Hema Helal

You are CLEAR on your intention on this specific thing in your life & you want to commit to it. As you move forward, you get tripped by STUFFS. Suddenly, it seems like the entire Universe is conspiring against you & throwing road blocks your way.

You retreat in fear & cuss off – ‘what the h*** is going on? Why won’t YOU let me advance?’

What you’re tripping up against my dear, is your own MINDSET. The tape that runs inside your head 24/7. It’s so automatic that you don’t even realize what you’re playing or whose content that is.

You end up self sabotaging all your progress & get back to square one before you throw your arms in the air saying – ‘I just wasn’t cut out for this!’ You get back to playing small.

The good news is, life is bringing it all up now as you make a commitment to advance, so that you can take care of it all BEFORE you move on.

In my everyday work, I am privileged to coach young, potential & all round brilliant women who get tripped up on their STUFF & end up halting progress. Everyday in their unique scenario I remind them the same thing.

Part of getting unstuck & out of your own way is to develop some simple practices & mastering some simple tools.

These tools are so simple, that they often fail to hold our attention for the monumental transformational power they have. Their simplicity is so deceptive, that we often overlook in search of something more complex to solve the riddle of our lives.

Here are some tools that will help you retrain your brain to take care of your ‘stuff’ that you keep getting tripped up against. The key is to build them STEADY:

1.       List of accomplishments:

On a quiet afternoon, take ten sheets of blank papers out & start jotting down your own accomplishments. Look back at last year, go back a few years, go back to grade 3 & give yourself some ‘You Go Girl!’ for the smallest accomplishments you can think of. Go for 100 of them. Right now you may be saying to yourself – ‘huh, big deal! How narcissistic is THAT!’  Don’t tell me I didn’t warn you of their simplicity.

2.       Maintain a Gratitude Log:

Invest in a really nice journal [not the kind that you don’t feel like writing on] & jot down 5 things you’re grateful for every day. Do it religiously. It will retrain your subconscious to go fetch more & more things to be grateful for. If you practice it for a few months, it will TRANSFORM your outlook forever on how you look at life. Simple, I know. Powerful, more than you know if you’re not doing it. It’s the most efficient tool when you want to shift your energy from icky to yummy!

3.       Journal Everyday:

Those late nights when you’re tossing & turning in your bed ‘cos you just can’t sleep from all the fears that are coming up – do a brain drain on paper. Just do free flow writing for 30 minutes without thinking what you’re writing. Scribble WHATEVER comes out & do a thought vomit [ew…] without stopping the pen. Then seek for guidance. Write down – Please give me directions. Chances are – you will be given what you asked for! [happens to me 100% of the time.] Make it an everyday habit & watch your life change it’s course.

4.        Create a Reservoir of Good Books & Tapes:



… so that whenever you’re getting pulled down by negative energy, you can pull out a book from the shelf or toss an audio book on the CD player & listen. It’s like calling on a trusted friend to hold a sacred space for you. A few books that I call on are:

a.     Ask and it is given – Jerry & Esther Hicks

b.     Broken Open – Elizabeth Lesser

c.     You can heal your life – Louise Hay

d.     Eat, Pray, Love – Elizabeth Gilbert

e.     Anything by Martha Beck

f.      CDs & DVDs of programs/retreats of Mentors I respect.

5.       Print / write down a quote that helps you surrender in FAITH:

‘Do not worry about HOW. It is all taken care of for you as long as you do your part of thinking, acting, speaking and being in accordance with that dream. Just dream, visualize, and then start doing something.

Do the next thing that you feel you should do in accordance with that dream, and keep moving. The little that you do triggers something else you had not foreseen and on and on it goes until it completes. ~ David Cameron Gikandi

OR,

I positively expect GREAT results, no matter what I see in front of me.  The Universe is rearranging itself for my best interest right now. ~ Fabienne Fredrickson

Now place it on your PC or somewhere you can see often everyday.

Before you shrug off & go your merry way, consider starting on faith with just ONE item. Soon you’ll see the magic happening ONLY IF YOU DO IT CONSISTENTLY. Then you’ll be convinced to pick up another one… & then, you jusssst might ask me for more!

[This post has been inspired by a blog post of an incredible Life coach, teacher, mentor - Michele Woodward, whom I adore]

Before we start 2011, why not grab a pen & a paper & list 25 things that you accomplished in 2010? When we allow ourselves to feel a sense of completion in whatever we do, however small, it helps to seal the ‘leaks’ through which precious life-energy dissipates. The feeling of completion allows us to carry forward with some heavy duty energy into our subsequent undertakings.

Here’s my list of accomplishments in 2010:

1.       Raised 100 scholarships for Sneha with the team.

2.       Started coaching & helped almost a dozen brilliant women.

3.       All set for life-coach certification with Martha Beck Inc.

4.       Found a mentor.

5.       Stopped expecting a relationship to work that simply wouldn’t.

6.       Stayed vigilant on personal growth & developed healthy habits.

7.       Meditated [almost] daily. I will omit the word ‘almost’ in 2011.

8.       Maintained a gratitude journal & said THANK YOU everyday.

9.       Performed with a fab Jazz band & stretched my vision as a musician.

10.     Stayed focused on layering imprints on Ariana’s mind on – maintaining a gratitude journal, daily practice, the power of spoken words, creating vs. reacting, faith on self & prayer.

11.    Embarked on an opportunity & made a TVO documentary on Sneha.

12.    Broke personal boundary of walking 10 km/day 10 times over.

13.    Started blogging regularly.

14.    Made a new vision board.

15.    Gave away stuffs with love & cleared clutter.

16.    Took many photos.

17.    Manifested an iMac!

18.    Showed respect to a lot of truly deserving people.

19.    Built a large circle of like minded friends on Facebook.

20.    Made my bed EVERYDAY. [That my friend, is a HUGE accomplishment]

21.    Gave myself permission to enjoy many delights.

22.    Broke down & bawled.

23.    Healed.

24.    Did a month of giving.

25.    Appreciated life everyday.

Note: If you find yourself getting stuck while creating your list, consider the following areas & your mind will go on in rocket speed again.

A] Look for accomplishments in these areas of your life: Emotional, Physical, Financial, Spiritual, Relational etc.

B] Think about your roles in life: Mother, daughter, sister, partner, friend etc. & congratulate yourself on the tiniest bit of accomplishments.

Before you start planning your new year, look back at the year that just passed & bring a nice sense of completion to it. You’ll be amazed at how great you feel & how much more CLARITY you gain going into 2011.

Do let me know if this helped in anyway. All the best!

Fear makes us believe there are limited resources in the world so we hold on tight to whatever we have.

Fear whispers in our ears – ‘you’re going to die a lonely, poor, bag lady’, and keeps us stuck in the rut of mediocrity. We hold on to the soul draining 9-5 job that we hate with every cell of our body & voluntarily stay imprisoned for years & decades.

Fear makes us quietly seek passionate love elsewhere while keeping the safety net of our existing dysfunctional relationship with the spouse; asking us to face our truth some other day, when things are in a certain way…. Well, that day never comes & we end up losing all. God forbid our own selves.

Fear makes us say to ourselves – ‘you’re fat, ugly, good for nothing, a piece of crap!’ We say things to ourselves that we’d probably not even say to our enemies. Even worse, we hardly realize that we’ve actually started BELIEVING all these about ourselves!

With FEAR, every moment of our existence becomes an unhealthy, unfun, joyless endless drag. We suffer. The sun doesn’t shine in our worlds. We stay small & we stay put in that dark cold world.

Is there any permanent cure for fear?

Unfortunately not. It’s a part of the construction of human psyche.

But can we beat it & stay just one step ahead?

Absolutely!

Here’s how…

1.       Practice present moment awareness. When we live in the moment consciously, fear leaves us alone. Present moment awareness & fear can’t co-exist. Whenever you feel that fear is trickling in, CHOOSE to be present instead of succumbing to the fearful thoughts. Go take a walk. Being in nature connects us to our Higher power where fear is forced to leave. Or, focus on your breath wherever you are – and observe how you’re choosing to spiral down the thought world. Stop. Choose a thought that feels better.

2.       When you know you’re going down the thought tunnel, take your journal out and write down 5 things that you’re thankful for today, or 5 things that you’re grateful for everyday. Small & apparently insignificant things matter the most. Just do it & see the energy of the moment shift. When we deliberately shift our attention to grace & gratitude, our subconscious mind goes & fetches more & more of it – which is a good thing. Same is true with the opposite.

3.       Take a small action. I’ve made a promise to myself that I’ll write a blog post every week. And every freaking week I find myself riddled with fear – what will I write about? What if no one reads it? What if they think I suck?

When I’m in the clear space of present moment awareness, I know that none of these matters nearly as much as keeping my promise to myself. In that clear space I know that all I need to do is just show up & write. When fear attacks, I take a step back, remind myself what’s important & take that tiny action of showing up with a pen & a paper. This is the ONLY way I can ever hope to become good at writing. What could be one tiny action that would propel you forward in your own fearful situation? Take it.

4.       Don’t beat yourself up. So you’re the tortoise & not the hare. You see many around you progressing 100 miles/hour when your own speed feels something like 10.  That’s not only alright, that’s perfect! 10 can become 20 when we keep moving, not when we stop with fear or self-berating thoughts. So please, be kind to yourself. After all, You are all you have throughout this journey.

Martha Beck says ~ ‘What repetitive negative thoughts tend to replay in your mind? The OPPOSITE of those thoughts is the message you need.’

Read that quote again & really soak it in.

Isn’t it fascinating how it always boils down to the very basics?