Dailyations

Meditation is the key to your soul self.

I've often heard people say the following about meditation: what's that going to give me, I can hardly sit still for 10 mins let alone meditate on a regular basis? I don't think it's for me. Do those thoughts sound familiar?

So this is where I am going to say "hold your horses" and "don't be so quick to dismiss the practice of Meditation". You may well be talking yourself out of something that is in truth a true gift to yourself, in your endeavour to live a truly authentic and heartfelt life.

Am I overstating things or getting carried away, honestly, I don't think so. From my own experience and life, journey meditation has become a key element of my daily routine. That routine has enabled me to stay grounded and connected to my inner soul-self, which in turn has enabled me to live each day's experiences in a more heartfelt and authentic way.

What it has also given me is the increased capacity to stay in the present moment and get out of my thinking around things from my past, and thoughts and constant planning about the future. By staying in the present moment, I have been more able to be present with the day to day reality of my life, and get much more done.

So what has been my experience of meditation and why do a recommend it to you. Well here are just some of the reasons that I feel it is a valuable resource to have at your disposal.

Also, a good starter meditation is the Body Scan Mindfulness Meditation by Jon Kabat Zinn which is on YouTube and can be accessed by clicking here.

Let me know how you get on with stepping into meditation. And remember building wellbeing, supports you day to day to feel good within to deal with the world without.

So what are you waiting for?

Looking at the people around us, and comparing ourselves to what they say, what they are doing, what they have just bought or how far ahead they are, can eat away at us if we let it!! The habit of looking at things external to ourselves and comparing ourselves to those things can leave us feeling drained and demotivated.

We can end up putting a lot of “should’s” on ourselves as a result. We can end up thinking - I should be where they are, I should have what they have or I should be as outgoing as they are. When really, it’s much more important to take your eyes off others and bring yourself into focus. Instead of focusing on the “don’t have’s” focus on your “do have’s”. Conserve the time and energy you put into observing and pondering external factors, and hold onto the time and energy and save it for you.

It’s important to remember that it all starts with you. If you have a wish for things to be different in any way, think about what you have direct control over to initiate that change, spend time to get to know yourself more deeply, support yourself, love yourself and embrace all the potential you have within you.

If you feel it, believe it and nurture it from within, then anything is possible for you. Get grounded in truly giving yourself the full attention and focus you deserve. You have full control over how much time you can give yourself. Start now, choose one of these suggested questions and dive deep into what it is to be you.

If you are thinking “I am not sure even where to start”, we can offer you advice and support with that. If you feel it would help to have a conversation about your next steps – email me directly at [email protected] and I would be delighted to arrange a time to talk.

f you are interested in giving your life a reboot and refresh sign up to our 5 Day Lifetential Challenge starting on 20th September 2021 by signing up here.

Also, if you feel you need the benefit of a supportive community, why not join the “My Life to Shine Member’s Hub here or listen to “My Lifetential” podcast here.

How to Find Your Balance and Your Flow Through Active Self-Care

Ever notice as you go through your day or week that you feel off-kilter, not quite centered, or a little off balance? Is it possibly because you are juggling too many tasks that week? Trying to do too many things in very little time? Or is there a lot swirling around in your head that it’s hard to know where to start?

Sometimes, depending on what’s going on around us, and what thoughts are going around in our heads, we can feel off centre. We can also feel not very grounded and a bit like we're constantly chasing our tails or on the back foot.

So, how do you support yourself when you notice yourself feeling like that? How long does it take you to put your hand up and acknowledge to yourself that you are feeling off-kilter, maybe a little overwhelmed or chasing your tail?

To find your balance and your flow, take a moment, pause and do a self-check-in. Remember to be honest about how you are feeling. Think about what you need to support yourself. Don’t overthink it, or talk yourself out of giving yourself the support you need. Do put yourself on your daily priority list. Do be your own best supporter and best friend. Do let today be the start of your new proactive, self-caring routine and find your balance and your natural flow.

If you are thinking “I am not sure even where to start”, we can offer you advice and support with that. If you feel it would help to have a conversation about your next steps - email me directly at [email protected] and I would be delighted to arrange a time to talk.

Also, if you feel you need the benefit of a supportive community, why not join the "My Life to Shine Member's Hub here

Getting from thinking to doing… stop the procrastination and start creating.

Have you had an idea in your head or a sense of something you would like to achieve for yourself, but it stays in your head? Do you recognize that you are procrastinating? Making that shift from thinking about something to doing it in a fully committed and motivated way can take time and daily application. It takes monitoring and shifting your mindset along the way. So where do you start? I hear you ask, what can you do to start to bring that thinking into reality.

Choose your starting point, be consistent and keep working at things, be curious about how you can improve as you go, reflect, and re-assess as you go, remember no one is perfect, and with every day that you apply yourself to the tasks at hand, the stronger your grow and the closer you get to living that life you have envisioned for yourself. Because you are the creator of your own destiny.

Pause and think for a moment and then decide where you would like to start.

If you are thinking “I am not sure even where to start”, We can offer you advice and support with that. If you feel it would help to have a conversation about your next steps - email me directly at [email protected] and I would be delighted to arrange a time to talk.

Also, if you feel you need the benefit of a supportive community, why not join the Lifetential Hub here.

In recent months I’ve used one quote often, for my clients and for myself, and that is the quote: “slow and steady wins the race”. There are similar quotes to this one including, “Rome wasn’t built in a day”, “take things one day and one step at a time”, “you can’t rush a good thing”. Each of these offers an important perspective that we can lose sight of sometimes or struggle to be in, other times. That act of trying to motor on with things, rushing things, that act of creating a plan and steaming ahead with it when sometimes it is so much better to slow things down and go at a more considered pace.

That state of just motoring ahead, sticking to a plan, or constantly needing to have a plan to stay focused on sometimes is not the best approach. And it reminds me of another quote “haste makes waste”. These are well-known sayings and have come about as a result of people having walked these paths long before us. And they are worth paying attention to.

So, pause and consider this for a moment – how hard is it for you to slow down and pace yourself? What do you do to take your foot off the pedal? If you were to take your foot off the pedal of your life, what do you think it would help you see? How would you begin this process of taking things more slowly? Where could you start? Listen to the podcast to hear some suggestions. 

So that’s all for this week, if you are interested in finding out more about Lifetential go to our website www.lifetential.co.uk and subscribe to our email list, and get regular updates and articles, podcasts to support you to begin to live your authentic life. Until next time.

Marie-Louise

How do we build momentum in our lives, how do we get the forward movement that inspires and motivates us? What motivates us to begin to do things in a different way and gain the forward movement we want in our lives. What helps us break out of the caterpillar mode we might find ourselves in? What would it take to become the beautiful butterfly you are meant to be? Certainly, one of the things that helps is knowing what direction you are headed in, knowing what you want to strive for in your life and knowing what you would like to be different in your life in comparison to where you are right now.

Think about how you can grow as an individual so that you can fully support yourself to achieve that life you truly desire for yourself. Self-love and self-awareness are powerful tools that will empower you in reaching that desired life you have in mind. The key to personal growth, building deeper self-awareness and understanding is working to regularly step out of your comfort zone; those uncomfortable feelings are feelings of personal growth. Embrace those, that is part of what being human is all about.

If you are thinking “I am not sure even where to start”, We can offer you advice and support with that. We can do that via our online membership community here.

If you feel it would help to have a conversation about your next steps – email me directly at [email protected] and I would be delighted to arrange a time to talk.

Self-acceptance is at the heart of what will support you in paving the way towards the life you want to achieve for yourself. Self-acceptance is the bedrock of our personal foundations that we build from.

In contrast, self-criticism, self-judgement and that constant pressure we can live our lives by truly slows us down wears us out and drains us, without us even realising it. We think those patterns of thinking are what get us to where we are, and we couldn’t possibly progress without them when maybe, just maybe, by talking to ourselves in a more supportive, compassionate and self-affirming way it would be so much more energising, liberating and empowering for us.

If you are thinking “well, sure, I accept myself”, take a moment and consider how do you do this daily? How are you your own best supporter every day? Think about what you do specifically that tells you each day that you accept yourself fully and unconditionally. What if you supported yourself every day, made self-affirming choices, used regular self-supporting self-talk, built yourself up every day? How would that feel for you? Visualise yourself doing all those things that demonstrate that you fully accept yourself daily. Are you giving yourself rest when you need it, giving yourself space and time when you have had a difficult day, giving yourself some downtime doing those things that you enjoy, giving yourself opportunities to try out new things, giving yourself new experiences to grow and expand through?

Here are just some of the benefits of being fully committed to self-accepting behaviours and embracing that self-supporting mindset.

So, take a moment, and be honest with yourself - how could you up your “self-acceptance” game? What can you add to your process of self-acceptance that will support you in building confidence, that will help open you up to new opportunities, build that deeper sense of autonomy and support you to step into that formidable, unstoppable person you are meant to be?

So, where do you want your self-acceptance journey to begin? Think for a moment - what would you like to do to support yourself over the next few weeks around this? Think: where would you like to start?

If you are thinking “I am not sure even where to start”, we can offer you advice and support with that. We can do that via our online membership community here or listen to “My Lifetential” podcast here.

If you feel it would help to have a conversation about your next steps - email me directly at [email protected] and I would be delighted to arrange a time to talk.

Have you ever noticed that when you are rushing around getting through your to-do list and doing all those things that you committed to doing, that you are almost doing things in a “going through the motions” sort of way? And when you think about it, you are less present in the moment and more present in your thinking around the next place you need to be or the next thing you’ve got to do. Then it gets to the point of being switched on and focused on those things in the future rather than being present in the moment and more grounded in yourself.

Spending too much time thinking about the things you should be or need to be doing deprives you of that essential “me time” which allows you to find your natural and organic flow. What if you went at things more based on your natural flow and wishes? What would it feel like to be much more present in the here and now and more fluid about what you choose to do next? Here are 5 simple steps to help you start the process of finding and tapping into your natural flow.

If you are thinking “I am not sure even where to start”, We can offer you advice and support with that. We can do that via our online membership community here. Want some pick me up tunes here is my latest playlist on Spotify for you.

We can become victims of our own negative thinking patterns, in very subtle and unconscious ways. And yet the research suggests that these negative thinking patterns that are stored in our brain can be rephrased and adapted to create more compassion-based and empowering thinking patterns. And that these thinking patterns help build you up, rather than knock you down.

So, where do we start to create that more compassionate and empowered self-talk?

Offer yourself Compassion and Understanding Daily

Begin to recognize when you are giving yourself a hard time or pushing yourself too much. Take a moment and reconsider what you can offer yourself in that moment - some compassion and kindness, alongside some self-understanding. This can go a long way and take the pressure off you day-to-day. None of us are perfect, we are all works-in-progress. When we know more, we can grow and evolve as we were meant to.

Wash, rinse and repeat

So, remember - you are in control, negative talk can be a reaction to a trigger event, you can work to create a filter, to let the good talk in, check the negative and rephrase it, all of which helps create a new thinking pattern in your brain. Practice will help embed this way of processing your thoughts. And alongside this. remember to be compassionate and understanding of yourself daily.

Keep implementing these techniques until they become second nature for you. And as the saying goes, practice makes perfect. Allow yourself time and space to consistently apply these techniques until you get to the point of it feeling like second nature, and something that you automatically do. It’s a bit like learning to drive a car, initially, you must really think and concentrate, and yet eventually it becomes instinctive, and you automatically know what to do.

If you wish, for advice or support about your next best steps – email me directly at [email protected] or check my personal growth and transformation Membership Community here. If you would prefer to listen to my podcast you can get the latest episodes here.