Pieces of a Puzzle

“There are no extra pieces in the universe. Everyone is here because he or she has a place to fill, and every piece must fit itself into the big jigsaw puzzle.” Deepak Chopra

You are an important piece of the grand puzzle – do you own that? Do you live that? Do you see how amazing, how beautiful, how wonderful you are? Or if something is currently darkening your brilliance (lack of self-belief, fear, feeling directionless), do you see how amazing, how beautiful, how wonderful you are? I can see the wonder of you from here…I hope you see it when you look in the mirror!

Own your own magnificence – own that you are a part of the grand puzzle, an important part. What can you do this week to show your faith in your importance?

Love

Donna.x

PS I couldn’t say ‘jigsaw’ as a kid, it was a ‘jinksaw’ – just thought I’d share that!

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OnTheBeach – Share Your Gift

We all have gifts that we can share with the world, and one of the greatest tragedies is that we don’t. We keep ourselves small, we are self-deprecating and lack 100% self belief – and the world loses. You think I’m exaggerating? Well, let’s forget about this ‘just’ being about you for a minute, and think of everyone you know. How many of them are sharing their gifts with the world? Now think about the people that you don’t know, and the impact of all these people not sharing their gifts…trust me, the world loses.

The world is a slightly less shiny happy place without your gifts…and without the gifts of hundreds of thousands of people, well you can see the darkness creeping in. We all have many gifts, and our ability to share them is often blocked because we can’t see how wonderful we are! The good news is that you don’t necessarily need to realise how amazing you are when you begin.

Most of the authors, coaches, leaders that I admire still don’t appreciate just how fantastic they are, and when they started, for many of them their biggest challenge was to overcome their lack of self belief! Are you really so different from them? I love getting compliments from readers and clients – but what I know that they don’t always is that they are just as capable as me of sharing their gifts with the world. No one person is ‘better than’ another – we are all fabulous, some of us just don’t realise it yet!

So how do you find your gifts, if you have no idea how talented and amazing you are? Start looking for things that you enjoy doing, things that other people seek you out for, things that you do without really thinking. You may be a fabulous listener, a good ‘solutions’ person, very positive, very funny, good at telling jokes, good at practical things, good at fixing things, good with kids, a terrific flirt Start small – start with day to day, “little things” that make a big difference – think of the little things others do that make you feel good – a smile, a kind word, a silly joke – each of these things is a gift.

Look beyond ‘nothing’ to find your gifts – trust me, you have MANY. How do I know that you are not the only person in the world that has no gift? Because I know that no one on this planet is devoid of gifts. I know that within each and every one of us is a shining bundle of magnificence just bursting to get out! And I know that until you can find your gifts and let them out into the world, you will always feel that you could do more, be more. And you can!

Something to play with
Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is twofold. Number one, find something you are good at, and share it. Number two, find something that someone else is good at, and tell them that they are wonderful. If this twofold mission feels good, rinse and repeat.

Want to share your thoughts on this article? Leave me a comment below.

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OnTheBeach – Will This Still Matter Tomorrow?

A note from Donna
Since the gig I went to last Tuesday, my throat has been playing up and my voice has run the range between Minnie Mouse and that woman with a husky, low, smoker’s voice off Coronation Street of 20 years ago – can’t remember her name! I was listening to the messages my body was sending me – I needed rest desperately…and sadly my plans to snooze the afternoon away were thwarted 3 days in a row. (Do you think these people know telepathically the worst time to call?) This is a time for perseverance – I will get an afternoon snooze! Zzzzzzzzzz.

Will This Still Matter Tomorrow?
Woah, what a week! It’s been a real rollercoaster of a week, with trials, tribulations and stressors abounding…only most of these trials and tribulations are very short lived. I can’t even remember what stressed me out on Monday, Tuesday’s trial was a storm in a teacup, Wednesday’s stressor is a possibility that won’t happen until next year if at all, Thursday’s tribulation was a huge deal one minute, and non-existent the next! Sheesh.

Most of the time I’m very laid back and easy going (or I like to think so anyway!), but just occasionally I get sucked into drama. This week most of the drama has been about other people, but a couple of things have been going on in my head too…and all of it has been a fuss over nothing! How often do you get caught up in dramas that are enormously stressful, get you worried and anxious, and then blow over within a week?

We have a tendency to get caught up in what’s happening right now, losing perspective and working ourselves into a frenzy. Life is so much harder when you are being battered by every storm that comes your way. Of course, there is the occasional hurricane…but most of the storms only need an umbrella, not a full-scale town evacuation! It’s nice to have the odd drama-queen moment, but when you live your whole life in that state of adrenaline and crisis it is hard work!

Before you get caught up in the crisis will this still matter tomorrow? (to the tune of ‘Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow’!) Will it matter in a week’s time? Will it matter in a month? Will it matter in 6 months? Will it matter in a year? Will it matter in 5 years? Now you have a sense of how important this is in the grand scheme of things – is your reaction appropriate? Is it in perspective? Is it worth feeling bad about? Is it worth risking your health? Is it worth wasting time being angry?

Many of the little dramas we get caught up in on a day to day basis are relatively unimportant, and although irritating at the time, not significant enough for us to lose our peace over. Spilt coffee? Won’t matter tomorrow. Idiot drivers on the road? Won’t matter next week. Bitchiness at work? Won’t matter in 5 years time. What will matter? That you had fun, that you were your best self, that you gave and received love, that you were joyful and happy and didn’t waste energy and time and stress on things that won’t matter tomorrow.

Something to play with
Whenever you are losing your cool (or even afterwards!) ask yourself if this will matter tomorrow, or next week, or next year…if not, can you just let it go?

Want to share your thoughts on this article? Leave me a comment below.

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OnTheBeach – Getting Away From It All

A note from Donna

Thanks to the wonders of modern technology, I thought I had written, saved, and scheduled my newsletter for today long ago. Sadly I was completely and utterly mistaken! So this is being hastily written on a Sunday evening while watching Stephen Fry drive a black cab around the USA… So I’ll keep it short and sweet this week!

Getting Away From It All

When was the last time you had a day away? Just a day away from everything? No work, no hassle, no noise and bustle? I often speak to new clients who say ‘I have no idea what I want to do with my life’ – and when I ask how long they’ve spent thinking about it (away from everything else, in peaceful pondering, not frantic monkey mind), it is no surprise they’ve no idea, because there is no time to consider it.

Think about it for a second – how would you love to plan your life? In a frantic moment between work and chores, or in a quiet, meditative, peaceful moment? I would guess that you would love to plan your life in a peaceful moment…but how many of them do you have?! Our bodies, our minds, our hearts and our souls need rest time, need to have space and quiet to restore ourselves to our natural state of good health.

Do you get much of that??? If you do, you’re a rare bird! Most of us feel lucky just to get a few week’s holiday in a year and the odd peaceful moment here and there. But to really plan your one and only life, you need to set aside specific time to tune into the voice of your soul, and figure out where you really want to go. You have within you every answer you could possibly need…give your inner self a chance to be heard, and get away from it all. Your life is worth it.

Something to play with

Take out your diary right now and plan a day, or an afternoon, or a couple of hours where you can just go somewhere quiet and ponder, ruminate, deliberate, contemplate, muse and reflect about your life. Share your thoughts on this post – leave me a comment below.

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OnTheBeach – Bitch-Slapping Versus Back-Slapping

- A note from Donna -

Due to an exhilarating mix of work, procrastination, memory-loss and long lazy lunches, I am writing this on a Saturday night in the ad breaks between NCIS! It’s fortunate that I have so much practice writing these newsletters quite quickly and that the ad breaks are so long! Not long enough for me to write an epic, so this week’s a half cup. Enjoy!

- Bitch-Slapping Versus Back-Slapping -

So when was the last time you praised yourself? When did you last shout about your achievements? When did you last give yourself a big slap on the back for a job or a life well done? Seriously, when was the last time? And when was the last time you gave yourself grief for getting something wrong? When was the last time you put yourself down? When was the last time you were mean to yourself? Seriously, when was the last time? You don’t even have to have done it out loud to someone else – inside your head counts too.

I’m guessing that you did the last one more recently than you did the first. Particularly in Britain, we are enormously good at self-deprecation. It’s a skill! We hate to be seen as arrogant, so we go far too far the other way into the underworld of self-deprecation. Like most skills though, the self-deprecation skills can be transferred. What if you were to use those skills of observation, clarification, exaggeration and repetition to back-slap yourself rather than bitch-slap yourself?

What are you good at? What are you proud of? What did you do well? What are your best qualities? Instead of replaying the record which tells you what you’re crap at, what you’re ashamed of, what you did badly, your worst qualities, change the record and give yourself some credit for once. You’re worth it!

- Something To Play With -

Big up yo’self this week – you don’t have to become an arrogant arse, in fact, you don’t have to tell anyone else at all. But I do want you to increase your self-belief by talking yourself up – just in your own head will work just fine. Stop hiding your light under the proverbial bushel, and start shining. Want to share your thoughts on this article? E-mail me. I love to hear from readers, and will respond to all e-mails

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OnTheBeach – Don’t Let the B’s Grind You Down

My parents have a saying “Don’t let the b*stards grind you down” – and there are times when this is the most pertinent advice that can be given! Because this is exactly what happens if you’re not vigilant – years and years of criticism, minor annoyances and unsupportiveness can just grind down your good humour and confidence. Don’t let the b*stards grind you down.

How do you stop them??? Well, trying to stop anyone else doing anything is an exercise in futility! So here’s what you can do: don’t take it on. Don’t give away your power to someone else. Don’t allow other people to put you down. They can say the words, but if you don’t listen, those words have no power alone. Words can be like acid, corroding and eating away at you…but not if you don’t take it on.

Put it this way, if someone called you a blueberry, how much would you take that on board? How much would you allow that to hurt you? How much would you repeat it and keep hurting yourself with it? I am hoping you are saying ‘not at all’!! But if they call you ‘stupid’ or they criticise you or are unsupportive, that’s exactly what we do – we take it as gospel, we allow ourselves to be hurt by it, we repeat it to ourselves and others and pick the scab off the hurt so much that we are scarred by it.

Funnily enough, when we get a compliment, we don’t give that the same amount of energy and care! Interesting how we’re more prepared to think the worst of ourselves eh? Anyway, we’re talking about not letting the b*stards grind you down. Here’s what I do when faced with an insult, a criticism, an annoyance, “feedback”: I look at it objectively (once I’ve calmed down if it riled me!) and try to see their point of view. If they have a point, I take it as welcome help to improve – then I let it go. If they don’t, I just let it go.

Notice that I do get riled (oh my god, I’m HUMAN! Shock horror) – but I don’t give them the power to ruin my whole life! It is just a point of view, just a moment in time, just something given (often thoughtlessly). One person telling you that you are wrong does not make you wrong 100% of the time! So stop taking on this stuff – know yourself better, have confidence in yourself, and instead of repeating the bad stuff, repeat this like a mantra: I know that you are amazing, intelligent, worthy, wonderful and a really good laugh. Don’t let anyone tell you different!

- Something To Play With -

Notice what you do when someone annoys, criticises or insults you. Do you shrug it off and move on? Or do you chew over old soup until you make yourself sick on it?? For this week, experiment with only repeating to yourself the nice things people have said to you – keep chewing them over, you’ll find they taste a lot better! Share your thoughts on this article below – leave me a comment.

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OnTheBeach – Don’t It Make You Feel Good

What was the last piece of ‘advice’ you were given? Was it to get out more, to work harder, to go on a diet, to sort yourself out, to be more focused? We’re all surrounded by well-meaning people who give us advice, sometimes asked for, sometimes unasked. A lot of advice is useful, relevant and helpful. Sadly, some advice is just painful! I have a plan for dealing with advice – if the thought of taking the advice makes me feel good, I take it.

If it doesn’t – if it makes me feel ‘bad’, I don’t take it – no matter how logical it seems, or how appropriate. You see, there is no right or wrong when it comes to advice – only the person hearing the advice can know whether it feels good for them. Believe it or not, you are the expert on you! You are the only person in the wide world that can possibly know what is best for you…even if (gasp!) it goes against ALL advice.

When I started my own business, I got lots of advice…most of it unwanted, a lot of it irrelevant and useless, and some downright bizarre. For years, I would listen to this advice, take it on board, sometimes even take action on it – even though it just made me feel bad. I felt bad because I didn’t want to do what they said, I felt bad because I didn’t do what they said, but mostly I felt bad because I was listening to advice I had no intention of following!

When someone gives you advice, they can only give it from their perspective of the world – they can’t give advice from your perspective because they are not you. And you have the right to ignore their advice without feeling bad about it. Now I’m not dissing advice at all – occasionally people will come up with an absolute gem of advice that will change your life. I just want to make sure that you know how to tell if advice is right for you or not.

This all started because I was talking to a friend about “The Yes Man” – a book written by Danny Wallace where he accepts every invitation sent his way (with occasionally hilarious consequences). My friend said ‘you should do that’, and at the time I agreed – but then I noticed that I’d started to feel bad about it – on one occasion I could barely keep my eyes open so said no…and felt bad that I’d put sleep before socialising. Insanity. So, make sure the advice you’re following makes you feel good…and if it doesn’t, why are you following it?

- Something To Play With -

Over the next week, notice the advice you are given. Notice if the idea of following the advice makes you feel good or bad. If you feel ‘bad’, thank them for the advice, and ignore it. If you feel ‘good’, take it on with good cheer…and make sure you keep feeling good. Want to share your thoughts on this article? E-mail me. I love to hear from readers, and will respond to all e-mails.

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OnTheBeach – The Strategic Approach

What is your life strategy? Do you have every last move planned out – including several escape routes and alternatives in case of change? Do you have no strategy whatsoever and just roll with the punches? Are you looking in the opposite direction so you don’t even see the punches coming? I got a questionnaire from http://www.luckspreader.com/ today, and filling it in made me realise something…I do have a life strategy – and most people would not consider it a strategy. Including me…until I thought about it!

When I asked you about your life strategy, what did you think of? Maybe it was a sporting analogy, or some kind of life map. Maybe the very word ‘strategy’ put you to sleep after all the ‘strategic meetings’ you’ve been forced to sit though at work. Maybe there was a big blank space where thoughts should be! Did you think ‘follow my intuition and reach for joy’? If so, e-mail me immediately and let me know because that’s what I do!

That’s my ‘strategy’ for life. And even if I say so myself, it’s a pretty bloody good strategy! With this particular strategy, it is impossible to lose. The very worst thing that can happen is that I enjoy myself (deary-me what a dreadful possibility!). A strategy is defined as a plan, method, or series of maneuvers or stratagems for obtaining a specific goal or result. What is the specific goal or result that you want for your life?

Most people want to have a ‘good life’ – which I define as a joyful life rather than a life full of stuff. I wonder if you have ever taken the time to state specifically what the goal from your life is? Maybe now’s a good time to do so…and to work out your strategy? Say for example your goal from life is to drive yourself into the ground, then your strategy could be to work 15 hours a day. Or your goal from life might be to be miserable, and your strategy is do stuff you hate that makes you unhappy.

I’m not sure entirely why you would want to do that…but so many people do that there must be a really good reason that I am missing altogether! Perhaps it is just that we do not take the time to think what our goal for life is, and what the strategy is to achieve it. Feel free to copy mine – Goal: To have a joyful life. Strategy: Follow my guidance and enjoy life. It’s working well for me and the clients I have shared it with!

Something to play with
If someone else were to look at your life right now, what might they say the strategy and goal are? Would they say it was to complain incessantly and end up bitter and twisted? To be very driven and to be financially successful? To embrace mayhem and have a barmy life? What is your real goal for your life? What do you want your life to be? And what is your strategy to get there?

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The Back from Holiday Blues

Thank you guys, for missing me!! I have had a few e-mails asking where the heck I’ve been and why have you got nothing to read on a Monday morning – I really appreciate that you noticed and cared that I’d gone. And for those of you who didn’t notice or care…I’ve been on holiday! I’ve been in Tenerife for a wedding – beautiful day, beautiful bride and I had big hair…what more can one ask for? Well, summer in England for a start. But there are some things you cannot guarantee…summer in England is one of them!

- The Back from Holiday Blues -

Oh, boy, did I NOT want to come back from my holidays! I was enormously sulky about the whole business. Not only did I not want to come back, but the pilot compounded my lack of enthusiasm by announcing over Exeter that Birmingham was “shrouded in cloud, with 25 miles per hour cross winds, raining and 13 degrees”. Oh yip, fly faster. I am not a good flyer either so I spent the entire (interminable) landing clutching the arm rests and my rosary beads, wishing they’d let me jump out (much less scary) or land the plane somewhere where there were not 25 mph cross winds!

Now I’ve had a few days to recover from the ordeal and get used to wearing warm clothes again, I can’t really say I’m delighted to be back…but I am letting go of the holiday blues! In days gone by, it would be August before I was back to ‘normal’ but these days I kind of enjoy a couple of days of misery, then I get on with making things better. The interesting thing is that I love what I do, and still I have the back from holiday blues! Nowadays though, I love it when this type of thing happens because it shows me where things need to change.

What I loved about my holiday (apart from glorious weather, lots of nice food, the sea and watching beautiful sunsets from my balcony) was that I had space. Space to think, space to just wander around for a few hours, space to sit in the sun reading a book for hours, space to go swimming in the Atlantic or the rooftop pool, space to just be. Despite the fact that life is 100 times better than it was 5 years ago, it is still quite packed with things to ‘do’. I am one of these people who is never bored – there’s always something to read, write, watch, somewhere to go, people to get in touch with.

On holiday all that got left behind…and even though I was out there for a wedding and there were always people around and parties to be attended, there was spare time for purposeless pottering. Oh, I do this at home too, but I get irritated that I have wasted 10 hours puttering about! So over the coming weeks, I am going to be simplifying, decluttering, creating space in many ways and bringing more of that ‘holiday’ feeling to my life. And (when it’s not raining) I shall be finding a place where I can watch the sun set. A key ingredient of a happy life!

So, I guess that you are preparing for holiday season too? At least in this hemisphere. Do you get the holiday blues? Does it take you months to get over them? Do you use the experience to change something about your life to make it better and more ‘OnTheBeach’? Or do you use it as a stick with which to beat yourself about how much life sucks? You don’t have to sell your house and move to Spain to make changes that will give you that ‘holiday’ feeling. Small steps, small changes, and the back from holiday blues will help you make your life AMAZING!

- Something To Play With -

You don’t need to wait til you come back from a holiday to start making changes – think now about what gives you the post-holiday blues. If there’s a list of 200 things, cool – you have lots of ways you could change your life!! Pick one thing, just one, that would be quite easy to change…and bring some of that holiday magic to your normal life! Want to share your thoughts on this article? E-mail me. I love to hear from readers, and will respond to all e-mails.

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OnTheBeach – Bit by Bit by Bit by Bit

I had the excellent fortune to get a ticket for the Abraham Hicks workshop in London this week, and a fabulous time was had by all. Esther Hicks is an inspirational speaker who dialogs with a group of spiritual teachers who call themselves Abraham. It might seem a bit ‘woo-woo’ to some, but it’s fascinating stuff – and much of their teachings can be easily translated to the ‘real’ world. For example, bit by bit by bit by bit.

You see, we all want to go from skint to millionaires in 2 steps, from single to married in a heartbeat, from miserable to joyful in a day and a half (less if we can manage it!). So we go through a circuit of determination, followed by disillusionment when the thing we want doesn’t appear instantly, followed by despair, and again and again. Ok, maybe I exaggerate slightly (you’ll be astonished to note!).

I have seen it many times – people get really angry with themselves for not being fitter, faster, stronger, better. An entirely self-defeating practice if ever I heard one. While we are on the way to achieving what we want to achieve, we rarely stop to notice that we are getting there, that progress (however miniscule) is being made, that each step we take brings us closer to where we want to be in life.

Take a joyful life for example. I went from being a total misery-guts who contemplated suicide in the 90′s (only briefly, and I wasn’t very serious about it) to being ‘DonnaOnTheBeach’ – the woman who, a friend told me yesterday, is ‘all about joy’. Did I make this leap from despair to joy in 10 minutes? Did I stop mid-sentence and change my attitude? Did I have a personality transplant? No, to all 3 questions! (although some of my friends find the change incredible!)

So how did I do it? Bit by bit by bit by bit by bit by bit by bit by bit by bit by bit by bit by bit by bit by bit by bit by bit by bit…you get the message right?! Step by step. And sometimes I felt like nothing was happening at all, like I wasn’t moving, like nothing was changing. But it was – bit by bit. They say a watched pot never boils, and it’s the same with personal changes! Because you are with you all the time, you can’t see the changes that are happening…but they are. Bit by bit.

- Something To Play With -

What would you really like your life to be like? What would you love to have in your life? Stop for a moment and notice how far you have already come. Notice that changes are happening – bit by bit. And that they will continue to happen, bit by bit…just let go of your impatience (a subject for another day!). Want to share how this article affects you? E-mail me. I love to hear from readers, and will respond to all e-mails

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