The Inner-Saboteur

When it was my fifth birthday, I behaved so badly that my mother said I could never have another birthday party again. There is a photo of me that day, surrounded by my little friends, with my arms crossed, scowling at the camera. The problem was, one of the other kids had just won at Pin the Tail on the Donkey and I was furious. This was my party, surely I should win everything.

The inner saboteur is just like that naughty little girl; not content with cards, gifts, party and cake, she´s got to win all the games, too. There is no pleasing the inner saboteur. No matter how well we are doing, no matter how good things are, the inner saboteur will always turn up, usually as we are just about to fall asleep and nudge us awake with a sudden shout of....

“that´s all well and good, but you haven´t done so-and-so yet. And what about when you made a fool of yourself doing this. And don´t forget, you should still be feeling guilty about that.”

There is absolutely no getting away from the inner saboteur – it´s a part of us – so the best thing we can do for starters is to accept it; to realise that it´s just yin & yang at play and there has got to be some element of dark in light (just as there is always some element of light in dark) because it´s impossible to have one without the other. The inner saboteur is just playing the role of the dark, the yin, that is absolutely necessary to keep our lives in balance – so really, we should be thanking it.

That doesn´t, however, mean that we have to give in to it and let it take over. Ignoring it or getting angry with it never works – it will just shout all the louder. The most effective thing to do is to face up to it, confront it. Explain that you understand it has a job to do, but things are going to be different from now on. You are in control, and everything is just fine and dandy. It can chill out and enjoy the ride. Think of it as a child and you as an adult soothing it.

It will take some work, the inner saboteur will not be convinced straight away and will continue to play up so it´s your job to work at reassuring it. As we know, what we focus on grows, so rather than indulging it when it starts to whine, immediately turn your attention to the positive, the light, the yang elements going on in your life.

By focusing on the good and patting ourselves on the head for all of our achievements, we are not pushing the inner saboteur away so it will not feel that its nose has been put out of joint. Little by little, the positive grows and the light naturally starts to override the dark. At this point, the inner saboteur is still there, but is far more quiet and settled, and our lives generally become much more light-filled and joyful.

Above all, the key to dealing with the inner saboteur is to not take it too seriously. That´s why it´s effective to view it as an attention-seeking child. It´s all part of the game of life, it keeps everything interesting and stops us from becoming complacent or too “up in the clouds” all the time.

Once it understands the rules, it will start to behave itself, just as I did all those years ago. My mother´s threat was lifted due to my angelic behaviour from then on (!!??), my 6th birthday party was a roaring success, and I didn´t play up once. Not even when one of my friends sat on the cake.

But that´s another story :)

Self-Motivation

Oh, I don´t know if I can be bothered writing this!!

Only joking...although I have to admit I am feeling a tad tired today after an unusually poor night´s sleep, so I figure this is as good a day as any to write about self-motivation.

Perhaps the best way to look at this whole business of motivating ourselves, is to first of all ask what is stopping us from feeling motivated in the first place? It´s all too easy to flippantly blame “laziness” or “idleness” - we do love to beat ourselves up after all. But when you stop and think about it a little bit deeper, there is always something else going on beneath the surface.

For the most part, lack of motivation usually stems from fear; fear that we will be unable to cope with something, or won´t be able to complete it; fear that we will fail or do a bad job; fear that it won´t work out quite as we expected and we will have to admit we were wrong; fear that people will laugh at us and we´ll look silly. But as Stephen King says (and I am paraphrasing here) “getting started is the hard part, after that the rest is easy”.

So, let´s get started!

I find Qi Gong exercises the best to get me motivated, but anything that gets the energy flowing around the body and the mind is good – a quick boogie in the lounge to an uplifting tune, a jog around the block, a shower, scalp massage – whatever works for you, but it should be something you enjoy that´s going to make you feel good. Couple the activity with (yes, you guessed it) affirmations – something along the lines of “I am filled with motivated energy. I am charged with energised chi,” and within a very short space of time – less than 5 minutes – you´ll be starting to feel a slight buzz of enthusiasm.

Next, visualise yourself having done whatever it is you were so un-motivated to do, feeling chuffed to bits with yourself and telling someone you care about “you know what? I really wasn´t in the mood, but once I got started, it was easy and I loved every minute.” Try to feel as strongly as possible the relief, the pride, the excitement, the happiness, the sense of achievement you´ll feel...as this is true motivation. We all want to feel like that as much as possible, don´t we?

Having said that, there are inevitably times when we absolutely do not want to do a particular thing and sometimes this has nothing to do with motivation at all. Sometimes, it simply might not be right, might not be in our best interests or for our highest goods to do a certain thing at a certain time. It´s important to tell the difference. When our inner voice is advising us against doing something, the message will be calm and soft with an overriding sense of easiness about the decision. Putting a note in our planner to remind us to do it another day feels like the natural, sensible thing to do and almost immediately, we will feel prompted to do something else – something that will prove to be a more constructive and appropriate use of our time and energy at that moment.

In other words, follow where your inner voice and your energy is leading you. Go with the flow and you won´t go far wrong. As my hubby is fond of saying “don´t yin when you should yang and don´t yang when you should yin”.

Wise words indeed!

Until next time....Namaste.

:)

Kicking self-doubt´s butt!

Self-doubt arises when we don´t trust ourselves. We don´t think we´re good enough, talented enough, attractive enough, important enough, intelligent enough, rich enough, young enough, old enough...I could go on, but you get my drift.

And that´s OK. Seriously, it is. Self-doubt is, for the vast majority of us (I might even be so bold as to say all of us) unavoidable at certain times in our lives, so we might as well make the most of it, don´t you think? Because, believe it or not, if we so choose we can, in fact, let it work with us rather than against us, and here´s how.

If we keep on remembering the universal law of yin & yang – the ever present spot of light in the dark and dark in the light – then we realise that the things we see and categorise as “bad” are never totally that, any more than the things we see and categorise as “good” are never totally that either. There is always some good in bad and some bad in good. Whichever we choose to focus on is the element that will grow.

So, when it comes to self-doubt, if we can accept that it does have its positive elements, its helpful side, then we´re getting somewhere. All that self-doubt is trying to do at the end of the day is to protect us, to save us from possible failure, humiliation, destitution, maybe even death. It might have a tendency to take itself terribly seriously and be a bit of a drama-queen, but it amounts to no more than a well-intentioned warning that “things just might go wrong you know.”

Seen in that light, it doesn´t seem all that bad, does it? It´s when we let it spiral out of control, when we allow our monkey-mind´s incessant chattering to plunge us into the murky waters of self-pity and self-sabotage that it becomes a hindrance in our lives and, at those times, it is advisable to kick its butt.

The next time self-doubt creeps up on you, view it as an opportunity to regain your confidence, to affirm your intention and your power to the universe. It needn´t stop you in your tracks, fill you with fear and make you feel like a victim, useless and powerless to instigate any change in your life. You are in control and you are choosing to do things differently from now on. Hold an image in your mind´s eye of the outcome you are intending. See yourself successfully having accomplished whatever it is you are intending to accomplish. You don´t even need to know how you did it, just see yourself wherever it is you intend to be, feeling however you intend to feel, looking however you intend to look, succeeding at whatever you intend to succeed at. If the image isn´t all that clear, don´t worry, focus rather on the emotions that this scenario causes and feel them all as fully as possible. Enjoy them!

It´s a simple choice; focus on the dark or focus on the light. They will always both be present, but as I said before (and it´s well worth repeating because it´s the truth) what we focus on grows.

In other words, self-doubt can be an enemy, or an ally. It´s up to us.

And even though we can kick its butt, we can never knock it out of the ring completely.

Which, all things considered, is probably a good thing.

Lighten up!

I´ve got to tell you that I started writing this column yesterday, but gave up on it after an hour or so of struggling to make it sound anything like interesting. It was only after I´d walked away from my computer in a huff, convinced that I would never write anything of any worth ever again, that the irony hit me. Here I was, writing a column on lightening up....and taking it oh so very seriously!

And that´s the whole point, isn´t it? The times we need to lighten up are the times when we are taking ourselves seriously – and as human beings, we tend to do that quite a lot. But the simple fact is that no matter what appears to “happen” to us, it´s how we choose to respond, how we choose to view it, that has the power to make us feel this way or that – not the actual happening itself. We can choose to let that shop assistant who was so rude to us earlier put us in a bad mood for the rest of the day; we can choose to let one perceived failing or embarrassment knock our confidence; we can choose to allow the odd let-down or disappointment to shake our faith in human nature...or, we can acknowledge the experience, then choose to focus on the positive, the good experiences, the good people and the success we´ve known in our lives.

This, I suppose is pretty basic day-to-day stuff – but what about when something really huge happens? Something that, no matter how you look at it, is bad, unexpected and unwelcome in your life? I´m certainly not suggesting that every major event or upset be handled with a forced laugh or chin-up type mentality. On the contrary, it is crucial to allow all the pain and all the sadness to come to the surface, otherwise it will fester and cause a whole host of other problems to arise. Unresolved issues and swept-under-the-carpet feelings, on an energetic level, never disappear. What we need to understand is that everything happens for a reason, to teach us something, to give us the gift of learning and growing. Again, how we choose to handle these kinds of situations is entirely up to us. Lightening up does not mean being flippant, or ignoring something that is upsetting to us. It means dealing with it consciously, figuring out what help we need and then actively seeking it.

The Universal Law of Yin and Yang is ever present. What this means is that when things are at their darkest, when we are feeling at our worst, as difficult as it may be to believe at the time, a period of light has already started. Fact. If we can allow ourselves to trust in this and not be too overwhelmed, too engrossed in our negative feelings, then we are more open to accept the light when it starts to shine on us, as inevitably it will.

Conversely, when things are at a peak – when everything is wonderful for us – this heralds a period of dark commencing. This is not depressing, not something we should dread, it´s simply something very useful to bear in mind. The trick is not to take either too seriously. If we can remain in a state of grace and gratitude whether we are in a “dark” time or a “light” time, safe in the knowledge that “this too shall pass” and not get too carried away with the drama of being either over-excited when things are “good”, or over-depressed when things are “bad” then we are in the flow of life and the more easily we can handle anything.

We are not taking ourselves too seriously.

And if you do find yourself succumbing to seriousness and heaviness, here´s an affirmation that works for me (and I do have a tendency to take myself seriously if I don´t keep an eye on myself!)

“I am love and light”.

Because, of course, that´s what we are – divine sparks of light. Whatever happens in your life, remember that, and remember also the lovely quote:

“Angels fly because they take themselves lightly.”

Love and light(ness) to you all. :)