENCOURAGEMENT-
I like many of you have wanted to get fit and create an exercise program that is part of my life. In the beginning my enthusiasm carried me then the excuses came roaring in. One day while in the kitchen I glanced at the calendar and decided for each day that I did some exercise I would give myself a star.

That did it for me.

It felt so good, so empowering, to draw a star after exercising that often I would find myself going down the gym just so I could have that pleasure of giving myself recognition and credit for what I was trying to do for myself. This may seem like a childhood exercise, stars on the calendar, but when I look at my calendar and it is covered with stars I feel so pleased about me.

Shouldn’t we feel pleased about ourselves? We spend enough time negating ourselves, It may take time to loose the weight or see the muscle definition but the daily stars add up quite quickly. They hold your focus for you and strengthen your commitment. Go on. Get out the markers (different colours for different exercises?). Each time you are able to draw a star you give your self-credit. Those little stars have a way of reflecting great amounts of light not only to help you see where you are going but also to remind you where you have come from.

Perhaps next month my star for this column will actually be at the beginning of the month instead of the end…

ON POSITIVE THINKING-
Do not under estimate the power of positive thinking. Quite a strong sentence as a lead in but certainly a truer sentence never said. So, what is positive thinking? Why should we seriously consider developing positive thought patterns? Is it not all a cliché?

First of all a positive mind is a healthier mind. We all know about the dangers of stress and probably have experienced the dark turbulence of the mind. The mind can keep us awake, instill fear, insignificance, despair, eventually making us ill. But it can also give us hope, open the borders to the possible, the pathways to our imagination.

How we think, does matter.

If we imagine that everything is energy then there is negative and positive energy in all things. This then tells us that no matter what happens, we always have a choice in our perspective. How you understand, digest a situation has an enormous effect on where you go from there.

Let’s look at an example – Years ago there was a knock on my door. I was told that someone broke into my car. When I went to look the back window had been smashed and a blanket, a gift from a friend, stolen. My immediate thought was " It was cold last night, someone must have needed the blanket." Then returned to continue to get ready for work

Now I could have seen the hassle, become angry, fearful, gone in the house, ‘kicked the dog’ but as a positive thinker I viewed the break-in from another but a calmer, more comfortable perspective. This unexpected incident did not destroy my peace of mind, my day.

The lovely bit about this story was when I left for work, I found my blanket neatly folded and returned on my doorstop. An act that made me smile and reinforced my belief in mankind.

Okay, it still cost me £60 to fix the window, £60 I could ill afford. But let’s face it, sometimes life just costs. A positive thinker looks for the positive because it is a more comfortable way to think and you end up learning from a negative situation. A negative thinker is more apt to look for the blame. Holding onto to feelings that are not comfortable, far too long, making a bad situation worse.

Life does have its difficulties, it’s challenges. At times of great sorrow or loss, it can seem that no matter how much we try we cannot see the positive. But it is there. It has to be, as there is positive and negative in all things. In these cases, often the positive comes later. I’m sure all of us can think of a time when it was through hindsight that we understood why something happened, therefor learning and benefiting from this awareness.

A positive thinker learns from life and initiates change while a negative thinker negates life and looks for blame.


The manner in which we think is habitual. Is the cup half full or half empty? By focusing on a life that is half full it begins to fill. A positive thinker attracts positive energy. A negative thinker reinforces the emptiness.

Being around a hopeful, positive person is very uplifting and healing. Point is, do not underestimate the power of positive thinking. In times of great change and challenge what better way to effect our environment and the world around us. The more positive we are the brighter we shine, adding light and hope into the darkness.

Positive thinkers are open to learning and creating positive change. So have a go. Develop a positive perspective; believe in the art of the possible.

ON NEW YEARS RESOLUTIONS -
So many people I have talked with recently do not believe in New Years Resolutions. Many have said, "I don’t bother making them because no one ever keeps them." Not entirely true. I for one really enjoy the newness of the year. Taking time out to review last year. What I have accomplished. Where there is room for improvement. Where I am going and the positive changes I would like to make. One woman I talked with took me by surprise, as she thinks nothing about the New Year. I couldn’t imagine never taking the time for a yearly review. After all, if you don’t know where you are, how can you possibly know where you are going?

The New Year is about possibilities. From where we are now we see just a little bit of it. For the most part it lies around the corner and beyond that is full of possibility. New Year resolutions help to focus our desires into what is possible. They give you the motivation to create change.

Perhaps this is why so many resolutions fall short. Perhaps the changes people want involve taking too large a step. For example, perhaps you want to loose three stone. I imagine a great deal of commitment to one’s diet and lifestyle would be needed in order to achieve that goal. For some it is very possible because the motivation is already there. For others is strictly magic wand stuff. What would you want without any effort?

Why not take manageable steps for positive change this New Year? Instead of a fixation on loosing weight change it a bit, create a healthy diet and exercise routine. You are bound to loose weight and step by step create the motivation to keep going towards your idea weight.

Little steps make a journey so that before you know it you are where you wanted to be in the first place. Your New Years resolution does not become something that is easily said and never done.

Personally I find it rather sad not to believe in the ‘art of the possible’. The New Year is full of untapped potential. Why not tap into the freshness of a new beginning. Review 2002. How did it go? What went well? What would you like to develop? If we never ask ourselves questions we will never hear the answers.

If your past resolutions have never materialised, then take more manageable steps. I can guarantee you the positive energy you get from succeeding with even the smallest conscious change will bring you hope. Hope is the number one motivator. Go on, it is not too late, make those New Years resolutions and make them happen. Happy New Year!

The Sea People
There are two types of people. The bottom of the sea people and the top of the sea people. The bottom of the sea people are the reflectors. More inwardly thinking, they walk lost in their reverie on the bottom of the sea reflecting, questioning and seeking. Their emotions travel inward enabling them to reach deeper and deeper depths. They are the recorders. They are our writers, poets, philosophers and artists.

The top of the sea people swim along the surface. Enjoying what is, the sun, the company, and the sky above. They enjoy the water as well but only to it's surface depth. Their movement unencumbered, they get where they want to go. Often swimming from point A to B. They are the builders, the doers.

To the bottom of the sea people, those that swim the surface seem so unconcerned. Their movement so free and easy. Those that look up from the depths try seek to understand how this can be. While the others concentrate on what's around them rather than what is in them.

It is the responsibility for the bottom of the sea to share their insights with the top of the sea people. So, they too can travel the depths and learn from the reflections of others. While those that live on the surface also teach those that trudge the bottom. Their duty is to remind the recorders to lighten up, come up for air, to share, to laugh and to travel from A to B just for the sake of doing it rather than needing to understand the why of it.

Each group is just as important as the other

Befriending Your Deadlines
Faced with an impending deadline and not feeling focused, I start to question my motivation. Like where was it? Usually, it is not an issue but every so often the river runs dry making it impossible to get the boat moving, yet needing to be further along.

I am sure all of us can relate to this seemingly lack of 'oomph' when you need to get something done and no inspiration to do it. To say that there isn't the energy is far from the truth. The energy is definitely there just misappropriated. Lots of energy, pressure in my head and turmoil in my stomach, attitude in my mind and excuses fuelling my imagination. I hold back refusing to go forward.

Whenever we hold our energy back, healthy positive energy, which needs to move, we make ourselves uncomfortable. Felt first on a physical level, negative thoughts quickly follow adding to our discomfort. These trigger feelings and before we know it we are caught in a sticky ball of tar that makes any notion of movement feel like an insurmountable task.

The deadline is still there, waiting in the wings, time ticking by and always we have choice. We can add to our pain by ignoring, excusing, procrastinating or we can choose to go forward and accept the responsibility, honouring the deadline.

Everything is energy. Deadlines are goals on an agreed time scale. They are expected outcomes for your energy. Deadlines do not suddenly arise out of nowhere totally taking you by surprise. They were arranged before hand, discussed and agreed. They are essential for production.

What if there were no deadlines? How would things get done? How could we collaborate with one another?
Deadlines provide focus and a completion time. Without them we are less productive.

Who hasn't wanted something done and just assumed that the person doing it will finish it sooner rather than later? I can think of one now that lies in the back of someone's mind on their 'to do' list. Without a deadline 10 months on what I thought I would be wearing is still an idea, an idea that is now creating guilt as the pressure to 'get around to it' builds in her head.

We all have lots to do. Lots of expectations and lots of demands. As is the nature of the beast the squeaky wheel gets the grease. A deadline provides that squeak. The others lie collecting dust in the back of our minds, ignored or placated. We are haunted by what needs to be finished or should be done.

Sound familiar?
Giving a deadline to yourself or to another is like giving a gift. Everything is energy and a deadline is a time in the future where that energy will crystallise into a concrete form. No longer an idea, demand or need, at that agreed time it becomes solid. It is out of your head, off the back shelf into reality. Once reaching that deadline you feel great. Something finished is a truly satisfying feeling.

So, if it is such a positive concept, this deadline business, why do we push away from it, begrudge it, causing ourselves all kinds of discomfort?

Two things come to mind - self discipline and fear.

Your ability to be self-disciplined is in direct alignment with your attitude to authority. Whether we are working for someone or are self-employed in order to complete we need to focus our energy, direct it and follow through. If we don't take our deadlines seriously perhaps there is a need to check our attitude towards authority. If we believe we don't have to do it or it doesn't matter, it becomes easy to excuse away. If we don't respect authority in others we also lack that respect for ourselves. We let ourselves down. We miss deadlines or don't finish what we start.

Fear delays action as well as attitude. If you find yourself pulling away from deadlines or feeling tortured by them ask yourself what is it about the possible outcome that you are afraid of. Perhaps the responsibility of the task in hand, getting it right or just as easily it could be the fear of its success and what will follow. Acknowledge the fear and already your resistance has lessened.

So, a deadline is a point in the future where a project or a phase of that project reaches completion. That is how things get done. If we didn't have that focus point our energy would have no where to hang it's hat on and just keep zooming off into that 'one day' zone. One day I will do this or one day I will finish that. A deadline provides you with the focus point, it holds your energy so it can manifest.

Energy needs to move. When we refuse or withhold our energy we create an excess of energy in our minds, in our bodies and it fights to get out. This make us uncomfortable, creating stress and discontentment. When we bite the bullet and shove through that dread or resistance, our energy starts to move. The river floods allowing the following movement to be so much easier.

Deadlines are a gift to help us focus and exercise our self discipline. Once completed we have that blessed 'feel good' moment. Done. Out of my mind and on to the next thing. The added bonus is each time you meet a deadline, you complete. Like a muscle it strengthens and you with it. You become more aware of your capability.

So, if you are resisting what you know has to be done or have ideas you want to happen but don't get around to it, reassess your attitude. Befriend your deadline. Accept the gift and start moving forward.

As for myself, I feel great. I have just met my deadline and the river is flowing again. Makes me wonder why we create so much pain for ourselves when we are capable of creating so much more.

© 2002-2003 Cindy Hurn All rights reserved