Tag Archives: life

When you’re ready to follow your Soul, synchronicities will show you the way

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As a journalist, I know when I’m onto a good story when I hear it from three different sources. That’s why I know my Soul’s telling me something when the synchronicities line up in threes (often in one day!)

My Soul talks to me in ‘meaningful coincidences’ that often come in threes. (pic: istockphoto.com/kellyreekolibry)

Synchronicity, in the words of the wonderful Carl Gustav Jung, are “meaningful coincidences”. They’re stuff that happen to you that can’t possibly be a coincidence, but they have a pattern and some meaning to you personally. They’re external happenings that have symbolic significance for what’s going on internally for you.

I take synchronicity as a sign that my Soul is talking to me. It wants to tell me that I’m on the right road, that all doors I push against will open without force, and that I’m evolving beyond just the skin I’m in.

Anyone on a spiritual path will know that at some point the Ego will surrender to the Soul. That surrender can take a while, and it can involve months and years of battle. One’s defences can take some dismantling. They cling on with their fingernails, refusing to give up. But when it’s time for the Ego to wave the white flag and admit time’s up, that’s when the Soul steps in. Ever graceful, ever elusive, the Soul has symbolic messages that the Ego has to be in a mood and state to receive and interpret.

I’m often in awe of how Soul can communicate. Here’s how it reached me three times in one hour:  Continue reading →

Tonight’s the night to do something ‘once in a blue moon’

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There’s a blue moon tonight. Not literally blue, but the kind of moon that only comes along now and again. A special kind of moon, when there are two full moons in a calendar month.

What would you do once in a blue moon…?    (pic: istockphoto.com/DougLemke)

I’ve been thinking I should honour the blue moon somehow. Do something I’ve been promising to do for a while. But then I realised that what I’ve been promising myself for some time is to take my focus off doing and instead concentrate on being. To remove that necessity to be busy. And instead enjoy the purity of a moment.

So tonight, for once in a blue moon, I’m going to just be.

Why I’m already humbled and inspired by the Paralympics

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I’m forever reminding myself to be grateful for what I’ve got. Not always be looking for the next house, the next job, the next pair of shoes. To focus on what I’m good at. Not bemoan what I’m not.

Which is why the Paralympics Opening Ceremony for London 2012 has made me feel humbled and inspired.

Humbled because people accept their fate and just get on with things. Martine Wright, a woman who lost her legs in the 7 July bombings, has turned adversity into a triumph by becoming a Paralympic volleyball star. She slept 10 minutes longer the morning she ran onto the Tube and ran up the escalators and ending up sitting beside a suicide bomber. Other people may have reacted differently to losing both their legs. But she now believes this was meant to happen, and she feels so grateful that it did, because she’s now living a new dream.

Inspired because there is no limits to the generosity and wisdom of the human spirit. Professor Stephen Hawking, the most famous scientist in the world, implores us to keep striving and pushing boundaries. He said: “Look up at the stars and not down at your feet. Try to make sense of what you see and wonder what makes the universe exist. Be curious.”

I may not reach Professor Hawking’s insights, but I can resolve to be more curious in my own little way.

Can mindfulness with our children prevent parenthood regrets?

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The biggest regret of parents is not spending enough time with their kids when they were young. They regret working too much, not appreciating that their children would grow up in a flash, not taking enough photos and not going on holiday enough with them. They also regretted worrying about the little things and not letting themselves go and enjoy the moment. That’s according to a survey commissioned by Huggies Little Swimmers nappy brand and published in the Daily Mail.

Mindful of how two-thirds of parents would do things differently if they could, I was more determined than ever to enjoy a half-term break with my eight-year-old daughter mindfully and fully. While she is still young and wanting to play with me.

I was more mindful on holiday with my daughter. With special moments, you either use them or lose them. 

I resolved to pay full attention to how many dives, handstands and lengths she did in the pool (instead of surreptitiously reading my book while pretending to watch her). I applauded when she came down the scariest of scary water slides. And I cheered when she was chosen to go on stage to take part in a tongue-twister competition. I savoured every minute, took as many photos as possible, and I can say I had no regrets about being fully present in the here and now.

Because I, like the parents in the survey, can feel time slipping through my fingers. I blinked and my baby is suddenly nearly as tall as me, and has picked up skills in persuasion, manipulation and negotiation. Each moment I spend with her is tinged with the reminder that this moment won’t come again. And there will be a time when moments like this don’t happen again.

So, I have no regrets about reading that article as a reminder to myself to be mindful. To remember that the human existential condition is such that we only have now. We can either live it fully or let it slip away unnoticed until we feel sad when we spot it in the rear-view mirror.

And the one main regret I certainly don’t have from my weekend away is my decision NOT to go down that scary slide.

The steps I take (literally) to avoid my novel

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I had to laugh the other day when I was reminded of the phrase I heard in my teens about whether a guy is interested in you or not: ‘Don’t listen to the mouth. Watch the feet.’ I was never quite sure what it meant, but I thought it boiled down to ‘actions speak louder than words’.

What made me laugh, however, was how the body acts out what the mind (conscious or unconscious is feeling/wanting/wishing). Body language gives everything away, if you know how to read it. In my case, my body was literally ‘acting out’ what my mind was thinking.

There are a bunch of temporary ‘Wenlock’ and ‘Mandeville’ statues around London as part of the Olympic Games London 2012 celebrations, which encourage little kids and grown kids alike to follow the ‘trails’ around London, being photographed at each one. Every Wenlock is detailed according to his environment, and so you have City Wenlock with bowler hat and striped suit, and a PhoneBox with suitably red phonebox attire.

How can I keep avoiding such an entertaining reminder of my novel?

Except that the Wenlock closest to where I work – as I discovered weeks after he was first placed there – is called Novel Wenlock. And I have been AVOIDING him every day, either walking past without noticing or taking a different route across a square rather than the direct route past him.

I laughed when I realised. Because I have totally been avoiding my novel (the one that passed the MA examiners, but which needs so much work on it still). Perhaps I’ll be more conscious and mindful of it now I know that I can’t pass by Novel Wenlock every day without saying hello.

Listening to negative people can make you dumb

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OK, so it may not come as a surprise that hanging out with people who whinge and complain all the time isn’t good for your spiritual or mental wellbeing. But it turns out that all that negativity has a physical effect on the brain’s ‘muscle’ – and can make you dumb!

This article in Inc, Listening to complainers is bad for your brain, quotes a book by Trevor Blake, entrepreneur and author of Three Simple Steps: A Map to Success in Business and Life, which looks at how neuroscientists have measured the impact of complaining on the brain. It can apparently make you negative too  – even if you listen to it on TV or radio.

Blake says: “Typically, people who are complaining don’t want a solution; they just want you to join in the indignity of the whole thing.”

Time to tell them to sort themselves out, remove yourself from the situation – or, as he suggests, imagine you’re surrounding yourself in a protective ‘bubble’ or escaping to a secluded beach. Keep practising that technique, and it’ll keep you calm and free from negative infiltration.

The Soho Santa flash mob and the writer who’d love to join in

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Flash-mob Santas take over Soho, London.

As I found myself flung amongst flash-mob Santas in Soho (London) recently, it reminded me of the distance that writers keep from the world while being fully immersed in it, fascinated by it, and dependent on it.

I was passing through an area of the capital that I hadn’t found myself in for some time – and the memories winked and flickered at me from the Continue reading →