breatheandbeyou

Going the distance in the match of your life

jen@jennyleetaylor.com.au (Jennylee Taylor) — Mon, 03 Feb 2020 05:38:47 GMT

Developing personal stamina and resilience

What is the importance of developing personal stamina and resilience to live in the “match of your own life”? As I was watching the tennis finals I was drawing comparisons to life in general.

In the Australian Open men’s final last night where Dominic Thiem was playing Novak Djokovic who was going for his 8th AO win. It was the end of the 4th set and Djokovic had just evened up the score. They had been playing a fast and demanding game for the past 3 hours and they were heading into the 5th set decider. It was a match of stamina and resilience physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually. Could Thiem go the distance against a competitor who is arguably the fittest in the world who was defending his title and going for his 8th win? Could Djokovic endure when his predicted “walk over” win wasn’t unfolding that way and he had come close to losing in the 3rd set?

According to the Australian Bureau of statistics, the average human life expectancy has increased for someone born in the mid 60’s from 67- 74 years to someone born in the 80’s to 74 – 79 years and in 2018 to 81-85 years. This means that intrinsically we are on average living longer and therefore require a different outlook and plan on how we play the life game. In the past we could treat our own self lightly because “hey, we will not live that long anyway”.

Alongside that, the speed of change has ramped up in the past 40 years. We are being asked to do more in less time, learn more, communicate instantaneous and change the way we do things more frequently. In order to stay healthy in relationships, work, and personal life this requires a different approach.

We have the opportunity to develop the ability to sustain prolonged physical or mental effort (stamina) and the capacity to recover quickly from difficulties (resilience) to not only live a greater quantity of years, and also have a better quality of life to ride the ups and downs of life during those years. By developing these traits we can minimise long term stress which leads to poor physical and emotional health and have go for living a freer, more joyful life.

Physical stamina and resilience

The tennis commentators had been talking about the physical fitness and flexibility of both players , comparing the prowess of each to be able to cover the court and having the flexibility to stop and change direction quickly. They were saying how Djokovic’s years of experience growing up on the ski slopes had helped him to develop the ability to do this and his ongoing commitment to his training program was what kept him at the top of the game.

Now most of us don’t need the level of fitness that an elite tennis player needs to go head to head for a 5 set match. Yet how many of us really take the steps throughout life to make sure that we maintain our vitality and energy for life for the full length of our life match?

Our bodies are like intricate machines. Unless we do the ongoing maintenance activities like regular exercise and movement, eating nourishing foods, drinking plenty of water and getting adequate sleep, as time goes by, our moving parts literally seize up and grind to a halt or breakdown completely through illness and disease. We can either wait to “fix” it when it is probably too late, or take preventative measures to maintain a well-oiled machine.

Mental Stamina and Resilience

The tennis final was also a test of mental stamina and resilience as they both attempted to “out think” each other on strategy and tactical approach. In this aspect they needed to be flexible as well and be prepared to have the resilience to go out of their comfort zones. To quote the ABC News article this morning Djokovic “always feels more comfortable when he is playing from the baseline, so he took himself out of his comfort zone when he opted for the serve and volley tactic to upset Thiem's rhythm”. Djokovic had to have the mental stamina to stay focused after a series of double faults and unforced errors and also demonstrate mental resilience by choosing to change his natural game in response to how the match was unfolding.

Having the mental stamina and resilience to bend and be flexible in a changing world is more and more important as we experience big “environmental” changes in all aspects of our lives. For example, with technological advances it would be easy to be paralysed by the speed of change in business, how we go about our daily life, and how we are being asked to communicate differently if you didn’t have mental stamina and resilience to learn and adapt.

Right now in Australia approximately 1 in 6 people are experiencing an anxiety condition and 21% of Australians have taken time off work in the past 12 months because they felt stressed, anxious, depressed or mentally unhealthy.

Emotional Stamina and Resilience

On the court the pressure around the expectations of winning or the push to win can affect the players emotionally as they strive and give all of themselves to the game at hand. Whether or not an “on the line” or “out” call is correct can have an impact on how the match unfolds. Often in those times the stress gets to them and emotional outbursts occur. How these moments are handled comes down to emotional stamina and resilience or emotional intelligence.

Emotions are a great thing. They are our immediate response to whatever is going on in our lives and are a way of the body releasing and processing the physical energy that builds up when we are experiencing everything from pressure and grief, to joy and a proud moment. The trouble is that generally Western society frowns upon, or is uncomfortable in the presence of someone who is expressing their emotions and goes on to judge them as weak rather than strong. As a result there is a tendency to hold back, push down and resist emotions which over time come bubbling up anyway in ways and at times that are seemingly unrelated.

Emotional resilience is about being able to healthily express emotions, to “roll with the punches” and to recover quickly rather than stay stuck in the emotional state.

Spiritual Stamina and Resilience

Last night as I was watching Djokovic return a blinding serve by Thiem I saw him hold his necklace pendant in his hand and kiss it. Djokovic is a practising Orthodox Christian and uses his influence and wealth to benefit those who need help.

In terms of spiritual stamina and resilience, however, I am referring more to having a strong connection to Self. To having that internal courage and power which from the outside looks like confidence, inner strength and being comfortable in your own skin. It’s about not being affected by others around you, not taking anything personally, being able to see the good in everyone and having a presence that people are drawn to in a positive way.

Going the distance in the match of your life

The men’s singles final last night played out over just short of 4 hours. It was a microcosm of a human lifetime which involved high and low moments as tests of physical, mental, emotional and spiritual resilience where each player turned up fully prepared and ready as they could be in their own way.

Whilst being mindful of the past (studying each other’s game) and mindful of the future (having the desire to win), the tennis players had to be totally in the moment and be resilient and adaptable to focus and play out the next point again and again for 4 hours.

We all have the opportunity to be elite athletes in our own match called life. The quality of each point, game, set and match depends on how much we have developed the ability to sustain a long and healthy life and how strong our capacity to recover quickly from life’s difficulties.

The thing is that the physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual aspects of each of us are all linked. You cannot just focus on one area and expect to be able to hit a winning serve in life again and again. If you do this, at some point the other areas start shouting out for attention and you are off your game.

Ways to prepare yourself so you can go the distance

1. Learn how to breathe optimally for your physical performance and to release built up emotional and mental stress

2. Mind your language - notice and modify your language that supports a healthy mindset

3. Integrate a mindful practice into your day to allow time for you to connect with who you are.

How are you preparing yourself to “ go the distance ”?

To learn more about Breathwork or contact me for a chat

Liar Liar pants on fire

Sun, 10 Nov 2019 05:34:57 GMT

What is your personal lie and how does it impact your life?

There has been much acclaimed research about the human phenomenon of lying and there are many reasons including to protect ourselves, to promote ourselves or to impact others. These lies are outward and told to deceive others and benefit ourselves in some way.

But what about the lies we tell ourselves. The ones that are undermining everything we do in life? The insidious personal lie that pervades our own very existence and underpins everything we do. The one we unconsciously cross our fingers about hoping that no one will discover because we feel ashamed and embarrassed.

What is your personal lie?

The dictionary defines a lie as: “a false statement made with deliberate intent to deceive; an intentional untruth; a falsehood”.

If you were asked: “what is the MOST negative thought you have about yourself”, what would you say?

Take a deep breath now and notice what comes up. Most people immediately have something come to mind in some way.

Whatever thought popped into your head could be your personal lie.

Your personal lie is THE [underlined] MOST NEGATIVE thought you have about yourself that you carry around with you all day every day. It’s the deep seeded bottom line belief that you took on board at some point to be true for you, and, it undermines everything you do. It’s like the white ants in your house that go about eating at your foundations until one day you are left with a skeleton of a home. Like white ants, your personal lie is an unintentional untruth which can go unrecognised for a long time before you find out you need to do something about it.

How did you get this unintentional UNTRUTH?

When we come into this world, we carry with us the potential for leading a full, joyful, peaceful and rewarding life living in the truth of who we are as loving, creative, harmonious souls. This is called being in your ETERNAL TRUTH.

The trouble is, along the way we listen to parents, siblings, teachers and respond to events in our environment and we start to believe that we are not these things.

We start to form an opinion of ourselves that reflects what we may be hearing or experiencing about who we are in life. This opinion is amplified by our constant thoughts (60,000 a day). Our thoughts drive our actions which produce results. The results may be desirable or undesirable depending on how we are minding our language and usually come with emotions that are equally desirable or undesirable commensurate with the thought and subsequent result. How we respond to these results then informs our belief system which in turns cycles back to inform our next thought and opinion.

If we are consistently hearing someone tell us that we are no good, will never amount to anything, are useless, or ugly we can become so attached to it that we start to believe it to be true.

Or maybe you got the feeling that your opinion didn’t matter, you were overlooked in the family or no one seemed to listen to you. This might leave you feeling worthless, unlovable and like you are nothing.

What are some examples of the personal lie?

A common personal lie is “I am not good enough”.

Oh yes THAT chestnut! How many times have you thought this about yourself over the years?

You may not even know you are doing it so often.

You have repeated it so many times that it is now part of your cellular memory and every time you find yourself in a position where you are comparing yourself, or being compared to someone else the “I am not good enough” voice speaks out and you shrink back into yourself.

It MUST be true right? There always seemed to be someone better at doing the job, whatever you do doesn’t seem to be good enough for your partner, you feel like you just are not good at anything.

WRONG! This is your very own PERSONAL LIE.

Every time you are ready and excited about doing something awesome you unconsciously create circumstances to prove that you must not be good enough. It becomes a script that runs your life.

It’s EXHAUSTING because you are forever chasing a better result and can never stop to appreciate your wins because they don’t seem like wins to you.

You are always on guard, you feel like you are on a treadmill that never stops, your stress levels are high and worse still, you have no idea who you are anymore.

You feel like your life doesn’t seem to prosper, your relationships constantly fail or are really hard work, you don’t get that promotion at work, and over time you feel stuck, overwhelmed, frustrated and resentful.

It doesn’t matter how much harder you work than everyone else, how much higher you climb, how much you do good for others, you never feel like it is enough, because you “know” that you are “not good enough”.

It all falls on your deaf ears when other people tell you how great you are, because deep down you just don’t believe it. You even question to yourself why they could even think you are amazing because you “know” that you could have done better!

What they don’t know and you don’t realise is that you are working SUPER HARD to show them that you are not, “not good enough” and to present a face to the world that is opposite to what you believe about yourself.

In fact on the outside everyone sees you as the successful one who is constantly kicking goals. You appear confident and are certainly good enough to them.

Why would you keep running the “I am not good enough” script?

Because as humans we inherently want to be right and you only need to look back at the repeating events in your life that don't bring you what you want to realise what your personal lie might be.

You are not getting the good stuff BECAUSE of what you unconsciously believe about yourself.

You unconsciously sabotage your life and set yourself up to be right as a person who believes that you are “not good enough”.

Some other common personal lies, how they might play out in your life and a possible Eternal Truth

I am worthless > You can never get ahead financially, you feel like a doormat in relationship > I am valuable/worthy
I am not good enough > You are highly stressed, you don’t accept praise and always say it’s a “team effort” > I am enough
I am nothing > No one seems to listen to you, you are invisible in relationship > I am valuable, worth it
I am a burden > You wonder why they always leave you in relationship, your life seems “heavy” and not easy > I am easy to be with
I am ugly > You are focused on how you look, you always aim to be the best dressed, you might work in an industry that puts a spotlight on your beauty > I am beautiful
I am stupid > Always doing more courses and don’t feel like you know enough yet > I am wise/ clever
I am unlovable > You don’t seem to have loving relationships > I am lovable

It’s not all bad news though

THE TRUTH IS that you can stop running the personal lie script and start running the ETERNAL TRUTH script. You can let go of your belief that you are not good enough and breathe it out of your cellular memory . You can use your breath to find that moment in time that you first believed it to be true and resolve the memory and emotion around it.

1.   First you find the awareness that this is what is going on
2.   Then you find what your ETERNAL TRUTH is (usually the opposite of your lie)
3.   You breathe and seek resolution of why you took on board your personal lie in the first place.
4.   You move forward in life living with your ETERNAL TRUTH
5.   You experience how your world transforms.

What impact can letting go of your personal lie have on your life?

When you let go of and resolve the source of your personal lie, life can feel different.

You come from a different place inside. Instead of using all of your energy to mask and hide and prove to others that you are not “not good enough”, you can come from a place of “I am enough”.

From this place you can actually be more productive, more energetic, less stressed, and without overwhelm. You can feel freer, lighter, more confident, more at peace.

You can focus on: your relationships knowing that you ARE ENOUGH with love; your job with confidence that you have when you know you ARE ENOUGH; being more connected to your SELF and what you want in life as a person who IS ENOUGH.

You can BE YOU.
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Jennylee has a practice where she works with people to reconnect with who they are so they can do whatever lights up their life coming from a place of internal power and peace. Contact Jennylee

Love your Life!

Mon, 28 Oct 2019 02:57:10 GMT

Simple tips for bringing your life back into balance and getting back on track

LOVE YOUR LIFE!

Sounds simple doesn't it? Simple and not easy sometimes.

Here are some tips that might help in this spring season of renewal and "cleaning" out and bring life back into balance so you can LOVE YOUR LIFE.

PHYSICAL

~ Winter to Summer clothes swap. it's time to be realistic about your wardrobe. When you are putting away your winter things, ask yourself whether you will ACTUALLY where that item again. Rachel Raid My Wardrobe can help you if you are struggling
~ Clear out your Inbox. UNSUBSCRIBE to the unwanted emails that were a great choice at the time and now don't suit you.
~ Give your body a cleanse. Freshen up your eating habits that may have gone astray in winter. Eat fresh and clean.

MENTAL

~ bust the overwhelm by writing down all the "things that you are responsible for". Rethink whether you are taking it on because you can, because you feel you have to, or because it really is your responsibility. Let go of the things that are really someone elses responsibility.
~ do something that lets you mind take a rest. Meditation, stop and rest, let go of having to be in control. Sometimes the less you think the more you can get done.

EMOTIONAL

~ Acknowledge where you are emotionally. It's ok to have feelings and show them. If you allow, sit with, be aware and not judge, your emotions will pass through and dissipate. If you try and ignore, suppress and make wrong you will be stuck in the emotional fog which can then take over your life.

SPIRITUAL

~ reconnect with who you are. Take a moment to write down, draw, or think about what gives you joy, what energises you, how you know when you are BEING YOU and feel in flow with joy from the inside.

~ Take care of #1, YOU. You are not helpful to anyone when you are sick or overwhelmed and tired of life.

Need someone to walk beside you as you get back on track?

Contact me for a chat

I have never been a V8 Supercar fan

Sun, 13 Oct 2019 04:13:03 GMT

Life and Motorsports, a game of strategy, focus and adaptability

I love motorbikes and have been known to watch the Moto GP on the edge of my seat, heart racing and glued to the TV. Sometimes I imagine myself as one of the riders with no fear and eyes like saucers as they set themselves up to overtake at phenomenal speeds, or go into a corner just a nits whisker away from another rider. In our house a collective drawing in of breath …. “Oh geez that was soooo close!” and then exhale sharply as we simultaneously slouch over forward and lean into the corner like we were racing side by side.

When it comes to motorcar racing … not so much.

Over the years I have endured the Formula One series and the V8 Supercars and only had the stamina to stay tuned for a few laps at a time.

This weekend was the Bathurst 1000. An iconic Australian race of 161 laps over 1000 kms on an insanely technical racetrack (I know this because we drove it at 60kms an hour one year). The track and race are legendary. A place where unimaginable speeds are reached and the full-on motor head fans revel in the whole weekend.

After getting drenched in a downpour whilst walking this morning, I found myself early in the day in my trackpants curled up on the lounge half listening to the racing and reading a book of interesting short stories.

It was the Dunlop Series Super2 – Race and my attention was piqued when I looked up just after the race started to see that the Eggleston Motorsport Team’s (driver William Brown) passenger car door was flapping open as he was gunning it around the track. At that stage he was up with the leaders and after a full lap it was confirmed that the door wasn’t going to shut itself and he needed to “pit” early.

That’s when it got interesting.

The unscheduled stop, especially so soon after race start, meant the whole team strategy had just gone out the proverbial window. To make matters worse, the stop did not go well. They had trouble refuelling the car and fuel spilled out over the tarmac adding precious seconds to the pit stop. People rushed in to tape up the door.

I was hooked after that. “This race is only 41 laps” I reasoned with myself. I put the book down and was fully engaged.

It struck me how much energy, resources, brain power, preparation, and “all for one and one for all” spirit there was to get a single car and a single driver around the track to complete the race successfully. Each person had a specific role and knew where they belonged in the team: fuel filling, tyre changes, driver monitoring, fuel efficiency monitoring. There was a list on the wall of the garage. They were all working towards the best outcome they could collectively achieve for the team.

I pondered: “Who was on my team in life? Was I actively gathering people around me to support me and enable the best life I could lead? How much responsibility for my own outcomes did I need to own?”

In the car the driver was frustrated! He bashed the steering wheel and vented muffled words through his race helmet. The wheel nuts on the left front wheel got stuck. The seconds ticked by and everyone who had something to do kept their cool. Less rush more haste.

In the garage emotions in the moment were etched on faces. Heads dropped, expletives passed over lips, and there was an instantaneous disappointment in the air. It didn’t last long.

While the driver fought to get back into the race, the team was galvanised into action. People came from everywhere to work out what had gone wrong. Other teams from the Championship level came in to collectively brainstorm the problem. A fuel spill was dangerous for everyone. There was no time to lament or to stay frustrated. Within seconds a mock-up of the car and the refuelling nozzle was set up and they had worked out the problem. A mismatch in the angles between the car fuel tank funnel and the refuelling nozzle, something was catching and stopping it mating properly. They devised a plan to minimise the risk of it happening later in the race.

For the people in the team who monitored the race it was a game of strategy. How could they optimise on their position now, knowing that the rest of the field had yet to come in for their scheduled pit stops and they would need another one? The goal hadn’t changed. It was a team problem to solve, they couldn’t run away.

Eyes were focussed, synapses were firing, communication was at its highest level. They had to be flexible and positive in the change.

I thought of how I was in times of unexpected change and setbacks.

Did I allow myself to show emotions in the moment? Did I stay stuck and stop, or did I look forward and bend, recalculate and move on? Did I try to do it all myself or allow my “team” to come in and help me to navigate through it? Did I take a position of “what can I learn”?

Meanwhile the Eggleston team got back in the race. The other teams had their scheduled stops and William Brown was in second place. It didn’t last long because they had to stop again to refuel. The race was now about finishing and learning what they could.

The race results have William Brown as a DNF crashing out at Lap 29. What a day for them!

Meanwhile the race winner, MW Motorsport’s Bryce Fullwood, was penalised 15 seconds on the last lap for passing on a yellow flag only to officially hand his win to next person. Talk about best laid plans!

“What next”? I wondered.

The next round is in a few weeks. What will the teams do? How do they take care of themselves after the stress of a day like that?

I am not sure what actually happens in Motorsport, I could only speculate.

So, here is what I do when I have a day like that:

1. Release the valve

Allow myself time afterwards to go through all of the emotions that come up because when you suppress emotions they accumulate and there are long term consequences.

2. Get grounded

Do something that I enjoy that grounds me and brings me back to a place of internal power.

3. Review and go back to basics

Objectively review what happened and what part I played in it. Take responsibility.

4. What were the lessons and how you it be done differently next time

Deeply listen and look at what I need to keep, what I need to let go of, what new aspect needs to come in and who could I out on my team to help me.

5. Consolidate and BREATHE

Breathe into the adjustments so they become part of who I am going forward for long term wellbeing .

By the way, the Top Ten shootout which sets the start grid for the big race on Sunday had an example of a team result when everything was flowing and working. Scott McCaughlin pipped Chaz Mostert at the post with a cracker lap and track record of 2.03.377 minutes! (Mostert a mere 4 thousandths of a second behind).

As a watcher you could tell he was on the money in the first sector when he split the best time. It was poetry in motion as the car sped around the track without a mistake. Driver, car, team as one. The energy was palpable … a goosebump moment.

What do you feel when you are having a cracker of a moment? When you know you are on fire and in the flow?

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Jennylee facilitates wellbeing through Breathwork and supports you to reconnect with your internal power. Would you like more information ?

This article is dedicated to my late friend Gavin Monument, ex McClaren F1 team member, business owner and all-time great person.

Deep Listening through Breathwork

Mon, 12 Aug 2019 07:12:13 GMT

going beyond the noise of daily life

Oscar Trimboli, author of Deep Listening: impact beyond words invites us to “Listen(ing) beyond the words, what do they mean rather than what do they say”

He also goes on to describe 5 levels of listening:

Level 1 – YOU – Listen to your first. Make Space. How deeply are you breathing?
Level 2 – CONTENT – Hear, be respectful, be present, see, focus, feel, listen to the energy
Level 3 – CONTEXT – Your situational understanding. What assumptions have you made? Pause, take a breath, Is it true?
Level 4 – UNSAID – What isn’t being said? Is there a gap between what you say and what you don’t say?
Level 5 – MEANING – What did you say and what did you mean?

Breathwork and Deep Listening

Oscar's process of deep listening reflects how Breathwork uses our own breath to deeply listen to what is not being said yet is held in your body’s cellular memory. Breathwork or conscious connected Breathwork, is the therapeutic use of your breath to go beyond what you already know in your conscious mind to access a deeper set of data that is held in your body’s memory.
Every experience you have in life, your body remembers. It remembers how you felt, the joy of the pain, what emotions you had and what you were thinking. Much of the time we don’t stop to listen to what is really going on and the way we interpret our experiences influences how we react to the world as we develop and grow.

During the Breathwork Cycle you will go through the 5 levels of deep listening.

1.   First you will listen to you. You will listen to your breathing and be guided to breath in a cyclic breath. You will start to create space for listening to what is being held in your body’s cellular memory.
2.   You will then be encouraged to witness what comes into awareness for you. You will keep breathing and “hear, be respectful, be present, see, focus, feel, listen to the energy”
3.   Your breath will show you what assumptions you have made about the past and ask you if it is true.
4.   You will have the opportunity to go beyond what you already know, and explore what is not being said in your conscious understanding.

5. You will be encouraged to breathe and integrate the meaning, to recognise insights, to understand what was truly meant and gain a deeper understanding of your life.

My role is to support you to breathe and listen deeply to your Self. My role is to witness and apply the 5 deep listening levels to what is happening for you in the breath cycle process as the listener.

What are the benefits of Conscious Connected Breathing?

Breathwork is one of the most powerful, self-generated, transformational tools we have to access our own essence and potential. Conscious connected breathing brings awareness into your breath by consciously connecting the inhale and the exhale and creating a breath cycle that by passes the body-brain system to unlock and release stored energy at the body’s cellular level.

Through breathing in this way you can bring about transformational change:

•   Ease in moving forward
•   More confidence
•   Greater inner strength and courage
•   Better relationships
•   Greater understanding of yourself and your patterns
•   Freedom from addiction
•   Freedom from anxiety and panic
•   Freedom from the emotional charge of trauma

• Emotional balance

Breathwork and Wellbeing

Conscious Connected Breathing is not the only way to utilise your breath in your favour. Many people underutilise this resource that is literally at the tip of your nose in every moment. Your breath is one of the only processes that you can voluntarily change and by understanding the 3 categories of breathing and your own breath patterns you can use it to help you moment to moment.

By actively paying attention to the way you breathe you can use it to:

•   Develop clearer thinking
•   Manage anxiety
•   Release the stress valve
•   Develop your emotional awareness

• Develop your listening skills

Listening deeply to your own breath is Oscar’s first step to deep listening. It requires you to be present, to be aware, to stop just for a second or two.

How are your breathing right now?

Jennylee is a Breathwork Practitioner who supports you to listen deeply to your breath so that they can explore what is really going on beyond the noise of daily life. If you would like to know more Contact Us

What's all this “being grounded” hoohaa?

Mon, 05 Aug 2019 02:40:09 GMT

What does it mean and how do you get it ...

I heard a speech not long ago from a local businessman where he described how he felt about Newcastle as a newcomer some years ago. He said he had come here to work and didn't feel a real connection to this place until he was sitting at Nobby's Lighthouse in the predawn chatting with a person he had met and they shared a moment watching the sun come up. He said he felt totally grounded in that moment and knew then he was going to make Newcastle his new home.

This moved me ..... and got me thinking about the things that ground me and what being grounded really means.

I feel grounded when I am working with a team that works well together. I feel grounded when I feel like part of something bigger than myself. I feel grounded when I am around people I love and who love me. I feel grounded when a can take some time just for myself mostly in nature.

For me feeling grounded is having a sense of being stable, calm and connected to myself and my surroundings in the moment. I feel strong, confident, and all of my senses are in tune and turned on. The world seems brighter, the birds are singing louder and nothing seems to faze me. Daily challenges come along and I can relate, take stock and diffuse the moment rather than having my buttons pushed and shooting from the hip without thinking it through.

What if you are not a “feeling” person?

The Merriam Webster dictionary defines "grounded" as mentally and emotionally stable : admirably sensible, realistic, and unpretentious.

We all have moments when we it’s like our feet are not actually touching the ground. Running around after the children, meeting times frames at work, thinking about the ultra-long “to do list” we have in all areas of our life. Our minds are running on overdrive and overwhelm, tension and stress levels are peaking. We can feel like heads on stick.

At those times it can be difficult to be grounded as the Webster dictionary describes. It is also at that time when we can become less productive, start to miss important things and pay less attention to the details and start to drop the ball.

How do you stay grounded during the day?

To stay internally connected and grounded I regularly and consciously connect to my own breath. Over time I have formed an intimate understanding of my breathing and use conscious connected breathing to delve deeper into the understanding of myself.

This helps me to stay grounded minute to minute, hour to hour and day to day. It frees up my energy from concentrating on all of the negative and niggly things that can come from within and can come externally to bring about chaos and tension in my day.

You may get this same feeling when you do yoga or meditate or go for a walk or even do a jigsaw puzzle. It doesn’t matter. Finding the ways to help you to be more grounded is different for everyone.

How does being grounded benefit you?

It means that you can feel and appreciate everything around you and connect with your favourite external places, people and experiences that also help you feel grounded. It means you can perform better in the teams that you are in, be closer to your loved ones in relationship and feel happier in your own Self. It means you can tap into your own internal power and can work with others who are grounded and in their own power to achieve more.

The trick is finding ways to help you stay grounded.

Like the view of Mount Sugarloaf that I often catch a glimpse of from just about anywhere in Newcastle. When I see the clear definition of the mountains against the sky and the twin telephone towers I know that I am home, in the town that I live. It is also in that moment that I become grounded in place and when I also return to my Self. I know what that businessman was talking about when he said felt grounded in the moment.

Where and when do you feel grounded?

Take a moment now to relate to this:

1.   Where do you most feel “at home”?
2.   What are you doing when you most feel like you are being yourself?
3.   Who are you with?
4.   How would you describe that feeling of being grounded?
5.   When do you feel like part of a team?
6.   Breathe in: the answers to 1-4 and Breathe out: everything unlike that

This is my passion. To help others like you to be grounded in life. To connect YOU with YOU again. To support you to find the places in your heart that you feel grounded, stable and calm.

Your breath is the gift you all have. Learning how to use it to cleanse your deeper Self and return to being grounded internally and externally is powerful, practical and profound.

Would you like to learn more or book in for a personalised Breathwork Session.

Are you involved in "small deaths" each day?

jen@jennyleetaylor.com.au (Jennylee Taylor) — Tue, 30 Jul 2019 02:50:34 GMT

How any times a day do you hold your breath ...

How often do you catch yourself holding your breath?

Most of us are involved in "small deaths" all day every day because we do not breathe ourselves fully ALIVE.

Breath is life. The way we breathe fosters clear or confused thinking, makes us excited or calm, tense or relaxed and worsens or improves every health condition possible.

Ironically many of you will hold your breath when you are concentrating on something or when you are in deep thinking mode, which is actually counterproductive to clear thinking. (That’s where I catch myself the most)

Other times you might hold your breath:

• When you get a fright

• When you are tense

• When you are waiting for an announcement

• When you hurt yourself

Understanding how your breath works for you is about practicing awareness.

As you go about your day you are invited to take notice of how you are breathing. Each time you catch yourself holding your breath do the following:

1. Sit back

2. Take a full and deep breath in

3. Relax on the out breath

4. Repeat a couple of times

5. Get on with your day

Live and Breathe well

Would you like to know more? Contact me

How is “knowing who you are” and a STEM career related?

Mon, 08 Jul 2019 10:00:13 GMT

Two things impressed me about Professor Elanor Huntington at the “Career Strategies for Women in STEM fields” hosted by HunterWise and The Faculty of Engineering and Built Environment at UON last Friday 5 July.

Firstly, Professor Huntington is a woman who knows who she is and secondly she is passionate about supporting all the stakeholders in academia to make positive change.

Professor Huntington came across to me as a woman who ponders deeply and reflects on her role in life, how she responds to those around her and someone who leads from a place of personal power. Her manner is easy, open, honest and authentic and there is a sense of "this is who I am".

Right up front she talked about understanding enough about herself to know that she is an introvert – “energy comes from inside” and shy – “fear of rejection” and tells us stories of how this played out in her career and the level of self-care that was required to support herself along the way.

Having “drifted into science” because she was “good at it” and had “no burning desire” to do anything else at the time, Professor Huntington has a lot of firsts under her proverbial belt. The most recent of which is the first female Dean of the College of Engineering and Computer Science (CECS) at ANU, explaining that taking on this role has been the second most ”transformational experience” in her career.

The first being when she was asked to step up into a higher role at another institution. In the context of her talk, I interpreted transformational to mean experiences that stretch one beyond the current understanding of what one might have of oneself to be capable. When asked why she declined (3 times before she was told it was not a request) to take the role Professor Huntington replied: “It seemed like too big of a step from where I was at the time” and went on to say that finally taking the position turned out to be a “transformational four years”. Evidently Professor Huntington has surrounded herself with people that have “supported me to be me” and admits that gender was never a real issue for her in her career, going on to say that she has no lived experience of having a female boss or having to cope with being a parent whilst building her career.

What she did say was that there a plenty of good men out there who are just blissfully unaware of the challenges of women and that they are the ones we need to bring along to these types of talks. It was at that point, one of the only men in the room piped up and said that he was one of those men. His personal experience had been that women were just naturally successful because his wife, mother and sister are all successful women. It wasn’t even on his radar to know that some women struggle building careers because of a myriad of issues that impact them along the way. Now that he understands this he is a huge and active advocate for supporting women in STEM careers.

“Building a career” is loosely fitting when it comes to Professor Huntington’s career. She “drifted into science” even after been told by a careers advisor at school not to bother with math or engineering and to go and study anthropology instead (a clear example of cognitive bias in the aptitude testing in the 1980/90’s). Rather Professor Huntington said her career success could be partly attributed to the fact that she “kept doing things that seemed to me to be important to do” and that she had never targeted climbing the academic “greasy” pole and had not intentionally set out to accumulate “badges”.

She did admit that as an up and coming engineer she often has had to find unique ways to operate in the system and now that she had her current position she could “bend the world around her”. This came across from a personal space of power with, rather than power over others to make change.

So what were the clues to know that Professor Huntington knows who she is? Using the words and “transformational”, “aware”, “supported to be me”, and understanding how being “shy and introvert” works for her and doesn’t work for her are clues that Professor Huntington knows who she is. To be able to Mind Your Language is an important aspect of creating success in your life.

Secondly, Professor Huntington is passionate about academia, students and industry and how, in her opinion, academia in general is on the verge of having a Kodak moment , losing touch with the needs of students and industry who are hiring the students. At the ANU, Professor Elanor Huntington is leading a project to reimagine a new type of engineering and computing, one that is custom built and fit for the middle of the 21st century.

All in all a very insightful couple of hours spent in the company of interesting and inspiring people.

The key Career Strategies for Women in STEM fields that I learned from Professor Huntington are:

Keep doing the things that seemed to be important to do
Surround yourself with people that support you
Find a workplace that empowers you where you can safely develop your listening and community skills
Keep your options open
Think outside of the box when it comes to the selection criteria for positions. What is the underlying meaning behind what they have asked for?
Do your part in the education of men about the workplace gender issues
Find a mentor. Be bold to find someone that inspires you and ask them.
Get to know who you are. What drives you, how you sabotage you, what you need to do to support your own self care

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Jennylee has a personal interest in the issues involving women taking on STEM careers having "grown up" in a STEM career herself. Now her focus has shifted to health and wellbeing and how the individual as a whole person is affected in the workplace and in life in general.

If you would like to learn more Contact me

Mind your language

Mon, 01 Jul 2019 10:04:43 GMT

How your thoughts and what you say can impact your daily life

When someone says “mind your language” we usually associate it with not using profanities around our parents and grandparents and there could even be a swear jar involved. This is not a lecture about swearing, rather is discusses how the language we use affects the results we get and how we feel about what is going on in our lives.

The importance of our words and language.

Did you know that we have 60,000 thoughts a day? Our thoughts convert into language where we express ourselves and communicate with others. The words we use consistently describe the emotions of life and out of the approximately 3000 words in the English language that describe emotions only about 1000 describe positive emotions and the other 2000 describe negative emotions.

According to Anthony Robbins “The words we use not only affect the experience, they become the experience”

You might be familiar with the thoughts is creative process where we think something, it initiates an action, that then produces a result, which informs our belief system, which impacts our next thought. If we are also speaking out that thought “today is a bad day”, “why do I always get the raw end of the deal”, “this drives me crazy” then we are in effect creating that experience in the moment …. Moment by moment.

On top of that, 60,000 thoughts a day is equivalent to 2500 thoughts an hour or approximately 40 thoughts a minute. Let’s say 10% of those thoughts are negative ones. That equates to you internally telling yourself 5760 times a day that something is not working for you (“I am stuck”, “I am useless”, “I and stupid”.

When we are talking to ourselves (internal thoughts) in this way it’s called our internal chatterbox, and Anthony Robbins goes on to call the act of speaking out your internal chatterbox “dis-empowering mind language”. Imagine putting money in the swear jar every time you spoke that way to your self!

Over a lifetime the accumulating and stacking of the internal chatterbox and dis-empowering language into your body brain system has a huge impact on our life (and a fat jar). It is likely that at best we are not living the life to our fullest potential and at worse we are living a life filled with overwhelm, frustration and anxiety?

Where do our thoughts and mind language come from?

Let’s say we have three levels of existence: The Higher Self where our super conscious, connected and intuitive Self holds positive thoughts; The Middle Self which is the home of our conscious and reasoning thought; and the Lower Self where the subconscious memories and the negative mind language and chatterbox and lives.

Most of the time we mill around the lower and middle Self, trying to reason with the past, worrying about the future and bombarding our self with mindless chatter. This is when we struggle against life and everything feels like a huge effort which takes inordinate amounts of energy to just get through the day.

Your language has an affect on how you feel. How different do you feel when you say: “I am an idiot!” rather than “I made a mistake”, or “That drives me crazy!” rather than “I am really annoyed”? Would you respond differently if someone said to you “You are an idiot” rather than “could you have done that differently?”

One dis-empowers and the other empowers.

Have you ever had a day when nothing seems to go right, you feel tense and worked up and you finally slump into you chair at the end of the day feeling spent and exhausted without feeling like you have achieved anything?

Consider what you may have been thinking and saying out loud in communication with others that day?

On the other hand, when we do operate from our Higher Self, we experience flow and ease, things don’t phase us and at the end of the day we still have some energy in reserve.

Does it make sense that if you improved the quality of your thoughts and language you could improve the quality of your life?

The choice is yours.

You can either tune into your chatterbox and speak from that perspective, or you can tune into you Higher Self and lead with thoughts and language that comes from a more positive space. By taking control of your habitual vocabulary and using transformational vocabulary instead you can literally transform your life.

The following list of transformational vocabulary could be the starting place for improving your daily outcomes.

Chatter Box	Higher Self
I try to control	I trust
I am in turmoil	I am at peace
I am bored	I am filled up
I am dissatisfied	I am content
I am helpless	I am helpful
I am always disappointed	I go with what is
I am lonely	I am connected
I never enjoy	I am joyful

The self-sabotage of buts and if’s

There are some words I just don’t use anymore. One of these is the word “but”.

“But” is one of those words that when use in a sentence it sabotages everything that comes before it. “But” can render things you say as conditional or judgmental, and can indicate you are externally controlled or avoiding change.

For example: “I love you but why don’t you …” is judgmental, “I’d love to go but I don’t have anything to wear” is conditional, “ I’d like to but what of it rains tomorrow?” is externally controlled, and “I’d like to but I don’t have the skills” is avoiding change.

We especially use the “I love you but … ” in relationship and immediately have an impact that doesn’t support the words “I love you”. It sends a message that your love is conditional and depends on the other person doing or being whatever you finished the sentence with. Another common “but” sentence is the classic “Yes, but ..”. This is one that comes out when you are in a discussion with a work colleague, a friend, a family member and you have opposing ideas. The other person has spent some time adding their idea or theory and all of a sudden you butt in (pun intended) and completely disregard whatever they said with “Yes, but …. blah blah your idea”. How is the feeling in the room then? Do you get the best outcome from the discussion?

The other word is “if”. In my opinion, “If” has a feeling of longing and scarcity which conjures up visions of slumped unhappy figures stuck in the past holding on to regret, or worrying about the future with expectation and wishing reality was different.

For example: “If only I had done …” brings up regret, “If you were different, I would be happy” sets up an expectation that is externally controlled, and my unfavourite “If only …” wishes reality was different.

You can have an immediate effect of yourself and others around you by removing these words from your vocabulary by changing “but” to “and” and not saying "if" at all. “I love you AND …” doesn’t change the fact the you love them and feels completely different to the listener, for example “I love you AND why don’t you try ….”.

Raising your health and well-being through your language

Research in epigenetics says that the basis for virtually all our physical health conditions is energy related with everything resonating at a certain vibration. The research goes on to suggest that the spoken word directly affects our health, the level of our vibration and state of well-being. According to the Russian biophysicist and molecular biologist Pjotr Garjajev the words we speak can have an influencing effect on how our DNA instructs information to our cells.

Further, Dr David Hawkins, MD, PhD in his book “Power Vs Force” maps out and scales the vibrational frequencies of emotions and feelings, which are all expressed in language and words. This means the way we talk and what thoughts we include in our chatterbox has the power to alter our genetic and DNA expression. Dr Hawkins Emotional Vibrancy Scale locates emotions (and their inherent language and thoughts) on a scale of 0 to 1000. For example: apathy vibrates at 50, anger at 150, acceptance at 365 and love at 500.

It follows then that choosing to transform your vocabulary with words that vibrate higher on the scale could improve your well-being and empower you bring about changes in your life.

Old choice

	New alternative
No problem	Its my pleasure
No a bad deal	It’s a good deal
Don’t be late	Please be home on time
Stressed	Busy
Livid	Annoyed
Stupid	Not resourceful, learning
Hate	Prefer
Disgusted	Surprised

It’s a work in progress

Much of the language we use and the thoughts we think have been influenced by what we learned as we grew. Unhelpful sabotaging self-chatter is often “picked” up as children and you only have to listen to what people say to understand that “minding your language” is not something that many people are conscious of and could stem from embedded cultural use of the language. The key to changing old habits is awareness.

The choice is yours.

Steps to transformation:

1. Listen to what you say and think to yourself

2. Check your chatterbox.

3. Change one thing to get started.
The easiest for me was to replace “BUT” with “AND”.

4. Think before you speak

5. Practice, practice, practice

6. Notice how your world changes for the better around you.

Making different choices around your chatterbox, minding your language you can literally transform your life and improve your health and wellbeing.

Would you like to know more? Contact me

How Breathwork can raise your vibration

Sun, 30 Jun 2019 10:10:15 GMT

Experiment measuring the effect of Breathwork sessions on our vibrational frequency

“Compassion has certain vibration – vibration that resonates with the cosmos.”
― Amit Ray

The amazing power of your breath .....

Check out this interesting article from the Australian Breathwork Association about How Breathwork can raise your Vibration

https://www.australianbreathworkassociation.org/blog/breathwork-raises-your-vibration

Gotcha! Where did that come from?

Wed, 29 May 2019 09:02:07 GMT

Nature & Family Connections (a personal reflection)

Something shifted inside when I gazed upon this photo one day recently. It started with tears and then unabashed sobbing and big cry that came from a deep place inside of me. My head down and body shaking it took me by surprise and my tears plopped heavily onto my desk.

The photo had popped up on a social media as I was busy about my work on the computer. My heart swelled and became enormous in my chest where I felt a deep ancient connection to everything.

I was pleased I could let my emotions flow. There was no judgement, just a profound sense of acceptance and surrender to the moment. My moment was enhanced knowing that my daughter-in-law had taken the photo and it was like I was physically looking through her eyes and sharing her genuine love for her desert life where she lives with my son. It got me. The energetic connection to family felt palpable.

Within a few minutes the emotional response had passed through and left me with a deep sense of gratitude.

As I took a break and walked, the trees in the suburb seemed more prominent and clear, sharply in focus. Taking deep, long breaths and looking into the horizon over rooftops and past roads, the afternoon sun had bathed Mt Sugarloaf and the Watagan mountains in a golden hue with the outline of the mountains in sharp focus. I could almost see the individual leaves swaying on the tree lined peaks.

My skin felt alive and responded with tingling goose bumps, hairs standing straight.

This is what happens to my being when I look into nature.

Whether it is following a well-worn walking track in New Zealand, or in the bush at Glenrock Lagoon, or in the bushy park at the end of my street, nature is always showing me how beautiful she is. With stunning views, or the exquisite miniature detail in tiny bush flowers, or the softness of moss covered rocks next to a trickling stream, or the majesty of a giant tree standing and listening and being.

I feel humbled, grateful and supported. The sights behold stop me in my tracks at times as I round a corner and the world opens up to a spectacular view. My heart skips a beat and I energetically drop to my knees in love and awe.

With this photo and my emotional response, it was something about the sky and the landscape disappearing in infinitum into the horizon to the point where the earth meets the sky. A lone tree, the colour palette, the wispy clouds bathed in the light of the setting sun, the grasses on the red soil. The energetic linking of nature and an innate connection to family all came together in that moment of profound gratitude and emotion.

In that gotcha moment of emotional release my heart grew. It was beautiful.

Do you allow yourself beautiful moments of deep emotional release and connection?

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Jennylee Taylor is Conscious Living Coach and Breathwork Practitioner supporting and empowering you to be great managers of your world through reducing stress and overwhelm, and balancing life so you can enjoy loving relationships, contentment now and financial security in your future.
Jennylee supports people to break through personal emotional and mindset barriers so you can be the best you in the world and achieve your goals.

Would you like more info? Feel free to contact me for a chat

Breathwork & Wellbeing

Mon, 20 May 2019 07:31:14 GMT

3 broad categories of breathing

Would you agree that day to day life is getting more and more demanding and fast paced?

As humans we are expected to know more, learn more, and do more in shorter and shorter time frames. We are asked to react instantly to a constantly changing world.

You only have to watch the news to see that people seem to be getting frustrated and more fearful than before. In modern day life many people are in pain physically, emotionally, mentally and spiritually. We are even stressing about stress and the collective ability to bounce back from day to day difficulties seems to be reducing.

One in five Australians have taken time off work in the past 12 months because they felt stressed, anxious, or depressed and it is estimated in any one year, around 1 million Australian adults have depression, and over 2 million have anxiety. (Beyond Blue)

Breath as a resource

Your breathing is a highly under-utilised resource that you carry around with you all day every day which can help you to manage daily stresses, feelings of anxiety and symptoms of depression.

If you were to check in with your own breathing right now what would you notice? Are you breathing from your chest, from you belly or are you even holding your breath?

The way you breathe:

• fosters clear or confused thinking

• makes us excited or calm

• tense or relaxed

• worsens or improves every health condition possible

As a resource your breath is a major source of energy and is responsible for releasing 70% of toxins from your body. The trouble is most of us only breathe about 1 litre of our 7 litre lung capacity (15%) limiting our potential for creating energy and releasing toxins. It’s like operating a combustion engine in your car with a blocked air filter.

Breathing involves two phases – inspiration (inhale) and expiration (exhale) and can be controlled in two ways. We all breathe involuntarily, called metabolic control – it just happens. Through a mechanical and physical process involving our lungs and diaphragm we don’t have to consciously think about it.

The cool think about our breathing though, is it is one of the only processes in our body that we can voluntarily change. We can apply behavioural control and regulate our breathing voluntarily. That means that we can change our state of being through the use of our breath at any point in time and moment to moment

We can breathe to move from being confused, stressed and tense to a state that brings about clear thinking, calm, relaxation and improved health.

Breathwork is an umbrella term which encompasses a variety of breathing techniques utilised individually and in groups, to cultivate self-awareness and the enhancement of physical, emotional, mental, or spiritual well-being.

The term “Breathwork” currently means a whole heap of things to people depending on your own point of reference. When I am explaining Breathwork to people I refer to Breathwork using 3 broad categories.

Futile or Ineffective Breathing

“What do you mean Breathwork, I already know how to breathe!” is a common response when introducing Breathwork. What I have named futile or ineffective breathing is the type of breathing that we all know how to do involuntarily. Usually high in the chest, restrained, blocked or with periods of holding your breath. Most people are not even aware of how they breathe and are definitely not using it as a tool to manage their day.

Breath is life.

Without breathing we last only a few minutes before it affects our brain function and ultimately our life force. Ineffective breathing restricts your full breath and you are robbing yourself of breathing a full and fruitful life.

This is what the American poet and Pulitzer prize winner, Mary Oliver meant when she said - "Listen, are you breathing just a little and calling it a life?"

Think of how you go about your day ….. how many times a day do you hold your breath?

Conscious Breathing

Using your breath to bring about conscious living is not new. Breath awareness or conscious breathing has been the basis of yogic traditions, meditations, mindfulness and sports for thousands of years.

For the novice, conscious breathing can be as simple as becoming more aware of how you are breathing in any moment. Becoming aware of how your emotional responses to experiences are reflected in your involuntary response of your breath, and then deciding to change it.

Things like consciously moving:

• from short, sharp breathing when you are being frustrated in traffic to taking a deep breath to bring yourself into a state of acceptance because you can’t do anything about it;

• from high in the chest breathing when becoming anxious or overwhelmed to making the exhale longer than the inhale to bring yourself into a state of being more calm; or

• from holding your breath because you are concentrating at the computer or are waiting with tense expectation for something to happen to actually taking a deep breath out to relieve the tension and help you think better.

We are not just heads on sticks!

Consciously being aware of your breath brings you back into the present moment and connects the physical, emotional, mental and spiritual parts of yourself, bringing them back into alignment.

With our modern lifestyle many people operate entirely from their head with endless “to do “ lists, being rushed from gym, to drop children off, to work, to pick children up, sports, groceries, phone calls, messages, sleep (maybe) and then doing it all over again the next day. Exhausting!

In the midst of all that we don’t pay much attention to our emotional, physical and spiritual well-being which ultimately affects the way we think, what we believe and our state of well-being. We become so worried and concentrated on the next thing that we forget to live in the moment.

Techniques such as yoga, mindfulness and many meditations that utilise conscious breathing as part of their practice are a useful way to start to get to know your Self and bring yourself back into living in the present.

Conscious Connected Breathing

The Australian Breathwork Association describes conscious connected breathing as:

a profoundly effective breathing technique and therapeutic process that activates the body’s natural healing, promotes self-exploration and self-awareness, offers a path to conscious personal transformation.

Based on the premise that every experience we have in life from pure joy to absolute trauma (and everything in between) is held in our body at the cellular level.

The trouble is we have been conditioned by Western culture to bury our emotions and not to get “emotional”. Society favours being logical, talking it through and leading with our head instead of our heart.

What happens when you suppress your emotions?

Unfortunately, our emotions just don’t go away, instead they get pushed down into the unconscious and get stored in our bodies as negative energy. They hang around there until something triggers the memory and out they come again.

Often we have an experience come into our awareness which has some sort of emotional response and instead of accepting and noticing the emotion we choose to make it wrong, push it down and judge it. If we do this often enough we end up on a self-defeating cycle which in some cases can lead to unwanted repeated behaviours, self-sabotage and addictions.

Research further suggests that suppressing emotions is associated with high rates of heart disease, autoimmune disorders, ulcers, and gastrointestinal health complications. Suppressing emotions increases the stress hormone which in turn can lower immunity and increase toxic thinking patterns which can ultimately lead to increased risk of diabetes, aggression, anxiety and depression.

How do you break the cycle?

The good news is that you can break the self-defeating cycle.

Emotions are after all part of the human experience. It is largely what does make us human and all emotions have a role and a reason for being. For instance, we are designed to cry when we are happy and joyful and also cry when we are sad, in pain or in fear. Crying is the body’s way of releasing the emotion and moving through it rather than holding on and suppressing. There are benefits To cry or not to cry - weakness or genuine strength?

Conscious Connected Breathing is a simple and powerful therapeutic breathing technique that bypasses what you are consciously aware of to activate and shift what is stored in your body’s cellular memory. It efficiently accesses the physical, emotional, mental and spiritual levels of being to clear out unwanted and stuck emotional mass held in the body that has been suppressed from past trauma or hurts. Trained Breathwork professionals can facilitate the Breathwork sessions with groups or in an individual setting.

Conscious Connected Breathing (Breathwork) is also known as Rebirthing Breathwork, Holotropic Breathwork or Transformational Breathwork.

Go for more life!

In summary, incorporating Breathwork into your life is a step towards going for more life. Whether you start with just noticing more how you breathe, incorporate conscious breathing into your life, or work with a Professional Breathwork Practitioner to support you to release past trauma using conscious connected breathing you will find benefits in forming a relationship with your own breath.

What is the next move in going for more life?

1. Practice Breath Awareness

Notice how you breathe and how your breath changes as you go through your day

2. Incorporate conscious breathing

Join a yoga or meditation class to support you to use your breath to become more centred and in alignment with the physical, mental, emotional and spiritual parts of your Self.

3. Seek out Breathwork (Conscious Connected Breathing)

Delve deeper and clear trauma and past hurts so that you can get off the self-defeating cycle and move forward in life.

Where you start will depend on where you are up to, your willingness and readiness to take the step that is right for you.

If you do nothing else … JUST BREATHE!

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5 ways to reduce worry

Sat, 18 May 2019 03:50:21 GMT

Stop wasting time worrying

In recent weeks I have found my worry-o-meter creeping higher and higher. There are a few things going on and I could feel it slowly heading for the red zone!

Worrying was starting to steal my time, make me feel a little anxious and was dragging me down and draining my energy. I knew it was time for a correction.

Does this sound like you .... are you a worrier?

Do you spend a lot of time worrying and frowning over something that might happen?
Do you over analyse what the consequences may be and then find out there was nothing to worry about at all or the outcome wasn't as bad as your first thought it might be?

You may be worrying about the future based on an experience you had in the past....

You know ... EVERY time I plan to do something great, THAT happens and everything goes to S#@$! ... and so it becomes true ... you were right to worry!!

It becomes an endless cycle of worry.

For many people it has a lot to do with the feeling of being in control. You may be someone who loves to, or even HAS to be in control all day every day. So far it is the ONLY way you have survived the challenges in life.

SO .... What if it didn't have to be that way?

Would you like a calmer and lighter life without the worry weight on your shoulders?

They say that 90% of what you worry about doesn't eventuate.

You'd like to believe that yet for some reason you would rather worry about the 10% all of the time than be a person who doesn't worry about anything.

Do you realise that means that 90% of your time your spend worrying is robbing you of feeling relaxed and enjoying life as it unfolds in the moment.

THATS a LOT of your TIME AND ENERGY being robbed from your day !

How many great experiences are you missing out on?

How much quality time with your family and loved ones have you traded in exchanged for being the worrier?

Would you like to be one of those people who just lived in the moment and are able to deal with things WHEN they need to?

Like the proverbial crossing of the bridge when you come to it.

Don't get me wrong ... there are times when you will need to be the one who looks at all the possible outcomes and you will have good reason to be concerned. The key here is not getting "Being Concerned" mixed up with "Worrying". A concerned person will look at the situation, consider the risks, decide whether an outcome is likely. If it is act accordingly and if it is not likely - STOP WORRYING.

As opposed to someone who just worries ..... all of the time ... It's the difference between living more and worrying less .

Which one would you like to do?

Here are 5 ways to reduce being a worry wart:

1. Start each day afresh ..... just because it happened that way yesterday doesn't mean the same thing will happen today.
2. When you feel the worry voice starting in your head, STOP and take a minute to deeply breathe, relax your shoulders, breathe again.
3. If you are an analysing person - ask yourself what the likelihood of something happening is. It is REALLY likely to happen?
4. Let go of the need to control (this could be a tough one)
5. Decide whether you can lighten your load and reframe the worry into being informed and concerned.

If you want to explore WHY you are a constant worrier, consider having a Breathwork Session . In a Breathwork Session you can set an intention to breathe out what life is like as a worrier and breathe in what like would be like if you didn’t worry all of the time.

What is Breathwork ?

"Going for it!" with your Breath

Mon, 29 Apr 2019 08:21:52 GMT

Focusing on the positive and making more room for the great stuff

Have you ever noticed that in the times when you are going for great things in your life other things keep cropping up that seem to want to hamper your progress in some way?

You might be really focusing your attention on making the breakthrough in your job, creating more abundance in your business or working on deepening a close relationship.

Then what happens: you get passed over for a promotion, you lose a key client, or that relationship takes a turn for the worse.

Why is that?

The universe has a unique way of testing to see how committed we are. So the more we “go for it”, the more we are invited to “heal” those parts of our belief systems that are holding us back from attaining our goals.

The trick is having the awareness to know that those setbacks are an invitation to take a look at what is really going on. Instead of staying stuck, or worse giving up you have the opportunity keep your eye on your goal and dismantke all of the hurdles that come up along the way to convince the universe that you are for real.

Many people seek healing to "fix" something or "clear something" or to make some sort of correction.

In my work, I often have people come to Breathwork and say: "do I have to focus on what is not working?", "I am tired of going over old stuff".

The answer is no you don’t have to. You can "Go for it!" with your Breath.

By focusing your intention on creating positive feelings and outcomes in your life rather than focusing on letting go of hurt you are starting from a place where you are feeling and thinking into how great life is or how great it could be.

The trouble is that when you are trying to add more “great” in your life there may not be any room for it. Your body is literally so full of emotional baggage from a lifetime of hanging on and suppressing guilt, fear, anger, sadness from various events in your life that you just don’t have any room for any of the joy, love, flow that great experiences can give you.

Consider the bottle that is full right up to the brim. You can’t possibly fit another drop in it, and inside whilst the pressure is building the lid looks like it will pop off and explode at any moment!

Have you ever felt as full as the bottle? Full of frustration, overwhelmed with life and couldn’t possibly fit another thing in?

What happens is that even though you might be going for something great in your life, your body is so full of all the other negative emotional stuff that you can’t seem to make any ground.

So how do you release the pressure?

You need only be willing to go for what you want more of and let go of what you don’t need any more. The universe only wants to give you what you want. It is all there waiting for you.

Breathing in what you would like more of is directly proportional to how much stuck emotional baggage you would be willing to let go of in order to get what you really want.

Why not “go for the good stuff” in the knowledge that everything unlike “the good stuff” will come up for healing if it needs to be healed anyway.

Your body is like the linen cupboard. Say you have a whole bunch of new linen and you need to store it somewhere, the trouble is the linen cupboard is crammed so full that when you open the door the contents fall out!

How do you make more room? …. You clean it out and get rid of the holey towels and threadbare sheets, and you sweep all of the rubbish out of the cupboard. You usually don’t do that BEFORE you buy new ones, and yet buying the new ones is the catalyst to cleaning out the cupboard.

Your life is the same. You can use what you want more of to be the catalyst for the clearing out of your body all the limiting beliefs and emotional baggage that you don’t need anymore. Your breath becomes the broom.

In a Breathwork session your breath bypasses what you already know in your mind and taps into the unlimited knowledge stored in your body. Your breath, your spirit has infinite knowledge. You do not have to focus on what you would like to let go of. You can set the intention to step forward and “go for it”. "It" can be .... more flow and ease, more life, more confidence, more abundance, more loving relationships. Whatever it is that you would like to feel and have more of in your life.

Breathe in: What you are going for

Breathe out: Everything unlike that

Your breath in its infinite wisdom will do the rest. It will sweep through the places that don't support what you want to feel in life. It will access those parts of you that separated when things were in crisis. It will connect you to your body again and allow you to heal the past in the present moment. It will find the place where you first took on board self-judgement, overwhelm, or loaded you up with a sense of responsibility. It will turn up your internal light .

Your breath will go where ever it needs to go in your body's cellular memory for you on that day in that moment to enable you to make room for great things you are going for. All in support of your positive intention for life. All to shift the energy and clear anything that doesn't support you in getting what you want in life that has been locked in your body's cellular memory for years.

After a Breathwork session people report feeling "buzzing all over", "peace and calm", "empowered and strong", “lighter and relieved” with a new sense of understanding about Self.

You have the opportunity to be able to walk back out into the world with a new realisation or with different energy and knowledge allowing you to practice and integrate things a little differently so you can live life with flow, ease, confidence, in your power, with abundance, loving relationships.

Whatever it is that you would like to feel in your life … you can Breathe it in. GO FOR IT!

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Continual conscious connected breathing over a Breathwork session energises the body and may bring old memories, feelings and physical tension into awareness. This provides an opportunity to release the unwanted energy and clear unresolved issues, limiting beliefs and past events in our lives that are standing in the way of us reaching our potential.

Each of us has an incredible ability, through Breathwork, to unlock a powerful self-healing process for personal transformation. Breathwork sessions provide an opportunity to activate the natural healing process we all have.

To find a practitioner in your area click here

"Hi, how are you going?"

Mon, 15 Apr 2019 04:32:42 GMT

Is it a meaningful question, really?

I cringe a little every time I ask someone how they are going and they reply “Not too bad”.

Really, what does that actually mean?

To me it feels a little deflating, like people are sitting on the fence of feeling good or feeling bad. It’s kind of a non-descript non-emotional, non-committal shade of grey. In my mind I see a person with slumped shoulders, no energy, lack of motivation like they are living in the space in between, in a void where things are just plain dull.

“Not too bad”. Where does that sit in between the levels of feeling crappola and awesome?

Tony Robbins espouses that your mind is literal, meaning it interprets what you say literally, and goes on to encourage people to “watch your language”. For example, if you are telling people you are “not too bad”, you are in fact confirming in your own mind that you are on the wrong side of feeling good. Whilst this might be true for you at the time it’s a wishy washy way of owning that you may have had better days.

As a person with a genuine interest in people hearing this, what do I do with it? How do I continue the conversation? Usually the words “that’s no good” automatically come out. Then time is up and we have to get about our busy days. No one gets any value from a conversation like that. The asker feels awkward and the responder doesn’t feel any better.

I understand that most of the time we don’t have time to stop and listen to people talk about how they are, especially in passing in the corridors at work or on your early morning walk before work, or dropping children to school.

We so often greet people with “Hi, How are you going?” in passing, without even stopping to hear the answer or even looking at them. It’s a kind of formality as we go with our busy lives that give the impression of a level of interest without having to commit. I recently took some time to take notice of when I do this. Earlier this year I was at the gym locked into my morning schedule and moving towards the door. I passed a lady that I genuinely love and said “Hi, how are you?” It wasn’t until I was about 3 metres past her that I realised that she was still talking. She was actually replying to my question! I stopped in my tracks and went back to hear her. Then I realised that I do this a lot, for example at the service station rushing to pay for the petrol, in passing as I quickly make a cup of tea in between meetings..

“Hi how are you?” Implies you are asking a question that requires an answer and that you are genuinely interested. To give any meaning to it this means you are required to stop and listen to the answer. Or you get the answer “Not too bad!”

Is it a good question to be asking at all?

A person I know who is prone to bouts of depression once said to me “Don’t ask me how I am, that’s the worst thing you can say to me. I feel crap and depressed, can’t you see that. The best thing you can do is say “It’s great to see you”. He said it made him feel like he mattered and he didn’t have to talk about how he was feeling. It actually helped him.

Maybe we could apply this instead of the everyday meaningless greeting “Hi, how are you?”. Say instead “It’s great to see you” or over the phone “It’s great to hear your voice”. This takes the pressure off both parties. Then if you have the time to give the person you can always follow up with more meaningful and probing questions about how they are feeling or what’s happening for them right now” AND more importantly genuinely hear the answers.

It’s been about 2 years since I had that conversation and I almost always say to people over the phone “It’s great to hear your voice” and it feels so much better for both of us. I can feel and hear the smile in the next sentence they say.

When someone I don’t know or who is an acquaintance that I don’t know well says to me “Hi, how are you” I am much more conscious about how I and answer and even answering at all! My common reply is “Good, thanks for asking” followed by a smile. If I really am feeling not that great, then it is “I have had better days, thanks for asking”, followed by a smile, or just acknowledge and smile.

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To cry or not to cry - weakness or genuine strength?

Wed, 10 Apr 2019 10:53:48 GMT

How showing your emotions is genuine and good for your wellbeing

I woke this morning to the gentle patter patter of rain falling on our tile roof. I love that sound. It felt so gentle and nurturing and I lay their imaging how the soil was drinking and soaking it in after such a dry spell, how the plants were enjoying the moisture so that they could grow and other day, and I heard the birds frolicking joyfully in the trees.

It was like Mother Nature was shedding tears of joy for the world and bringing life, thousands of single tears that accumulate in ponds which flow into rivers, then lakes, then oceans.

So life supporting.

Sometimes, like this morning, the rain is gentle and nurturing. Other times it seems thunderous and angry in great swirling storms creating powerful torrents of water that sweep across the countryside. Then the storm recedes as quickly as it came.
Other times the rain just falls, for days, consistently and unrelentingly like the earth herself is heaving a great release and doesn’t stop until she is done. That release fills parched streams, dams and rivers - filling the cup of life.

In all of these moments of teardrops of rain Mother Nature is just doing what she needs to do when she needs to do it. Restoring the equilibrium and balancing the big picture.

It occurred to me that human tears are the same.

We shed tears of joy, love and happiness. We shed tears in short angry storms, in releasing grief and anxiety, in empathy for others. Our tears flow deeply from the rivers of our souls in joy, sadness and anger …. All expressions of what we need and are feeling at the time to bring equilibrium back into our lives.

And just like Mother Nature …. afterwards, when the tears have stopped, everything is greener, fresher, fuller and more vibrant.

The trouble is that Western society has taught us to hold back our tears and emotions. We have been trained to think that to shed a tear is a sign of “weakness”, that to show how we are feeling is in appropriate and unacceptable and something to be ashamed of.

How many times in your young life were you told “stop crying”, “I’ll give you something to cry about!”, “Suck it up”?. There was absolutely no recognition from others of how you were feeling or what you needed at the time and to make matters worse you took on board an untruth that to cry must be bad and something to be ashamed of. Instead you held back, swallowed your tears and pushed down into the depths of your small bodies all of the emotion that would have been easily released in a teary moment and an acknowledgement from others that you were feeling sad, angry or hurt. As you grew into adults you have been so conditioned that this is the only way to do it and at some point accepted this as true for ourselves.

As adults you put pressure on yourself every day thinking that you have to be seen to be the strong one in your family and at work. You hold your breath, swallow hard and keep your emotions in check and then smile (grimace) triumphantly as you do when you have to sit on your travel suitcase to close it after you have tried to fit too much in there.

What happens when you hold back emotions for too long?

The trouble with held in emotion is that is doesn’t go away. A life time of holding back and holding in is hard work! It takes so much energy to hold back in the first place and so much more to keep it there for long periods of time. You become tired, stressed, overwhelmed and at worst in physical pain, poor health or even illness.

There comes a time when the internal pressure becomes so great that everything comes pouring out at once like the clothes that spring forth messily and with force from the bulging suitcase after the clips have snapped from the strain. It may only take a small, seemingly unrelated thing that does it … like the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back. You are now in crisis mode. Your whole emotional body is out of equilibrium with the rest of you.

The great news is that is doesn’t have to be this way. There alternatives to always feeling overwhelmed, loaded up with the responsibility of having to be everything for everyone else, full up to pussy’s bow with the stress of life.

Accept that showing emotions doesn’t mean you (or others) are weak

It’s okay to cry when you need to. This may range from a good weep over the death of a friend or loved one to just having tears well up in your eyes because you are genuinely sad, cranky or moved by some experience. If you feel you can’t do this in certain company that’s okay too. Just make the time soon after to sit quietly with yourself and allow yourself to truly feel what it is that you are feeling. It might be sadness, anger, stress, being anxious. Acknowledge how you are feeling and accept that it is the right thing for you right now. It’s part of being human just like the feelings that go with joy, peace, and calm.

In the movie Courage under Fire , Meg Ryan as Captain Karen Emma Walden there is a scene where she is being criticised for displaying a short burst of teary emotion when faced with a highly volatile and critical decision to make under heavy enemy fire. “Oh great! The Captains crying” said one of her team … “It’s just tension … it doesn’t mean s..t!”, she yells back. Captain Walden was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honour for holding back the enemy so that her team could escape in a helicopter after being shot accidentally by one of her own men. Was she weak in that moment, or gathering her courage in her own way to face what was to come?

Be genuine with yourself and others

How many times have you been surprised by a friend who always came across as strong and unaffected by life trials and tribulations, only to find out they have been bottling things up and are really not okay?

Being genuine about how you feel at the time is an important part of honouring your own journey and builds trust with others allowing others to be clear about how they can relate to you as well. I once worked for a person who was delivering the team a message about the “state of the nation” and during the message he was clearly getting emotional as tears briefly welled in his eyes. For me it was in that moment that my respect for him grew and my commitment to the team was enhanced … I really appreciated him being genuine.

What about in your family life?

Are you genuine with your partner and your children in the way you share your emotions?
Imagine if you could have a conversation with your teenage daughter saying that you acknowledge that she feels frustrated and angry right now and then giving her a hug and allow her to release her tears around that.

Imagine being able to say to your partner that you are overwhelmed and stressed at work and just need some understanding around this right now…. and maybe have a little cry as you hug each other.

Do you think that would give you the strength to go on?
Do you think that would bring you closer together as a family?
A magic moment maybe?

Allowing yourself to feel and express your tears when you need to is a sign of strength and being authentic.

So next time you hear the rain falling on your roof spare a moment to reflect on how genuine you are being with your emotions. Let the tears flow and the magic grow.

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My fear of women

Mon, 01 Apr 2019 02:36:56 GMT

I think I have been gynophobic at some level for years

I think I have been gynophobic at some level for years. According to the Oxford dictionary, Gynophobia is: a dislike or fear of women . Does that mean I didn’t like myself at some level (after all I am a woman)? Quite possibly, but rather it was a fear of being around groups of women I didn’t know. For years I felt much more comfortable being in a room full of men rather than a room full of women. In fact, when I first changed my career from manufacturing industries to health and wellbeing in 2016 I felt distinctly awkward and out of place when faced with having to network in groups that were predominately woman. I had to force myself with racing heart and shrinking fear to attend and talk to people. I had a belief that the conversation would be limited to handbags and shoes and they would not like or accept me for who I am.

Recently I realised all of that had changed when on a gorgeous spring day a few months ago, I was happily heading off with four lovely ladies to a local event to have fun!

This might seem normal for some women, yet it hasn’t always been my experience. At the time it was an epiphany of how much I had personally grown in the past few years.

Girls are so and so’s

I think I was about nine and hanging out with some girlfriends in the school playground playing a singing game. We were taking turns at singing our favourite song and when it came to my turn I was excited and trusting and I opened up my voice to my friends.

It came as a real shock to me that they turned and laughed and told me that I couldn’t sing!

I felt hurt and ashamed and blushed vividly. The more this happened the more I was taunted for my bright face and the more ashamed I felt. The girls thought it was hilarious and it was in that moment I concluded that girls sure could be so and so’s.

That was the first time I had felt this way and it rocked me to my core.

The whole thing baffled me. Up until then I had no reason to doubt myself, I knew inside that I was confident and liked myself as I had very encouraging and supportive parents. Later that year, I came to school one day to sit at my desk and found that all my things had been moved and hidden. I didn’t know where to look and no one would tell me where to find them. I felt alone and left out.

Why did that happen? As a nine year old I couldn’t figure it out. Especially when in my last year of primary school I was elected school captain by my peers. It was puzzling to me, yet all I could remember was how hurt, ashamed and no good I felt.

Anyway, it was then that I took on my belief that all girls definitely were so and so’s. I unconsciously vowed not to get caught up in their petty “girly” stuff especially conversations about fashion, other girls and other such unimportant things. It was my protection. There was no way that I was going to let myself be hurt in that way again.

In high school, I made friends with the boys and hated being told by the girls when I could and couldn’t like someone. This continued when at 14 I was told that I couldn’t do an Outward Bound course with my brothers because I was a girl!

Bam! That sent me on path where I decided to work in a male dominated career.

Slowly and surely I made doing things from a female perspective wrong, and worse still, wrong for me. I extended my perception that girls were so and so’s and to be a girl made you not good enough, to believe that I had to prove I was good enough as a woman or just as good as the men. I created a life with a part of me turned off at the source. I had dimmed down a side of me that allowed me to be me fully and unashamedly female and as a result was under utilising my creative potential.

The catalyst for change

Fast forward to 2012, a long career in manufacturing with many friends and supportive colleagues and only a small handful of trusted female friends and next to no female colleagues. My only female friends were ones that had been around for a long time and accepted me for just being me.

On some level I had switched off access to a part of me in that playground and denied myself the opportunity to tap into a greater field of being. It was like I was not using all of my available resources. Like anything we suppress it was starting to turn up in my life as a feeling of hollowness, being unfulfilled and I had sense of being left wanting for something.

You know … that feeling you have when you have everything on the outside and it’s still not quite enough?

To the outside world I was successful and happy, yet on the inside I was screaming out for something else. Since then I have made some significant changes, I spent some time on myself using Breathwork to heal the wounds and change the belief system about women. My life now is filled with wonderful supportive women and men from all walks of life and backgrounds.

It’s not about boys vs girls

The point of this story is not about girls vs boys, women vs men, female vs male; it’s about how you can perceive the world at a point in time, draw a conclusion from it and then head off into the rest of your life with an underlying belief based on a single event.

This happens because our thoughts and emotions have a powerful effect on how we think and feel and visa versa. It’s based on the fact that thought is creative. We have a thought which motivates an action which produces an outcome that impacts our mind, body, and emotional state. From this we draw a conclusion which informs our belief system. What we unconsciously believe has a direct impact on our thoughts, and so the cycle goes on and on.

The biggest lesson I have learned over the past seven years it that those old beliefs and thought patterns that have slowly self-sabotaged my life can be changed. We don’t need to stay stuck in the mechanisms we developed at a young age to survive. As an adult, the environment is different and we can make different choices around what you take on to be true for ourselves. We don’t need to dim ourselves down and develop “phobias” that limit us. This is what I did to help me change my thinking and self beliefs.

1. Wake up to the possibility that what you are getting in life now may be a result of how you decided life was for you at an early age. Remember my nine year old self in the playground, red faced and hurt and deciding that all girls are so and so’s.

2. Do a timeline of your life. Draw a line across the page and mark along the timeline any dominant experiences and the age you were that may have resulted in you developing an opinion or belief about the world or about yourself. Examples might be: I felt hurt and ashamed when my teacher repeatedly told me I was stupid and wouldn't amount to anything - I am stupid; I have to struggle to survive; I am worthless.

3. Review and look for a pattern. Does there seem to be times when similar things have repeated themselves or you felt the same way as a result of them?

4. Decide if you want something different and seek out someone that resonates with you to help you look at life differently. This may be through a coach, kinesiologist, or some other form of support. My vehicle for transformation was Breathwork.

Oh and the other lesson I learned: Girls are pretty great after all!

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Jennylee Taylor is Conscious Living Coach and Breathwork Practitioner supporting and empowering you to be great managers of your world through reducing stress and overwhelm, and balancing life so you can enjoy loving relationships, contentment now and financial security in your future.
Jennylee supports people to break through personal emotional and mindset barriers so you can be the best you in the world and achieve your goals.

Would you like more info? Feel free to contact me for a chat

Turning up your internal light

Mon, 25 Mar 2019 02:41:18 GMT

Why do we turn down our internal light and how can we turn it up

Are you getting all you want out of life and reaching your full potential? Do you have the career, the job, the family, the shining dream you had when you were growing up? Are you fulfilling the role of the leader that you know you really are deep down inside?

No? Well, you may be unknowingly turning down your own light.

Remember when you were a child and everything seemed so fresh and interesting, and curiosity and adventure filled your days?

You were bright eyed and bushy tailed. Nothing seemed to get in your way of enjoying life. You were constantly pushing the boundaries of what you were “allowed” to do and you were learning by testing how far you could go, how creative you could be and what was “acceptable” behaviour in certain circumstances. All you really cared about was having fun, trying new things and exploring life with the expectation of sitting down to dinner at the end of an adventurous day and receiving a smile from you parents.

You laughed when you were happy, wept deeply when your pet died, screamed in pain when you fell off your pushbike, got cranky when your brother or sister were annoying you, and hugged people when you felt like showing your appreciation or love for them. You always told the truth … like: look how big nannas nose is, daddy is having a beer in the shed, and mum likes to have chocolate late at night.

You asked questions with curiosity because they were reasonable questions and you wanted to know the answers. Why does grandad wear a nappy; what is precipitation; how far is it to the moon; and why don’t we go and visit our cousins anymore?

You liked yourself, wore the clothes you felt the most comfortable and confident in, and nothing you thought, said or did was wrong. It’s just how it was.

You were a shining, bright light with a twinkle in your eye living in the eternal truth of who you really are.

Remember those days?

When was the last time you felt like that? Can you say right now that you are comfortable in your own skin, engaged with life, and able to be authentic and real in your emotions? That you feel safe going for life?

So what happened?

How you act and react in the world today is based on everything you have experienced up until this moment and how you handled it at the time. At different times in your life during difficult times you have to find ways to protect yourself. You develop mechanisms or behaviours to protect that innocent bright shining light that is the real you from physical and mental pain.

You may have been told not to show your emotions only because other people cannot deal with it, or the timing is not right for everyone else. How many times did you hear “children should be seen and not heard”, “stop crying”, “stop being a cry baby”, “shut up and go away”?

Then you may have been told “don’t be so stupid” when you ask a perfectly reasonable question, “you’re an idiot” when you are taking longer than expected to learn a new thing, or “your ugly” when you put on your favourite outfit. You went away with your head down feeling hurt, ashamed and guilty and decided to change the way you act to protect yourself.

At some point in time, if you hear this often enough you take them on to be true for you. You hold your breath, swallow your feelings and like the dimmer on the light switch you turn your internal light down. You start unconsciously saying to yourself “I am stupid, I am ugly”, “I am worthless” or you believe “I never do anything right”, “I always lose”. That little voice in your head keeps talking to you long after you have grown up and you continue with your modified behaviour because that’s how you survived back then.

The thing is you don’t have to do it the same way now. There is no need to protect yourself the same way you did as a child if it doesn’t work for you.

Times change and circumstances change. You are an adult now, your environment is different and you have the capacity to turn it up and let the light shine through again.

The trouble is that you may be so used to living life telling yourself untruths and reacting and behaving a certain way that you are unsure how to change it. You may even be unaware that you are living life this way. It may have taken you years to hone and develop the behaviours that result in recurring outcomes that you would love to be different.

Are you someone who never seems to get the promotion you deserve, or you keep getting involved in dead end relationships, or things never seem to go your way?

There IS light at the end of the tunnel. It doesn’t have to be that way anymore. It’s time to stop listening to the limitations others place on you and to change the habits you created over time and TURN UP the brightness on your internal light. Here are some things that might help you.

Stop listening to the lies

Let’s assume from this day forward that those voices in your head that don’t allow you to shine are all lies. If that seems like too big of step, just assume there is a good possibility that they are at least little white lies for now.

Take Responsibility for your life

This is your life. You don’t have to listen to what everyone else tells you are the right things for you. How do they know what your true aspirations, loves and needs are? Stop playing the blame game and take ownership for your own outcomes. It’s time to put the proverbial foot down and discontinue agreeing with what other people say.

Put yourself first

This might seem selfish to some. Yet isn’t it more selfish to not be everything you could be and to not turn up the light of your full potential?

Think about that for a moment. You know you have more to offer, yet you selfishly hold back. When you continually do what everyone else wants you to do the way they want you to do it, you are silently agreeing with them.

Surround yourself with people who support you

You are not alone. The key to being able turn up the light of your true self is to surround yourself with the people that support you. You can take a journey to reconnect to the creative, confident, and courageous part of you that inherently knows and operates from the pure essence of who you really are.

You don’t have to do this on your own AND you don’t need anyone to do it for you.

Find someone that will encourage and walk beside you on your journey. Find your supporters, the ones that will cheer you on as you take the steps to reclaim your power and free the light that lies within you.

Conscious Breathing

Your own breath is a great tool you can use anywhere, anytime. You breathe out 70% of toxins on your out breath. Toxins held in your body can also be in the form of unwanted emotions around your beliefs and thoughts.

Make a start today by consciously breathing out all of the things that you don’t want to keep. Sit for a moment and bring your awareness to your breath. As you exhale, consciously breathe out all “life is s struggle”, “unworthiness”, “I am guilty”, anything that keeps you from being the best version of you.

In the inhale, breathe in everything you are “life is simple”, “worthiness”, “I am authentic”.

All of these things will help you turn up your own internal light. You can start by doing one thing and see what follows.

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When you are done talking - Breathe

Sun, 03 Mar 2019 03:39:24 GMT

... sick of hearing yourself talk about the same old “stuff”... one option may be to get connected to what your body has stored around “it”.

Have you ever sat with a friend and they keep going over the same old negative stuff and don’t seem to be able to get past it?

Have you tried talking about a past issue, made some progress and feel like you have hit a wall in working it all out?

Can you openly talk about “it” without getting emotional but you think about “it” every waking moment with no respite when you are asleep?

Is everyone telling you to “get over it” and “it’s time you moved on” but it’s still stuck in your story and you feel like there must be something wrong with you?

Talking about past hurts and trauma is great and can help a lot of people and sometimes though it is not enough. Sometimes talking about it doesn’t bring the relief you thought it would or it only takes you so far.

That’s because your body still remembers what if felt like at the time.

Every experience we have from pure joy to absolute trauma invokes an emotional response which gets stored in your body at the cellular level. For example, when we experience the exhilaration of climbing to the top of a mountain or the warmth of a loved ones hug our body remembers elation, laughter, joy, love. Physically we stand tall, are relaxed, and feel pretty good with a warm glow spreading in our bodies when we recall the moment.

At the other end of the spectrum; for example after falling of a bike, being bullied or when any traumatic event in life occurs our body stores the memory of the fear, pain, anxiety, helplessness. This is especially so if you are not allowed to or cannot express your emotions at the time it happened. You may have been told to stop crying or you don’t show your emotions because it was what you had to do at the time to survive. You just swallow hard and move on.

Then later in life something happens that triggers the unconscious memory of the incident and for no apparent reason we can physically cower, retract, get smaller, feel sick, break out into a cold sweat and sometimes this may even manifest as daily physical pain or illness. We are not sure why this is happening and may not even consciously link it to what happened in the past.

In my own experience I know this to be true.

At age 11 I went on a school excursion to Katoomba and went on the vertical train. My only memory of that ride was the feeling of sheer terror as we proceeded over the cliff. It felt like I was going to fall out and I didn’t feel safe. I remember my knuckles going white as I gripped the “safety” bar and my jaw clamped shut as I held my breath. I was terrified! Everyone else was giggling with excitement.

Big deal you say.

Well 40 years later, I revisited Katoomba with a great friend and she was keen to go on the train and the cable car. I wasn’t keen about the thought of the train, and in the weeks leading up to the trip I avoided committing to taking the ride. The day came and we paid for our ticket (“oh no” I was thinking) and I reluctantly followed my friend to the starting gate. She was squealing with delight as we were first in line which meant we would be at the front (the first to go over) and she wanted to tilt the seat for maximum vision as we went head first down the cliff (more likely to fall out)!!

Inside my heart was pounding, I had a feeling of dread and my body was reliving that terrifying experience exactly the same way as it did back when I was 11.

Before we took off she finally noticed how quiet and tense I was. “What’s up?” she asked. “I am freaking out” I replied through clenched teeth. “What!!!??, you go over cliffs all the time when abseiling, what’s the matter?”

Okay, so you might think that was pretty lame. Not for me it wasn’t. And what that taught me was that even though your mind can rationalise and work through the logic when recalling past events, unless your body is cleared of the emotional energy related to the incident it can come rushing back when you least want it to.

We have been taught to suppress our emotions

The trouble is we have been conditioned by Western culture to bury our emotions and not to get “emotional”. Society favours being logical, talking it through and leading with our head instead of our heart. Unfortunately, our emotions just don’t go away, instead they get pushed down into the unconscious and get stored in our bodies as negative energy. They hang around there until something triggers the memory and out they come again.

For example, I met a man who has a fear of cockroaches. He panics and cowers as far away from the cockroach as he can get whenever he comes into the vicinity of one. He gets tense and his eyes glaze over with fear and he starts breathing rapidly. Logically, anyone watching could say “just stomp on it”.

That is easier said than done for him. When he was a child he had climbed into a pipe that was infested with cockroaches and now each time he sees a cockroach his body’s cellular memory of that moment is recalled and he is relives the emotional response he had when the feeling of thousands of tiny legs were crawling over him and he was overwhelmed and in panic.

No room for logic there.

As a boy he was ridiculed and laughed at and told just to “get over it” so he held in the fear which over time turned into something that stayed with him for life.

There is no point trying to talk through the fact that he is much bigger and has the power to ignore it or dispose of it quickly. His body memory takes over and he goes into auto response mode, his fear is not rational in everyone else eyes yet his body is locked in the point of time when he was fully in that moment.

You can heal your emotions around past trauma by releasing the stored energy associated with them.

These are just a few examples of how the emotional charge of trauma can be pushed into your unconscious and stay stored in your body’s cellular memory. Your specific trauma will be different and may be much more painful and will have a different response.

The good news is that it possible to release the energy and experience resolution around the past trauma in your present life. Breathwork is a breathing technique that uses conscious connected breathing (CCB). It is one of the most powerful, self-generated, transformational tools we have to access our own essence and potential through the use of our own breath. Breathwork seeks to bring about a deeper connection and understanding of your Self, so that you can be fully aware, fully alive and free from the emotions, fears and self-sabotaging patterns that have been limiting you up to now.

Breathwork is not about forgetting about or burying the past, it’s about being able to remember without triggering a deluge of tears, anger, hurt or any other emotion that you may have felt at the time. It’s about releasing the emotional energy around the memory and leaving it in the past so you can move forward without dragging it along with you anymore.

When you can remember without the pain, it doesn’t come up as an issue for you anymore. No more talking about it because it is not impacting how you act any longer.

So if you are sick of hearing yourself talk about the same old “stuff”, thought you were “over it” and still “it” keeps coming back to haunt you, one option may be get connected to what your body has stored around “it”.

When you are done talking – breathe.

Releasing trauma in this way is best done with a qualified Breathwork Practitioner who will facilitate the process in a safe and non-judgemental environment. You can find a Breathwork Practitioner in your area here .

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You are the creator of your life story

Sat, 16 Feb 2019 06:27:57 GMT

the 5 secrets ....getting off the sidelines and back into your story

Everyone loves a great story, right?

We read books and magazines, we go to the movies, we listen to the elders in our families tell us stories. Some stories are a reflection of our own lives and others are fanciful and fun. They make us laugh, cry, jump with fear and get us excited. Almost every emotion available can be invoked through a great story. Each person journeys through life with their own unique story that is touched in a multitude of ways to the stories of others like the weave of a multi layered fabric.

So, what are the elements of a story?

Every moment has its own story with a beginning, middle and end: a microcosm of the total life story. Like the bricks in a building they are stacked one upon the other to form the foundation, the walls, the roof, the building that we call our home. Moments turn in to minutes, minutes to hours, hours to days, days to years, to our lifetime.

In the context of your current lifetime your story begins at birth. In itself the story of your birth is a subset of the story of your mother and father. What happens during your birth is uniquely yours and the result is that you come into the world with the ability to create your own story.

The middle constitutes the bulk of the tale and it can have chapters, stages and seasons. Along the way people, places and experiences all come and go with some having more impact than others on how your journey unfolds for you. Generally, we absorb all of these happenings to create a library of information in our bodies that is reflected outward and informs the next moment.

Sometimes though, we are so focused on other people’s stories that we forget to be in touch with our own. We get involved in trying to run their story, let them run ours, are envious of how their story seems so much more fun, interesting and better than our own. We forget that we have a choice, that we are the writers, the lead actresses and actors, the producers and the directors. We choose the location, the set, the costumes and what sort of character we play.

We are it ….. there are no stunt doubles!

Every day we start a new day and have the opportunity to direct the movie. The trouble is that some of us sleep through the movie or at least part of it, or we turn down the volume and adjust the contrast so that it is out of focus. Others sit on the sideline, wait to die and then die waiting.

The amazing thing about our life is that we are the creators. Whatever you are experiencing right now is a reflection of how much you are taking seriously your role as the producer and director of the story and the magic you create in your life.

If any of this rings true for you, here are 5 Secrets to creating your own life story. These secrets will get you off the sidelines and back into your story:

Wake up and live with awareness!
Start by opening your eyes and turning on all of your senses. Does your life look the way you expected it to look by now? As the main character how do you REALLY feel? Are you getting to smell the proverbial roses or are you overwhelmed, rushing about or worse still numbed out to the small stories that lie in the individual moments? Are you even aware that your story has gone stagnant?
Living with awareness starts by waking up and taking a peak from under the covers or for some throwing them off with gusto so you can be ready to roll up your sleeves and enjoy your day.
Take responsibility
Regardless of what your life has been like up until now, it’s time to take responsibility for all that has transpired. Your past is your story, you can’t change it BUT you can change how you respond to it. It’s time to stop feeling guilt and regret, grab the director’s chair and get ready to say “ACTION”!
Learn about yourself
What sort of story you create will be a reflection of you. Once you wake up and take responsibility you will have a whole heap of questions. Most of these can be answered through the journey of personal discovery.
Find out what triggers you, why you keep repeating the same old patterns in life that don’t seem to get you anywhere, and how to connect with your internal power and intuition.
Cultivate a new perspective
Start to look at the same things from a different angle. Is there a different way of doing this thing or that thing so you get results that add value to your life? Walk the opposite way to work, sit at a different spot at breakfast, talk to new people. Cultivating a new perspective opens doors to new creative avenues to embellish your life story.
Expect Magic
Everyday in every way choose to expect something great. Stop focusing on what is not working in your life and notice the tiny moments of magic that present themselves.

As you do all of these things, practice and make small changes towards each of them you will notice how your life changes for the better. You will attract different co stars and fellow actors, you will see the same locations in a different light or even open yourself up to new ones, you will be the writer of your own movie.

Now you know the secrets, let’s talk about the end of the story.

Let’s face it, we don’t really know when we will draw our last breath on this earth in this body. Our lifetime is a subset of the greater cosmic story that has been playing out for eons and will continue for eons more.

Life happens, regardless of what thoughts and feelings, high times and struggles you go through during your time. Time passes and the world keeps going.

The question is:
Do you want to sit on the sidelines and just be a puppet in someone else’s story, or do you want to take a deep breath and approach each moment as the creator of your own story?
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the 5 secrets ....getting off the sidelines and back into your story

Are you involved in "small deaths" each day?