The Fool
The Fool in tarot generally is considered a New beginning something which requires a leap of faith and childlike optimism . How many times perhaps have you failed to take the opportunities that came up because you were too scared to take the chance or because you lacked the self confidence to try. After the…
Just being Honest.
“Honesty is the first chapter of the book wisdom”. Thomas Jefferson To me being honest is not just about calling a spade a spade and to hell with the consequences. For some people it is but I do not believe that is necessarily the best or the kindest way to behave or the most productive…
Self sabotage or self support?
“If you celebrate your differentness, the world will, too. It believes exactly what you tell it—through the words you use to describe yourself, the actions you take to care for yourself and the choices you make to express yourself. Tell the world you are one-of-a-kind creation who came here to experience wonder and spread joy.…
Taking control of Fate.
“I have noticed that even people, who claim everything is predetermined and that we can do nothing to change it, look before they cross the road.” Steven Hawking Isn’t it funny how we can all too often decide to abdicate our own responsibility, our own power to change things and hand it over to Fate?…
Adapting to Change
I have always had dogs and cats living with me. A short while before going on holiday our elderly and last remaining cat passed peacefully away. We were all heartbroken as he had been such a little character, always chatting to us, sitting on our shoulders as we worked at a desk or the…
The right attitude gives the best experience.
One of my daughters is getting married and we have been shopping for “the dress”. I rather naively thought this was going to be a straightforward, simple, nice experience for us all to do. I had not realized how times have changes since I went looking for my own dress, many years ago. Nowadays there…
Listen and Learn.
I remind myself every morning: Nothing I say this day will teach me anything. So if I am going to learn, I must do it by listening. Larry King. We all like to be heard. What we think and feel we want to be able to express to others and when we can do it…
Decisions,Decisions.
Sometimes we can all find it hard to make a decision about something and we can go backwards and forwards in our thinking process and feel we are getting nowhere. This can make us feel stressed and uneasy and can cause others who are waiting on our decision to get frustrated and upset by us.…
What can I do ?
A positive attitude causes a chain reaction of positive thoughts, events and outcomes. It is a catalyst and it sparks extraordinary results. Wade Boggs. I often tell people it is not what happens to you but how you handle what happens to you that determine how happy you are in life. Quite often I am…
Feed the positive and let go the negative.
Remember ,always give your best. Never get discouraged. Never be petty. Always remember, others may hate you. But those who hate you don’t win unless you hate them. And ,then you destroy yourself. Richard M Nixon. Love him or hate him this is actually very good advice .We need to learn to be true to…
Always have a purpose.
Recently I have been very surprised to find the amount of energy you can suddenly find once you have found a purpose to do something. Having a purpose seems to provide us all with real motivation, drive and determination to tackle anything big or small. In our case despite being aware of this we had simply forgotten its phenomenal…
Do I know what you are thinking ?
It is amazing how many mind readers that I have met this week. People with psychic abilities that can tell ,just by looking at their partner or loved ones even people on the street, exactly what it is they are thinking ,feeling and even what it is that they are about to say. They apparently…
Learning how to react positively to stress.
In life our reactions to everything can be improved upon the more we learn about ourselves and our ability to handle situations. Nothing is worth making yourself ill over and without putting in to place some sort of structure and strategy to deal with stressful situations people can and do get ill by allowing…
New Shoes
I have dogs and live in the country. As a consequence, unless going out somewhere I usually spend my time running around wearing shirts, jeans and trainers. These are all clothes which are suitable and practical to brush off the dog hair and stay reasonably tidy and on my feet when walking and living with…
Feeling sorry for myself ?
Self-Pity is our worst enemy and if we yield to it, we can never do anything wise in this world. Helen Keller Helen Keller became blind and deaf at the age of two and yet she still was able to go on to become an author, political activist, lecturer and was the first blind person…
Opening Doors
I have three daughters who have all chosen to go to University to further their education before starting their careers. The youngest is just in her first year at university and loves her course. She has no idea yet where it will lead her and has no set career in mind at the moment…
Take a Chance
It is really easy to give a million reasons why you have not achieved whatever it is that you had hoped for or why you haven’t pushed yourself for that new job, new relationship, new business the list could go on and often does. We get in to an easy habit of making excuses…
A different View
A short time ago I decided to push myself out of my comfort zone and took on something new, well new to me, Instagram. I was very apprehensive about posting pictures publically and feared getting daft or cheeky comments .Such a silly thing to be bothered about really, as what it would matter…
Meeting your expectations.
I mentioned last week that my Mum was having to go through a period of adjustment and find a new home after 23 years living in her much loved upper flat. Somehow I fell in to the trap of thinking that as soon as she had come to terms with the idea of moving everything…
Moving on.
All changes, even the most longed for, have their melancholy; for what we leave behind us is a part of ourselves; we must die to one life before we can enter another. Anatole France My Mum has lived for over twenty years in her much loved, large traditional flat. It has huge bay…
A time to Change
“Change isn’t easy…. changing the way you live means changing what you believe about life. That’s hard…When we make our own misery, we sometimes cling to it even when we want so bad to change because the misery is something we know. The misery is comfortable.” Dean Koontz It is unfortunately very true…
A new beginning
Every year on your birthday, you get a chance to start new. Sammy Hagar We can always decide to make a fresh start, we do not need to wait until it is our birthdays but it is nice to have a significant day to have as a focus for starting anew. The funny thing about…
Keeping it simple
When it comes to life the critical thing is whether you take things for granted or take them with gratitude. Gilbert K Chesterton Recently there has been much debate in our house over going on holiday. Whether I should or I shouldn’t and who to go with and where to go? Not normally something that…
To friends New and Old
It is not too late to develop new friendships or reconnect with people. Morrie Schwartz. As we go through life we attach and sometimes detach from people who were once important to us. This can happen for a variety of reasons, some because of differences perceived or real and sometimes it is that we simply…
Seeing both sides now.
My Grandmother had a saying “It doesn’t matter how thinly you slice the bread, there are always two sides”. When I was younger it used to drive me mad as usually she would say it to me when I was repeating some bit of gossip or information I had heard at school or at the…
Pick yourself up.Dust yourself down and start all over again.
Failure is simply the opportunity to begin again, this time more intelligently. Henry Ford. It is impossible to get it right every time and yet we all seem to fear failure so much that it stops us trying to reach for more. We can restrict ourselves to living what we may consider to be a…
Learning to Communicate .Part Two
Don’t make assumptions. Find the courage to ask questions and to express what you really want. Communicate with others as clearly as you can to avoid misunderstandings, sadness and drama. With just this one agreement, you can completely transform your life. Miguel Angel Ruiz It is all too easy to become a mind reader. To…
Dealing with Stress
Yesterday I watched a very interesting video on stress and how it was not in fact a negative thing if you didn’t view it as such .Seems a strange thing to say as for many years we have been told that stress is a killer. We need to de stress our lives. Take up yoga,…
Learning to communicate. Part One.
To effectively communicate, we must realise that we are all different in the way we perceive the world and use this understanding as a guide to our communication with others. Tony Robbins. Some people like to paint a big picture when they talk about their plans and dreams. They know where it is that they…
Creating a nice space.
It will soon be spring. When I was younger the thought of spring and a massive house cleaning session went together. My grandmother, with whom I lived, always insisted every year that the house get a good spring clean. Being young and having decidedly more interesting things to do with my time than clean this…
How to live forever.
How to live forever Saying goodbye doesn’t mean anything. It is the time we spent together that matters, not how we left it. Trey Parker. My Aunt died this week after a long and courageous battle with Alzheimer’s. It is not her death that we shall remember though it is the full and wonderful life…
When humour turns bad.
Humour is a wonderful and powerful thing. It can get you through tough times and help create bonds between people. It can lift your spirit and change gloomy days to happier ones. It is a great coping ability to have. But, when it is used to ridicule or tease someone with intent to make them…
You should Just do it.
How often do we intend to change things then get frustrated by lack of speed at getting desired results and give up? For many of us the answer is all too often. I find coming in to the New Year I can be full of good intention and as the days are often dark, cold…
A New Year a Fresh Start
Well Christmas has come and gone in a flash and we are now it seems hurtling towards the New Year before everything returns to normal. In Scotland the New Year has always been a good excuse for a big celebration. When I was younger in our house there was always a party to which neighbour’s…
Its not always personal
Since others have to tolerate my weaknesses, it is only fair that I should tolerate theirs. William Allen White I wish I had read this quote when I was assisting on a course in Glasgow a few years ago. The course was being held in a Glasgow hotel. Every day when I went in the…
How to win friends and Influence yourself
“The best day of your life is the one on which you decide your life is your own. No apologies or excuses. No one to lean on, rely on, or blame. The gift is yours – it is an amazing journey – and you alone are responsible for the quality of it. This is the…
How a dog sees it.
Like for most people the run up to Christmas in our house is a very busy time with lots of different things seemingly requiring immediate attention to make sure everything is organised in time for us all to relax and really enjoy the holidays. To add to our fun we also have two birthdays to…
Festive season choices.
Today is the first of December and for many, particularly the young and young at heart, there is now a happy dash towards Christmas and love for the Festive season, but for many others it can be a time of worry, sadness and stress. I am always busier towards Christmas as people who feel outside…
Anger and simple steps to get rid of it.
Anger is a killing thing: It kills the man who angers, for each rage leaves him less than he had been before-it takes something from him. Louis L’Amour I remember listening to a punk rock song years ago and the singer screamed out that anger is energy and I thought I understood and related to…
We are not all Doomed
Anxiety does not empty tomorrow of its sorrows, but only empties today of its strength. Charles Spurgeon. I find that nowadays it is easy for a normally rational person to become anxious and irrational in minutes just by watching the news, reading an article or even simply reading the possible side effects of bog standard…
Liebster Award
Recently I was very honoured to be nominated for the Liebster Award. This award is designed to help new bloggers, who write about interesting and informative issues, to get a wider audience. We all know how hard it can be to get heard in such a huge and informative field. To be nominated and by…
Stuck ? A technique to help you to move forward.
Sometimes life hits us with an experience that can stop us in our tracks and freeze us. We can forget how to move forward and for a while do not know which direction to take. It can be a horrible feeling of being stuck and lost at the same time. Most of us recover from…
Jealousy and how to deal with it.
You can be the moon and still be jealous of the stars. Gary Allan Jealousy is a very destructive emotion, for both the person feeling jealous and the person who is a victim of it. The trouble with jealousy is that it can sneak up on us all before we notice it and usually is…
Strategic Dreams
Bad things do happen; how I respond to them defines my character and the quality of my life. I can choose to sit in perpetual sadness, immobilized by the gravity of my loss, or I can choose to rise from pain and treasure the most precious gift I have-life itself. Walter Anderson It is crucial to…
66 Days to a New You
Generally speaking nothing we ever do to ourselves is done with a negative intent although it may result in a negative habit or behaviour pattern being developed the original intent behind it was probably positive. It was believed that you could develop any healthy habit within 28 days. Recent research disputes that and suggests that…
The underpants in the hire van.
It was my mother’s 80th birthday recently and we went out for a family meal. We are lucky enough to be close and have had many happy family holidays together. As the evening progressed we were laughing and talking about some of our earlier memories, childhood, holidays, school etc. and as we each recounted tales…
Who is to Blame ?
Isn’t it strange how many times when things go wrong we look to another person to take the blame, to shift the responsibility ?It is a way of protecting oneself from the possible repercussions of whatever went wrong but it is definitely not the way to gain personal power and take control of your life.…
Just a Feather ?
One of the things I find strange when working with people is their willingness to accept labels and then to live their life with the label that someone else has given them. I can meet a client for the first time and they will tell me “I am just a Mum” as if they have…
A Tale of Three Boys
It is easy to encourage people to be positive when everything is going well .The problem in staying positive and finding the energy or motivation to remain so is when things are tough. When life flings one of its curve balls at you and when everything and even everyone seems to be plotting to bring…
How to eat an Elephant ?
Many times when people come to see me I find that they are in a state of total overwhelm. By that I mean that whatever it is they are coping with in life added to their normal daily living chores has made them feel almost paralysed and unable to deal with even the simplest of…
Finding wasps? Look for Butterflies.
. Recently my mother bought herself a new car. It was a small 4×4 model, a lovely shade of midnight blue. It was a car that I hadn’t really seen before. The next day, when I was driving to the shops I noticed my Mum coming towards me in her new car and lifted my…
Don’t look behind you ?
Recently I have been reading a lot of posters on Facebook telling people to move on and leave their past behind them. Forget it as it cannot be changed. Why waste time worrying about it just close the door and move on. Concentrate only on the present and on the future. This does on the…
Modern Day Vampires and how to control them.
In days gone by people used to hang garlic around their doors and windows and even around their necks to ward of vampires and keep them safe from harm .The very thought of one being in the neighbourhood was enough to strike fear and terror into all the nearby inhabitants. They brought death and made…
Kindness and Angels
Years ago I became friends with a lovely lady and this is her story. She told me that she was the daughter of an immigrant couple who had come to our country to make a new life for themselves and their family. They had worked very hard and despite having no formal qualifications had managed…
Everyday Magic
A little bit of magic When I was younger I loved any magical story and had my nose constantly in a book. I watched Bewitched with Samantha twitching her nose and creating instant magic, clearing all problems and making everything work and laughed, loving every mad moment of it. My daughters grew up with Harry…