Resolving some of your own Emotional Loops

I am often asked by clients what they can do at home to resolve some of the Emotional Loops that may be affecting their lives.

What I recommend is Journal Writing – I recommend it because I know the positive things it brings into my own life. I rate Journal Writing on par to Meditation in terms of the positive effect it can have on your life. I believe both disciplines bring huge benefits in terms of our wellbeing – mental, emotional and physical. The journal is a silent witness to whom I share my inner thoughts, concerns, ideas, concepts, possibilities, feelings, meanderings. I may start writing my journal from an initial idea that I want to write something out, but in the act of writing something else often happens - and it can often take me to shores I didn’t expect. It is a place where my shadows and shades can express themselves. Sometimes when I re-read journals I am surprised at the insight or wisdom I find etched on the pages. Sometimes I am amused by the endless pettiness and pickiness of what was ‘the issue’ from some prior time. A journal gets things into perspective.

The reason I think it has a positive effect on my life is that is a forum where I can offload, sort and process. I think everyone needs a forum that they can do that, and although my thing is Journal Writing, for you it may be exercise or art or whatever.

If you are considering Journal Writing, I would suggest that you buy a beautiful book specifically dedicated to that purpose. Ensure that your journal is private and off limits to others – the idea behind Journal Writing is that is a forum where you can say or express things that you would not necessarily do if you knew you had an audience – it is your private place. Many times I express or write things that I didn’t even know was lying beneath the surface – and what I write is not necessarily a reflection of my public persona. I tend to think that all journals should be stamped with a disclaimer at the front which says “the opinions or views expressed herein are not necessarily that held by the author”. I suggest you handwrite your journal – a blog, or writing your journal on a computer is not the same – the act of hand writing with errors, doodles, strike outs, leaky pens, spelling mistakes and bad grammar is a much more personal intimate experience.

Maybe Journal Writing isn’t your cup of tea. That’s okay. I don’t know what forum you have in your life for you to offload, sort and process, but whatever it is, I would suggest that you let yourself dive deeply. Unprocessed emotions, unsorted relationships, unreflected concerns, unexpressed ghosts of “could of, should of, would of” accumulate into ever larger and messy piles – and much like a hoarder – the space or energy you have left in your life to live your life gets smaller and smaller.

Life and health is a full energy experience, and by energy I mean more than physical energy – we also need emotional energy in order to maintain our health and wellbeing.

The Dragonfly Transformations philosophy and what makes it unique

Want to improve your relationships?

One simple but highly effective way to improve relationships - regardless of whether its your love relationship, relationship with children or siblings, or business relationships is to practise being a good listener.

Talking is easy, but listening is so much harder. 

We put a lot of emphasis on talking: mastering – our language, tone etc.  And if you aren’t confident about speaking in public, we even have public speaking classes and groups. 

Yet we don’t tend to have the same emphasis on listening.  It’s almost an assumption that if you can hear, you can listen.  Have you heard of a listening class?  Or anyone billed as a keynote listener? 

Being a good listener is invaluable – in fact, being good listener can have a huge positive effect on your life. 

Good listeners are often deemed to be really good communicators.  Why?  Because listening is about hearing what is actually being said – not only the words, but the tone and the body language.  It’s about being present in the conversation.  No winding thoughts about what to get at the supermarket later on. 

A good listener also hears the emotions behind the words.  In paying attention, the listener is validating or acknowledging the talker.  A good listener isn’t using that time to ‘mentally construct’ their next statement or a defensive response. 

So are you a good listener?  

One way to find out is to get your friends, family or work colleagues – people you communicate with regularly and who you know will answer honestly to respond "yes" or "no" to the following 10 questions. Do not answer the questions yourself.

1. During the past two weeks, can you recall an incident where you thought I was not listening to you?

2. When you are talking to me, do you feel relaxed at least 90% of the time?

3. When you are talking to me, do I maintain eye contact with you most of the time?

4. Do I get defensive when you tell me things with which I disagree?

5. When talking to me, do I often ask questions to clarify what you are saying?

6. In a conversation, do I sometimes overreact to information?

7. Do I ever jump in and finish what you are saying?

8. Do I often change my opinion after talking something over with you?

9. When you are trying to communicate something to me, do I often do too much of the talking?

10. When you are talking to me, do I often play with a pen, fiddle with my mobile, play with my hair or do something else at the same time? 

Scoring:

An outstanding listener would have achieved the following 1 = NO, 2 = YES, 3 = YES, 4 = NO, 5 = YES, 6 = NO, 7 = NO, 8 = YES, 9 = NO, 1- = NO.

If you received 9-10 correct answers = be proud – you are an outstanding listener,

If you received 7-8 correct answers = doing really well – you’re a good listener,

If you received 5-6 correct answers = you possess average listening skills; and

Less than 5 correct answers = what can I say?

Quitting the habit of a lifetime ...

Intuition: trusting yourself without knowing why

Intuition is something we all have. But often the volume is turned down so low, we can barely hear it.   Intuition is not about being able to reading tomorrow’s headings today – it’s about reading the energy and where the energy is heading  or moving towards;  it’s about sensing what feels strong and bright vs. what feels diminished somehow.   It’s about using that data to guide you.

The thing which usually confuses people regarding intuition is that often our intuition prompts us to take a certain action or decision, and our head goes ballistic because our head wants to know “who, what, where, why” – it wants the facts – it needs facts to justify its choices, yet our intuition can’t always provide all that detail.  It’s at this junction many of us walk away from our intuition because we have no ‘evidence’ to back it up.   Later on when all goes pear shaped we beat ourselves up for not listening to our intuition – I can’t tell you how many times I’ve heard various renditions of “I knew – just knew” – it’s come out of my mouth many times, and out of the mouths of countless people I’ve met.

In the course of our lives we’ve built a solid relationship with our head and all its posturing, planning, rationalizing, justifying. 

The only way we can build a solid relationship with our intuition is to use it – use it despite not knowing ‘why’ you need to take that particular course of action.  The more we use it, the more opportunities we have to see it’s ‘on the money’.  The more wins we get, the more we learn to trust what we are getting.

One way we sabotage our intuition is we expect a perfect score – why we want perfection from intuition, when we know it’s really not achievable in any other sphere is a mystery.    Think about how many times you’ve made head based decisions about something, based on the best research, data etc. etc. you have and it goes wrong – does one failure mean you won’t trust your mind anymore? 

Another way we sabotage ourselves is by wanting to hear what we want to hear.  If the all the vibes in the world say “get away from that guy”, but we want HIM TO BE THE ONE, we will work overtime to ensure the message is drowned out by all that fantasy, drama or wishful dreaming.  Of course in the after-guy post mortem with your friends you’ll probably say “I knew – just knew”. 

 An exercise I do every so often is make up a list of all the things which intuition has helped me with in my life – for example its stopped me from getting mugged, having a head-on car accident along a winding mountain road and so on.  That’s a great way to build your confidence.   Give it a go, and you’ll see what I mean. 

Graphic Copyright (c) 123RF Stock Photos

Is there a food you like too much?

We all have our favourite foods.

Foods we like a lot.   These tend to be foods we may leave room in our stomachs for, or when we are in a social situation we may fill up on these foods. These foods may be our ‘comfort foods’.

If these foods are in our home, we tend to finish them off very quickly, or they are always on our shopping list.   Examples can include chocolate, cheese, lollies, salty or savoury things, cakes, fizzy drinks, juices, chips, breads etc.  Maybe you:

• Love desserts and sweet things so much, that at a buffet or smorgasbord, you would fill your plate with desserts before you even consider eating anything else,
• Love fizzy drinks so much you will drink many cans or bottles every day, and even though you’ve tried alternatives, nothing else fills that space in the same way,
• Adore cheese, and will eat cheese with almost anything or everything, or
• Can see elements of yourself in the above examples, but for a different food.

Often this desire to eat a specific food may initially seem quite amusing - to yourself, as well as to family and friends. It may just be considered your “quirk”. It may remain benign and harmless for evermore.

But for some of us, our passion or desire for our favourite or loved food shifts to another level, and now you want to stop eating or drinking that food but in spite of your best efforts, you can’t.

Why your Favorite Food may now be a problem

Your favourite food is a problem when you know, or come to believe that your continued consumption of it is starting to impact your health, your sense of well being and your life.

Your favourite food is a problem when in spite of that knowledge you can’t seem to stop eating that food, or be satisfied to just eat modest amounts of it.

You may be:

• Diabetic, or pre-diabetic and know you shouldn’t eat sweet things, but you can’t help yourself when it’s in front of you. Some diabetics even mess around with their insulin just to be able to eat some of their favourite foods.
• Overweight and know its time for you to stop drinking those fizzy drinks, or hankering for chocolate, and just knowing that makes you want to have more of it.
• Suffering from high cholesterol and know its time for you to stop eating cheese and other savoury foods, and it makes you miserable to say no, and deny yourself that way.
• Concern that if you continue to eat certain foods the way you presently are, you will develop a health problem in the future.
• Trying to lose weight and know that you keep sabotaging yourself by your passion for one specific type of food. 
• Have developed a food allergy - to wheat for example, but find it hard not to eat bread. 

http://www.dragonflytransformations.com.au/food.html