Sabotage

It's that moment of stunning realisation when you can see exactly how all of the stuff you are going through right now; how you created it.  You had a part in making it a reality. Really think about that for a moment... 

What if, All that has to happen for you to get rid of it is to acknowledge and accept your part.

Can you?

When you are stuck in the middle of all your problems, worry and drama, the last thing you think about is how you created it... You think that surely I didn't cause the stupid traffic jam, my Internet being off, getting that unexpected call, having no money...

If you understand the concept that your focus creates your reality, and that whatever you focus your attention on, you will make real in your world; then that is how you know you created those things. For example, you do something at work and keep on thinking that you are going to get caught out, what happens?  You have a major meeting that you cannot be late for, what happens? You get some money unexpectedly and you think you can finally do something for yourself, what happens?
You are so busy looking for and expecting the bad things to happen that you make them happen! Your focus creates your reality.

Let me explain how this works.  When you go after anything that you would love (to have, be, do) you are going to experience resistance. Resistance is your ego's way of keep you secure within what you know, what is safe and what is believed. It has to protect you and ensure your survival. If you don't know what is going to happen, then how can you know its safe?!
The problem with this is that it keeps you away from what you would love by making you feel afraid, nervous and any other emotion to distract you from making any kind of positive move towards what you want.  You think about things like you cannot have the better things because you don't have money, you can't get the leave, on and on it goes, and you believe the story. What you would love becomes secondary; you create from your ego to prove your story true.

Hanging in the Tension

A while ago I wrote a blog about the house that I own and how I had followed my heart to speaking my truth and created a shift with my parents in terms of moving forward and selling my house so that our family would grow and become sovereign.

This created a huge amount of tension for me, because I "knew" that everyone would be against this move, I would get attacked, disowned and it would cause an incredible rift in the family; even more than the current living situation was doing.

I found myself in this cycle of trying to work out what I was supposed to do like get a valuation done, speak to estate agents, find out if it would be viable, what do i have to do, who must I speak to... I had to figure out how I could manipulate and convince my brothers that this was for the best. I completely forgot about what I would truly love to happen, my end result. This wasn't about me or them, it's about our parents. 

I went around and around in this cycle, one day I was going to put my foot down and make it happen, the next I was cringing in the corner trying to forget what I had to do. I had to have the discussion with my brothers about the situation but no matter how convinced I was, I "knew" there would be trouble. All the time the tension grew and the situation got worse. Months passed in this.

I would try to stay focused on my end result, I looked into it, I did processes, but I always seemed to be stuck... and I never let it go, it was always there.

And then all of a sudden a shift happened; I realized that I didn't need my brothers' permission or the acceptance of the situation in order to do what I wanted. I didn't need to convince them. What I want is true and that's all I have to focus on.

Synchronicity happened the very next day when my one brother announced to me that he was moving out and just like that the entire situation changed; the conversation became easier to initiate and moving into next phase became more tangible.

When we can hang in the tension created by a situation, we gain valuable insights into our motivations and the actions that our identity drive us to take. When we don't let go of our end result, no matter how many times we slip off the path, the tension created will always resolve in favor of it... and the best part was that I didn't have to DO anything.

Lessons from Ten Pin Bowling

From the moment I arrived at the bowling hall, I knew that this was going to be a tough afternoon. The boisterous youngsters’ we were set to play with were teasing and joking among themselves, of long standing point feuds to be settled that day, at this very next tournament. I immediately began to feel anxious, how would I compete? I am no good at this…

It was amazing, that in a few short steps I had allowed my beliefs and assumptions to completely take control of my thoughts, I could feel myself begin to withdraw and if it weren’t for the fear of being ridiculed, I might have not even played at all. I pretended that everything was fantastic, that I was having as much fun as everyone else around me, but inside I was falling apart.

I cannot stand not being able to do anything amazingly on the first try, I cannot stand the idea that someone might laugh at me, or judge me, or find me lacking… even if I know that everyone else is possibly playing just as badly as I am. I allow it to consume me so that it sucks the life out of every “fun” game I attempt.

As I take my first step up to the bowling lane, I have a fleeting thought rush across my mind, like a convict fleeing from a daring prison escape, not wanting to be caught, “Focus creates Reality!” it shouts. I pause… “Of course!” I step up to the line, look at the pins lined up neatly on the end and toss the ball squarely down the lane to take out 5 pins. I feel pretty good about myself and the next ball crashes unceremoniously into the gutter.

We played 3 games of 10 turns each, and every time it was my turn, I would set my focus on the target, sometimes I would hit them, but often I would not. I finished stone last.

The interesting thing with the whole exercise was the Awareness that I held around what I was playing out. I could clearly see when I was focused on the actual target (because then I would hit the pins) and when I was actually focused on doing something wrong, like my foot slipping if I walked up to quickly or thinking that I shouldn’t get it in the gutter again. I would literally catch the thought as it left my mind and knew every time why I had missed, because I could see what my last thought had been of.

The lesson that was reinforced for me was that we are always focused on something, we want to think that we are focused on achieving whatever task we have set out to accomplish, however usually we are focused on our beliefs or assumptions, in my case not wanting to make a fool of myself and not being good enough at the game to compete, and we aren’t even aware that we are doing it.

In mastering life, the key is all about awareness, as to what actions your thoughts and feelings are driving you to take and of where your focus actually is, because when you focus on your thoughts and feelings all you do is recreate the thing you were hoping to avoid in the first place. But, when you focus on your End Result, and don’t let go of it until the very end when it is created, that is when true magic happens.

I'm Not Capable

I have absolutely no self-discipline. It is the most difficult thing for me to actually do what I set out to do. I will always create some kind of distraction or outside event to keep me busy doing everything except what I set out to do. Or even worse, I will just sit there, knowing I had things I wanted to do, and just not do it. 

Here's an example, so I have made a decision to drink more water every day, be healthier and get in my fluids. Which is great, I am enthusiastic to get to it. 

The first day I am usually quite good, get in a couple of glasses, remember to carry a bottle around with me, have a bottle in the car. I feel good.

The second day, I forget to refill the bottle in my car, get to work and only feel like drinking coffee, I don't drink a single glass of water. But, it's ok, I can carry on again tomorrow... only it doesn't. Don't get me wrong, I hear the little voice in my head telling me that I should rather have a glass of water instead of the coffee, but I do it anyway. It reminds me to get the bottle out of my car to refill it, I just don't do it.

Day three and I completely forget everything I set out to do and just leave it. I am back in my old pattern and routine. I get depressed.

What do I do to fix this?  How do I get out of this pattern? Why do I always do this?

How you do anything is how you do everything. 

In my ego world, I am not allowed to be capable. This is a fundamental belief that I hold, so I play this out by never actually doing anything unless it has the stamp of approval from some authority (which isn't me). Or, as in this case, I start but give up half way because I cannot do it without someone else holding me accountable to continue. 

In my ego world I have an invisibility belief, and I have to be needed in order to be seen. But then, when I am needed, I am not allowed to be capable and I create situations where those who need me have to save the situation, which results in me being pushed aside and any further efforts to help being ignored, making me "invisible".

To be capable of changing my life would mean that I no longer need to be "saved" and if I don't need to be "saved" then nobody would know that I even existed... 

To stay safe I need to play small and not be capable, and that is why I struggle to stretch myself or even challenge myself to do something, anything; because if I do and I succeed, then I would have proved my beliefs wrong and what other things would I be forced to accept were untrue? What would that actually mean about who I am?

The day I let go of... (Part 1)

The day I let go of... money

I can remember it as if it were yesterday; but it wasn't one of those really incredible days when you know that you have just endured something profound. It was pitiful and full of heartache, I felt as though my heart would be ripped from my chest. My entire world was ending.

I had no money, it was the end of the month. I could pay my rent but would not have money left for anything. I had been stressing about this for the entire month before, and yet still chose to (a month before) go overseas to do some more training. This was a choice that left me feeling very perplexed and guilty, because now I was knowingly putting my family in danger of loosing everything. And yet, that is still exactly what I did. 

But that is not how I let go of money...

I had kept it secret from my family the extent of our financial situation. I had lied when I went overseas, and I now had to admit what I had done to them. In the space of a few short weeks we would be living on the street. 

I had no job, no way to save us, no way to lend money as I already had collected excessive debt, no way to control the outcome anymore.

Admitting the situation to my family was the hardest thing I have ever done. My children looked down on me in disappointment.

That was when I broke. I could not stand that look in their eyes. 

I let go of my need for money when I sat for the first time and actually acknowledged the extent of my financial crisis. When I looked at the total numbers and realized exactly how deep in poop I was, I had nothing left to do but accept where I was. I had hit rock bottom and they were going to come and take away everything I have, everything we have. I couldn't do anything about it. I had lost my opportunity to turn it all around. That was the day that I decided that I could live through any situation that I could put myself in, I would go and live under a tree if that is what I had to do. And just like that, I let go of the need to have things and do things, to have this car or that, this house, these clothes, these things that are supposed to make you special. 

"When you can decide that you are more than your circumstances, is when you change your life." Viktor Frankel 

I was offered and employed in a job within the week. I would not have anything taken away from us, all the accounts would be paid. 

I had that job for about 6 months, then got another job with higher pay and company benefits, 6 months later again I got another job where I am now exceedingly happy, with a higher salary still and better benefits. We do not struggle for money anymore, we do not want for anything.

What you resist, persists. I was resisting being poor, I was resisting failing at my business, I was resisting disappointing my family. That's exactly what I created.

I created this massive tension that resolved in favour of my family living a good life, because if I am really honest that was all I really wanted to have from the start.

Originally written in August 2015, I was at one of my lowest points and even having the training and tools I have, could not see anything good on the horizon. I managed to pull another good distraction and got stuck in my story. I tried to pretend that it wasn't happening, focus on the higher! But, actually I was focussed on how much shit I was in.

It’s the last day of the month and my debit orders are about to start pinging off on my phone. I am at my wits end. I know I will have enough money to cover the majority of my major expenses, especially the debit orders and my rent, but the problem is that the money isn’t all in my account right now, and won’t be until the middle of the month. This, to any rational person, would not be such a major issue except for the fact that they might have to tell a few creditors to try again in a few days. The world will not end. I will not be blacklisted, I will not have my possessions taken away.

The thing is that I don’t like to owe anyone anything and, I have an assumption that says that Money creates conflict, so whenever anything has to do with money, it is going to create some form of conflict. As in; I will have to spend what little I have on fixing something unexpectedly, or one of my income streams will have a hiccup and not pay out, or I will have a splurge and spend it on some junk food or an evening out, which will leave me without enough money to meet my obligations and therefore, create conflict.  

I have not had many times in my life where I have had to deal with situations like this. Even after being unemployed since the beginning of the year, I have still managed to keep my little family ticking over and meeting my obligations.

Being able to get through a time like this has to do with staying focussed on a higher ideal, your higher vision. In my case that is building a fun and vibrant events business, together with living my passion of coaching and teaching others. It is when you stay focussed on what end results you want to create, that you begin to operate from a creative orientation, and can stay ahead of the game.

Let me explain a bit more about how the process works. Imagine in your mind’s eye that you have an elastic band pulled tight between your two fingers. Your left hand finger represents the vision of what you want to create, and the right hand finger represents what is going on for you right now in your every-day life or current reality. The taut band in between the two causes creative tension. Your subconscious mind then gets put under strain to resolve the creative tension, which it does by listening to where you put the most focus, i.e. if your focus is on your limiting beliefs, then you will keep on creating more of what is happening in your current reality. But, if your focus is on creating an epic end result, then your subconscious delivers to you creative and unique ways to achieve your vision.

So guess where I have been focused…

Going after your Heart

When you go after your heart, everyone around you wins, even if it doesn't feel like it at the time. 

A couple of years after I got divorced, I bought my family home. I did it to ensure that my parents would always have a roof over their heads, and so I would have a bit of an investment property. The only problem was that is came with the added ties of my brothers, who never seemed able to leave.

Now it is 6 years on and I have long since moved out of the home I own, but the rest of my family continue to live there... 2 brothers, their partners and my parents in the cottage on the back. It is difficult to live there, with constant drama and 2 grown men who don't seem to want to take responsibility for their lives. I had run away from the situation, hoping that it would work itself out and everyone would find their way, but I was wrong, all I had done was enable them to continue to live out of the pockets of our parents, causing undue stress for our father, a man who is already past retirement age, but continues to work to keep the family going.

I know in my heart it is time for us all to move on, it is time for us all to take the next step in our journey; and the only way for that to happen is for me to sell the one thing that is keeping us all tied together... the house.

In the past, whenever I had spoken about changing how things operate with regards to the house, I would be shot down and chastised for not being considerate of the situations of others; I would be told that I did not care, because the boys were struggling and we should be supportive of our family. So now, to want to do this, my immediate thoughts were that I would not be heard and I would not be allowed to do the thing that I know will serve us all in the long run.

Today I took a step in favour of my heart and I went and sat with my parents to explain what I was thinking. I opened my heart to show them the genuine nature of my intended actions, to show them how this is the best step for us all. A move of tough love so that the boys no longer have an easy out to be rescued, and an action to keep the promise I had made in the first place. 

We spoke as adults, with open hearts and open minds, not an unknowing child to a parent, and I was heard, my courage to take the stand that nobody else was willing to take making itself felt in the outcome.

We are going to sell the house; the boys must find their own way, my parents will finally be able to rest and retire and I will be free of the burden of responsibility I have carried for them all. 

My heart knows the truth of us all needing to be sovereign in our own lives, to be responsible for our own destiny and it knows that that often means making difficult decisions that affect the lives of those we love... but the truth will, quite literally, set you free.

Negative Vision

This past week I learnt a massive lesson regarding creating from a negative vision. A negative vision is when you go for something but it is actually in order to get away from something else, not that it looks like that at the time.

I was going after a house to rent in Edenvale.

I had been experiencing loads of trouble through my landlord / estate agent in the house I was staying in, and desperately wanted to find a new place to stay. I even took the plunge and gave in my notice at the very start of the month, so I would have the extra motivation to find a new place. Within a few days of searching I found an amazing place, and submitted my application, which was initially rejected but after further negotiation was accepted. I believed everything was sorted out, all I had to do was wait for the lease agreement and pay the deposit. This new place was a bit more expensive than what I was currently paying, but I could make it work with a bit of juggling.

All the while I was still fighting with my landlord to get my problems with them sorted out, they simply did not seem to care.

I signed the lease for the new place, and paid the deposit, rent and all the little extras. It was difficult to pull that amount of money together all at once. I kept thinking about how much extra I would be spending every month, and if the expense is really justified, how it would change the standard of living for my family that I had only just managed to improve.

On Friday, on the weekend I was meant to move into my new place, the estate agent called to tell me that the owner had decided to let to another person and had not advised them… there was no new house for me.

I had lost my house to rent in Edenvale.

The negative vision had been created because I wanted a new house to live in, because I wanted to get away from the landlord / estate agents that were messing me around, and although it is still an end result for me to have a home in Edenvale, I was creating it here in a dysfunctional way.  

My focus the whole time had actually been on the money, and getting back at my landlord.

What I learnt was that you need to be sure of where your focus really is. All the things that creep up around what you would love, are the things that pull your focus off, and don’t let go of your focus on your end result until it has actually been realised. This is why it is important to have a coach who can help you to see past the smoke-screen of your identity because without mine, I don’t think I would have, and to keep on practicing and learning to raise your awareness around the truth of what is really going on.

Staying Safe

I have a choice to motivate and inspire women into action to change their lives through the medium of my writing, which is an amazing thing to dream of doing; that is, until it no longer is a dream, but rather a tangible thing. That is exactly what happened with the start of this blog; I set out and my inner critic joined the party.

I had to find the right picture to add, have the perfect thing to say or else nobody will be interested in anything I write; I needed to plan it out, find a theme and captivate everyone with my pearls of wisdom… “Geez this is a lot of work” says the mocking voice in my head

I start to write and suddenly I forget all the fantastic things I was just thinking about saying; it was so incredible and insightful, what was that again?  “See, you don’t know anything, what kind of a role model do you think you will be, can’t even remember what you thought 5 minutes ago” she chimes in again.

No, I am going to do this I tell myself and am half convinced too, when the voice pipes up from the depths again, “Sweetie, you are not good enough to write anything, you don’t have a story to tell that anyone would be interested in hearing. I think you are just looking for attention and you think this will do it, well you are wrong, nobody is going to read this and you will just be doing all this for nothing.   I am only telling you this for your own good Darling, I don’t want you to get hurt and disappointed when it doesn’t work out like you want it to. I am just keeping you safe from this cruel world, you know how nasty it is out there.”

That’s about the time I usually start giving up a little, but I keep trying regardless.

“Still at it hey? Well, that last draft was quite bland, if I might just say so. Maybe you should tweak it a bit so it can be a bit more appealing and fun. People will tear a bland post apart.” She comments. I am sent into a flurry of editing and rewriting and rewriting again.                                                                

“If you include other stuff you have written before, is it going to be relevant to the purpose of your blog, I mean, will they actually want to read that? #Justsaying" she chirps and I begin to doubt all of my thinking around my content and direction. “You don’t know what you are doing Sweetie, why don’t you just leave that stuff to the professionals and we can just carry on with our normal lives, you know, where we know what will happen next and I can keep you safe from anything that they might want to say about us.”

This is what our identity tries to do. It wants to throw you off the path to your dreams because that life is everything that we do not know how to deal with; that life is exposing us to our biggest fears and our identity wants to protect us from the possible pain and suffering based on what we have experienced before.

The fact that I am writing this blog now does not mean that I have overcome my critic completely, but I did win on the part of getting started. She is always there, sitting in the back of my mind, making her sarcastic, critical little comments but I have the choice to listen to her, or to follow my heart and have the life I would love. A little more every day I am learning to choose what I would love above all the noise, and she tries harder all the time to throw me off,  but that’s part of the journey, learning to accept that she is there reminding me of my “shortcomings”, but not listening. 

Resistance and the Start

This post was originally written on 28 August 2015, when I was in the throws of trying to live the life I would love, without the safety net of a full time job, or significant extra income. 

I had similar resistance to starting this blog, but I know that it is true for me to write in this format, so I had to cross the threshold once again and venture into the unknown... Welcome to the journey!

Getting this website up and running has been one unbelievable experience – in resistance!

I had bought the domain a few months ago with a view to making it a promotional website for a dedicated corporate training program that I had developed, and now I had decided that I wanted to change it into what you see here, a personal blog website that (hopefully) will inspire change in a few people’s lives. But, like with any good idea, the resistance kicked in.

Let me explain to you what resistance is; it is all of those things that happen that stop you from doing what you actually set out to do. Everything from the excuses you make about why it isn’t being done, to the other “important” issues that suddenly crop up, and even as extreme as causing major disasters in your life. Resistance is your unconscious assumptions and belief systems playing out.

In my case resistance reared its ugly head in the form of not knowing what the hell I was trying to do here. I didn’t know how to build a website and I definitely didn’t have any means to pay someone to do it. Plus, I had that little voice telling me how I simply wasn’t good enough yet, I didn’t understand the work I was trying to teach enough yet, and who the hell would want to read what I have to say? And the biggest of all, the fact that I was aiming to put myself out into the world and open myself up to be judged. Needless to say, the voice won and I procrastinated. Heck, I got so convinced that I just couldn’t do this that I subconsciously shut down my internet connection for two whole days! No matter what I did I couldn’t get online to work on this website. I simply was not ready for that type of exposure.

Through completing a process with my coach, I was able to determine that I have an assumption playing out that says in order to avoid getting hurt, I will avoid going for what I want. This assumption meant that I basically would avoid creating my website, because in my mind that meant I would be hurt through the exposure I was opening myself up for. No wonder I wasn’t getting anything done!

Obviously the fact that you are reading this on my website means that I got through my resistance. I built the site, created the content and now have completed my first blog post.

When we understand what drives the resistance we are able to acknowledge it for the story that it is, and rationally see that what is holding us back is not the “truth” of the matter. I have acknowledged that my fear of exposure is high, but I will not die from it. It is after all a big part of why I wanted to create this site in the first place, to be held accountable. 

Inspiration Pictures

About M Universe Stories

24 January 2017

As with most people who decide to write a blog, I thought that others may be interested in hearing some of the things I have to say. 

In my particular case, these are poems and stories about things that have happened in my life, a sharing of stories about creating wonderful things, about love and life and loss, about funny moments and musings. And, this is also a place for me to keep all of my writing together in one place, so I don't have to keep paging through a pile of little books to reflect back on my life. 

At the end of the day, perhaps there is someone else out there who has been or is going through things like me and will be inspired by my writing to do something a little differently, to see the world a little differently.

A bit more about me, I am a 40 year old, single mother of two teenagers. I have been divorced for the last 10 years and flying totally solo for the last 4 years. I have a great relationship with my kids, and my ex-husband is still a big part of their lives although he lives far away from us. I work in a corporate environment, but my passion is in helping people to live the lives they would love, to open their eyes to the powerful creative beings that they are, and to inspire others to live from a creative orientation.

Here's to inspiring the next level through the mundane!