March
2008
In this issue...
- De-Stress
Your Thinking - Part One.
- Downshifting
With The Celtic Tiger.
By Anne Walsh.
- Your exploration this month.
- Quotes of the month
- Want to comment or contribute?
- Teleclasses and personal coaching
News and Events
As spring approaches I thought you might
appreciate an introduction to some of my favourite websites
on organic gardening and growing your own fruit and vegetables:
www.gardenorganic.co.uk - The UK's leading organic
growing charity, has been at the forefront of the
organic horticulture
movement for 50 years and is dedicated to researching
and promoting organic gardening, farming and food.
A wonderful,
comprehensive resource.
www.charlesdowding.co.uk - Organic
gardening, the natural, no-dig way. How to grow your
fruit and vegetables in alignment
with nature and without putting your back out!
www.rocketgardens.co.uk - A very
quick and easy way to grow organic fruit, herbs and vegetables
at home.
Do email
me with any further suggestions
of similar resources that you’ve found useful and I’ll
add them to the resources section on my website.
1. De-Stress
Your Thinking - Part One.
There is no doubt that pain and
suffering in our lives is something that we all experience
from time to time
and that it causes us stress. That same pain and suffering
can also be the stimulus that triggers a response in
us leading to a more peaceful existence. That response
might well be physical – deciding to opt for an
easier commute to work or to work from home. According
to many of my coaching clients, the response also needs
to be a mental shift, some way of de-stressing our thinking,
if we are to achieve lasting tranquillity (or at least
large periods of it!) in our lives. Think of it as a
form of mental downshifting.
How do we know when our thinking is stressful? What
are the symptoms?
If you are experiencing any of
the following, then it is likely that you’re
having stressful thoughts:
- Disturbed or inadequate amounts
of sleep
- Persistent low level illness e.g. coughs and colds
- Depression or persistent low level anxiety
- Restlessness and lack of productivity
- Headaches
- Digestive disturbances
- Unhappy relationships
It is clear from reading those, that if we take no action
to de-stress our thinking, then the next thing that will
happen is that these problems will worsen.
What’s the answer?
There’s a simple strategy that you can use to
tackle your stressful thinking almost as soon as it happens.
I’m going to give you some common examples of stressful
thinking that my coaching clients have come up with and
show you how to tackle them using this strategy. Then,
you’ll be able to apply it to whatever stressful
thoughts enter your consciousness.
Stressful Thought Number
1: “I Don’t
Have Enough Time”
How many times per week, per day
even, do you tell yourself that one? Let’s turn
it into a positive, stress-free thought first of all.
How about “I have all the time I need.”?
Do you believe that? No, of course not! Well, not at
the moment anyway. The second question we ask ourselves
as part of this strategy is
“What needs to change for
me to believe this?”
and often the key to answering
this question is knowing where our priorities lie.
Managing our time is not really
about managing time at all, because time is not something
we have the freedom to change. It’s only how and
what we try to cram into it that we can change. So, the
key to having more time is to only spend time on what
is important to us.
One thing that downshifting teaches us is just how attached
we have become to our material possessions and how hard
it can be to let go. It can be the same with our thoughts
and what we consider to be important.
When I first took my sons out
of school to home educate them, they both insisted
that we could not possibly start
each week day without first having “registration”.
At home, and with only 2 students it was a complete waste
of time, of course. I knew exactly who they were and
that they’d turned up on time! However, I went
along with the idea because my sons insisted that it
was important for their education. After three weeks
of daily registration, one of them turned to me and said “Actually,
this is a bit silly really, isn’t it Mum?”
Which of your stressful thoughts can you let go of because
they no longer benefit you?
Stressful Thought Number
2: I’m not motivated” or “I
can’t be bothered”
Can you think of something you
can’t be bothered
to do? How does that make you feel? Drained? Lethargic?
How can we turn that one into something positive?
How about “I feel passionate and excited about
this”?
What’s need to change for
you to believe this?
For most people, if you ask them
how they motivate themselves to get going with something,
they will come up with all
sorts of strategies for forcing themselves to do it – often
based on rewards, punishments, enforced deadlines and
so on. Sometimes they work and sometimes they don’t.
But, what do they all do to your stress levels? Yes,
forcing yourself increases stress. Now, a little of this
once in a while might do you good. A lot of it certainly
won’t. So, this is not a useful solution to lack
of motivation. It’s not what needs to change.
What
needs to change is your level of inspiration. What
happens to your stress levels when you feel inspired?
They decrease
rapidly and you feel lighter with much less of that
drained, lethargic feeling you had at the beginning.
The key to staying motivated is to feed our inspiration.
I like to think of this as nourishing our minds with
wholesome thoughts in the same way that we know it makes
sense to nourish our bodies with wholesome food. Both
of these help us to feel energised and enthusiastic about
life.
Some of the ways that my clients
have learned to feed their inspiration is through reading
inspiring material,
spending time with inspiring people, watching inspiring
films, introducing a spiritual practice (such as yoga,
prayer, meditation, T’ai Chi) into their daily
routine, de-cluttering their space, spending time in
nature. What’s yours?
Next Month, in part two
of this article, we’ll
consider how to downshift your thinking when your thoughts
stray to fear of the future or feelings of unworthiness.
De-stressing ourselves mentally in this way not only
brings us inner peace and tranquillity, but can have
some surprising extra hidden benefits too. I’ll
be revealing those also in Part Two.
2. Downshifting
With The Celtic Tiger. By Anne Walsh.
In Ireland, over
the past 10 years we have experienced economic success
like we never had. We even
have a name for it: the Celtic Tiger. We’ve been
used to emigration (nearly all members of my parents’ families
emigrated), poverty and general oppression for hundreds
of years…so all this success takes a bit of adjusting
to!
In 1995 at the onset of the Celtic
Tiger I had a choice. I had married in 1994 and my
husband was from my home
place of Connemara, Galway on the west coast. I could
stay in Dublin with my permanent congenial job and my
husband could move to Dublin or I could move back to
Connemara with no job. The logical thing would have seemed
to be to stay in Dublin…but I chose to move back.
I made that decision after choosing to live with each
choice for a while…and I chose the option that
gave me the greatest feeling of peace. Yes, the first
year was tough..I gave birth to our son at the beginning
of 1996 and chose to stay at home with him for a year
while my husband worked. In 1997 we transitioned from
me being at home full-time to my husband being at home
full-time and me setting up a business as a freelance
IT trainer.
Fortunately I got plenty of work. In fact at one stage
I had taken on too much and ended up having to cut back
on my working hours! I remember going away for a weekend
and asking that no one speak to me..as I had spent the
last few weeks talking and being patient and nice to
people!
I chose to streamline and now
I do a mixture of computer training, a career change
programme (NowWhatCoaching.com – developed
by Laura Berman Fortgang) and a new form of coaching
called consciousness shifting which I’ve been getting
great results with. It’s a great way to shrink
and remove the baggage that’s holding you back.
Overall, I think that moving to Connemara. where I now
live in a spectacularly beautiful safe area with family
support – is one of the wisest decisions I have
ever made - despite its remoteness and infrastructural
inadequacies!
What advice would I give to anyone choosing to downshift?
- You need all that stuff
a lot less than you think…choose to let it go..
- The clearer you are about why you are doing it, the easier
it will be to make the choices.
- Join a community of like-minded
people..it’s
a lot easier to cope with the naysayers then.
- You may lose stuff but you will
gain a great deal of peace…and that’s priceless.
© Anne Walsh. www.annewalshcoach.com. Resources and articles about improving the quality
of your life
and a complimentary consciousness shifting session.
3. Your
exploration this month.
Turn your attention to your health.
In what way do you not feel 100%? Headache? Digestive
upset? Inadequate
night’s sleep?
Now become aware of the stressful thoughts that might
be behind your not feeling well. Choose one of those
thoughts and turn it around to its positive opposite.
Do you believe that new thought? If not, what do you
need to change in order to be able to believe it?
4. Quotes
of the month.
"Man is
made or unmade by himself. In the armory of thought
he forges
the weapons by which
he destroys himself. He also fashions the tools with
which he builds for himself heavenly mansions of joy
and strength and peace."
William James
" There is a thought in your mind right now.
The longer you hold on to it, the more you dwell upon
it, the
more life you give to that thought. Give it enough life, and
it will become real. So make sure the thought is indeed
a great one."
Ralph Marston
5. Want
to comment or contribute?
If you would like to comment on any aspect of this newsletter
or submit an article for inclusion in it, please contact
me by email.
6. Teleclasses
and personal coaching.
"6 Steps to a Sustainable
Small Business"
A series of
6 teleclasses, each 45 minutes long, exploring the three
main elements of the
Triple Bottom Line of Sustainable Business Practices, People,
Planet, Profit and how to incorporate them into your business.
More details.
"How to Step off the Treadmill"
A series of six teleclasses, each
45 minutes long, exploring the elements of downshifting,
the reality of living a
sustainable lifestyle in a consumer driven society
and how to motivate ourselves to make the switch.
More details.
What is a Teleclass?
A teleclass is a straightforward,
low cost and sustainable way of taking part in a group
learning session. It's
like a conference telephone call.Each participant is
supplied with a phone number to call at the appointed
time. When you call, you will be welcomed to a virtual
classroom where you can listen to the class leader present
the teleclass material and you can participate by asking
or answering questions if you wish. So it's just like
being in a real classroom or workshop setting except
that you can take part in the comfort of your own home
without having to travel anywhere!
More details
Personal Coaching
One-to-one coaching can help you:
- let go of your old,stressful
way of life, find a new path of vitality and an improved
way of living.
- deal with fears surrounding
financial responsibilities, your relationships with
others and other consequences of making a major life
change.
- improve your health, wellbeing
and spiritual life.
- further your personal growth.
- achieve balance, clarity and
peace.
You can view further details on personal coaching here.
7. Privacy
policy
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so easily on my website, here: www.sallylever.co.uk.
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Subscriptions to this newsletter grow by your recommendation.
If you have enjoyed reading it, please do forward it
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Have a fruitful
month!
Sally
Sally Lever
Sustainable Living Coach
+44 (0)1749 674842
sally@sallylever.co.uk
http://www.sallylever.co.uk/
7 Welsford Avenue, Wells, Somerset.
BA5 2HX. UK. |
