“Any choice made from freedom creates more freedom.”

James Twyman

How are you feeling about your choices?

Yet our choices are usually made from a place that is far from freedom. You can spot it in the language we use:

• I have to…
• I must…
• I ought to…
• I should…

Where’s the choice and freedom in that?

And freedom is, to a large extent, a matter of mindset.

Why do we set our minds to feel trapped and not free?

Could it be as simple as flicking a switch, to make that shift?

Yes!

I have lost count of the number of times I have used this technique with clients and it works every time – if they choose it to!

Here’s the secret:

Swap your ‘should’, ‘have to’, ‘must’ and ‘ought’ for ‘choose to’.

Try it out now – even with something mundane!

“I have to do the laundry.”
or
“I choose to do the laundry.”

Which one feels better?

How about shifting more of your choices to come from a place of freedom today?

Let us know how you get on via the comments box!

Wishing you a day full of sunshine and laughter,

Namaste,

Mindfulness is a way of bring our over-full mind back from wherever it has been camping out, to living in the present moment. It can be an incredibly useful technique for dealing with stress and worries, as well as for deepening your meditation experience.

Discover how mindfulness can help you get out of ‘auto-pilot’ mode and reclaim your choice over how you respond to challenging events and experience life.

Being mindful is about a state of being – a particular way of choosing to experience life, in the present moment – rather than letting our mind run riot over past mistakes and future worries, whilst sleep-walking through what’s actually going on around us.

We’re normally too busy doing “mind-full” to be mindful.

We are usually far too busy running around doing stuff, to actually notice what we’re experiencing.

We’re part of a constant, fast-flowing stream of cause and effect – buffeted by the proverbial tides, reacting, reacting, reacting.

Often we don’t even notice that we’re stuck in this cycle, running in circles like an over-enthusiastic gerbil in a plastic wheel. We want to be in control of things, so we develop stress-based behaviours to get things back under control, but that rarely works because we’re still too busy reacting. We try harder and harder, but life still seems to be a like a game of skipping through treacle.

We change our experience of life by changing the way we see the world.

Being mindful means dragging ourselves back into the present moment – away from the “to do” list, the housework, Aunty Bettie’s birthday card and everything else that normally fills our mind to bursting point.

We might think that being present to the moment will mean that the “to do” list will get forgotten and the shopping won’t get done. But, in fact, it’s the other way round.

By focussing our experience right now, rather than dwelling on past issues or worrying about the future, we can develop a clarity that somehow creates more time in our day, meaning the “to do” list finally gets shorter.

By getting back into the “now”, we can start to reconnect with the part of us that makes the unconscious choices about how to think, feel and act, in every single moment.

We also get our thoughts, feelings and actions back under conscious control, breaking long-held habits of automatic responses to what psychologists call “stimuli”, but the rest of us call “difficult people”.

Here are four steps that demonstrate the magic of mindfulness:

1. There’s always a gap between the other person’s “stimulus” and our response
   It’s a chemical, biological fact that there is a time gap between our brain receiving a “stimulus” and us responding.
   It might be very short, but by being mindful – aware – more of the time, we can become aware of that gap and….
   .
2. … When we can get in the gap, we can choose
   Although some habits run deep, we always have a choice about how we respond.
   Though most of us believe that others can make us happy or angry, all they can do is provide the stimulus for us to choose that emotion as our response.
   In fact, the only place we can choose is in the gap. The past is gone and the future hasn’t been created yet. All our power is right here, right now.
   .
3. Our choices have a big impact
   You can’t change the other person, but you can always choose how you respond.
   And if you have jumped into the gap and made a more resourceful, conscious choice, then you can break the cycle – the cause & effect dance – and provide a more constructive stimulus to which the other person can then respond.
   .
4. We can only make a choice if we have awareness
   If we’re on auto-pilot and are bobbing around on an ocean full of emotions and habits like an inflatable dinghy in a storm, then we’re unlikely to spot what’s really going on.
   We’re probably enjoying our own projection of the “facts”, telling the story “our way” in our head. The fact is that, if we’re wandering around half-asleep and unaware, we’re not going to be able to make a conscious choice about how to respond.

Unfortunately we are usually half-asleep or stuck in our “story heads”, most of the time.
We can be in a beautiful location, but almost not notice it, because we’re too busy wondering whether an urgent email has arrived or stressing about how last week’s presentation went.
That’s why it’s so useful to have specific mindfulness exercises to practise, to help us retrain ourselves to live more often in the here and now.

There are plenty of good books out there on mindfulness, but by far the best way to learn it is to join a course with an experienced teacher.

If you don’t have one of those local to you, you might like to join in the 28 Day Meditation Challenge. It’s an online course, complete with daily emails, weekly meditation MP3s and a peer-support forum, that guides you through the start of learning about meditation & mindfulness and creating a daily meditation habit.

If you want to make sure you’re always up-to-date with the latest mindfulness techniques, resources and courses, as we publish them, then you might like to register for our Magic Of Mindfulness updates – they’re free.

It might sound unbelievable, but 10 minutes a day of meditation can change your life.

Want to discover how?

Are you ready to de-stress and unwind?

Do you want to:

• Start your day feeling awake and refreshed?
• Recharge your energy levels during the day?
• Let go of stress and tension at the end of the day?

Treat yourself to 23 minutes of blissful deep relaxation and de-stressing.

Medical science agrees with the ancient wisdom that deep relaxation has a profound effect on our health – physically, mentally and emotionally.

And doctors are now agreeing that regular deep relaxation helps us feel happier, more alert and even find more time to get things done.

When we’re stressed and tired, it can be hard to concentrate and it’s easy for our mood to spiral downwards.

Being guided through a simple, practical deep relaxation process can transform your day.

De-Stress and Unwind is specially designed to be a deep relaxation that will help you wake up, rather than fall asleep.

It takes you step by step through a simple, practical deep relaxation process that will help you release tension and stress, whilst re-energising your body and mind.

It is designed to be done during the day, rather than before falling asleep, so you could even sneak it in during your lunch break!

It is ideal for helping you relax and re-energise – in just 20 minutes.

By doing this deep relaxation regularly, you will find yourself feeling:

• Less stressed
• Calmer
• Happier
• More at peace
• More able to deal with the emotions and stresses of life
• More able to relax during labour
• More able to relax, de-stress and enjoy life

This CD contains an introduction and then 2 versions of the same deep relaxation:

1. Track 1 – How to get the most from this deep relaxation.
2. Track 2 – 23 minute deep relaxation – with no background music
2. Track 3 – 23 minute deep relaxation – with background music

Clare Josa

The deep relaxation on this CD was created and recorded by Clare Josa, an expert in teaching deep relaxation.

She has been a certified trainer of NLP for over a decade, is fully qualified in hypnosis and is a formally-trained meditation teacher, as well as a mother to three young boys – so she knows what stress can be like!

WARNING – This deep relaxation is intended to be done with your eyes closed. For obvious reasons, do not listen to this CD in the car or whilst operating machinery. Sorry – but we have to state the obvious!

Want To De-Stress, Unwind & Find Your Inner Stillpoint?

You can either buy the CD or download it as MP3s now.

We operate a ‘conscious pricing policy’ and want to make sure that this deep relaxation reaches everyone who needs it. That said, the deep relaxation is NOT a free download.

It is up to you how much you choose to donate, based on what you can afford and what the deep relaxation is worth to you. We won’t check up on you and we won’t be judging you. What you choose to donate is between you and your conscience. And that’s ok.

Buy The CD To order the CD, please make a donation. In line with our conscious pricing policy, you may choose the price you pay. We operate this policy on the basis of trust and honesty. The CD and deep relaxation were created with love, to help you de-stress, relax and make subtle, yet powerful shifts in your life. Our direct costs of sending the CD to you (in the UK) are about £7, so it would be great if you could manage a donation in excess of that. For international orders, please add extra for international postage. You will be asked for your postal address details and the CD will be sent to you as soon as possible! Note: if you want to listen to the CD before buying, you can listen online by clicking the link for track 2 or track 3 (on the right hand side of this page).

Download The MP3s Now Or you can download the MP3 files now. How to download: To download the MP3s, click the ‘donate’ button, below, and choose how much you want to pay. When you have finished your payment, come back to this page and right click on each of the links at the bottom to download the files. If you want to check whether the deep relaxation is right for you, you click on the track links, below, to play online, before deciding whether to buy it. We can’t make it much fairer than that, can we? . Downloads (Complete Tracks) Track 1 – Introduction Track 2 – deep relaxation (no music) Track 3 – deep relaxation (gentle background music)

We really hope that you enjoy this deep relaxation and that it helps you to with a sense of inner stillness and to relax deeply.

If you have any questions, please contact us.

One of the things we do when we’re feeling a yucky emotion – whether it’s sadness, depression, guilt or anger, is to run from it. We resist it. We fight it. We pretend it’s not there.

And, as I often hear from meditation students, the last thing we want to do when we’re feeling down is to meditate. Who on earth would want to sit quietly and go into silence, when their mind is reminding them of all the reasons they should feel bad?

Yet, often, that’s the best thing we could do. So how could you best handle meditating, when you’re not in the mood?

As Carl Jung remind us, ” What you resist persists.”

How To Meditate When You're Feeling Down

Resisting the emotion, ironically, produces the opposite of our intended outcome. We end up giving it all of our attention and power. We end up wasting our time with distractions that don’t really make us feel any better. We end up looking over our shoulder, to see if that emotion is chasing us, as we run away from it.

And it will. Because we’re giving it all of our attention. Our thoughts are constantly reminding us that it’s there. Our actions are influenced by trying to avoid it. Our tone of voice and even the words we choose will all give away the secret inside.

So why on earth would we want to sit still and meditate?!

Yes, why would we want to sit quietly and put ourselves at risk of actually feeling that emotion, when we could be distracting ourselves on the internet, with housework, by chatting, by going shopping, by doing anything else, rather than actually being present to our thoughts and feelings?

Because meditation can really help at those times. In fact, it’s one of the best tools around for helping you release painful emotions and lift your mood.

Now, before I go any further, it’s important to make a distinction between ‘feeling down’ and clinical depression. ‘Feeling down’ is (even if it doesn’t feel it at the time) a transient emotion. Clinical depression is a chronic dis-ease, which often needs professional help. If you’re suffering from clinical depression, you will benefit more from active forms of meditation, such as mindfulness, rather than silent sitting and contemplation. Yoga can also be highly effective.

But every time we’re feeling down, we tend to give ourselves the label “I am depressed.”

What’s the problem with that?

It gives our unconscious mind the message that this emotional state is no longer a passing experience, but must be sustained. The chemical reactions in the body that created the sensation of feeling depressed are miraculously transformed into an identity-level state of being. We create the belief that we are  depressed and, at some level, want or feel we have to stay stuck there. And we unconsciously adapt our behaviours to support that state. We change the stories we tell ourselves in our heads. We change the stories we tell to others. We change our posture to that of someone who is feeling depressed. We even start to eat and drink like someone suffering from depression – and these foods can often make the matter worse – we end up eating comfort foods & caffeine-based drinks that can wreck our mood and make us feel more miserable!

Is that what we really want?

So what’s the answer?

Millions of meditators from all traditions have shown that sitting silently with a strong emotion and being fully present to it, without resisting or telling our story, is an incredibly powerful way of letting it go.

It doesn’t have to hurt. It doesn’t have to feel bad. What makes us feel bad is telling ourselves stories and choosing thoughts and behaviours that keep us stuck in that yucky place.

It’s also not about pretending it’s not there.

It’s about spotting our auto-pilot responses and choosing to respond differently.

Meditation is about accepting our life, just as it is. Then we can consciously choose what to change – be it a habit, our environment or our response.

How about trying a really light-hearted idea, if you don’t want to do silent sitting by yourself.

Grab a cuddly toy!

Don’t sit by yourself. Grab the nearest cuddly toy / pot plant / fluffy cat and sit with it, instead. If your mind needs company, let it chat to your companion, while your body enjoys the benefits of meditation It might sound (or feel) ridiculous, but that’s the idea! It’s hard to feel miserable when you’re behaving with childlike silliness!

It’s about breaking the cycle and doing something to shake your chattering mind up a bit. It’s an amazingly powerful way of changing the behaviour that had been keeping you stuck.

Jump around to music

Or you could jump around a bit to some of your favourite music, before you meditate. That will release endorphins (the body’s natural ‘feel-good’ hormones), especially if you smile while you’re doing it. It’s as though you’re ‘shaking off’ the bad mood.

Perhaps silent sitting isn’t what you need at that moment – maybe mindfulness meditation would help instead?

In fact, mindfulness has been proven so effective in helping even with clinical depression that many mainstream doctors are recommending it to their patients now, in conjunction with Cognitive Behavioural Therapy.

Whatever your mood and however you are feeling, regular meditation can help you ‘ride the waves’ more easily. It helps you see through the games your unconscious mind plays and puts you in the position to be able to choose to how respond – to choose how to feel – when life throws you the occasional curve ball.

If you’d like to find out more about how even 10 minutes a day of meditation could change your life, you might like to join our 28 Day Meditation Challenge.

We’d love to hear your views on how to meditate when you’re feeling down – and how meditation has helped you when you’ve been feeling glum, via the comments box, below!

One of the most common reactions when we’re feeling down is to reach for something to eat. Our research showed that up to 75% of people instinctively reach for comfort food, when they’re feel down, stressed or angry.

Yet what we’re eating (or drinking) could be making us feel worse.

Discover the 5 most common food traps that could be wrecking your mood.

It’s all too easy to end up on auto-pilot, when it comes to food. Recent research showed that most of us, for example, select our daily fruit and veg intake from a range of just 10 items – all year round.

We can become creatures of habit, reaching for the familiar and comforting, especially when we’re feeling tired or stressed.

But nutritionists have found that the things we eat ‘unconsciously’ are often those that make our situation worse. Rarely do we realise that the 5 most common food traps can actually make us feel more miserable than we did before – and can sink a good mood faster than rock in a puddle.
Here are 5 common foods that have been shown to have a serious impact on our mood.

Trap 1: Sugar

Reaching for something sweet when we’re feeling low is so instinctive, you’d almost think it’s hard-wired. Carbohydrates and refined sugars will give us a short-term boost, but the blood sugar low we get afterwards can lead to mood swings for adults and even tantrums in kids.

To avoid these mood swings and fatigue slumps, it’s essential to keep your energy levels as stable as possible. So any food that causes an energy rush and then slump is going to make you more likely to feel tired and grumpy.

What you could do instead?
University researchers have shown that cravings for sweet foods, particularly the late night munchies, are actually cravings for water – we’re not very good at reading the signs.

To balance your blood sugar, a protein-based snack may be more helpful. You could try that first. Or perhaps a little unsweetened dried fruit. Chop it up small and eat it one piece at a time. That way a single fig or date could satisfy the sugar-munchies, saving you from that entire bar of chocolate!

{Want to try it with raisins? Pop by our Facebook page and ask us for a free copy of our  ‘raisin mindfulness’ technique‘, which not only helps you manage sugar cravings, but helps you de-stress and be more ‘present’ to life!}

Trap 2: Caffeine

It’s in coffee, tea, cola drinks and plenty more besides. It’s even in green tea, which most of us wouldn’t expect.

Caffeine is a stimulant that can take us into “fight or flight” mode, making us edgy and irritable. So if you’re already stressed or angry, it’s the last thing you need.

Plus, having triggered that ‘fight or flight’ stress response, it’s then down to our liver to process the adrenalin and other hormones that will have been flooding our system. And it’s already working hard enough in pregnancy.

What you could do instead?
To rehydrate your system and give yourself an instant energy boost, a glass of water could make a difference.

In fact, in his excellent book “Your Body’s Many Cries for Water“, F. Batmanghelidj, M.D explains pretty convincingly how we miss the body’s natural signs of thirst – and the impact this can have on our health. Well worth a read!

If you’re feeling tense and irritable, you might prefer a herbal tea.

And, of course, there’s breathing – take 3 deep breaths, breathing in through your nose. Fill your lungs from your stomach upwards and then breathe out through your mouth with a sigh. It works!

If you’re finding yourself using caffeine-based drinks to stay awake and ‘have enough energy’, then it’s possible you’re in need of a deeper level recharge. Looking at your stress triggers and considering some regular deep relaxation could help you kick the need for the caffeine boost.

Trap 3: Wheat & dairy

Wheat and dairy products are fine, in moderation, if that suits your body.

But if you have a food intolerance, you might find that the side effects of bloating and heaviness drag your mood down, too. So if you naturally reach for wheat-based or dairy-based comfort foods, it might be worth noticing how you feel afterwards.

In fact, a startlingly high proportion of people are now showing some kind of response to refined (white) flour and dairy products.

What you could do instead?
Check you’re not suffering from low blood sugar (see trap 1 advice).

And if you think it might be a boredom thing, how about spending 5 minutes waking up your body with some stretches, a quick dance or a short walk instead?

White flour and dairy are both high sources of sugar, so it could be that a few raisins could do the trick instead and might work better for your system.

One of the best books I have ever read on this topic is by William Davis M.D. and is called “Wheat Belly“. Reading it was life-changing for me. It’s well worth checking out.

Trap 4: Sweeteners & Additives

We think we’re doing the right thing by going for the low-cal, low-fat options, but they have to do something to replace the taste and texture you’d have had from the sugars and fats.

Unfortunately this is often in the form of sweeteners and chemical additives.

They’re even in so-called ‘healthy’ stuff like some probiotic drinks and even in ‘full fat’ soft drinks & squashses.

Yes, the various food agencies have approved their use, but there is growing research evidence that they can impact your mood – as well as your health.

One of the leading artificial sweeteners is now official linked with mood swings and even depression, for regular users. And we’ve known for years that the infamous “e-numbers” can cause behavioural problems in children.

What you could do instead?
Check labels in the supermarket. As a rule of thumb, if there’s an ingredient on the list that you wouldn’t cook with at home, think twice before putting it into your basket. Consider buying the non-diet versions, but eating less of them…

Trap 5: Alcohol

How many times do we get to the end of a tough day and think, “I could really do with a glass of wine / a beer?”

But alcohol itself is a toxin to the body. And it’s also a depressant that suppresses brain activity and dehydrates your body. So if you want to feel happier, a stiff drink is probably not the best place to start.

What you could do instead?

Take a step back and ask yourself why it is you want the drink?

Could you enjoy, say, sparkling water and apple juice in a wine glass, instead?

Is it something to do with the whole ‘depriving yourself’ of something you enjoy?

If you find yourself craving a drink, it might be worth taking an honest look in the mirror, to see whether there are underlying issues you might need to address. There’s probably a deeper need, crying out for attention. And that’s ok. If you become aware of it, you can do something about it.

How do you know if you’re stuck in the food traps?

Keep a “food ‘n’ mood” diary for 2 weeks. Simply keep a note of EVERYTHING you’re eating and drinking (no cheating!) and every few hours, make a note of your mood next to it. After even a week you should be able to spot clear trends.

That’ll help you figure out what to eat differently, if you want to feel happier.

Given it a try? How about sharing your experiences via the comments box or our Facebook page?
How did you get on?
What are your personal food traps?
Were there any surprises?
We’d love to hear from you!

“Tell me why I don’t like Mondays…”

We all know the feeling: after a great weekend, the alarm goes off and realisation dawns: it’s Monday morning. Again.

For many of us, it can trigger a sinking feeling of dread, as we take a deep breath and dive into another week.

It can go on for years, feeling stuck in a rut and unable to change anything.

But it doesn’t have to bet that way.

Here are 7 survival tips to help you beat the Monday Morning Blues.

How to survive the Monday Morning Blues?

Do you get the Monday Morning Blues?

Tip 1: Get specific
Rather than indulging in an open-ended rant about how awful Monday mornings are, it helps to get specific. What exactly is it you’re not enjoying?
Don’t be tempted to generalise – that leads to the proverbial mountain from a molehill. Being clear about specifically what is bugging you will reduce the problem to a more manageable size.

Tip 2: Time for wisdom
Remember the old saying:
“Grant me the patience to accept the things I cannot change…
… the courage to change the things I can…
… and the wisdom to know the difference.”

Tip 3: It’s up to you…
It’s up to you how much you make out of the Monday Morning Blues. Basically, if you can change things, then get active and do something about them. If you can’t, then you can always change how you choose to respond. Rather than getting wound up, stressed and frustrated, pick a different emotion – one that feels better. It’ll lift your week and that’s a promise.

Tip 4: Say No
Many of us end up with the Monday Morning Blues because we’re feeling overworked and undervalued. What would it take to say “no” every now and then? Not aggressively, but firmly and with compassion. How much could that change things for you?

Tip 5: Tell a new story
Do you need to tell a different story? It can be tempting to indulge in Monday Morning Whinging, but it’ll make you feel worse. Just don’t go there. How about having a Monday Morning Rule: if you can’t say something positive, say nothing?!!!

Tip 6: Don’t ignore it
If Monday Morning Blues are a big issue for you, then there’s a reason for it. Ignoring them just keeps you locked in the Groundhog Day cycle. Negative emotions can be an early warning sign that you need to make changes – either in your life or in your response to it. Is there a tiny change you could make today that would help next Monday morning?

Tip 7: Say thank you
No matter how bad our Monday Morning Blues might be, there are always good things going on in our lives. How about looking for the positives and focussing on the things you enjoy about your Monday? It’s a sure-fire way to turn your Monday around and feel happier, fast.

What are your top tips for beating the Monday Morning Blues? We’d love to hear them – please share via the comments box, below.

And if you enjoyed this article, how about popping by our Facebook page to say hi – and you might like to sign up for free Practical Inspiration?

There’s no such thing as “can’t”. But that doesn’t mean you can.

My great aunty Yo was famous for being a teeny bit dotty, but she had a secret that she shared generously, with all who would listen.

I remember the no such thing as can’t message being thrown back at me every time she spotted one of my excuses, as a kid. Back then, I didn’t appreciate her secret much.

What's stopping you?

Couldn’t she see? Of course I couldn’t do xyz…

Then, as I got older, I started to understand. She wasn’t trying to tell me that, at 5’2″ tall, there was nothing stopping me from being an Olympic high jumper.

She just wanted me to see the blindingly obvious truth:

“I can’t” was my excuse for anything I didn’t want to do – or didn’t believe I could do.

At a gentle level, she was helping me to learn that there are only two things that were ever going to get in my way:

1. What I believe is possible.
2. What I choose to do / not to do.

For so many of us who are used to positive thinking and all its friends, you might think that the fix for this one is to replace “can’t” with “can”. But it doesn’t work…

If we have invested time and effort into creating a belief that we can’t do something, simply picking the positive affirmation that we ‘can’ do it doesn’t change that belief. Instead, it sets up an internal conflict:

Our thinking mind says yes. Our unconscious mind (which runs the show, by the way), says no.

All that is likely to happen is that you’ll feel frustrated and miserable. If you try it out now on a “can’t” belief, you’ll most likely notice that it causes physical tension, too.

So what’s the answer?

Maybe. Perhaps. Might.

Think of that “can’t” belief. Instead of forcing in a “can”, try softening things with…

“Perhaps I might…”

Can you feel the difference? You’re opening up the possibility – gently and without creating resistance. Then, as your old belief dissolves, ‘maybe’ will naturally shift into ‘probably’, soon to become a ‘can’.

Isn’t that a kinder way of making changes in your life?

Got an opinion on this one? We’d love to hear your views via the comments box!

“Discover 5 Secrets To Feeling Happier, Fast!” is designed to give you a happiness lift, in minutes, not weeks.

It doesn’t pretend to be the definitive guide to happiness.

In fact, if you’re feeling in need of a happiness boost, books and courses that take weeks or months to apply are the last thing you need.

These 5 strategies are proven to be highly effective in helping you shift from feeling down to feeling happy – and they can deliver results in minutes.

But they’re not just ‘quick fixes’.

They are techniques you can use every day, to consistently raise your mood. And the amazing thing about applying them regularly is that, when they start to become a habit, you’ll notice you automatically feel happier, most of the time.

This book is quick to read – being 25 pages long – but it’s a powerful antidote to the modern stresses of busy life.

And all for less than the price of a coffee. Grab the Kindle version now and you could be feeling happier in less than 5 minutes.

So, are you ready to Discover 5 Secrets To Feeling Happier, Fast?

It’s OK to get angry.

Not a message you hear very often, particularly if you’re into ‘personal development’.

But just imagine a life without emotions…

I don’t know about you, but back in the days when I was deep in the corporate rat race, I was fortunate (?) enough to be sent on any number of courses to help me learn how to suppress my emotions. This was supposed to lead me to a state of inner calm that could never be shaken, no matter how stressful things got or how much I yearned to fight the system.

Fortunately it didn’t work. Why do I say fortunately? Because emotions are such an essential part of life.

Just ask anyone who is taking medication, to reduce their emotions. The drugs numb out the good emotions, along with the less desirable ones, and people often describe it as existing, rather than living.

I have seen that first-hand, with people I love.

Then there’s the so-called “spiritual bypass”, which works in a similar way to mood-suppressing drugs. You go around pretending that you’re not really feeling angry, scared, guilty or any other so-called “negative” emotion. But really you’re faking it. And that’s a recipe for long-term unhappiness and dis-ease, by suppressing the body’s auto-pilot response to strongly emotional experiences. (Bruce Lipton writes brilliantly about this in his book The Biology Of Belief).

So why are we so obsessive about getting rid of emotions?

Because dealing with logical, rational people is more predictable. It’s perceived as being more professional.

It’s easier for everyone else.

Yet to shut down emotions is to deny a core part of our identity.

All emotions have a light and a shadow side: for example, many people feel fear and excitement in the same part of the body.

The thing is that if we suppress our emotions, we either find ourselves shutting down or the negative emotions shout louder until they feel they’re being heard.

Negative (yucky feeling) emotions are an early warning system to tell us when something isn’t right. To deny that is to deny your intuition.

They can also be a trigger for us, if it’s time to let go of an old, out-dated, auto-pilot response to a given situation.

Sometimes, if somebody behaves in a way that makes us want to scream, it’s because they’re being a mirror for us, to show us habits we have that are ready to be released.

Of course, there are appropriate and inappropriate ways of expressing emotions, but not expressing them at all can’t be right.

And why is it so important to allow yourself to feel angry?

Because anger and passion are felt in the same part of the body. Kill the anger and you suppress the passion. Anger is a major motivator towards creating change. Imagine a world without it?!

So my message is that the emotions we feel that are NOT the problem, but the actions we choose to take as a result of them.

And we always have a choice.

Swami Vivekananda in his book Voice of Freedom (a weighty tome, but inspiring reading!) reminds us that it all goes wrong when we identify with the anger – when we become one with it. Then the anger becomes our master and we lose control.

Talking about someone behaving badly towards him, he describes:

At first I thought “I am going to be angry”. Anger was one thing and I was another. but when I became angry, I was anger.

Whilst our anger is still at the “seedling” stage, we can still choose how to respond.

Once we have become one with it and are telling ourselves that we are angry, then any choice disappears. It has become part of our identity and will drive our behaviour. The trick is to spot the seeds of anger early enough, so that we can choose how to respond, rather than triggering our historical auto-pilot programmes.

Want A Short Meditation You Can Do, To Healthily Let Go Of Anger?

If you’re regularly experiencing anger and rage, then you need to ask someone for help – there can be many causes, which shouldn’t be ignored.

However, if you need a way to deal with it healthily, right now, here’s a meditation you can do, in a safe way – please use it responsibly!

Breathe it out.

Let all of that rage come up – be present to it – stop resisting or fighting or judging yourself.

Rant and say what needs to be said (out loud, if needs be, though ideally not to them).

Then breathe it out like a whirlwind, out through your feet and into the earth beneath you. Really feel the anger leaving your body. You have emptied out the rage, now it’s time to let it go.

Then, when you’re ready, connect with that deeper wisdom, deep inside you, that knows that the person who triggered your anger is not their behaviour. That is simply the role they have agreed to play – an Oscar winning performance  – in order to press that button for you today.

Allow that deeper wisdom, the pure love essence of your true being, to wash through the situation.
Then, when you’re ready, imagine cutting the energetic ties to the experience and set yourself free. It’s done. You can let go.
Then it’s time for a cup of tea

You are amazing. You are wonderful. All you have been doing is proving that you’re beautifully human.

If you find it difficult to ride the waves of the emotions of life, then cultivating a regular meditation habit might help you. In as little as 10 minutes a day, you can make lasting changes. Perhaps you would like to join in with our 28 Day Meditation Challenge?

I’d love to hear your thoughts and experiences on this topic. Please feel free to share via the messages box.

Thanks,

Clare

We’re up for believing that ‘Nothing Is Impossible’ this year.
And over on Facebook, we’ve even set up a lively group to explore just that.

If you’re interested in joining in and finding out more about how to live a life where nothing is impossible, simply click the link below and ask to join.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/297291723641496/

It’s absolutely free and we’d love to share this exciting, inspiring journey with you!
Namaste,
Clare