WEEKLY COACHING TIP #167                                                                                                                            

STRAWBERRIES…

So Hello and it’s nice to be in touch with you again after my 3 weeks in Sri Lanka. I have to say It’s a bit of a culture shock coming back to so much grey and cold weather and a lot of seemingly miserable faces.  Where I’ve just returned from EVERYONE smiles at you all the time, the friendliness rating is off the scale.  Then again they do live in lovely climate and where we were was stunningly beautiful.

After doing Panchakarma (Ayurvedic Detox) it’s amazing how well, calm and peaceful one feels. This has just re-inforced for me how easy it is to do anything when you are in this state.  Most of us spend a lot of our days in reactive mode, stressed or just so busy, it’s actually too hard to remember to step back and check in with our bodies to see how we feel and discover what our bodies are telling us, whether it’s about the kind of food that would nourish us right now or how to handle a problem.  The other thing that struck me when I was in Sri Lanka, watching and talking with some Tsunami victims, was how appreciative and accepting they are, and how little one needs in life to be happy.  You can actually simplify life to some degree and feel incredibly happy and grateful for everything you have.  It’s made us really decide to simplify our lives when we came home.

So today, I would like to talk about peace, that real inner peace, that some of us only glimpse at now and again.  One of  the main things people are doing in their lives is carrying ‘stuff’ around with them, usually stuff about people, old emotional baggage, unforgiveness and resentments, to a smaller or larger degree.  Think about when someone is even a bit curt with you at work, how that feels, do you get defensive, give ‘as good as you get’, go into yourself and feel that somehow it’s your fault, and/or mull it over on and off all day, about how unfair it was, etc.  All this is not helping us to have a peaceful mind and inner calm is it? 

I’m reminded of a Buddhist story:  A man comes up to Buddha and says “How can I become enlightened?”; Buddha says “Drop the flowers you are carrying in your left hand”, the man does so.  Then Buddha says: “Drop the flowers you are carrying in your right hand”, again the man let’s the flowers fall to the ground.  Buddha then says: “Now drop that which is neither to the left of you or the right, but in the middle” the man does so and apparently was instantly enlightened. 

Well I actually did this exercise (without flowers) and I have to say it’s really effective for ‘letting go’.  Unfortunately, I wasn’t instantly enlightened, but it did feel really good.  It’s not unlike the Sedona method

It’s my honest belief if we all had more peace inside of us our lives would be tremendously better and so would the world.  You cannot be peaceful inside and then be in reactive, defensive or attacking mode.

Here are a few pointers that may help to remind you throughout your day to notice and to retain that inner peace.

1        Meditate.  Even if it’s just 5 minutes a day, especially when you get out of bed.  Just focus on watching your breathing and with every out breath silently say the word ‘peace’, and with every in breath the word ‘calm’.  If you manage to get a certain amount of calmness or peace in your body, great, anchor it in and take it with you throughout the day and use it.  Don’t worry if you don’t, just keep doing it and you will eventually get the feeling.  Once you have it you really don’t want to let it go, I can tell you.

2        Begin with your values.   What's really important to you? What do you really care about as a person? Then ask yourself: “Am I living life consistent with those values?”  If not, you have to do some work around your values and meeting you needs so you can feel more peaceful and happy.

3        Dealing with problems.  Instead of trying to ‘put the lid’ on them, which won’t work, remember, that what you resist persists, face them head on, and you will instantly have relief because they are no longer ‘running you’.  You may not have the exact answer in how to deal with them right now, but taking one little step from a peaceful state will immediately make you feel better. It helps to mentally ‘stand back’ and view from a detached position.

4        Let go of things.  Remember the Buddha story above, well learn to let go of what you can’t change.  Accept them as you messengers or lesson.  If you don’t let go of anything that makes you even slightly uncomfortable, it’s like having rotten food in the consciousness, just lodging there and becoming rancid.  This will sap your energy, peace and vibrancy.  A really good thing to do is to thank God, the Universe, whatever, for the lesson, especially if it’s challenging.  Then ask for help, AND be open to receiving it, being aware of the subtle messages you get in return.  This will help heighten your intuition too.

5        Learn to forgive.  Starting with yourself, then anyone who may have harmed you in the past.  Actually send them peace.  If you need help on this, contact a therapist or coach.

6        Show gratitude.  For everything, the train turning up on time, for having somewhere to live, having friends and being a friend.  Show gratitude daily, often, it will come back to you massively.  The Universe is always eavesdropping on your thoughts.

7        Strawberries!  The author William Bloom, has a lovely exercise he calls ‘Strawberries’.  It consists of whenever you have a pleasurable moment, be it deliberately or spontaneously, pause and notice it, give your full attention to the thing, event that is giving you pleasure, he calls this a ‘strawberry’. So for example, let’s say you see a really beautiful sunrise; you would then pause and notice what tangible thing was happening in your body, i.e. a smile, warmth, goose bumps.  Relax a little more. Then imagine you are a sponge absorbing the full pleasure as you breath in slowly so that it goes into every cell of your body.  Sometimes the feeling will be very subtle and sometimes very strong. So remember Notice-Pause-Absorb!

Each time you do any of the above exercises you will be re-inforcing peace and letting go, living more in the now.  Having done the last exercise for many years, spontaneously, I really recommend it, remember you can do this on anything that gives you pleasure.  All the above are simple things but when done consistently, they can be very profound.  If you do them you will change your inner chemistry, guaranteed!

Have a peaceful and beautiful week.

© 2006 INSPIRIT & Denise Bosque All Rights Reserved