Washing off the Manure

So this morning I seemed to be getting a message from the universe – thoughts that came into my head, e-mails I received, songs on the radio. And the message was:

Say it as you want to see it.

For example, you notice your bank account is empty -> I see my bank account full to overflowing! Your friend is making a poor relationship choices -> I see you with someone you respect and love, who respects and loves you. You have no time to do the 4,000 tasks you need to do by tomorrow -> I see myself working efficiently and doing everything that is important.

The reasoning for this (just in case you don’t know) is that from one side you are powerless, at the mercy of your circumstances. On the other side, there is possibility to change those circumstances (when I changed my mindset about the 4,000 tasks, I got clear about what I really needed to do and got down to it!) or at least to accept them and move on.

So, i was contemplating this as I was walking the dog in the lovely sunshine. Then I turned round to see said mutt rolling ecstatically in manure. Sigh. After rinsing off the worst of it, throwing her in the bath and changing her from minging mutt to fluff-ball, I realised that this was a physical example of this concept. Moaning for days about the dog stinking of manure was not an option – I just had to change it! Luckily that was easy enough to do…

Sometimes it’s not so easy to take the action, but it’s definitely worth taking your focus off what stinks in your life and onto how you want it to be. And if you want to borrow my dog shampoo, let me know.

Love

Donna.x
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Crack Pots

I am sure you’ve seen this story before, it does the rounds of e-mail every few months or so…but I love it!

“An elderly Chinese woman had two large pots, each hung on the ends of a pole which she carried across her neck. One of the pots had a crack in it while the other pot was perfect and always delivered a full portion of water. At the end of the long walks from the stream to the house, the cracked pot arrived only half full.

For a full two years this went on daily, with the woman bringing home only one and a half pots of water. Of course , the perfect pot was proud of its accomplishments. But the poor cracked pot was ashamed of its own imperfection, and miserable that it could only do half of what it had been made to do.

After two years of what it perceived to be bitter failure, it spoke to the woman one day by the stream “I am ashamed of myself, because this crack in my side causes water to leak out all the way back to your house.” The old woman smiled, “Did you notice that there are flowers on your side of the path, but not on the other pot’s side?”

“That’s because I have always known about your flaw, so I planted flower seeds on your side of the path, and every day while we walk back, you water them.” “For two years I have been able to pick these beautiful flowers to decorate the table. Without you being just the way you are, there would not be this beauty to grace the house.”

Each of us has our own unique flaw. But it’s the cracks and flaws we each have that make our lives together so very interesting and rewarding. You’ve just got to take each person for what they are and look for the good in them. SO, to all of my crackpot friends, have a great day and remember to smell the flowers on your side of the path! ”

With love to all the crackpots!

Donna.x

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Fun With Your Face

I came across this site a few weeks ago – www.faceinhole.com - it is SO MUCH FUN! Basically you can put your face in lots of different scenarios – film scenes, celeb poses, and utterly random pictures. Here’s my favourite:

Of course, I do look pretty much like that anyway…but with a couple more layers of padding! Would love to see what you come up with! Enjoy.

Love

Donna.x

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A Choice

Here’s a choice for you:

You have a flat tyre.

You can either be pissed of and have a flat tyre, or you can be happy and have a flat tyre.

Either way, you still have a flat tyre.

Which will you choose? If you decide to choose to be pissed off, what will you do? For example, you could complain about it, tell yourself how blasted inconvenient it is in every way, pout, cry, you could even stamp your feet.

How about if you decide to be happy? What will you do then? for example, you could look for the funny side, you could smile (or even beam), you could take the opportunity to show your skills at changing tyres, you could call a good friend to help and spend time with them laughing, you could flirt with the guy at the garage, you could experience the kindness of strangers.

Either way, you still had a flat tyre, but one is more fun, more enjoyable, and allows you to be cheerful.

By the way, this applies to other things than flat tyres.

Love

Donna.x

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Self Care Vs Self Torture

After talking to several clients, friends, and myself about self-care, I started to wonder if we learnt how to take care of ourselves from torturers. Do you recognise any of the following methods of ‘caring’ for yourself?

1. Feed your victim none nutritious food
2. Order your victim around
3. Deprive your victim of sleep
4. Physically, emotionally and mentally abuse your victim
5. Deprive your victim of water
6. Judge your victim harshly
7. Have impossibly high expectations, and get angry and abusive when these expectations are not met
8. Find your victim’s sensitivities and use them to hurt them again and again.
9. Keep your victim caged in an unhealthy environment with no fresh air
10. Teach others how to treat your victim – with no respect.

Seriously, take another look at the list above – ever done any of those things to yourself? I suspect most of you will be able to say ‘yes, I have done them all to myself’. Interesting eh? Even more interesting is that most of us would never treat someone else the way we treat ourselves.

If we wouldn’t treat anyone else like that, why do we do it to ourselves? We are not cruel by nature, we just don’t know any better. We grew up watching people be horrible to themselves, we’re surrounded by other people caught in the torture trap, and getting out of that trap is seen as ‘boring’ or ‘selfish’.

A magnificent catch-22 isn’t it? Despite the fact that we know torturing ourselves is NOT the answer, we are turned off the alternative because society as a whole advocates the torturous road. Are you running with the herd on hot coals? If you were to consciously choose whether to continue beating yourself into the ground or taking excellent care of yourself, which would you choose?

What have you unconsciously chosen? Have you spent so long torturing yourself that you have Stockholm syndrome ? Are you ready to make a new choice? Trust me, it is not selfish, or wrong, or boring, or square to take care of yourself. You deserve to be healthy, energetic, happy and getting the best from your body, mind and spirit. More torture will only bring more pain, and you deserve better from you. Choose life, not persecution.

Love

Donna.x
PS this is an excerpt from my FREE ebook “The First Step To a Joyful Life” – to get your free copy, go to http://www.donnaonthebeach.com/blog/index.php/sign-up-for-more-donna/

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The Frustrating Thing

Frustration. I know him well. He is a constant companion of impatience and irritation. All of which are regular visitors, none of whom have been particularly helpful up til now. You see, the way I have dealt with them is to firstly try to ignore them, while their presence gets stronger and stronger until eventually they take over what I am doing, and I work from that angry energy for a while…until I realise it’s not helpful and let it go.

If you’re feeling frustrated, angry, impatient, irritated, notice that is how you feel. Let yourself feel it for a few minutes…and then LET IT GO. Your frustration may come back for a visit, but you only need have a quick chat on the doorstep before you let it move on again. And again. And again.

Frustration is like a little warning flame – it’s only when you try to hold on to it that it burns you.

Love

Donna.x

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Life…T’is a Serious Business

Do you remember the day when you set foolishness, silliness, ridiculousness and your sense of humour aside to become ‘grown up’? No, probably not as if we realised what exactly we’d have to sacrifice in order to be mature and adult, we wouldn’t do it! I want to know who decided that we should take life seriously? I want to know who took the absurd decision that everything that happens is a matter of life and death.

Because whoever it was they were wrong. Many of the things we get wound up and stressed about and take enormously seriously are utterly irrelevant in the grand scheme of things! One of my favourite exercises to give coaching clients is the ’so what?’ game. Someone was rude to you. So what? So that’s rude. So what? There’s a certain point at which you realise that it really doesn’t matter.

People can’t offend you unless you take offense. Events in your life can’t get you down unless you let them. Life can’t be serious unless you insist on taking it seriously. Stick your tongue out in the general direction of whatever is getting on your nerves and get on with taking life frivolously.

Love

Donna.x

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Pursuing Outrageous Joy

Somewhere this week, I came across the phrase “outrageous joy”. It has totally caught my imagination, and I’ve decided my new ‘job’ is to find and bring outrageous joy. What does this mean in practice? I have thrown away the ‘to do’ lists, I am not doing any ’should’s, I am spending more time with friends and family, and enjoying each moment as much as I can.

It feels rather good to be honest. No stress, lots of fun – what I imagine ‘God’ had in mind when life was created.

If your mission in life was to find and bring outrageous joy, what might change in your life?

Love

Donna.x

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The Compliment Guys

I just adored this story. Call me an ole sentimentalist, I don’t care!

Take inspiration from them, and compliment everyone you see today!

Love

Donna.x
PS You are looking GREAT! Look at your 100 watt smile – beautiful! xx

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Space to Hear Yourself

At the end of my yoga class last night, I found myself having some great ideas for what to do in my life. And I often find that the best ideas for blog posts, videos and articles come when I am not sat at my desk in front of my keyboard! Why is this? Well, because we have much more wisdom than we give ourselves credit for. Whenever we’re trying to ‘think’ of a solution, we are putting immense pressure on our brain to come up with a piece of brilliance in the middle of the problem.

But creativity doesn’t work so well in a confined space like that. Ever had someone breathing down your neck as you’re trying to do something? It doesn’t help a lot does it? In fact, it makes it more pressured and difficult. You need to create the space to be able to hear yourself – your inner self, your intuition, which whispers gently to you. And that can’t be heard if you are shouting in the caverns of your mind ‘I NEED AN ANSWER’.

So when was the last time you had space to hear yourself? And when is the next time? Ideally, this will be daily…but even if you start with giving yourself space once this week, that’s a start!

Love

Donna.x

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