Taking Comfort from an Inspirational Quote

When life gives you lemons, make lemonade.  It’s a quote we have all heard a million times over but when your life has truly given you lemons, it can be quite comforting to read.

Last week I shared '7 Inspirational Reads' with you.  For this week’s post, I’m going to share some of the most amazing quotes and affirmations that have got me through some of the worst days. 

Feel free to share your favourites in the comments below.

Do-It-Yourself Meditation

Back in 2011 I began teaching meditation classes for those of my clients who kept asking me how to do it.

I think they initially believed it was a mystical practice for the spiritually initiated.  Did I have to roll up my one trouser leg and levitate over the coffee table?  Had I attended a secret club hosted by Yoda and the Dalai Lama?  The answer, of course, was no…I just sat still for a couple of minutes and listened to my breathing.  No secret club.  No initiation.

I knew then that I wanted to show people how easy it was to meditate.

In 2013, I published a simple pocket guide.  Meditation: A beginner’s guide.

Here is an excerpt:

If you don’t know a chakra from a chorizo, prefer a pair of Jimmy Choo shoes over walking barefoot on dew-covered grass, and the only labyrinth you’ve heard of was a 2006 Del Toro film, then you’ve come to the right place.

List Writing For Pleasure - It Is Possible!

December is upon us, and the frenzy of festivities has begun.  My children have told me what they would like this year via lists that I found stuck on the fridge!  It appears my obsessive list writing disorder has rubbed off!

Christmas wouldn't be Christmas without an array of lists.  There's one for the food shopping and one for the gift buying.  Then we have a name and address list for sending Christmas cards and even a packing list if you are lucky enough to be jetting off to sunnier climes this winter.

A list is a helpful tool to keep you on track with jobs, tasks and anything else that fills your brain on a day to day basis.

As a single mum who runs her own business and writes in her spare time (whatever that may be) list writing is what keeps me organised and calm.  If it's not on the list, then it doesn't get done!

How to be Thankful Every Day of the Year

Being thankful is a full time challenge.  When I was building my life back up following my divorce I spent a lot of time thinking about all the things I was thankful for.  It was tough.  Those days were very dark and finding a sliver of hope needed work. 


Photo courtesy of Nurture Store
 

Ten years later I find it easy to be thankful every day.  Each evening my children and I sit down to dinner and we go around the table asking what our best and worst things are of that day.  This is also a wonderful way to find out what's going with your family.  I've discovered test results and arguments with friends this way (teens can be so guarded!)  They feel safe to voice their concerns as part of their 'worst' bit and we can discuss it as a family.  We then turn this into a positive by saying what our 'best' thing was.  This could be a simple as a sunny day or as monumental as an A* exam result.

Journaling is one of my favourite self-help tools, and jotting down three things you are thankful for can do so much for your well-being.  I write my list just before bed. Last night I wrote:

Organise Your Space and Free Your Mind

Clearing clutter is one of my favourite topics, and I have blogged about it several times here on Resolution Challenge.  I have experienced first hand, how clearing my work or home space can affect my mood, my finances and my wellbeing. 

Being clutter free however, isn't always so easy.  My parents are currently in the process of moving house and 'downsizing' is a perfect excuse to throw out anything that is no longer of value.  It is also the perfect way to offload a tonne of Tupperware on your unsuspecting daughter! (Thanks Mum x)

When faced with an overflowing pile of god-knows-what, it helps to work out a strategy.  You need to be organised.  Several boxes can be filled with unloved items and taken to charity shops or car boots.  Old clothes, that haven't been worn in a while, can be swapped between girl friends - hold a girl's night in with a bottle of wine and a few nibbles and pretend you're at London Fashion Week.

How to get Crafty with your Mandalas

As Spring arrived I was feeling very creative and decided to spend an afternoon absorbed in the wonderfully creative art of Zentangle. 

I did have an ulterior motive and this involved my meditation classes.  I love using a variety of tools to show my class how easy it is to fit meditation in every day life, and mandalas are one of my favourite tools.  Creating my own mandalas using Zentangle designs is a perfect way to meditate.

I wrote an entire blog post about Zentangle during my year of challenges, you can take a look at the post here.  It shows you how to go about creating your own tangles and introduces you to my lovely friend and Zentangle tutor, Alison from Old Hall Crafts.

First of all let's take a quick look at what a Mandala is:-

It's a Matter of Perspective

When people ask me what I do for a living I tell them I run my own business, 'oh how lovely,' they say, 'what type of business?'  When I tell them it's a holistic health spa for women, I see a faraway look appear and their eyes glaze over.


I'm sure they don't mean to tune out, but when I mention 'holistic' or 'alternative' people seem to automatically jump to the same conclusion.  They believe I spend my weekends running bare foot through a meadow of grass with a crown of wildflowers and a dress made of wheat.

Even my dad thinks I dance naked in my back garden when it's a full moon - I assure you, I don't and I'm more than sure my neighbours are relieved at that.

I recently launched a range of Workshops 4 Women, to be held at a local venue.  This is a huge step forward for my business and one I am very proud of.  Getting bums in seats is the next hurdle I face, but I will take this challenge on with determination. 

Why You Should Love Your To-Do List

Ticking off the goals on your resolution list can leave you feeling elated, but what happens when you have that one goal that gets left behind, forgotten or constantly added to the 'do it next year' list.

'Do my ironing' has made every one of my resolution lists since 1998 and guess what?  I never did get it all done!  This year however, I decided enough was enough and that particular goal was going to be scratched from the list.  I then wrote a blog post about Thinking Outside The Box and suddenly I had my answer - I handed over responsibility to an ironing service.  I cannot begin to tell you how good it felt to relinquish that goal.

How to Identify Your Life Lessons

Freedigitalphotos.net

At my creative writing class this week we worked on character development.  The exercise our tutor set for us challenged us as writers' but as I sat staring at my notes, I couldn't help but apply the writing exercise to my own life.

The exercise went as follows:-

1. Think of a person you know and make them your main character, they can be family, a friend or neighbour, work colleague or a fellow club/church/slimming group member and they can be dead or alive.
2. Write a single sentence, including physical descriptions, of how this person looks.
3. Write a second sentence and describe how they show emotions.
4. Write a third sentence using key words to describe gestures they use.

We then had to interview each other and took on the role of our characters.  We asked basic questions about age and name (most of us used fictional names) and interests we had.  The most interesting part for me was when we asked about family - it really stirred up an emotion in all of us.

How To Think Outside The Box

Our brain is very complex and a single thought is enough to re-wire it.  Thinking outside the box can help us be more creative and improve our well-being.  'Thoughts become things - pick the good ones' is a favourite quote of mine and an affirmation I try to use daily.



Taken from Pinterest

It really is as simple as thinking happy thoughts to be able to shift a bad mood or change a situation to your advantage and yet millions of people get stuck feeding negative thoughts and attracting more negativity in to their lives.  I saw this in action earlier this week.

Standing in a shop queue on Monday I listened to a conversation between the cashier and a woman with her young son.  'Can't wait for him to go back to school,' she said as her son nibbled on his fingernails, 'school holidays are a nightmare, they get bored and under my feet and I count the days before I can send them back again.'  She packed her bags and departed with her young, thoroughly depressed son shuffling along behind her.

Feel That Fear - Then Step Forward

How many opportunities have you passed up because you were too fearful to try?  I've done this more times than I care to remember and in a way, writing my blog became my unique way of feeling that fear and then taking the next step.

freedigitalphotos.net

I committed to journaling my story as I took on fifty-two challenges last year and knowing I had an audience who would laugh and cry along with me, made facing those fears less overwhelming.

One of my favourite self-help authors, Peter Jones, put fear in to perspective for me very neatly in his book 'How to do Everything and Be Happy.'  He said that if we have those funny, tummy turning feelings then it means something in our life is about to change - it's your choice if you want to step forward and accept that change.  This was all I needed to hear to understand that I was reasonably normal and it was okay to 'feel the fear.'  After reading his book, I began to take more of those forward steps.

To Catch a Dream...The Crafty Way

Doing something crafty shouldn't really be called a 'challenge'.  It is in fact a past time I thoroughly enjoy and isn't that half the battle when it comes to setting yourself a goal - that it's something you ultimately want to achieve?

FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Ever since I was a small child I have been fascinated by the Native American Culture, reading everything I can on the history and legends of the different tribes and surrounding myself with emblems and tokens to represent my findings.  When I was ten and still at junior school I wrote my first 'proper' report for my English class on the Native Americans but my friends and classmates wrote about football, horse riding and the like.

One particular tradition I love is the Dream Catcher and so I chose this spiritual tool as one of my crafty resolutions.

52 Reasons to Write a New Year Resolution List

My diary says it, my weekly posts confirm it and my calendar clearly states that this is in fact week 52 - and what an incredible feeling it is to reach this landmark.

52 weeks ago I sat at my parent's house, toasting the end of one year and the start of another and wondering to myself how I had let another year roll by without accomplishing anything.

It was that feeling of disappointment that spurred me on to do something about it.  Don't get me wrong, I have overhauled my life several times over and could write a stack of books on each life changing event, however this time it was different.  I wasn't getting married or having children, I hadn't lost anyone close to me and I certainly wasn't rebuilding my life following a ten year stretch of abuse at the hands of a husband - nope, I'd done that and worn the t-shirt already.

Thrifty Gift Ideas for Christmas

Christmas is an expensive time of year, so this week's post should relieve some of the pressure on your purse strings.

My December challenge is all about making things for Christmas.  Last week I had a go at producing my own cards using Lavinia Stamps - messy but lots of fun!

This week I have been making sweet gifts for my friends, crystal packs for my clients and 'friendship bags' for my children.  Don't panic I have ventured out and purchased the latest PS3 games - heaven forbid I don't adhere to the 'lists' - but I also wanted to create something personal for them.

Have a Faerie Festive Christmas

My mum and I regularly attend the Hobbycraft show at Birmingham's National Exhibition Centre in time for Christmas.  Mum stocks up on her crafty bits and bobs and I carry the bags!  It's become a mother-daughter tradition and regardless of the aching muscles and swollen feet, it's a tradition we both enjoy.

The demonstrators on the stands are quite amazing, many of them can be seen on the Create and Craft Show, they can whip up a stunning card in minutes using embellishments, glitter glue and a partridge in a pear tree.  They make it look so easy.

My mum is of the same breed.  I remember as a child watching her make amazing cakes for customers birthdays and weddings, homemade jams and marzipan fruits.  She then discovered crafting and never looked back, abandoning the oven for Gelli Plates and Distress Inks.

NaNoWriMo - Mission Completed.

What a month it's been.  When I started out on my Resolution Challenge journey, November was the month I was looking forward to the most but also secretly frightened of.  Why I hear you ask?  Four simple words - National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo for short) - a competition to write a 50,000 word novel in just 30 days.

On the 1st November I sat at my laptop, opened up a fresh document and set about writing a young adult fantasy story.  Nine days later I hit 50,296 words and celebrated with a pepperoni pizza and a bottle of wine!  I threw myself at this challenge with everything I had in me, I blocked out chunks of time in my diary, freed up my weekends and showed the kids how to work the white blob (microwave) and the silver blob (dishwasher).

How to Silence Your Inner Critic - For NaNo and Beyond

As we approach week three of NaNoWriMo, thousands of people are frantically hammering out a novel at kitchen tables across the globe.

With my children watching over my shoulder and providing an audible countdown, I hit 50,296 on the Nano-a-thon on the 9th November.  It was the most incredible feeling and having my kids jumping around singing, 'mum did it' was, as MasterCard would say, Priceless!

My characters had become part of the family and although I was ecstatic to have accomplished the challenge, I was a little bit sad when I typed that last word.

Fortunately my NaNo draft is only book one of a trilogy so I shall be dusting them all off again for book number two.

Be Afraid...Be VERY Afraid - It's NaNo Eve.

Happy Halloween everyone, I hope you are all getting in the spirit of All Hallows Eve.  My pumpkin is ready to scare any visitors, my broomstick has been polished and the black cat has been groomed.

After last week's post, I received some wonderful pumpkin carving photographs from my readers.  Here is one of my favourites made by Ann Sherlock, UK.
 


As well as the promise of copious amounts of candy, today is also the day you can get another treat - a copy of Forever Together for FREE.  This is the supernatural romance from Douglas McPherson and you can grab your free copy here.

How to Embrace Your Inner Child

So far this month I have looked at how to be grateful, happy, confident and complimentary.  To finish off my October challenge; this week I decided to look at how to be silly!

Picture courtesy of
 http://belldorafashions.com  

Yes, you read it correctly, I said - silly.  Why should the kids have all the fun at this time of year?  Autumn has so many opportunities to be silly and my children have had years to get used to how daft I can be at times.

Let's take Halloween for example, for me this is a magical time and I thoroughly enjoy getting into the spirit (no pun intended) of it.  My house is decorated with cobwebs, giant spiders and skeletons and I am suitably dressed up as a witch to greet any little gremlins who call at my door.

Being Grateful

Happy October! 

Another month has drawn to a close and we continue to inch ever nearer to snow covered roads and the jolly fat man in the red suit squeezing his way down the chimney stack.

So far I have completed nine month's worth of challenges with a different kind of 'baby' emerging at the end - a blog baby.  My blog has become like a fourth child for me, it needs nurturing , feeding, cleaning and encouraged to grow.  I am Grateful that this has been possible with the help of my readers.

My October challenge is to be 'Happy & Grateful'.  A seemingly easy challenge - or is it?  Can you be happy if you've just been made redundant or were involved in an accident.  Can you be grateful if your outgoings are more than your incomings and you struggle to pay bills?