The Big Peace

Committing to ourselves

It was half term for me last week and my husband is away on tour so I had all my girlfriends come to stay over the week so we've had a busy week entertaining kids by day and scaring them on the haunted hay rides (halloween in the country) and then getting petrified kids in bed by 7 and us mums then eating yummy food, drinking too much wine and putting the world to rights.

And - dare I say it.... moaning about men! I kind of enjoyed this for a bit. We women do bond beautifully regaling each other about what you men have or haven't done. But after about the second day, we got really fed up with hearing the same old moans....we want them to commit to us, we wanted them to give to us, we wanted them to delight and spoil us......With my coaching hat perched on the end of the sofa, I realised that we were definitely on hiding to nothing (technical coaching term there). We give all our power away when we ask others to change. All we can do is change the way we think or act.

So being the brilliant, superstar women that we are, we turned it around in Byron Katie fashion (www.thework.com) and asked ourselves how we could commit to ourselves more, how could we give to ourselves more, how we could delight and spoil ourselves more....so we have spent the rest of half term asking ourselves these questions versus moaning about our men and you know what? I FEEL FANTASTIC. What does real commitment to myself look like? I asked myself. For me, it definitely about more creativity and writing and new projects...and allowing myself the space and time to do that versus trying to cram it between school run and bedtime.....It's that extra yoga class, it's heading down to the gym for an hour and sitting in the jacuzzi and 'working' out some new ideas.....

I can spend so much energy grizzling about my husband - it feels so much better to spend that energy creating something lovely for myself.

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Thinner Peace

I've just found the funniest, most profound and wonderful book by Martha Beck (Oprah's life coach). The 4-Day Win.
I've always been her greatest fan....she's very irreverent - and her latest book The Four Day Win promises to change the way you think about your food and your body in just 4 days!

And I couldn't resist buying it especially after my last post about creating some healthier habits. Will power is not my greatest strength so I loved the premise of this book - Martha doesn't believe that losing weight has anything to do with willpower but the key is to adjust our behaviour patterns and the way we think about food. so far, so good.

It gets better - it's the funniest self-help book I've ever read. And so applicable that even slackers like me might lose a few pounds.
But the chapter that's made me laugh and think the most is the one on 'the most important weight-loss skill in the history of the universe'....and this is finding your 'thinner peace'.

Want to find your thinner peace? Let's do it now.

"First, hold your right hand, palm up," say Beck. "Imagine a 2 inch tall version of yourself in military uniform with a whip in one hand and gun in the other, stomping around your palm, shrieking deeply personal insults and commanding you to lose weight. This is the Dictator. Now hold up your left palm and picture your Wild Child here: 2 inches tall, dressed in skins and bark, covered in scars, waiting for an opportunity to escape or subvert the Dictator's brutal control. Watch until you can see them both clearly in your mind's eye.

Now, while watching these two mini-yous, I want you see that as dysfunctional as they both are, both of them are essentially good. The Dictator wants you to be healthy and beautiful. It gets frantic about your weight for the same reason you might freak out if you saw a beloved pet wandering into the traffic....

On the other hand, the Wild Child is the part of you that evolved to avoid starvation and captivitiy. It panics when the Dictator berates, shames and trieds to control it. It know the Dictator is planning to starve it. So it's not surprising that the instant the Dictator is weakened by stress, hunger, or environmental chaos, the Wild Child leaps into action and eats like a junkyard dog.

Think through the well meaning motivations of both your Dictator and your Wild Child, until you really understand that withink their limited perspectives they're doing their very best. Then offer them kindness. One useful method is to silently repeat these phrases fro the classic 'loving-kindness' meditation: "May you be well. May you be happy. May you be free from suffering."

Visualise until you can feel compassion towards both sides of yourself, says Beck. And when you get there, ask yourself this:

Who are you?

The only reason you can 'see' and offer kindness to both Dictator and Wild Child is that you're not either one of these. You've moved into a third realm of consciousness , which resides, literally in another part of the brain. Beck calls it the Watcher. "While both the Dictator and Wild Child make you want to overeat, your watcher self is not nearly as compulsive," she says.

In fact, according some medical psychologists, it's physiologically impossible for your mind to stay locked in a war of control when you're engaging its ability to generate compassion and appreciation. Beck calls this the place of 'thinner peace"!

Now here's a result....you can find your inner peace and have thin thighs too.

This is a really fantastic book for anyone who has ever struggled with issues on food and knows that diets don't work but didn't know what else to do.
Have a love in with your Wild Child and Dictator tonight.

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Sick

I ate something dodgy for lunch yesterday and have been feeling awful. I've been up all night - sickness and the rest....I won't go into the grim details.

Today I feel about 20% of my normal self - a bit weak and weepy. I know this probably sounds obvious....(and perhaps shows how much i take my physical wellness for granted) but it really has rammed it home how my physical state affects everything - how I view things, how I cope with life, how I interact with others.

At this period in my life (apart from the dodgy prawns yesterday) I generally feel fit and well. And I'm wondering if I could turn up that dial so I'm not just 'fit and well' but physically in my prime? I wonder what it would be like to look after myself at the highest level (currently I probably drink too much coffee during the day, too much wine on a saturday night perhaps?)

I love that word 'Prime'.....what would I eat/drink/treat myself differently to be at my prime? What would you?

I don't want to end up drinking those horrible smelling teas and smugly showing off my six pack at the school gate but I definitely could work on creating some new habits to give me more energy. Will it make me more peaceful? Well, without sounding all '70s about it....it would be very much be about self-love versus jump-starting myself into action with a bucket of coffee. (old journalistic habits die hard)

I feel a new gentle regime coming on. I want to up my game...a few notches...a few baby steps in the direction of 'prime'.

This is my 'prime-time'.

What does yours look like?

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Creativity: fast track to peace?

I've been re-reading Julia Cameron's Artist's Way (it's a 12 week creative 'recovery' programme) Every time I read it, I am incredibly inspired and fired up.

I use one of her tools all the time. She calls it 'morning pages' - you write 3 pages a day....nothing beautiful or literary - just a good old whinge or simply allowing your hand to write whatever it wants - "nothing is too petty, too silly, too stupid, or too weird, to be included." she says.

"All that angry, whiny, petty stuff you write down in the morning stands between you and your creativity.......The morning pages are the primary tool of creative recovery."

I also find it's a great tool for 'life recovery'. I often find that I'm a whingy and grumpy on page one and by page three, I'm bored of my self-pity and am planning how to sort myself out. Not always but even if I just grizzle for 3 pages, it feels as if I get my negative musing on the page and out of my head.

It's also useful to read back 10 weeks down the line. (Cameron advices we wait at least a few weeks before reading back our morning pages) You notice if there is a theme or a reccuring problem that seems to capture your attention. Which can be a great call to action.

And I suppose it's also a great way to observe your negative thoughts versus be in them. By writing them down, you can take a step back. And you realise that the whinges do pass, as do the upbeat musings. Cameron suggests we think of them as meditation.

"It is impossible to write morning pages for any extended period of time without coming into contact with an unexpected inner power. Although I used the morning pages for many before I realized this, " she says. "The pages are a pathway to a strong and clear sense of self. They are a trail that we follow into our own interior, where we meet both our own creativity and our creator."

All by just writing a few daily whinges. Give it a try and let me know what you think.

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Grumpy

I've been a bit grumpy the last few days. Well, not grumpy but less peaceful somehow....more caught up the little dramas in my head. I've had a cold and feeling a bit sorry for myself. But I realised that perhaps without my daily focus on peace with The Big Peace programme, I'm more inclined to grizzle.

Right now, for me, it is a conscious decision to focus on peaceful thoughts...they certainly don't just happen.

I have to choose to FEEL differently in the moment.

Three things I find myself coming back to: the exercise that Michael Neill taught us in his interview (and in his book Feel Happy Now). Put your hand on your heart (and tell me....sorry, broke into song) and think about someone who you love and let that love run up and down your spine, down to the tips of your toes, up to the top of your head and that upwards and then round again until you feel you're totally loved up. Great way to change your mood.

I've just bought Steven Sashen's advanced meditation CDs but my favourite is still the 'all that is' that he took us through in his interview. That feels a great one to do when I'm arguing with reality.

And thirdly is that dose of inspiration. Because I was writing the The Big Peace daily, I was constantly researching and focussing on the question 'how can I feel more peaceful'? What I focus on expands.

How are you feeling now the 30 day programme has finished? Any changes?

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Golden Ticket launch

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory was my favourite book - actually, it probably is still up there in my top ten.

And I'm feeling like Willy Wonka tonight.

We're just about to release a few Golden Tickets - coaching tickets to be coached by me for 6 months - 12 noon tomorrow.

I'm changing the way I work....I'm always looking at ways to make my work more enjoyable and I just really, really love coaching. And wanted to devise a way of working where I could work with my big leap tribe more often in intense bursts. I really working that way but didn't know if it would actually work for clients. But have discovered that of all the ways I coach, this has worked best. I released 20 'trial' golden tickets back in April this year and we've had some huge leaps being made. So am really excited.

Just talking to my fantastic internet guy and we've been talking about how we can make a real community versus an online one...I'm still not that sure about facebook....???? anyway....all exciting stuff!

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