Saturday 19^th March 2011 

So the question I am imagining you want me to update you on is have I done it♥ Have I been able to incorporate what is most important to me from the Kerala Retreat – my new routines I was feeling so nourished and excited by into my daily life at home♥

So the answer is both YES and NO!

No in that I don’t have a ‘I am strong and pain’ free pool easily accessible and so aren’t doing any water workout

No in that I don’t have 100 ‘I can do it steps’ outside my door; and

No I have not been able to write approximately 1000 words each day for my blog!!

And – I am being gentle on myself – which is not about letting myself off the hook. I’ve come home with just over 2 weeks before leaving to go overseas again. Two very full weeks with lots to fit in – especially seeing I’ve just been away for 2 weeks! That includes having a full client schedule, organizing our workshop schedule for 2011, getting all my accounts up to date for the end of this financial year, spending time with family and friends and a myriad of other jobs to prepare to leave and be away from this home at Warm Fuzzy Hill for 4 and a half months.

So Yes I am taking care of my body at the moment by replacing swimming with having an hour’s sauna on most mornings which I can do at home. And YES – I have had my 2 hourly regular weekly massages this last week with our awesome massage lady Arlene and have scheduled one for next week and one for the day we leave. My body and nourishment and relaxation and health are priorities for me.

YES – I am visualizing myself walking my “I can do it steps” at the Retreat. As well in my mind, I am already walking up and down the steps on the Cruise boat we are going on next week. And yay there is a perfect set of steps 3 minutes away from Shelton’s house in Seattle that my objective is to go down and up a minimum of once per day from early April on.  In the past when we have been in Seattle I have hated these steps and done all I can to avoid going anywhere near them. Now I am excited at the challenge!! I marvel at the change in my mind and also I imagine the amazing change this will make to my body.

And it is very outstanding for me I am being gentle on myself around not being able to write every day on my blog…..not YET!!

Most importantly I see this is the phase in my life for creating these new HABITS! I am also grateful as I imagine doing the upcoming Training with Donna Eden will teach me some different tools to change my life and habits…….

new habits

Question for you: What new habit(s) are you working on in your life♥

I think you will be interested to hear that I have a heavy duty critic in my head who is saying – “You’ve really blown it now!” “You missed a week after you got back and you haven’t posted anything since last Monday which is almost another week!! What will they all be thinking♥ You’ve put yourself out in the public eye….and made it available for all to know and to see …they are all reading this…You’ve really slipped up…they are not reading anything as you haven’t posted anything!….. What will they all be thinking♥♥….. And how I am disappointing everyone…..

Well I’ll tell you…..she goes on and on….and here it comes…one of the stories this part of me makes up in my mind…our SIMU’s (Stories I Make Up)…

my SIMU - "Story I Make Up"

They are going to think that you are not very good!!  And how can they expect you can teach them to change if you can’t!! People come to see you and attend your workshops because they want to change and they expect you to know how to and to do it and to teach them!!!! 

Well I am sure you get the idea of how these voices can go on and on if you let them. These days fortunately it doesn’t get too much time or space in my head anymore. I reassure it by saying I am doing my best…I love Louise Hay’s saying –

“We are all doing our best until we find a better way…”

Question for you: What are the negative things you say to yourself around your ability to change♥

So I tell myself I have taken on some huge new tasks here and I am doing an experiment in change in my life and it takes time to consolidate new ways of being into our life…..especially when we think about it from the perspective of changing our neural pathways (a seriously interesting topic I will pick up in a future blog).

On the Kerala Retreat we were lucky enough to be immersed in a healing environment without all our usual daily distractions where we were totally looked after and cared for and pampered. Kerala gave me the opportunity to step outside my own world and my daily habits and to experience and to assess that there are some changes that I wish to make on a daily basis.  

So this day is mine to choose. How I will experience and fill my day, what I will focus on, where I will use and direct my energy, the thoughts I’ll choose to have in my head……the actions I’ll choose to do…..are all mine and my choosing…

And yes our environment does affect our behaviours….And isn’t it great that we do have brains that we can change so that it doesn’t matter what environment we are in we can choose our thoughts and our behaviours.

What I do know is that we need a transition time from our old automatic ways of behaving to the new ones……..Hopefully thinks I – I will have it all worked out by the time we leave Seattle…. :O) 

Let me share some quotes and I send you a wish that you are being gentle on yourself,

Love to you on this splendid day, Susie.

“You are never given a wish without also being given the power to make it true.” Richard Bach

 “We must not, in trying to think about how we can make a big difference, ignore the small daily differences we can make, which, over time, add up to big differences that we often cannot see.”  Marian Wright Edelman.

“How does one become a butterfly♥”she asked pensively. “You must want to fly so much that you are willing to give up being a caterpillar.” Trina Paulus.

 “There is no use in trying,” said Alice; “one can’t believe impossible things.” “I dare say you haven’t had much practice,” said the Queen. “When I was your age, I always did it for half an hour a day. Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.” Lewis Carroll