Conquer your fears - Jumping In The Deep End

I would like to share with you the below quote from an article I recently read on Conquering fear by Doug Heacock.

"It is a rare person who lives without fear of one kind or another. You may fear heights, or spiders, or new situations, or rejection–whatever your fears may be, you can either let those fears form boundaries beyond which you can’t move or grow, or you can face them head-on and allow them to become opportunities to move into new places in your life. The choice is truly yours. Fear is not always a bad thing. There are obviously some things about which we should be afraid and in which we should exercise appropriate caution. But if our fears control us, or prevent us from taking certain risks, we allow those fears to define us, to limit us only to courses of action that we deem sufficiently safe, and as a result, many of us never achieve our potential–or we cheat ourselves out of the richness that life could otherwise hold for us"

The whole of my life I have experienced the fear of water and not being able to swim which for many years has created many boundaries, from not being able to go to water parks and swimming with my friends to not being able to enjoy the pool and all the amazing water sports available on holiday… BUT I can happily say I have conquered my biggest lifetime fear of water and swimming. I can officially say ‘I CAN SWIM’. No matter how much my friends and partner told me I could do it and reassured me I wouldn’t sink, my fear of swimming was completely paralysing, my mind was paralysed in thinking that there was no way I would be able to swim and stay afloat in the water - I had watched in admiration as people enjoy themselves in the water, gilding so freely - It was something that I just wasn’t meant to do, could never and will never do!

I couldn’t have been more wrong – I had gone into my 10 1/2hr sessions of swimming lessons with the DETERMINATION TO SUCCEED. I will swim I kept telling myself, I will face this fear head-on. So when in my 3rd 1/2 hr lesson I managed to do a few breast strokes without the float I was so overcome with joy, I couldn’t believe I had done it, all I could do was jump up laughing, the instructor must of thought I was crazy, but I was, I was crazy overjoyed.

It was by no means easy - I was a lady on a mission, a mission to conquer the water and conquer my fears. Every lesson I would watch other swimmers up above the pool to see how they moved in the water to try to perfect my technique and would practice 1/2hr after my lesson or now it’s turned into 1hr before my lesson, to practice what I had been taught by the instructor.

So here I am, my final 1/2hr session tomorrow and I can do a full length of the breast stroke and front crawl, what an achievement. I am as proud of myself as my instructor is of me too, she told me she had never seen someone learn this quickly, I told her well I am proof it can be done with enough determination and dedication.

I am not going to stop there, I love swimming and am excited to experience all the wonders that the water has to offer, I want to become a stronger swimmer so that I am able to swim in the deep end, go on water sports and diving in the tropical seas. The boundaries have been broken and this is just the beginning of a great adventure.

My message here is don’t be limited by your fears, with determination and perseverance you can achieve anything you want to and when you do it will be the most liberating experience of your life.

I will end with the 5 ways to conquer your fears by Doug Heacock – See full article here – a bit of a coincidence the site is called Zen Habits!!!

1. Realize that everyone is afraid of something.
2. You don’t have to overcome your fear all at once.
3. Approach your fears as opportunities for growth.
4. Be careful how you talk to yourself about what you fear.
5. Failure isn’t necessarily the end of the world

Stay blessed, gifted and highly favoured

Zen x x

Don't Give Up

Hi all

As Le said "we're back and we're mobile" woop woop...

WELL, let me tell you - I've had one of those weeks that I'm glad to see the back of! Phew! I made it!

There's definitely a shift going on in my life right now and it's taking a bit of getting used to! I'm eating my words of a few blogs ago where I said "when in comfort zone it's time to move to another level" or words to that effect! I can't count how many times I've said in my mind "really Lord? really?" excited, confused and darn frustrated at points! I've had it all this week! But! It's the weekend and I haven't given up! I've pushed on through, my besties have been great - (especially my girl Shemeleah, living with her is a blessing!!) and my God as always is Faithful!

You might be going through some changes too; by choice, default or otherwise. You may also be experiencing varying sets of emotions! Don't give up! Push on through, ride the wave and be excited for what's about to happen... I am! Seriously underneath all the hypothetical stress and frustration I'm extremely excited as to what God has got instore for me! :-) All I have to do is let go of the negative feelings and push on through.. I'm sure. ;-)

I'd just like to leave you with this poem/turned song that I've been singing since I've got in - it's definitely encouraged me to take on next week!

A PICTURE IS WORTH A THOUSAND WORDS

So about a month or so back my mum and I looked through some old photo's. We've done this loads of times over the years...typically, when we had guests. I used to cringe at the really awful ones and wished that my mum would use discretion when deciding which ones to pass round the room and which ones to sneakily push back down into the box. But she never did!

A combination of bad hair days, body image issues, bad outfit choices and 'what face was I pulling there?' led to me avoiding being in photographs and instantly offering to take them, hoping nobody noticed. I happily got away with it for years. But being a little older and wiser now it kinda hit home the last time we looked at the photo's. A BIG CHUNK OF MY LIFE WAS MISSING! Through trying to achieve the perfect photo and only being willing to take them when I felt it was good enough to capture I had missed an opportunity to record my memories. Loads of them! In fact one christmas at my aunts I had managed to avoid every single photograph, not even the back of my head or a side shot. It was like I wasn't even there!

SO, hindsight is a great thing isn't it! Lol. But it's as simple as this. Don't wait for that perfect opportunity when your hairs freshly done and you've got on that cute new dress or suit. Just take em at every opportunity you get! Because pictures are memories and they tell so many stories, some that we may even forget if we didn't have a picture to remind us!

So equipped with a new camera I bought a year ago that I've only used a handful of times and fresh out of my beginners photography course yesterday, I'm ready to see the world through the eyes of my lens. And I'm looking forwards to looking back at all the photographs, having a laugh and telling the stories that come along with them : )

Mel x

Love is the key - Check Yourself Before You Wreck Yourself...

Hi Guys,

Hope your all blessed and doing well. I thought it would be best for me you blog now as I have a busy evening ahead and I’ve just finished a very interested training course (Finance for None Financial Managers). And more importantly, this course was so interesting, that I am going to park the original blog I had planned to share today which was how not LLL (if your intrigued by this acronym then read the blog I posted on 25th May 2011 ;) as there are some really good examples from today’s course that I would like to incorporate before publishing.

With that in mind, I have a contingency blog ;) and based on conversation I’ve been having with friends and family of late, this one is probably more fitting to share today.

Ok so I titled my blog Love is the key - check yourself before you wreck yourself. Why? Well simply because I feel that its crucial for us all to take the time to check in with Self to ensure that our purpose, value and love is still in line. This is because if we truly love ourselves, then we are empowered to receive and give out positivity to all who deserve.

Knowing how to love yourself

Knowing how to love yourself is fundamental. As mentioned, this is because the energy created from self love is at the very core of your well being, self - empowerment, and your ability to create, enjoy and RETAIN the kind of life you want.

You cannot enjoy happiness if you are not at peace with yourself!

This is because as the relationship with yourself is the most important one you’ll ever have.

What Are the effects of not loving yourself

Not knowing how to love yourself can be severely distressing and can open a slippery slope fuelled by indecision and self doubt. In more intense cases there is depression and self hatred, which can ultimately disable you in every area of your life and the self-focused negativity cuts you off from your connection to your Self.

Until you know how to love yourself there will be an inner war going on that divides your energy and incapacitate your efforts to move toward self love and happiness.

Besides that, if you lack your own love you attract people and circumstances that mirror your negative beliefs and feelings about yourself. By the Law of Attraction and energy transfer, this energy is neither lost nor found but merely transferred from one party to another - you heard it all before. So, in order for you to draw in loving people and circumstances, you need to know how to love yourself first.

Quick step techniques to love thy self

I read this earlier and thought it would be great to share (I've reworded and summarised the points, but if you want more info then pls feel free to email me at redibow01@gmail.com).

• Check in with yourself and tune into how you’re really feeling. I’m not saying have conversation with yourself openly by the way, but do whatever feels comfortable to release clarity on your current state of emotions. I generally tend to take a walk, catch up with friends, write or listen to music etc. If you are feeling negative, trace back to when you first started feeling that way and why. That way you have identified the problem and the next step is resolution.

• Have compassion for yourself. This is a key step in learning how to love yourself. Until we learn self-compassion, we stand outside our own love and feel separate from Source, God, The Divine (insert the word you know It by). This feeling of separation from Source is at the core of all our discomfort and disease, on all levels of our being.

• Forgive yourself, then forgive others, and free yourself (This is easier than you think). Read previous blog on forgiveness.

• Heal your emotional pain. Many of us have emotional pain and suffering in our energy field that lies below our conscious awareness. In order to heal and release it, we first need to acknowledge it.

• Create a Gratitude List to list things you appreciate about yourself. This is a powerful way to switch your feelings about yourself from negative to loving.

• Identify and break free of old beliefs that could be holding you back.

• Use your power of choice to choose happiness. Tap into the root of happiness inside you. What makes you tick and smile. Your creative gifts are a doorway into wellbeing and the fulfillment of your life path. Open to them and they will help you know and appreciate the unique and beautiful being you are.

And a final and fundamental aspect to be mindful of…

• Don’t fall into the Comparison Trap. One of the common potholes of life that you may fall into on the road to learning how to love yourself is the old comparison trap. You know these ones. “KMT, whys that person is way better than me.” Or you can flip the script into to build a high self esteem: “KMT I know know I’m better than that person.” This is simply the other side of the same coin (feeling better than someone else in this context can be a buffer to protect you from the wrenching feelings of not being good enough and what appears to be high self esteem is a cover up for low self esteem). Either way, staying with this stream of thought cause nothing aside from badmindedness (is that a word lol) and self-suffering. So stop, reset and move back to the positive you.

• Do you in the best way you can. Do as many things you can to nurture yourself on all levels – physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually. See what draws you and evokes positive feelings … Yoga? Joining a gym? Or you might want to learn to dance, change your eating habits, or listen to music you love more often. Decide to do at least one activity each day that is exclusively for your own self-nurturing.

So think that’s enough for tonight folks (Cocktail has got my name on it right now), but please remember, as we embrace and love ourselves more, the doubt and/or fear within will diminish and wellbeing will expand. This can only open the door to self-empowered, confidence and a rediness world!

As always, PLEASE stay gifted and highly favoured,

Redibow xxx

My #IAM moment

It’s inevitable that at some points in our lives we’ll go through instances of feeling low, stressed out, ugly, worthless, frightened - basically life feels as if it’s heading into some sort of no-man’s land, meanwhile you wonder around feeling bewildered, lost or unfulfilled. Your emotions are twisted in turmoil and each day the same hurt and thoughts from yesterday follow you into tomorrow, next week and maybe even years ahead. For a lot of us these feelings never seem to shift, however for others it’s a momentary phase and it comes and goes. Acknowledging the void or distress that you’re experiencing is the first step, and I would also say the hardest, but be honest enough with yourself to dig deep and begin to start freeing your mind.

To add some form of perspective into this, I myself have a lot of these ugly thoughts. Constantly counteracting compliments with put-downs, letting fear control the choices that I make in life, and allowing how I felt about myself affect my relationships. But I have a lot of confident women in my life and after so many conversations I realised that I owed myself a lot more, so I decided to change it…

Now for the turnaround. I’ve been scared of the gym for so long it’s ridiculous! The thought of feeling tired before the person next to me on the treadmill, and men ogling me as I step from machine to machine crippled me with anxiety. But how long can I really stay away from the gym when I love to exercise? So I booked my induction and now I go to sleep looking forward to my workout. Second thing, get to reading some positive literature. A friend of mine, Selina, always told me which books to purchase and I did a while ago, but never read it properly, now I read and re-read. One of the poignant things that stuck out for me is learning when to surrender and trust that the universe will sort you out, because some things are just not worth the headache. And the last thing is keeping a daily Gratitude diary. I write down ‘3 positives about my day, my life and me.’ It’s amazing how much we take for granted and don’t appreciate about ourselves. Focusing on those things really makes a difference to your perspective.

Let me wrap it up now so I avoid sounding like a therapist, I just wanted to make a point. No amount of kind words from others can give you self-esteem and you owe it to yourself to be happy. Do what you need to do and don’t become a slave to your thoughts. (As said by a friend of mine.)

Vicky. x
@Glitterbow





*Image sourced from: http://thefrolickingchampion.files.wordpress.com

Beautiful People

Hi all

I've just (well a week ago) landed back from a wonderful time in the island of Barbados.

The sun, sea, beaches and people I shared the 7 nights with were amazing!

A friend of mine invited me to his wedding when he got engaged last year and it was certainly a YES without hesitation that I would attend.

I was so blessed by my time away that it inspired me to write the following points about ensuring that we have the right people around us...

1.Like attracts like

We always inspire one another to be happy, keep positive, surround ourselves with good people and look for the best in every situation - believe you me living out all of the above definitely pays off! There's proof in the pudding ;-)

The newly-weds are a wonderful couple who are so in love, with a union which is centred around God and a great circle of family and friends. There was such a sense of joy, love and peace throughout all of the proceedings.

I congratulated my friend and his new wife for putting on the best wedding I have ever been to, and he replied that it was 'us' the guests that made the day what it was, to which i replied "we are a reflection of who you both are as people". I could see that he silently agreed.

2. Negativity can bring you down

My Mama used to say "show me who you are friends are and I'll tell you who you are" or "lie with dawg and pick up wid flea". Using those phrases as a basis I can definitely say that the newly weds are two amazingly wonderful people (after all I'm amazing and I'm their friend lol). There was no negativity around at all and as a result the holiday was fun fun fun. On a serious note though, negative people can bring you down - you whinge and moan about them but really you just need to get rid of them... no sorry what I meant to write is that you may need to pull them up on their negativity and deal with the situation. I often find that being open, honest and most of all positive to loved ones (family and friends) always works out for the greater good.

3. Be the inspiration

Maybe you need to be the inspiration. Going back to the couple.. they were so happy and enthusiastic about all of the proceedings that we all felt we had no choice but to join in with their happiness. Just like negativity, happiness can also rub off on other people. So smile and love the people around you, always speak positive and encouraging words into their life and hopefully the same will come back to you.

That's all from me peeps - still jetlagged "yawn"

Catch you in a few.

N x