Wholeness

As I came close to the mid-point of my collection of the A-Z of Just Being, some niggling thoughts and doubts began to surface and trouble me. Was I being too arrogantly ambitious in wanting to attain all these attributes? Authentic. Brave. Curious… Was it even possible? Was I being delusional or even superficial? What does it say about me when I want to become so much more? Am I so imperfect?

These questions got me thinking deeply and my honest reflections brought me back to a place where I had originally started from but had kind of forgotten… that I AM already Whole and it is still quite natural to strive for betterment. Not perfection, which I think is over-rated. Just being a wee bit better today than yesterday. Thus, as a reminder to myself, as I move towards the second half of my musings, W is for Wholeness.

Part of being Whole involves accepting and embracing your shadow self which I have written about in previous blogs. No one is perfect and each life has its own struggles and trauma, big or small. And it is essential for our emotional wellbeing that we come to terms with our so-called flaws, old programmes, faulty beliefs and imperfection and those parts of us that have been wounded, hurt and shamed. It means releasing the shock or the trauma stored in our body. When you stop self-condemnation and/or get out of a victim mentality, you heal those parts of yourself and bring them together in love, acceptance and grace. Then you can master your emotions and not be reactive. Your spirit becomes whole, no longer splintered. It does not mean you will be happy 24/7. It is about accepting the reality of all your human emotions…the mad, the sad, the hard and the glad and remembering who you truly are under those emotions.

Deep down, I know I am Whole, just as everyone else is Whole.

“As you explore, you will find you already have wholeness inside; you just have to find the key and open the door”. Linda Caroll

That had been another raw, soul-searching dive for me. It meant going deep within to see what was going on there.

“We’ve got to descend to ascend”.

And I have to keep returning to that sense of wholeness from time to time and stay in touch with it. It is a continuous process.

My personal conviction is that being in Oneness with the Divine is what makes me feel whole. Wholeness and Oneness are interchangeable. It is only our spiritual self that remains whole, unbroken by the winds and waves that knock about our bodies, our minds and our emotions.

So I would like to remind myself plus emphasize that it is from a position of wholeness rather than a lack or deficiency that I endeavour to be the best version of myself and strive to take steps, albeit miniscule, towards the qualities I admire.

A Tapper

You may well ask: What is a tapper? No, I don’t mean someone who tap dances (I wish!). I am referring to tapping, a self-management, stress-reduction tool which I learnt about some fifteen years ago when I was going through a bad patch in my personal life and I had found it quietened my mental chatter most effectively, slowed my breathing and pounding heart, and sometimes gave me answers to my issues. Since then I have used tapping at various phases of my life but it is only recently that I have taken my “personal peace procedure” seriously and committed to tapping everyday. Thus T for I am a Tapper in the same vein as Y for I am a Yogi.

Both involve daily practice which I find challenging. Like yoga, I have done tapping on myself on and off over the years. It helped me immensely again when I underwent surgery and radiotherapy. I used to do it religiously soon after I was diagnosed right up to the time I was discharged from care. It helped by making me feel calm and centred, allaying my fears, and even relieving some pain. I keep going back to it when I am undergoing stress which is what it is meant for but if done everyday when stressors may not be that traumatic, it has a cumulative effect like any exercise. It allows us to release emotional blockages in the body. Clearing blocks regularly and removing the emotional detritus that has accumulated over your lifetime is a daily technique called the Personal Peace Procedure, I guess because it allows one to make peace with what is, let go and move on. It is this daily, dedicated practice then which becomes part of one’s identity as a tapper.

Tapping (or psychological acupuncture) is the common name for Emotional Freedom Technique, EFT for short. It is so called because it involves tapping on several meridian points on the upper body, mainly the face. What it does is it calms the amygdala, which is the brain’s flight or fight response. When the amygdala senses danger it triggers the release of stress hormones like adrenaline and cortisol which, in turn, prepares your body to flee or fight. While the amygdala is intended to protect us from danger, it can interfere with our functioning in the modern world where threats are more subtle in nature. By simply tapping and thus calming the amygdala, anxiety can be reduced and that allows for clearer thinking. Check out the demo in the video below.

Tapping can look strange and weird. Some years ago it would have been considered as woo-woo. Perhaps many people are still skeptical. But in the last decade, it has come into its own with over a hundred scientific papers which are evidence-based. In one research, it was shown that cortisol was reduced by as much as 43% with one hour of tapping, (although it can be effective when done for as little as 3-5minutes for straight-forward stress relief).

In fact, tapping does so much more. It can be used to relieve pain, boost your mood, clear trauma, overcome phobias and addictions to name just a few. It is said to rewire the brain’s response to stress and change any negative conditioning that has developed in childhood.

Personally for me though, I finally decided to get certified as a practitioner because I wanted firstly to support cancer patients in their journey as I had experienced the benefits myself. But my greater passion is to take in into schools. I am of the firm belief that it is a simple, gentle and effective tool that each child should be equipped with from a young age so that they do not have to carry a lot of emotional baggage into adulthood.

Simultaneously though, I have to continue tapping on myself everyday.

A Yogi

I AM a Yogi. The words popped up in my head, one day last week, and then repeatedly rang in my ears like a earworm, a melody that you cannot get out of your head. I don’t now whether to call it intuition or synchronicity. I had been having a mental block with my A-Z letter this time and here it came to me, quite out of the blue: Y for Yogi. It was almost like an inner calling.

Let me go back in time and try to explain maybe how it might have come about.

Last year, I had participated in a healthy lifestyle programme. (My blog on Health addresses some of my concerns.) The diet part of it was challenging but I had risen up to it successfully. It was the exercise element that had been insurmountable for me. By the end of the year, we were supposed to have chosen one activity in particular, on which to focus on and master. It could be athletics, walking, cycling or yoga. But the main point behind it was for you to take on that identity of a walker, athlete, cyclist or yogi. I definitely didn’t see myself as a walker, athlete or a cyclist as I felt my knees and my joints didn’t support me. Every time I exercised or just walked,I felt discouraged as I would put something out of joint. It had been like that for a while. Sometimes even whilst doing yoga. So even though yoga was the most likely fit for me, at that time, I couldn’t even imagine being a yogi. The test had been to do 108 Suryanamaskars (the Sun Salutation sequence) in a day…and I was still doing them on a chair. Thus my disillusionment.

My relationship with yoga has been a long and rocky one. I must have taken it up some eons ago most probably because I was always into alternative options and at that time yoga had still not really come into its own. Yoga’s benefits are well-known now and I found it gentle and relaxing. However, my Achilles’ heel being inconsistency for a long time (something which I am now working on), I did it for a while and then there would be long lapses. I would go back to it when I had issues and then once better, my yoga mat would fall by the wayside again. Sometimes, I feel if I had practised it religiously all those years not only would I have been a yogi by now but I might not have so many health issues!

But regrets are futile. By nature, I am Young-at-heart and I do believe it is never too late and there is only today, the here and now.

“It’s never too late to be what you might have been.” George Eliot

There are so many people out there doing great things in their eighties and even nineties. They are an inspiration for me and give me hope that I can still become a full-fledged Yogi.

I Did It

 

I had ended my last blog post on Fear with Nike’s slogan ” Just do it”. And last week I got the chance to put my own advice into action. I needed to get out of my comfort zone to conquer this one fear…so I just did it! 

For most of my life, I have not been an outdoor person, preferring an armchair and a book any day. My sister, on the other hand, was very sporty and sometimes I envied her daring, adventurous spirit which saw her through many adrenalin-rush activities like paragliding and skydiving which I was never brave enough to try. Strangely though, in recent years, nature seems to beckon me and there has been a yearning to have a go at one water sport in particular…snorkelling.

Unfortunately, my first attempt at it had proved disastrous and that had raised the fear factor, partly of the activity itself but also of failing again.

Yet I was determined to try again and I got my second chance last week.This time I was wiser and went in better prepared.

The first thing I did was some research into the gear required…a full face mask or the traditional goggles and tube. Being claustrophobic, both didn’t seem ideal to me but according to some videos I saw, the latter won on most counts. So one decision made at least.

Next, I continued to watch more videos on how to snorkel, tips for beginners. This assuaged my fear of not being able to breathe, of water getting into my goggles as well as my mouth….all of which had a happened in my last attempt.

Moving from theory to practice, this time I actually invested in a short lesson even though it all sounded pretty simple. I wanted desperately to get it right and the step- by- step instructions really made it easier.

After that, I pushed to the back of my mind, any thoughts of being stung by a jellyfish, or coming across a shark, of not being able to jump off the boat or climb again as I had joint issues, of losing sight of others and being abandoned…I simply jumped, took a breath, put my head in and went with the flow.

Quotes

I thought for this blog I would recap on some quotes I have used in previous blogs. Do leave a comment which is your favourite and why.

“No man ever steps in the same river twice, for it’s not the same river and he’s not the same man.” Heraclitus

“A merry thought is medicine, ill thoughts dry the bones”. The Bible

“Wrong happens. You have to make the right happen.” Gopal Gaur Das

“Silence is the sleep that nourishes wisdom.” Francis Bacon

“The paradox of personal growth is that it begins with self-acceptance.”  Carl Rogers

“If we still ourselves we can mirror the Divine perfectly”  Sarah Blondin

“Think the thought until you believe it. Once you believe it, it is.”  Abraham Hicks

“The unexamined life is not worth living”  Socrates (5th C BC)

“The way to use life is to do nothing through acting. The way to use life is to do everything through being.”  Lao Tzu (6th C BC)

I am Health

My choice of word for the letter H might come across as unusual as my other words so far like Authenticity, Curiosity, Detachment, Forgiveness… have been more personality qualities or traits. I might have gone with Harmony or Hope, both of which are also important for me. But at this point in my life, Health stands out like a sore thumb.

So why Health?

As far back as I can remember, I was a robust child and young adult. My mother would always say with pride to her friends how I was no trouble at all, to the extent that she never had to take me to the doctor’s. Apart from a tonsillitis operation, I breezed through my youth without any health scare or major complaints. I understand today that my mother’s repeated declarations were actually an expression of gratitude.

Youngsters, full of energy and vitality, feel invincible and sometimes overlook the fact that one has to take care of one’s health as it is not guaranteed to last. Though, try telling them that and it will fall on deaf ears.

I only woke up to that realisation myself in the last twenty years when my health issues surfaced and I think on the whole, I have faced my challenges full on and remained strong in spirit, in spite of them. I am also fully aware and grateful that my physical difficulties, though stressful, have never been as debilitating or crippling as for some others.

But I sometimes wonder where that robust young girl disappeared, and on reflection even though I thought I had been very resilient in later years, a certain negative thought pattern had crept in slowly and insidiously. The ‘poor me’ mentality. Why is one thing after another happening to me?

I think I work hard to stay on top of my health issues, having kind of taken the reins in my own hands. Chronic pain does not seem to be a priority for general medicine practitioners and sometimes the sufferers are left to their own devices. There are many modalities out there which help with healing and I have heard and read about many miraculous self-healing stories. So why cannot I do it?

Lately I have been feeling stuck and not having much success, in spite of knowing that I have to address my negative thought patterns which create depressing feelings because “Your body hears everything your mind says.” Naomi Judd. So “To change your body, you must first change your mind.”

Healing with the mind has been around for thousand of years. It is written in the Bible:

“A merry thought is medicine, ill thoughts dry the bones”.

Making this shift from ill thinking (Oh dear! What now?) to my new mantra I am Health, is what I have been focusing on for a while but with not very significant results. Then as synchronicity would have it, just yesterday I listened to an interview with Brandy Gillmore PhD, an expert in mind-body healing which not only reminded me of the science behind the mind-body connection but also reinforced the need to create a radical shift in my feelings and reprogramming my mind at a deeper, subconscious level.

Our thoughts do really create our lives more than we realize and thoughts create feelings. I am aware that I have a tendency to bury my emotions. So it’s been a while that I have been working on identifying specific emotions, like anger, hurt, rejection, resentment… and either tapping on them or meditating with supportive soundtracks to let them go. The complexity arises when there are more than one emotion and one has to work harder.

Gillmore also emphasised the greater importance of accessing positive emotions like feeling loved and being connected which she demonstrated with a visualization exercise that helps you feel lifted. I am familiar with such practices and her pointing out that it is even more important to raise our energy’s vibrational frequency is a reminder for me to do it more often. She also suggested to use music to help you feel good which I also find helpful. As Gopal Gaur Das says:

“Wrong happens. You have to make the right happen.”

What’s more, I was reminded that you have to reinforce the new programme over and over again till it becomes the new norm. Thus my journey in self-healing continues and it just struck me that this path is linked very closely to my endeavours in being more Authentic, Curious, Detached, Grateful, Forgiving, Joyful… because I believe all those attributes can promote wellbeing and Health.

An appeal

I am going a bit off the beaten track this time. But I hope you will indulge me and follow.

One of my earliest blogs (Him and Her) was about feeling invisible in later years and the importance of still valuing oneself. It was perhaps easy for me to suggest that even though I am fully aware of the difficulty of implementing it and feeling that worth as so often our self-esteem is dependent on others and can thus be so easily eroded.

Lately I have been thinking a lot about this as I have been in close contact with elderly people who not only feel helpless and worthless but also very lonely even though they have family because no one seems to have time for them.

The common thread that comes up in talking to them is the dire need for human contact, I would imagine both emotionally and physically. Researchers have found that loneliness is just as lethal as smoking 15 cigarettes per day. Lonely people are 50% more likely to die prematurely than those with healthy social relationships.

Recently, I was standing in a queue at a supermarket and the lady behind me, who only had a couple of items, was asked if she would like to go the self-service line as it would be quicker. She declined and turned round to explain to me that she came everyday just to buy one or two things so that she could talk to someone and we struck up a short conversation till it was my turn.

So I decided to make an appeal in my blog this time (even though it might be a bit presumptuous of me) and reach out to my dear readers to request them to phone an elderly relative, neighbour or friend, that they know or maybe even make time and visit.  

Wisdom

I have been off the radar for a bit for which I apologise but even though I have been unable to write, I have been following your comments, dear readers.

One of my friend-followers had commented in my I AM… blogs that she resonates with Bruce Lee’s advice “Be like water”, so she went with “I AM Water”. I found that really interesting, first because of the idea itself, to flow like water, but also because she had used a noun, representing a thing (water, in this case), instead of an abstract noun (Curiosity) that can be interchanged with an adjective (curious), like I have been doing.

So for her, W would definitely be I AM Water. What about you?

As for me, I have gone with Wisdom to keep to my pattern. I AM wisdom. I AM wise. Why, you might ask?

I could say that as I enter another milestone decade this year, wisdom automatically comes with age. Or does it? For I was surprised to learn that according to research, overall old age does not seem to be necessary or sufficient for wisdom—what matters more may be the motivation to pursue its development. (I might also add that I know of several millennials who are wise beyond their age).

Thus one of my reasons to choose W for Wisdom—I am “motivated to pursue its development”.

I do think my life experiences have taught me a lot, the pivotal word being ‘taught’ because “wisdom is acquired only by learning from experience”. Wisdom largely emerges from reflection on past experiences. But I am still repeating some mistakes which by now I should have learnt not to, especially in certain areas of my life, and so ‘learning from experience’, and then applying the wisdom is an on-going lesson for me.

I also feel that I have picked up a lot of universal truths through reading and listening to motivational talks. But once again, knowledge is not sufficient for wisdom. I think one needs to experience the truth for oneself and only then can one own it as a personal ‘knowing’. For example, it is a universal truth that the only person one can change is oneself. Some may accept this blindly but others fall into the trap of trying to change others. It is only after you have tried changing others and hit against walls countless times, will you then maybe be more open to and accepting of this ‘truth’, this wisdom. I have a long way to go in taking on board and practising what I read.

Another reason the quality of Wisdom resonates with me is because I understand that wisdom is inherent in us. And the reason I believe it is because I have experienced it for myself. I used to be a very self-reliant youngster, not needing to share my personal dramas with people. But the king of all dramas changed me and I started needing to talk to friends and ask for their advice. Not that that was a problem because when I opened up I became closer to a few friends. But I still did not feel very comfortable. Then many years down the road, when I took up meditation and ‘learnt’ that the answer is within if you only sit in silence and listen, and when I put that into practice and experienced the results for myself did I then truly understand what that meant:

“Silence is the sleep that nourishes wisdom.” Francis Bacon

So now I need to keep reminding myself to quieten my mind and go within to find my answers.

In some ways it is like going with your gut. I’m sure you can relate to the experience of having butterflies in your stomach, or to a gut-wrenching feeling. How often are we told not to ignore our “gut-instinct” or “gut-feeling” when making a decision. Yet so often when we are not open and do not listen, we ignore our intuition. Today, research shows how closely our gut and brain are connected, so closely that the gut is now called our second brain.

The key is to listen.

“Wisdom is understood by your heart and you learn by listening to it.”

Busting Beliefs (Re-Cap)

In the preamble to the A-Z of Just Being, I first introduced the importance and relevance of Just Being, then covered the Bane of Being Busy which illustrated how busyness affects our lives and does not allow us to pause and actually be. Next, the Bliss in our Breath highlighted some ways to use our breath to help us sit in silence, quieten the mind to go within where we can access our true being. Before we finally get into the A-Z itself, I would like to shine a torch on our limiting beliefs because we first have to be aware of them and then get past them to be able to move forward.

Till the age of six to seven, children are sponges. They learn and absorb the attitudes and behaviours from the people closest to them. And the startling truth is that they become so programmed by those beliefs and habits that in their adult lives they run on auto-pilot, living by the conditioning of the sub-conscious mind for more than 90% of the time, downloading copies of other people’s behaviours. 70% of these programmes are disempowering and self-sabotaging and very often they are not even aware that they are doing that.

Furthermore, even if they want to consciously change their habit or behaviour, it is not that simple because the sub–conscious programming always has the upper hand. Thus, the importance of connecting with our sub-conscious through meditation and other practices, which also help us in becoming aware of our habitual patterns that stem from acquired beliefs before we can work on changing the belief itself.

Beliefs are a form of hypnosis and they are not necessarily true. Perhaps the mother of all limiting beliefs is “I am not good enough”. This belief comes in different guises: I am not smart enough, not young enough, not rich enough etc. And people’s habits, views and behaviours are conditioned by these beliefs. So to change the outer we have to get to the inner.

We are so much more than our limited mind and our object is to change our view of the world and ourselves. We see life through the filter of our beliefs, get stuck in freeze mode and even look for evidence that our beliefs are true. The irony is that we experience what we believe. What is reality? Is what I think true? Question your existing thought patterns: Are my beliefs true for me today? Are they serving me in the right way? ((Because beliefs always serve in some way, say for protection, which you may no longer need.)

A very simplistic example: I grew up believing I was hopeless at maths. So for most of my life my mind would go blank at the mention of numbers. But thinking about it, I realise that nothing extra was done at that point in time to address my poor performance. So now I keep my mind open and give it a go at least. And going back to “I am not good enough”, that goes totally against the grain of our true essence. We are all whole beings, loved unconditionally by a Supreme Being. We are totally worthy and do not need anyone to validate us. Just that over time, acquiring various labels and roles, being shrouded by limiting beliefs we have shrunk, hidden and ignored our inherent magnificent identity.

So healing and growth start with self-love and acceptance. Growth means becoming more of who we are; not trying to change per se but growing. In order to be whole we must accept all of ourselves, warts and all The first relationship then, is really with yourself.

“The paradox of personal growth is that it begins with self-acceptance.” Carl Rogers

Three exercises/tools I have found to be useful are:

1/ The first exercise is in two parts.

a/ Become a witness to your thoughts, feelings, emotions and perceptions. Learn how to witness your inner world. Make a list of your beliefs around yourself, relationships, health, work, money. Examine them one by one, honestly asking why you hold the beliefs that you do and how relevant or true they are today. See if you can make a shift. Do you think you have to work hard to make a living? Why is there evidence now that when you are in flow, work can be easy and abundance follows?

b/ Reframe that negative belief into something that feels true to you. Change “I am not good enough” to “I am Ok” Even if you cannot go as far as “I am more than enough”. But take a leap of faith. The ideal would be to be independent of this conditioning so that you can go and experience a deeper part of yourself which is a field of pure potential. The key word here is “to experience”. If you go within on a consistent basis you will discover experientially that you are whole and more than enough.

2/ Make an appreciation list of who you are now. I found this difficult to start with but slowly the more I dwelled on it the more positive qualities I came up with and it transported me to a better place. You can even ask close family and friends to tell you what your strong points are. Why wait for a eulogy which you will never hear, I say? (And as an aside, keep pointing out what you appreciate about the same people closest to you because what you give out comes back to you.)

“As you think thoughts that feel good to you, you will be in harmony with who you really are.” Abraham Hicks

3/ The third is actually a tool I discovered some 15 years ago and recently I have become a student practitioner of EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique) or tapping. I find tapping very soothing because it reduces stress and anxiety levels very quickly and as it involves tapping on several meridian points, it shifts blocked energy more easily than talking or thinking things through. You can actually tap on your limiting beliefs to try and shift them and you can also tap on enhancing self-love and self-acceptance. Many You Tube videos are out there for you to give it a try. (For deeper issues working with a qualified practitioner is always advisable)

Connecting with your true self and having a loving relationship with yourself is an on-going process. It takes time, patience and commitment. “When you work on your inner sense of worthiness and value, your energy levels go up. your insights, creativity and your belief in yourself all increase” David Hamilton PhD. That is perhaps when we can take our personal growth to the next level. Enter A-Z.

Just Being (Re-Cap)

In this blog, I thought I would re-cap one of my previous blog posts which was an introduction to the idea of Just Being.

In my very first blog (Why Blogging? Why now?), I mentioned wanting to write a mini-series on the A-Z of Just Being. What better time to start than the New Year, when many are making resolutions? About one third of Britons make New Year resolutions, generally health-based, but the NHS reckons that only one in ten will be successful.

My reservation with resolutions is that usually they are about doing things…, diet or eating healthier losing weight, exercising, saving. These were the top 5 in one survey for 2021. Wanting to be physically healthy is definitely a goal worth pursuing but it overlooks a critical component of our being: our mind and spirit. Though this year during the pandemic there has been a surge in the use of meditation apps which suggests that many are also going inwards.

In fact the Covid crisis which has imprisoned us for well nigh a year now, must have made a lot of people take stock. Ways of doing things have changed. Productivity, which is a result of doing, has decreased in many sectors but surely people have become more creative in their search for answers. And many people have risen to the challenge in also being different…more compassionate, generous, tolerant. Though we cannot ignore the negative side of ‘being’ also prevalent with the increase in domestic violence due to the current situation.

The point is we are human beings. The ‘human’ part encompasses our physical body and revolves around doing, getting and having. In the race for better and best, one forgets ‘just being’. It is important to understand that stress is not natural. Our inherent nature is of peace. Even the frenzy around gyming and exercising is sometimes more about ‘having’ a beautiful body, and not so much about being healthy. And beautiful in whose eyes? Very often an externally imposed ideal glamourized by the media and advertising. We are so busy doing. Are we actually living life to the full?

To live fully, mind, body and soul have to be nurtured together and in my view, if the soul or spirit or consciousness (whichever term you are comfortable with) is prioritised, the rest is taken care of more easily because that is where real transformation happens. The world is a reflection of our own consciousness. Spiritual and mental health goals will impact health, relationships, finances/career. So if you want to be happy, you have to access that happiness in yourself, rather than look for it outside. That is another reason why ‘just being’ is so important. All everyone wants at the end of the day is to feel good, to feel happy, to feel at peace. The problem is that we look for all these feelings outside of ourselves, in achievements, in possession, in relationships with others and these are not only temporary but also once we reach our goal we jump on to the next. The point of life is not to get anywhere. It is to enjoy the journey and to create who and what we are and experience that doing is being. It’s the person you become in pursuit of your goals that really matters.

“The way to use life is to do nothing through acting. The way to use life is to do everything through being.” Lao Tzu (6th C BC)

We identify with our roles and we put on so many masks that we have forgotten who we really are. Another reason to ‘just be’. It is not about learning but about remembering your innate nature of love, peace, joy, wisdom, truth. As the Course in Miracles puts it: “You need to hear the truth about yourself as frequently as possible because your mind is so preoccupied with false images.”

It is also not about thinking that something is wrong with you, that you need to fix yourself. Self-actualization does not involve perfection, or holding yourself to impossible standards or things always going smoothly. It is a process; not an end game. You grow and evolve as you go through life and try to be “the best version of yourself.”

So two questions come to mind: 1/ Who are you inherently? and 2/ Who do you want to be?

Your vision becomes clear when you look inside your heart.. The power’s on the inside. The heart of the “being” is meant to be silent. If you take the time to sit quietly with yourself (and that is where meditation, prayers and other mindfulness practices come into play), you will re-discover the gems of love, peace, joy, truth which are your birth-right. At our core, we are like new-born babies with all these innate qualities but we have forgotten that with our doing mentality and our attachment to our roles. Be more. Do less. Listen to your inner wisdom to live a life of truth. Infuse your doing with the scent of your true self. Losing awareness of this consciousness, makes your behaviour reactive. Whereas if you operate from that higher consciousness, your energies are elevated and that is reflected in your response to life. Soul-consciousness reinforces the dignity of the human being. Moreover, “In quietness are all things answered.” Allow yourself to gain many in-sights between the spaces of your thoughts.

Thus the first relationship is always with yourself. Only when you value yourself and are free from insecurities, not ‘wanting’ anything from the other because you are whole on your own, can any other relationship be strong. It does not happen overnight. It takes work and commitment. But “no amount of self-improvement can make up for any lack of self-acceptance.” Robert Holden PhD

The first journey, therefore, is inwards to recognise the truth about yourself.

What can be added is the second question: Who do you want to be? In recent years, universities and employers are asking candidates this question about themselves. They also put greater emphasis on EQ (Emotional Quotient) rather than IQ, intelligence. Emotional intelligence is the ability to understand, use and manage your own emotions in positive ways so that you can respond better in relationships and challenges. Personality profiling is also being done for employees to help them see their strengths as well as areas for improvement.

My point then is “just being” is relevant to both youngsters and more mature people as well. Young people, busy in making a living, climbing up the ladder, maybe raising a family can be heard to say they have no time for sitting around and going within. They will take up spirituality when they retire…maybe! Yet more and more people are experiencing burnout and when they hit rock bottom there is nowhere else to go. So instead of taking on stressors and working on autopilot, stop, because:

“The unexamined life is not worth living” Socrates (5th C BC)

Join me on my journey as I explore some positive attributes from A-Z that I admire and want to emulate. I too am a work in progress; my art is by no means complete. For as long as I AM, I know I am peace and love but still have to stay with that inner power on a daily basis. It takes practice and more practice. I falter and fall and pick myself up again. And I also want to think about what I AM means to me and how I can aspire to be a better version of myself. Maybe more Courageous? Maybe Playful? It may not be the same for everyone. But we can have a think about it together and have some fun at the same time.