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consciousness Decision Making Growth Life Lessons Overwhelm Perspective Stress Success

Mental Pushing And Pulling – Thanks To Our Biology

Where to start?

How about with the name of the book I just finished reading, which shared pretty interesting insights. The book was called: ‘Why You’re Unhappy’ by Loretta Graziano Breuning, PhD.

I didn’t agree with everything she presented, but because she has a background in anthropology as well as psychology, it brought a nice perspective to her discussion on biology.

And the influence on our feelings and behaviours.

She spoke a lot about the individual roles of dopamine, serotonin, oxytocin, endorphins and cortisol; and how they are primarily used for survival (and reproduction of genes), as with all mammals.

I have talked before about the ‘mid’ brain, also called the limbic brain or mammalian brain.

It has a number of functions including regulation and generation of our emotions, which obviously affects us moment-to-moment and day-to-day.

I found a few things in this book especially fascinating.

Particularly the author’s overarching message.

We are not – biologically – designed to be ‘happy’ all the time.

It is not only okay, but “normal” to feel our emotions go up and go down throughout our day and life in general.

I think that is a great point.

If we EXPECT to be happy, all the time, or think there is something “wrong” with us if we aren’t, then we may be fighting reality.

What I also found fascinating was…

Categories
Acceptance Doubt Emotional Growth Life Lessons Meditation Perspective Stress

How is Your Patience Going? Want More?

So…

How is your patience?

If you are anything like me, then at times it is crap.

I was just talking to my partner – Ferry – about ‘having patience’ the other night, as we transit between our farm and our ‘main’ house, waiting for the sale of our ‘main’ house, before we finish building our other ‘main’ house on our farm.

I don’t like mortgages, so I need to exercise the ‘patience’ to wait for the sale of our house, which is dragging on, and on and on…

So I have spent intimate time face-to-face with the thing called patience of late and I – as always – want to figure out how I can do it better.

At first I thought you can’t ‘force’ patience.

As in, you can’t DO stuff to make ‘more’ patience.

Because it is more about surrendering, letting go, and stepping back.

BUT…

Then I sat with and went deeper to understand patience from all angles and this is what I came up with.

Categories
Emotional Fear Feeling Negative Emotions Overwhelm Stress

The Consequences of (Emotional) Junk in the Trunk

This is probably one of the most important articles I have written for awhile.

It was inspired by another book I recently read (no surprises there) from Dr Sarno.

The book is called ‘The Divided Mind‘.

It delves into the relationship between the mind, body, emotions and their inter-relationship.

There was also a recent session with a client where I was showing on a whiteboard the consequences – in day-to-day living – if we have too much junk in the trunk.

Or what I am collectively calling suppressed and repressed emotions.

I won’t be writing too deeply into the psychological aspects, but we will go deep enough to make this practical for you.

However I feel I ought prefix that this is REALLY important stuff to know.

What you do with this knowing is then up to you.

Categories
Belief Choice consciousness Emotional Feeling Honesty Nutrition Perspective Stress

Are You Actually Looking at The Root Cause?

Again…Happy New Year!!

Let’s make this the year of living even more consciously, so the steps we take, and the footprints we leave, are in harmony with life, which also brings a lightness of being to our souls.

One way I think we can do a better job of being conscious, is not getting too distracted by surface level stuff, but curiously looking deeper for the actual root causes.

Hands up if you got ‘sick’ in, or around, the Xmas period or New Year?

This article is inspired by the first two clients I spoke to this year, who told me they were crook with the mighty “flu”.

The great thing about discovering the root cause, is we can then utilize the most effective intervention to get the best possible sustainable and long-term result.

So let’s look at potential root causes in relation to us getting crook.

Categories
consciousness Fear Growth Life Lessons Perspective Stress Success

Why Do We Rush and What’s The Cost?

Is life a sacred journey for you?

If not, would you actually like it to be a more sacred experience, rather than a race on the hamster wheel?

These days in my business I am MUCH more interested in working with awesome humans people who want to focus more on EVOLUTION (as a whole being), rather than having a “6-figure” (plus) salary or business. Boring!

In the bigger picture, isn’t it more fulfilling to have a sacred life experience, as opposed to being part of a mob of mad racers scrambling for the finish line?

Or a race to amass the most impressive pile of possessions.

Now I am not saying we have to live like paupers to have a sacred life, but I am questioning (which is a good thing) the crazy rush to somewhere we are probably are not even sure we know, or even want.

So today, let’s talk about “What the frigging hell is the rush?!?!”

And the idea of a spiritual journey, as opposed to trying to get “there” quickly.

Categories
Choice Confidence Decision Making Life Lessons Perspective Problem Stress Success

How to Get Sh#t Done and Prepare for Curve Balls

Most of my last 20+ years has been trying to figure out how I can make stuff happen (in my favour and with the least amount of energy) and how I can teach others what I have learned.

What works a little, a lot, or not at all.

Last week I talked about building up the Leader within us, and how being a greater leader is ESSENTIAL when it comes to optimizing our experience in life.

The other part of the optimizing-life-and-results-game is not only coming up with the great ideas and insights, but actually acting on them.

You, like me, probably know a lot of ‘great ideas’ people, who spend a lot of time marching on the spot and getting not much actually done.

Ideas are great, but it’s the execution of those ideas that brings them into being.

So…

How do we make sh#t happen, when it takes effort and energy (and sometimes we just don’t feel like doing it)?

Enter left of stage our inner WARRIOR.

Or to be more precise; enter from the very core of our gut, the part of us that gets stuff done…even when we don’t feel like it.

I believe all of us have a Warrior spirit within us.

Unfortunately, sometimes the Warrior needs more prodding and poking to ‘wake it up’.

It’s like our inner Warrior is still working off the after effects of an all-nighter and 3 bottles of red.

Categories
Choice Decision Making Emotional Optimum Health Problem Stress

Emotional Eating Does Not Solve The Root Cause

In order to keep these conversations with you relevant, I like to draw on real-life experiences I am exposed to (generally with my coaching clients).

This was as a result of a conversation with a client the other day.

The context is they wanted to better understand why (exactly) – when they are upset – they quaff a couple of glasses of wine, while snacking thorough a bunch of chocolate bars.

I think we might all identify this as ’emotional eating’.

You experience a negative emotional state, which leads to binge eating.

And unfortunately, the binge eating generally does not involve carrot or celery sticks and a homemade organic dip.

It is most often high calorie, low nutrient, foods.

Why? Why? Why?

And what to do?

Categories
Choice Decision Making Growth Life Lessons Problem Stress

Best Steps to Overcoming Obstacles

Today we are going to talk about how you can overcome any obstacles in your life, in the best way (i.e. best result with the least energy).

I LOVE overcoming obstacles.

And probably why I was in the Royal Australian Engineers, as an officer for 14 years. We were taught a lot about how to overcome obstacles on the battlefield. It definitely involved some exploding stuff, but it also came done to our CREATIVITY. Why expend more effort and resources than you need to (or have at your disposal).

So that’s our focus today.

How can you effectively overcome obstacles with the least amount of effort?

This is the NUMBER 1 thing I do when coaching. Help people overcome obstacles, so they reach the destination of their choosing – in the best mental and physical health.

There is no point in being so battered and bruised from getting through an obstacle, that you don’t have the energy to go on.

We are about smarter, not harder.

Categories
Choice consciousness Emotional Feeling Growth Honesty Perspective Stress

Is Your Emotional Fuel Healing or Harming You?

Let’s get straight into this conversation, starting with some context.

Do all petrochemical fuels, derived from oil, burn the same? Do they all burn as cleanly as each other? Do some burn faster or slower? Do some produce more heat than others? Do some fuels leave a cloud of black (polluting) smoke in their wake?

Let’s acknowledge that not all fuels burn the same, even if they derive from the same source.

So today, we are going to talk about the FUEL of our emotions.

And this is inspired by a good mate of mine who I have known for decades, and has had recent heart surgery.

He has always been great in the fitness and nutrition department, but as I highlight in the subtitle of The Guidebook to Optimum Health, exercise and nutrition alone are not enough for optimum health.

Categories
Choice Decision Making Growth Problem Stress Success

A Common Way People Drain Themselves of Energy (Unnecessarily)

A lot of the articles I write are as a result of direct observation or intervention with my clients, both recently and in the past. So again, I thank one of my wonderful clients who reminded me of this energy draining phenomenon.

Not surprisingly, one of the reasons they wanted to work with me is because they felt so ‘low energy’ on a regular basis. We focused on all of the physical things that can drain us of energy (e.g. poor diet, low levels or low quality sleep, limited physical activity, excessive exposure to non-natural EMF’s, bad habits, etc.), and then started looking into the more likely psychological causes of low energy.

It was a fabulous journey back through their life to get a better sense about what might have contributed to, or be the root cause, of the experience they were having in their day-to-day life.