What I know for sure in my life is that I’d rather focus on what makes me happy rather then what doesn’t. It takes much less energy to be happy and this is where I consciously shift my focus on a daily basis.
When I was younger, I’d easily to get bogged down in what was not working for me in my life, especially if I felt I’d been harshly treated by others. I was quick to blame others for mistreating me, without even daring to look at the part that I may have played in the situation.
I have always loved the concept of personal development which encourages you to look within your own heart for the answers, rather than blaming others and this has really helped me to take back control in my life and feel good about myself. I love personal development so much, I’ve spent more than half my life working hard to shift my focus to a more positive one, through reading, watching lots of OPRAH of course, immersing myself in the teachings of well known mentors such as Cheryl Richardson, Dr Christine Northrup, Wayne Dyer, Robert Holden, Tony Robbins, Dr Phil, Louise Hay, Caroline Myss, Sonia Choquette, Deepak Chopra and more.
I even started attending inspirational events, bringing my girlfriends along to inspirational weekend getaways and pursuing further studies to continue educating myself on the topics I loved learning about. I’m a life long learner and I believe with every part of my being that what we focus on grows! Our thoughts become our reality and so I do my very best each day to create thoughts that are going to impact my life in a positive way.
Each day, I create intentions for myself, including telling myself that I’m going to have a great day and that my hope is that every person I interact with throughout my day will feel a little happier because we had an uplifting chat together. I intentionally post social media messages that are uplifting because I want people to feel uplifted in their lives too.
The thing is though, it doesn’t matter how much inner work you may do on yourself, life is always going to test you along the way, showing you the areas where your soul still needs to grow and if you show up with an open heart, deep faith & courage, growth is just around the corner. Struggle is the pre-cursor to growth and an open heart is the key to working through what we perceive to be our life struggles.
Recently I found myself getting bogged down in the "nitty gritty" of what was not going right in my life again. This caught me completely off guard and I found myself talking and talking and talking about it to all my friends. Even my husband was super surprised with how I’d let myself get caught up in this drama and was doing his best to help me re-focus. I was super grateful for his gentle nudges, because as someone who spends most of her time coaching clients to focus on the good things in their lives, this experience was life’s way of reminding me that I'd fallen off track a little bit and needed find my way back on course again.
Life was also reminding me that I am no different to anyone else and that I’d stepped away from my daily mindfulness practice and allowed my ego to edge it’s way in – My ego always searches outside herself for the answers, finding it easier to blame others, rather than encouraging me to turn inwards into my own heart. Her influence can be strong and sometimes it takes all my strength to not let her take over my mind.
It was time to lean into the years of teachings that I’d immersed myself in, looking for the growth in the struggle & opening my heart to feel what needed to be felt. There were repressed emotions from years gone by, perhaps even past life times, which wanted to be acknowledged, felt and released before I could move on, and this is what I’ve personally been working on over the last few weeks.
An open heart, a willing mind and decisions made from a loving space always leads me back to what I like to call my "HAPPY PLACE"!