Affirmation Wednesday

 

GROUNDING PROMPTS 

What opportunities for growth have you experienced in your life so far?

What opportunities for wealth have you experienced in your life so far?

What do they have in common?

How do they differ?

How do you usually receive opportunities for growth? For wealth?

What other ways would you like to receive these opportunities? Where could they come from?

How would you feel about these? 

How do you see your personal growth 1/5/10 years from now?

How do you see your wealth 1/5/10 years from now?

How would you embrace/explore/start the process of allowing? What do you need for this?

Sunday Journaling Prompt

 

GOING DEEPER 

What happened this year, month by month?

How did I feel?

What lessons have I learnt?

What did I lose?

What did I gain?

What are my regrets from this year?

What can I do to turn things around?

What will bring me peace?

What will bring me happiness?

What do I need to let go of to achieve these?

What am I grateful for?

Affirmation Wednesday

 

GROUNDING PROMPTS 

What are you desires?

Are you working on them to come true? 

If yes - What goals have you determined for your desires to come true? 

             What have you done towards your desires/goals?

If no - What are you waiting for?

Why do you desire these? 

How will these desires coming true change your life?

What can you do today towards your desires coming true?

Sunday Journaling Prompt

 

GOING DEEPER

What are you scared of right now?

Why does it scare you?

What would happen if your fear(s) were to come true?

How would that impact your life?

What goal is your fear trying to achieve by coming into mind?

Close your eyes and imagine your fear is taking form. What does it look like?

You say hello to your fear and ask it, What do you want from me? Why? 

How can you and your fear can co-operate on what you are trying to achieve? Ask your fear form.

A Little Bit About Joy

 A few days ago, I participated in an Insight Timer live session with teacher Dr Patty Hlava (@AwakenPeace), all about joy, and that inspired me to write this article for you.

Regardless of our background, current circumstances, past experiences and health levels, we all have at one point (or more, hopefully) in our life, experienced joy. That's for sure.

But what is joy? How does it feel like?
According to dictionary.com, joy is "the emotion of great delight or happiness caused by something exceptionally good or satisfying".

So what is the difference between joy and happiness?
There are many explanations you can find online and in books, but to me, joy is more exuberant, more colourful than happiness, which I feel as more contentment and more a stable and durable state. I see joy as moments of bright light, flashes of colours, like your toddler walking his first steps with a big smile on his face and aiming for your arms while feeling so proud of himself.

While happiness feels to me as a constant lightness, openness and groundedness, joy feels more like little sparks popping here and there, more intense and more special. Obviously, these can mean and feel totally different to you, after all we are all unique human beings with different perceptions and ways of feeling what is going on around us and inside us. It is all good.

Dr Patty Hlava from @AwakenPeace Healing, on the Insight Timer app, led this live session on Tuesday 15th December 2020 (a replay may be available at some point in the future but, currently, is not available). Her guided meditation/ visualisation was so insightful, powerful and an open door to feeling joy.
Some of the highlights for me were the following:

Thinking about a joyful moment you have experienced in your past (remote or recent), visualising, reminiscing as if you were back there and focusing on how you feel.

Keeping that feeling in and gathering more by opening your hands, receiving more joy energy from the Universe, and bringing it in to your heart space, keeping going while you open up your hands/arms more and more each round.

I am quite an introvert at heart and only with very close friends and family will I be demonstrative; so as I was opening up to receive joy from the Universe, at one point in the meditation/visualisation, I actually caught myself having my arms wide open. My instinct had told me to let go of the restrictions and boundaries I put on myself, and just be literally open to receive what the Universe had for me. I know that it will sound for many people rather airy-fairy, and that's totally OK. It does not in any way diminish the experience for me. But it just shows that, instinctively, we all yearn for this feeling of joy, open up when it is there for us and that a lot of it is meant for each and every one of us - we just need to trust and open up to receive it without resistance, fear or mistrust.

If you're into guided meditation, on Insight Timer, I really like "Joy" by teacher Shelly McSween-White, MS - it is 1 hour and 20 minutes long so you go really deep. If this is too long for you or you are a beginner, I also recommend Lo Madigan's "5-Minute Meditation for Cultivating Joy" (the whole audio is less than 7 minutes) or Sono Lumin/Jonas Malvik's "Joy - Increase Vibrational Frequency" if you prefer music (only 9 minutes long).

From a vibrational point of view, joy is a positive, uplifting emotion of a high vibration and frequency. It is 540 Hz and is expansive, meaning that the more joy you feel, the more you get.
If you're into Chakras, it is the frequency closest to the Sacral Chakra (under the navel - 417 Hz) which corresponds to creativity and pleasure.

Practising gratitude regularly (ideally on a daily basis) can also help you connect with joy and raise your vibration to start your day. Smiling is also a great way to connect - more with happiness in my view, but it is still one step forward.

With so many ways, and more, to connect to and explore joy - try and observe your relationship with this emotion. Can you fully connect to joy? What events, people, experiences help you connect to joy? I invite you to explore with this emotion, visualise, meditate and journal so that you have an imprint of joy for when you need it the most.

Affirmation Wednesday

 

GROUNDING PROMPTS 

Who do you matter to?

What is the type of relationship you have with each person who loves you?

How do they express their love for you?

How does it make you feel?

Is knowing you matter to them enough for you to feel loved? Why?

What do you need for you to truly feel loved?

How can you get it?

What about self- love? Do you matter to YOU?

Sunday Journaling Prompt

 

GOING DEEPER

Who does this memory involve?

What are you doing in this happiest memory?

What other feelings and qualities does it bring?

How can you re-create these conditions so that every day you have a happy memory?

What other happy memories can you draw on to help you re-create happy conditions for your evey day life?

Affirmation Wednesday

 

GROUNDING:

What has influenced you in the past to make your decisions? 

What does currently influence your decision making?

How do these two (past and present) influences make you feel? 

Have they been good criteria to make decisions?

How could you have made better decisions? What would have the difference been in how you felt about it and the results?

Were your decisions made in line with your values and truer self? Why?

What would it mean for you to make your decisions/choices from a place of love and truth?

How can you start doing this?

Sunday Journaling Prompt

 

GOING DEEPER

What cause you to have these thoughts? What happens?

How do these thoughts make you feel?

What can you do to turn them around or make them powerless over you?

What can you tell/reply to these thoughts?

What needs to happen for these thoughts to go away and leave you alone?

What will it feel like to have these thoughts gone? What will your life be like then?

Learning New Things

 

Learning is one of my lifelong passions. As far as I can remember, I've always loved learning as a child, in school, not so much for the social interactions, but mostly for the knowledge I had access to (there was no Internet in my days!). It helped me understand the world around me and what was possible.

Learning is not only to understand the world around us, our history, our beliefs, where we come from, how things work, but also to understand yourself, and how you want to fit in in all that. It is very hard to make an informed decision when you are not aware of the context.
Learning expands your knowledge, possibilities and horizons. Throughout my life, I have retrained many times in order to be able to work in conditions and environments that would fit my lifestyles at different times of my life.

Learning new things can be scary because we do not know what to do, and we fear that not knowing will make us look and feel weak, inadequate, imperfect. This is very often the main cause of fear of trying new things for many people. When you are in your comfort zone, you know what to do and you know that you have a far greater chance of success, projecting greater value of yourself to others, as well as yourself, bringing confidence and a higher sense of self-esteem. Doesn't it feel good when you know you are good at something, that you can do something effortlessly? So why on earth would you get out of that beloved, easy and safe comfort zone? Why risk being exposed to the unknown, where anything can happen, none of it we are prepared for? What can happen? What will I lose if I fail? We, humans, are creatures of habits and moving towards the unknown just seems and feels so very unnatural. There are so many things we cannot control in our lives, why move away from the things we can actually control? There is just no sense in that.

But learning new things not only helps us increase our flexibility in life (like I have done in my work life to suit my circumstances), as the more we learn, the more we know, the more we know, the more we can do, and the more we can contribute and help others, as well as ourselves.

It also strengthens the health of our brain. Indeed as we learn new things, our brain creates new pathways, strengthening each time we practice the new activity. We get used to it after a while, the pathways are strong, and it becomes almost a habit, and that is when we challenge ourselves, learn more, go deeper, to create even more pathways. This keeps our brain active in a healthy way, alive, and it has been demonstrated in recent years by many scientific studies that learning new things on a regular basis can help prevent degenerative brain disorders such as Alzheimer's. How many elderly people do you know who have been active all throughout their life through work, and when retirement comes, spend their days aimlessly and wither away? Lack of challenge will lead to our brain becoming less and less active. Constant GROWTH throughout our life is essential for our health and survival, on many levels.

The new things you learn do not have to be big like climbing Mount Everest or learning medicine, it can be researching a topic you want to learn more about and take notes (any learning needs to be active, not passive, to be memorised efficiently. Taking notes is a great way to move away from passive learning to active learning), practising a new type of crafts, hobby or new technique, starting an exercise routine, a new diet, or even trying a new recipe or new foods. New experiences will create new points of reference for you as well, new memories.

The beauty of learning new things is that you are always in a beginner's mindset. Very often when we learn something, our learning experience is affected by what we think we already know on the subject, which prevents us to be totally open and receptive to the learning. Our mind and learning are clouded by the misconceptions and assumptions we have. The beginner's mind lets you be completely open to receive the information, enabling a better retention in your memory.

Listing all the new things I have learnt in my lifetime would be just too long and too boring for you to read, and for me to recollect. Here are some of the recent new things I have been learning:

• trying new mixes of fruits and vegs for my daily morning green smoothie once each week at least;
• reading a variety of new books (as opposed to re-reading faves, which I am quite guilty of);
• learning Japanese with my son (very early stage!);
• reviewing my progress on goals and life in general on a regular basis (weekly) and making adjustments;
• learning Sashiko (Japanese embroidery technique);
• doing walks in nature as often as I can and notice something different each time and take a photo if I can (I walk the same route each time as there is only one park where I live that I can manage with my asthma);
• learning aromatherapy, life coaching, and about energy healing;
• trying new art supplies on different media;
• practising bookbinding;
• watching new TV series (recently, I have started watching various Japanese animes with my son, which is very different to what I usually watch. It is also a great opportunity for quality time together);
• trying new musics to listen to (at the moment I'm into bird songs);
• trying new scents and combinations in my essential oils diffuser;
• trying a new cookies recipe and making adjustments/ experimenting with extra ingredients each time;
• starting the Jennibellie Lunar class to learn to work with lunar cycles and have fun with it (I have never learnt about this before, not even in school);
• trying new herbal teas;
• learning to sew different items, by hand and machine (pencil cases, pouches, my new projects are to sew cats beds for my furry babies, a pillow and pillow case with a sashiko piece attached to it, and a Haori - a Japanese "jacket" worn over a kimono - without using patterns, so I have to work out the patterns by myself, using my own measurements);
• learning remote access for work;
• updating systems at work for quality standards continuous improvement;
• having a mindful cup of tea at work to help me slow down and recharge (it only takes a few seconds);
• planning meals for my lunches as I now avoid carbs during the day (I used to have leftovers from the previous night to bring to work for my lunches, usually carbs, so this is brand new to me, preparing meals without carbs);
• trying new healthy practices like Tai Chi, energy healing and breathwork;
• started a daily journaling practice, as well as checking in and cheching out;
• trying new types of meditations, courses and visualisations on the Insight Timer app.

As you can see, this non-exhaustive list is quite varied, it can include personal growth on a spiritual, physical or emotional level, health, family, work, fun/hobbies, or practical. It can be from your own choosing or dictated by your responsibilities.

What new thing are you gonna try this week?
Have fun with it :-)

Affirmation Wednesday

 

GROUNDING THE AFFIRMATION 

What kind of thoughts do you usually predominately have every day?

What do you tend to focus on?

How often do you have positive thoughts?

How does it feel when you have negative thoughts?

How does it feel when you have positive thoughts?

How much difference to your life would it make for you to have mainly positive thoughts?

What can you start doing to turn your negative thoughts into positives?

Challenge: focus on having at least 5 extra positive thoughts every day for a week and journal about your experience. What changes have you noticed? How does it feel? Keep adding every week for a more positive mindset and a happier life ❤️