Habitising

Concrete BlocksGood old writer’s block – like a bad Mafioso movie, my inspiration to write has felt more like a pair of cold, heavy concrete boots (the ones that see you sink to the bottom of a murky river) rather than my usual exuberance.  Instead of wielding my pen like Zorro – fleet footed, elegant and full of pizazz, my pen has felt more like a butter knife in the hands of a lumber jack!  And it would seem this allegory was quite apt given the mounds of scribbled and scrawled paper around me.

So what brought me out of the dreary depths of fallen writers?  Well, inspiration it seems is often found when you are at the bottom of the lake looking up (proverbially of course).  And just like that, the weighty, grey cement blocks released me from their grim depths and I was back!  Ironically, I’ve been talking about the ‘Fog of Life’ recently and have even devised a program centred on this state of mental vagueness, so it came as no surprise that irony abounded when my inspiration returned.

Blurred LensesLet me explain.  My creative lenses were seriously blurry and my thought process was stagnant!  The irony was that I was making it worse by inadvertently creating a habit by mentally repeating the same negative thoughts: “I have writers block, I have no inspiration to write”.  What exactly is a habit?  It is the repeating of an action, emotion or thought until we believe it to be true.  It moves from our conscious mind into the unconscious and that’s when we stop “thinking” about it and instead it starts to happen automatically.

Once that happens, a habit has been formed.

An action, emotion or thought compounded by repetition will bury itself into your subconscious.  And so by repeating that negative phrase to myself consistently, I was starting to believe I had lost my mojo.  Extreme and dire I suspect, but the unconscious does what it must to make the conscious believe – think about that the next time you ‘argue’ with yourself.

One of the biggest repercussions of being stuck in ‘The Fog of Life’ is the very real possibility of your unconscious accepting this as your life’s status quo.  I call this ‘negative habitising’ (yes a made up word and hopefully a book waiting to happen).  I’ve said it before;  our reality is what we believe it to be.  The addendum to this is that we create our reality by repeating actions, thoughts, emotions or processes.

RepetitionThe good news is that ‘negative habitising’ is 100% reversible.  You can choose to habitise positively because the unconscious is totally reprogrammable.  Simply remember this:  habits are a symptom of repetition.  The more you do something, the more it becomes second nature. This is true for all things (physical, mental, emotional and spiritual).  So, why not choose to create more empowering habits instead of limiting ones?  I cover this as part of my course – The 5 steps to Clarity, so if you are in need of some help or know someone who is – please get hold of me by using the Contact Me tab at the top of right hand side of this page.

Below I have provided an introduction to the four principles of ‘positive habitising’ and here is a simple acronym to help you remember them: L.O.V.E

Love

LISTEN
‘We are who we are because of what we say we are’ – a bit of mouthful but read it again slowly.  We define who we are by the language we use daily.  So a useful first checkpoint on your road map is to listen to what you are saying.  Self-awareness is perhaps the most fundamental aspect personal development.  Second is language.  They say the pen is mightier than the sword but then what of words and your voice? Be aware of what you say, not only to others, but also to yourself.

OPTIMISE
Once you have heard yourself, make the change to a more appropriate language set, I call this language optimisation.  An easy way of doing this is to make a list of all your negative words that you have been using and then flip them.  For example: “I can’t” becomes “I can” or “I will”.  Here’s a challenge for you – try not to use the word “don’t” for a whole week and instead find a positive substitute.  Change your actions, emotions and thoughts by optimising your language.

VOCALISE
Listening to what we say is the first step.  And then changing what we hear is the second, the third one is obvious – say it.  Say it or vocalise it.  Affirmations are a wonderful way of training yourself to think ‘better’.  Write down a list of empowering statements. Make them relevant to what you want to change, and write them in both current and future tenses. Repeat out aloud daily. Remember step one – listen; you need to vocalise in order to listen.  Eventually you unconscious mind will begin to accept this as reality.  The real power comes from repetition so vocalise and repeat daily!

EMPOWERING EVENT
Lastly, when we are passionate about something or we have a goal that motivates us, the human conscious system accepts this much more readily and easily (and quicker) than repetition.  So find your empowering event or a purpose to drive you.  Purpose gives us direction, and when we know where we are going, it is easier to find enthusiasm to create interesting and positive habits.

As usual any questions or queries are welcome.  Happy habitising people.

The Emotional Harness

Table MountainCape Town.  Land of the long, flat mountain and gratefully a place I get to call home.  I had forgotten just how beautiful this city is.  You can smell the fresh, crisp sea air while you drive yourself around in the warm embrace of the mighty African sun and you are never lost because the gentle behemoth stands tall and is always there to guide you. I’ve been out of touch with Afrika (deliberately spelt with a K) for quite some time now.  I chose to distance myself from her complicated development and instead invest in an old, established order.  Upon my return to the motherland, I ponder was it worth it?

The United Kingdom is the epicentre of modern development.  The engine room of Europe, she stands regal, proud, and defiant as ever acting as a colander of culture.  The world passes through and inevitably stains her, but what is truly palatable is that the flavour you get (and believe me, it’s not something you will forget in a hurry).

Perhaps the latter is a fickle anecdote, but the point is that anyone who lives in London will leave a changed person.  There is an energy about London that is difficult to verbalise.   It’s fluid and modern yet stoic and rich in tradition.  This paradox continues as the Union Jack stands as a bastion of cultural freedom and yet the royal monarch resides over the country with such grace and charm that you are blissfully unaware of how contradictory it all is.

London Skyline

Love it or hate it – London is marmite. It’s certainly not for the foolhardy, because it is a real city that will chew you up and spit you out if you don’t adapt and play properly.  But on the flipside, if you do play properly and you will be rewarded with more than you can imagine.

I believe in learning from experience and that is exactly what you will get when you accept London as part of your life.  “Experience is the greatest school master” – It’s an old phrase that I heard my dad use when I was younger and I never really took much stock of it until recently.  As many of you know, due to immigration laws and policies, I unfortunately had to leave London recently.  And typically, when your journey is suddenly diverted, one responds with a range of emotions that are both positive and negative, but ultimately you tend to reflect on your journey.  And suddenly my old man’s words came alive – experience is the greatest school master.

Leaving London was extremely difficult.  Much more than I had anticipated.  I looked forward to my new journey but upon departure I suddenly felt a torrent of overwhelming sadness.  It washed over me unexpectedly and it was debilitating. It felt like a harness that kept me bridled to something uncontrollable. And never mind the little voice in the back of your head, I had a choir of demons sing tunes of despair and folly. I didn’t enjoy that at all.  In fact I found myself sitting in the sterile cubicle of an airport toilet sobbing.  I felt like it was in slow motion as the tears fell from my eyes and splattered on the cold, hard tiles below, the world I knew for seven years had evaporated and now I was faced with the cold, hard unknown.

Tron Light CyclesAnd it was in this moment of pure melancholy that the words ‘emotional response and focus’ came slicing through my jagged emotions.  To paint an accurate picture imagine the light cycles from Tron.  Blue and yellow transparent walls of energy and light slicing through my dark mood. Introducing themselves with a stern, clean punch that caused me to catch my breath.  And with that, I dried my eyes, blew my nose and I took out my little red book of ideas and wrote down the following:  “to create an optimised outcome, I need to have an optimised emotional response”.

What is an ‘optimised emotional response’?  That sounds like a bit of psychobabble if you ask me!  Well that’s what I thought when I first heard it.  It’s crazy how conditioned we are not to accept something new or how autonomous our response is to something we know will change us or at least challenge us.  But all that it means is simply this:  by learning to control your emotions, you can get a more favourable outcome for yourself.  Think about it:  If you are angry and upset when dealing with a customer service person – what do you think the likelihood of resolving the issue quickly and pleasantly will be?  I’m going to say zero.  However, if you make a conscious effort to change your emotional response to the person, you will be able to influence a more positive outcome.  Being aware of your emotions is the first step in gaining emotional intelligence.  Here is an exercise that helped me when I first learnt about the power of emotions:  Try taking stock of your emotional responses to everyday events and people. Make a note of it, and I mean literally – write it down.  Capture the emotion that you felt.  Be specific with regards to the emotion and the event.  Also note down your outcome of the interaction.  The object of the exercise is simple; become aware of your emotions.  Once you are aware of your emotions, you can start to ‘optimise’ them so that you get an ‘optimised’ outcome.  Simples (for all my London readers).

Throat ChakraAnother good exercise is to try and verbalise your emotions.  Talk to someone you trust, be open and honest (I am always here if you need someone to talk to, just use the ‘Contact me’ tab at the top right of this page).  Find words that describe your emotions.  This can be extremely helpful in understanding yourself and understanding your emotional responses.  In Hinduism, it is said that talking stimulates the throat chakra and talking about emotions can help to bring balance.  Being in a state of balance is a wonderful way to focus on the ‘correct’ aspects of life because what we focus on is what we will get.  It is the manifesto of the universe – we attract what we focus on.  The problem however is not being aware of what we are focusing on.  We do it instinctually and most often without conscious direction.  If you consistently worry about money, you are in fact focusing on the negativity of the intention.  By being aware of what you are focusing on, making a conscious effort to redirect your thoughts and intentions to something more positive, you have the power to change your reality.  It’s not something that happens overnight and as with anything new it requires practice.   But with time and patience you will begin to transform your life.  It’s a secret that’s been with us throughout the ages. Except it’s not really a secret, it’s just common sense.

Shadow Shibari

Our daily bondageGiven the world’s sudden obsession with 50 Shades of Grey,  it sparked a train of thought that led me to arrive at the following question: “is bondage actually the ultimate act of freedom?”  This question got my creative cogs spinning and so I began to do a bit of reading and research.

Some of you may be familiar with the word Shibari.  For those of you who aren’t, the word Shibari has incorrectly come to mean an erotic form of Japanese rope bondage in the western world of BDSM.  Shibari is a noun and literally means ‘to tie’ or ‘to bind’.  There is very little reference as to why such a bastardisation occurred, but from my understanding it is a classic case of ‘lost in translation’.  Japanese as a language uses context specific words with particular meanings ascribed to them whereas in English, meanings can be assumed and words assimilated to have various meanings regardless of the context  The correct word to use is the adverb Kinbaku. It is the most accurate and contextually correct word to use when referring to bondage.  Its literal meaning is ‘the beauty of tight binding’ and its recognised ‘father’ is Seiu Ito.

I guess you are wondering what on earth an inspiration blogger is doing talking about bondage.  Sit tight (if you’ll pardon the very wry pun) and I shall attempt to unravel what I’m getting at.

Bondage is a component of submission.  True submission requires you to relinquish control of yourself.  You let go of your fear and insecurities, and you derive pleasure from being absolutely free from decision.  What an amazing concept, don’t you think?  To be able to put yourself in a frame of mind where you are secure in yourself,  free from worry and doubt, in a mode where you actually allow yourself to receive pleasure because there are no obstacles preventing it.  Amazing.

My question to you is, how do we emulate this mindset without subscribing to the world of BSDM?  How can we model this feeling of freedom and release ourselves from our daily ‘bondage’ (work, stress, debt, anxiety, insecurities, etc.)?

In the realm of inspiration and motivation, the first step in transforming our lives is to become self aware.  To become truly self aware we need to face who we are at ground zero; we need a clear perception of our personality, our strengths, weaknesses, thoughts, beliefs, motivation, and emotions.  But very often the path to self awareness is in the shadow of our daily bondage.  And hence the reason why I’ve called this post ‘Shadow Shibari’.  So how do we slip the ropes of our Shadow Shibari?

Well, the experience of reading through this article should hopefully have got you thinking.  And if you’re thinking, you’re on the right track.  Becoming self aware is a process, an evolution of the self.  You can only become self aware if you make the decision to explore the real you. Take a moment and reflect on this statement:  The REAL you?  Do you know who that is?

In time, I will post a series of articles that will take us on an interesting path of self discovery.  But in the meantime, here is something to help you begin your journey.

Write out the following on a piece of paper:

  1. Describe your best self in 3 words – have fun with it, think about your top 3 most positive qualities. How would you ‘sell’ yourself to someone in just 3 words?  Once you have your 3 words, use a thesaurus on each one and find alternative words for yourself.
  2. Describe your worst self in 3 words – be brutally honest with yourself.  The key here is to dig deep and not list what you have heard others say, but what you know to be your worst self.  Challenge each of these traits.  Where did they come from?
  3. If you were allowed to change one physical aspect of yourself – what would it be? Remember to write out why you want it changed? Reflect on what you have written.  Do you want to change it because of the way you feel in front of others? Examine this feeling.
  4. What is your goal for 2013?  Be very specific. Detail how you are going to achieve your goal.
  5. Write down 5 things that you are truly grateful for.

Put the date on the top right hand corner of the paper, then fold it into a neat little square and put it somewhere safe (not too safe that you forget about it).  Put a reminder on your phone or in your email to check your list in 3 months time.  Do the list again.  Have you changed?  Is your goal still on track?  Are there 5 new things you are grateful for?

One of the keys to unlocking self awareness is to understand that it is a continuous process that never ends.  It’s like the tiny snowball that gets bigger and bigger as it rolls along.  The more you understand yourself, the more you want to understand yourself.  Dig deep, you can only better yourself.