Contact form

Name

Email *

Message *

Sunday 28 October 2018

When Life Gives you Lemons, Keep Calm and Look for the Bigger Picture!

The majority of this year 2018 has proved to be a very frustrating one where I have been struggling to make any real progress in every area of my life. We all have ‘difficult’ years and during those times we can find that our mood is lowered and anxiety levels raised. We fall out of our place of power (our calm centre) and become over-sensitive; we over-react to criticism, judgment and disappointments.  I realised only recently that I have the power to take control of myself and my situation rather than let things simply unravel. I have spiritual awareness and knowledge – I just forget it sometimes! We all go through difficult times but a spiritual belief system can definitely help.

 
Understanding what you need to work on

As part of our spiritual growth, we need to look at our life and ourselves every now and again and address any restrictive patterns of thought or negative feelings. Both of these highlight what we need to work on.
 

·        First of all we need to find out exactly what causes us to overreact and take action to restore peace and balance. Others may appear to be responsible for our troubles but it is our own minds that create the negative reactions within us. When we react badly it is because we are suffering in some way. Being in an unsupportive environment leaves you feeling unfulfilled as your spiritual potential is not being allowed to surface. This is the root cause of many issues, anxieties and stresses in life. For example you may be surrounded by people with values and ethics that are different from your own, you may literally have no peace and quiet anywhere at home or work or you may be in a situation where it is just not possible to be your true self. When this happens you will inevitably experience low moods, self-doubt, uncertainty and a general dulling of the spirit within. In other words, you are in a soul-destroying environment.
 

·        If you want a new life yet are afraid of change, ask and meditate upon which part of you feels insecure and threatened. If you have had to be very independent in life, having spent a lot of your life alone, you tend to think you must face change and challenges on your own, which can be daunting and overwhelming, leading to a tendency to put up and shut up. (I’m guilty of this one myself!) Maybe the lesson here is to learn humility – tell someone you need support, comfort and ask for help. It is not weak to ask for help and to need others.
 

·        Create peace in your life as much as possible. Peace in yourself leads to peace in your relationships with others. If you are surrounded by negative people who drain you, take action to reduce the amount of time spent with them as much as possible. Equally try to extend compassion, understanding and forgiveness to others. A gesture of kindness can go a long way.
 

·        Try to develop positive thoughts by practising gratitude for the blessings you do have and positive affirmations. Stop the negative thoughts as soon as you catch them and replace it straight away with a positive one. We all have thoughts like “I’ll never be any good at this” but you can stop that thought and say “I’m getting better and better at this every day”. By the same token I also think it is very important to “Know thyself”. So maybe the lesson is that maybe you won’t actually ever be great at what you’re trying to do but you will get by. However there will be something else that you really will be good at and that’s what you should focus on instead. Accept yourself as you are and work to transform aspects of yourself that you don’t like.
 

Dealing with Challenges

Even if you have been on the spiritual path a long time, you can still be thrown off course by life events, circumstances and challenging people who put your new found wisdom to extreme tests! This can happen to any one of us so you shouldn’t beat yourself up too much about it, thinking you should have handled it better. It is always worth checking in on where you are at and where there is room for improvement. Here are some things I have found beneficial when dealing with my own challenges:-
 

1.    Regularly make time to sit still in peace and quiet to listen to the voice within. Allow yourself to feel and acknowledge the emotions you have been suppressing. If you don’t have a peaceful home, try the garden or a park.

2.    Walk in nature to clear your head.

3.    Meditate, particularly a compassion based meditation where you focus on your heart centre and extend love to those you are in conflict with. You can also journey to your sacred space within, call in your spirit guide and ask them for advice.

4.    Ask the angels for the help you need to move forward. We all have a Guardian Angel who is just waiting to be asked!

5.    Remind yourself of your good qualities (they often seem to disappear when we are stressed and negative!). Let your good qualities of kindness, compassion, empathy, respect and tolerance guide you. This is a great opportunity to develop unconditional love.

6.    Realise that you are only truly responsible for yourself. We must show care and consideration but always remember that other people’s happiness is up to them.

7.    Don’t let fear hold you back – a tough one, I know. Life can either be an adventure of courage, risk taking and exploring possibilities, or it can be uneventful and meaningless. When you think about it, the latter option actually sounds more terrifying!

8.    Realise you have the power of spirit within you, along with the support of your guides and angels. You truly have infinite potential.

9.    Increase your own personal energy through one-point meditation, Reiki healing or a simple chi kung exercise such as The Accordion where you build up an energy ball between the palms of your hands then focus it in your hara power centre.

 
Spiritual growth does not proceed in a straight line with week by week improvement. Rather we make progress in cycles with new challenges bringing us the opportunity to become more kind, caring, compassionate, empathic, responsible, creative and aware human beings. There will be periods in your life where you feel passionate, energised and creative, then you will experience a period of lethargy, restlessness and fear when you need to heal old wounds. Our major life lessons usually re-occur time and time again, even if we think we’ve already deal with them. It is like the Universe is saying “Let’s just go over this one more time”, testing you and giving you a chance to affirm new, healthier choices.

 

Helen Shortland is a Reiki Master Healer/Teacher, Meditation Teacher, Holistic Therapist and Tarot Consultant based at 15 Wheeler Gate in Nottingham city centre. Helen offers several healing treatments such as Reiki, Angelic Reiki, Faery Reiki, Angel Therapy, Fairy Blessing Guided Journey and Crystal Chakra Balancing; holistic therapies including Reflexology, Indian Head Massage, Hopi Ear Candles & Facials; as well as Usui Reiki and Faery Reiki training courses and tarot readings. She has been on the spiritual path for 18 years and has extensive knowledge of healing and the healing journey. For further information about her Reiki courses, therapies and workshops, please visit her website http://helenshortland.com or visit and ‘like’ her Facebook page Helen Shortland Holistics, Healing & Tarot.