Saturday 12 September 2009

Helping everyone else but yourself?

I've spent most of my adult life trying to make the right decision so that everyone (my family mostly) is safe and happy. I've felt a bit like a meerkat - keeping watch over everyone else, looking out for danger, making sure they are fed, clothed, housed and cared for properly. In every new situation I have to check out the dangers as well as the possibilities. That's just the way I am.

I never gave this much thought - I was too busy raising my children, doing my job, looking after my home, cooking meals, all the usual stuff.

Then one morning, while rushing to get ready for work I decided to take the rubbish out to the bins. One more quick job to fit in before leaving the house. It was raining outside and I didn't notice that my shoes were wet when I was taking the bin back into the kitchen ... where we had ceramic tiles ... and then I slipped ... and broke my leg. End result? Six weeks at home on the sofa recuperating.

During those six weeks I learned to slow down. It was March 1998, the rest of the family were out at work or school and I finally had time to think about myself and what I wanted to do. The end result was that I started my training as a massage and aromatherapist , life coach and EFT practitioner.

All the training I've done has taught me one very important thing - to listen to my intuition. My body knew I was pushing it too hard. I just wasn't listening, so it had to shout pretty loud to get my attention.

My life changed then - and I began to learn more about myself and how the world really works.

I learned that "what you believe is true" (meaning that we see the world through our own filters). I believed that I "had to" be the one to hold everything together at home - till I learned that the world didn't fall apart if I stopped. In fact it got better when I started doing less. When I got out of my own way.

I learned that "what you focus on, you get more of" (the Law of Attraction - thank you Abraham-Hicks). My focus was on how many things I had to fit in to my day - and of course there was always something else that needed doing. It was endless. When my focus shifted to just getting better, I got better. When I concentrated on giving myself time to recharge my batteries, I found I had more energy. Sounds obvious now, but at the time, stuck in the thick of it all, I really couldn't see the wood for the trees.

I learned to "perfect my environment" (thank you Thomas Leonard). My environment affects how I interact with the world. If my desk is cluttered, so is my mind. I limit the time I spend at parties because crowds and noise overwhelm me - I'm happier sitting at a table with a few friends.

I've learned to "be sensitive". Now I know that my natural tendency to notice danger is just a part of my increasing awareness, my increasing sensitivity to everything around me. So sensitive is good - using all my senses: sight, smell, hearing, touch, feeling and intuition.

And most recently I've learned that the problems I've had in my life are things I've been holding on to - things I now know I can let go of, using EFT (thank you Gary Craig and Jenny Cox). I don't have to be angry any more about something that happened in the past - I can tap it away. I don't have to feel awful any more about failing at something - I can tap it away. I don't have to feel too scared to do something new that takes me out of my comfort zone - I can tap it away.

So how do you do this EFT thing? I'll tell you in the next post ...