Crossroads

Hi there!
This week I am releasing the sound recording and transcript for my post - just in case you prefer one format over the other. ^_^

Welcome back, to this treasure cave of Stress Relief and Relaxation gems. I am Annalise, your host and I’m so glad to have you back here again!

If you are new to this blog, I am a scientist come reflexologist, sharing the joyful and thought provoking path of stress relief and rebalance I am travelling. My hope is that by sharing the gems of knowledge that have helped me so greatly transform my life, perhaps some may resonate and work for you too?

This week I would like to talk about an epiphany I had last week.  It’s an important one, and as I came to understand it, I was filled with joy and a pure sense of freedom.

Every day we make decisions. Lots of decisions. But how often do we give ourselves credit for the fact that we have a choice in each matter?

Building over last weekend, and coming to a climax on Monday last week, I came to a philosophical crossroad. Of late I have been enjoying freedom in my time, while becoming more efficient, more creative, and more joyful by each passing day. It’s felt like a win-win situation on all fronts.

But then suddenly I had someone say something that felt like that old box lid of social and professional pressure slammed back down on me again. My first instinct was to feel like a rebellious child – my inner child was not pleased with this apparent turn of events.

After a while though, the answer dawned upon me. Come what may, I have a choice in every single thing that I do.

·         I choose to go to bed at the time my body wants sleep.

·         I choose what I eat.

·         I choose to go to work each day.

o   Yes – this is a choice too. We choose to do that because most often earning money feels better than not earning money (unless of course you don’t need money, then you have a whole different set of choices available to you as well!) J

It’s really important we remember that we have choice in all matters. Our first and foremost duty is to our own happiness. Once again this comes back to my First Aid principle. If you are able to care for your own happiness, then you will be in a far better place to give and share happiness with others.

I heard a fabulous quote this week, by Abraham (through Esther Hicks) –

“Find a way to make it satisfying, or don’t do it”.

The quickest way to find satisfaction in something is to remember that you have a choice.

From that choice you’ve made, you can then look for the parts that you enjoy doing. Or the feelings that come when you accomplish something. Or the amazing benefits that come to you from the situation. Or the incredible things you see thanks to that situation.

It all carries though, back to one of our leading causes of stress – perception. And that also happens to be our core choice. Do we spend our time looking for the positive aspects? Or do we spend our time looking for the less positive aspects?

Our thoughts colour our lives. Let’s say our daily choice is this:

·         Look for the positive, colourful aspects of life

·         Look for the negative, monochrome aspects of life

Yes, life can still be exquisitely beautiful in monochrome, and there’s just as much to learn from that monochrome perspective. But I would always personally choose the world full of colour and vibrancy; the perspective from where you can see the love and the lesson, not just the hurt and confusion.

My gem for you this week is rather simple, I just wanted to remind you – you are free!

If during the passing of any moment you find yourself feeling frustrated or dissatisfied, take a philosophical step back and look at the situation from a different angle. Look for the choices that have already been made, and those still available to you. I don’t recommend making knee-jerk reactions once you see the choices available, this first step is just the passive appreciation that you have options.

I’ll conclude with this:

Even if you feel like it is your duty to do this dissatisfying thing on behalf of another, that’s not actually what is going on. You are not trapped as you may have originally perceived. Just remember that you do this so that you may feel good in yourself for accomplishing the task. There are many ways to feed and shelter yourself and your family, but of the choices you have seen so far, is this not the path that felt best to you?

J The posts lately have been quite philosophical and deep haven’t they? I am delighting in my journey and study of this side of life and I am thoroughly enjoying sharing this. If however, you have any topics about stress relief and relaxation techniques you’d like me to discuss, please let me know either in the comments section below, Facebook, or a direct email. I welcome and encourage your questions as they allow me to grow in a new direction with your wealth of experience too J

And with that, until we meet again next week, in love and light – be peaceful

Annalise

p.s. As an additional treat, I wanted to tack on a song that makes me giggle every time I hear it. You can find at towards to end of my recorded post in the YouTube link above.

The Peace in Sound

This week I've had a great time bursting out of my usual mold. Please have a listen to my post as I have recorded it in sound this week.

I didn't actually speak about the backing track to my spoken blog this week in the audio. Anyone who follows me on Facebook may have noticed I have posted a couple of articles about the healing power of music as prelude to this week's topic.

One of those Facebook posts was about the healing power in classical music - Beethoven being the specific example in that study. The article is worth a read if you are interested. Lots of studies have been completed over time discussing the healing and growing power of music - often classical.

So, to add an extra dimension of healing to my recording this week - the backing track is Beethoven: Symphony No. 9 in D Minor, Op. 125 "Choral": III. Adagio Molto e Cantabile.
(one heck of a song title!)

Also note this whole, beautiful piece actually runs for about 15 minutes. I have not included the whole song as backing to this week's post, but I recommend looking up the song and listening to the whole thing if you like the sound.


Also, just in case you are interested in hearing a small part of my morning ritual of welcoming each beautiful new day, here is a short recording I have had fun making of one of my morning songs!

In love and light, be peaceful

Annalise

Words - their Power and Energy

Hello my dear friends, how are you going this week?

Last week I spoke about the power of self talk, and how strongly our own critical or deprecating thoughts can affect us. I want to follow that post up with a little bit more on the power of words - from a slightly different perspective.

Once again, lets remember that we are energetic beings.
Living in an energetic universe.
And our bodies are mostly composed of water!


But where am I leading by stating these points again?

I'm sure by now you will have realised that some words feel better to say or hear than others.

Don't be misled that commonly used words are all good and happy. Lots of words used heavily in everyday conversation are actually rather unpleasant.
If you pause to sense how you feel as some words pour out your mouth, you may realise you are slightly uncomfortable. Or a thought flickers through your mind that 'you may possibly regret saying that...?' Or 'yes, that was harsh, but surely they'll take it the way you mean it and not take offense?'


A brilliant man called Masaru Emoto conducted some truly beautiful studies on how different words affect water ice crystals. His initial purpose was a science experiment to photograph the ice crystals formed from various water sources.

What he and his team really discovered though, was not only a beautiful new form of art, but also an interesting theory on the world.

 "Combination of non-resonating vibration can result in destructive energy, and nothing can be created out of it. When some vibration and the other resonate each other, it always creates beautiful design. Thus, most of the Earth is covered with beautiful nature."

http://www.masaru-emoto.net/english/water-crystal.html

The concept works around the vibration of a word. Positive words have beautiful vibrations, thus the ice crystals that form are beautiful and symmetrical.
Nasty, or words linked with unhappiness have a somewhat chaotic vibration, which mashes up any potential ice crystal that may form.

OK, now - let's look at some examples of how water responds to different words:

Truth

Love and Gratitude

Thank You

Each crystal is unique and beautiful. I personally feel a lovely sense of peace and joy when looking at these crystals.


To show you what less pleasant words will do to water crystals, glance at these briefly:

You fool

You Disgust Me

Blerrrgh.....
Now, lets stop looking at those last icky examples but take a lesson from them.


Can you see the Gem for this week yet?

Speaking words of beauty from a place of love are going to make all the water molecules in your body happy. Not to mention, most likely all the other molecules in your body too. Saying nasty things will throw your energy into chaos. So - your homework this week. Be a little more mindful of what you say, to yourself, AND to others.

Observe your patterns of speech. Saying horrible things out of habit don't actually make them any more pleasant than saying them to be deliberately unpleasant.


But again, if you find your speech patterns could be improved slightly, please don't berate yourself! Be kind! You are beautiful, regardless of how you word each day. Simply approach it like this - if you notice there is room for improvement think "Fantastic! I can see a wonderful way to make this moment even more delightful. How could I have reworded that sentence to come from the place of love, from where I meant it to come?"

Make it a game, where not only you, but those you communicate with will just feel better and better.
How awesome is that?!


I have one more topic I'd like to discuss in this mini-series I've been working on about the power of words. Next week will be the conclusion to it, and I'm preparing something a bit different for you to liven things up - so look forward to it!


And with that, I wish you a delightful and joyous week.


In love and light, be peaceful.

Annalise

Inner Dialogue - What Do You Say To You?

Greetings my beautiful friends, have you had a peaceful and delightful fortnight?

I am completely refreshed and energised after a beautiful weekend away, so let’s dive right back on in there!

How we speak to ourselves (in thought or out loud) has a lot to do with our baseline stress levels.

Do you often find you’re harshly berating yourself, saying or thinking things like “you fool”, “idiot”, “lazy”, “poorly timed”, “disorganised”, “messy”, etc.? We are our own harshest critics, and believe it or not, our own words are usually the ones that hurt us the most. Mostly because we are the most insistent and vicious in our critical words, and we can’t easily walk out of the room and leave our brain back there complaining – it’s with us all the time. J

From early on we learn to strive for affection, recognition, approval and ultimately validation. Awkwardly, the less desirable side effect has been that we have become rather cruel to ourselves in that pursuit. We also learn language patterns that automatically make ourselves or someone else wrong! Words like “should” or “can’t” take all our power away, and most often don’t feel all that good. It’s really interesting to start listening to how often words like these are used in a single day.

‘Narcissism’ and ‘Ego’ have become common words with socially negative connotations. And I agree, in their true definitions, the energy is not all that positive. However, due to a chain of confusion, misunderstandings and misguided expectations, positive  and beautiful things like ‘self love’ and ‘self respect’ have been mislabelled into negative things too. Being ‘selfish’ has somehow become frowned on because surely it is 'more important to take care of everyone else before you take care of yourself'?!

However, my simple question here is: how can you truly take care of another if you are not able or willing to properly care for yourself?

I look at self love from a different stand point than what is the current social expectation, but I like it and want to share it in case you like it too.

SELF CARE is equivalent to First Aid.

Let’s all think back to the last time we completed a First Aid training course. If you did one 20 years ago, you would have learnt the “DRABC”. 10 years ago you would have learnt the “DRABCD”. Within recent years you would now know it is “DRSABCD”.

Ah I love those acronyms, and how they’ve evolved during my studies…!

There are a few common letters that have carried through the whole 20 years but my focus is on the very first letter – D for Danger.

In First Aid terms, this is to remind us that – yes there’s a maimed person on the ground needing help. But what maimed them? Can it maim me too? 

If I get hurt, then I certainly will be less useful to that person, and worst case scenario I’ll just add myself to the list of people incapacitated and needing First Aid!

So! As a direct comparison, an emotionally maimed person will have a much harder time helping someone in need, than one who has been taking care of themselves. So be kind to yourself, and in return, you will be kinder to others!

In terms of a summary GEM for this week, I’d like to rely on a pioneer in the field of teaching people that it is OK to love themselves – Louise L Hay. Decades ago she developed the “Mirror work” technique, and this week your homework is one of her basic exercises. Below is a positive thing to say to yourself (affirmation), and I want you to look yourself in the eye with a mirror as you say it.

“[your name], I love and accept you, exactly as you are.”

When I first started genuinely doing mirror work, I ended up in tears far more often than I’d expected. And that was awesome! The fact that I would cry when I spoke kindly to myself meant that I was letting go of a lot of old rubbish that I had been hurting myself with. The trick is to do it regularly. Do it until you believe it, then do it some more J

BE KIND TO YOURSELF. If you find that you simply cannot bring yourself tosay the above affirmation, don’t be disheartened. It’s actually much more common than you might expect. If it’s too much, try something gentler, as a first step. Something like:

“I am willing to like you. I am willing to love you”

Giving yourself permission to be kind to yourself is an incredibly beautiful and empowering thing to do.

If this exercise resonates with you, I strongly recommend getting yourself a copy of Louise’s book “You Can Heal Your Life”. It’s a beautiful book that has reached and helped millions of people. There is also a film about this book and Louise if you’d rather watch something instead of reading.

And with that, I wish you a beautiful and joyful week.

In love and light, be peaceful.

Annalise