Re-Balance Your Life by Looking Back #reflection

It's been a hectic week at Resolution Challenge HQ. As many of you know, the month of November is when I take part in the annual NaNoWriMo contest - National Novel Writing Month. This is my fourth year of writing a 50,000 word novel in 30 days and so far (6 days in) I'm at just over 13,000 words. It's shaping up to be a good project, and one I hope to share with you all next year once the edits are done.

I'm delighted to have found my mojo again for writing motivational non-fiction, and this is evident in the exciting projects I've got coming up. My mind is bubbling over with ideas, and I’m struggling to get them all written down before my batty brain forgets them. There are several projects in the developmental stages and one in the OMG this might actually happen phase! I’ll keep you posted.

It’s nice to be feeling like my old self again. It’s been a main aim of mine for a while now, to try and

How to Use One Month to Make Small Changes That Last.

If you’ve just experienced that horrific realisation that you go on holiday in a month and are having those ‘where is the svelte figure I promised myself’ thoughts then panic not.

There’s still time to turn your bad habits around and install a better mind-set so that you can enjoy your holiday and return with a clear focus for the remainder of the year.

Here’s how:

Days 1 – 6

Turn to your trusty journal and note everything down. Write down all the times you reach for the biscuit tin, or smuggle a Mars bar under your t-shirt so the kids don’t spot it. While you’re at it, jot down how you were feeling at the time (angry, upset, etc.) and the time of day. By doing this, it helps to give you an insight into your activities and the behaviour associated with each act/habit.

Turn Stress Into Something Positive #Stress #Wellbeing

We’ve all experienced those days or weeks that wipe us out.

As we become bogged down by work, family life and a hectic social scene, we may begin to forget certain things such as a friend’s birthday or to cancel a hair appointment. Neither of these scenarios are life threatening and certainly shouldn’t tip us over the edge, but when we take too much on, the cracks begin to show.

Stress is a part of who we are. We deal with pressure, deadlines and multi-tasking regularly.

There have been many books and articles written on the benefits of a certain amount of stress in our lives. It can keep us on our toes, motivated to succeed and help us focus on an important task.

However, regardless of whether we believe that stress is good or bad, it can still have a detrimental effect on our health and wellbeing.

When we deal with an excessively stressful situation our body produces adrenaline and cortisol to help us deal with the threat – this is our fight or flight response. 

How to find the quiet space you crave. #meditation

The school holidays are almost over, and if you are like me, you’ll have a mountain of holiday washing and grey, rain clouds to thwart any attempt to get it done.

My three children are ready to see their friends, and get back to the scheduled lifestyle we know and trust.  As much as I love the school holidays; the getting up late and pleasing ourselves, after six weeks I begin to crave normal. 

There is something strangely reassuring about a six-thirty alarm call, the scrum for the bathroom, and chatting with my kids over breakfast.  I chase them all out of the door at eight and turn my mind to the jobs I have to do before three o’clock, and the evening routine.

There is one thing I’ve noticed more this summer, and that is the inability to find any quiet space.  I hadn’t realised just how much I craved it.  I was lucky enough to go to Italy this year where we trekked around Lake Garda.  We rushed from ancient building to medieval castle, and then ‘relaxed’ with a crazy hour or two in the pool, followed by a beautiful meal in a bustling Italian piazza.  It was a fabulous week, but it wasn’t quiet. 

Guest blog: The Ghost of Anxiety by Gloria McBreen

I am honoured to introduce my guest blogger, Gloria McBreen, who is a freelance article writer, blogger and teacher.  You can find Gloria on her website or via Twitter @GloriaMcB

 

10 days in The Valley of Chamonix with my family. A spacious two bedroom apartment overlooking an array of snow capped peaks and a child friendly balcony with a breathtaking view of the magnificent Mont Blanc – poetically described by Percy Shelley as ‘The Mountain that Holds the Spirit of Nature’. Wow!

For my family, hiking in the Alps is the most desirable holiday. We’re not keen on spending our quality time lying on a baking hot crowded beach. The hiking boots and a picnic in a backpack is what give us pleasure. Our time for complete relaxation, absorb a mega boost of vitamin D and an opportunity to rejuvenate the soul.

5 Tips For Releasing Anxiety

After having my daughter, thirteen years ago, I haemorrhaged and had to have a blood transfusion.  It was during this time I discovered I was in the A+ blood group.  Over the years that followed, I began to understand how much my blood type impacted on my life. 

According to the research of Dr. Peter J.D’Adamo, for his book Eat Right For Your Type, the ability to reverse stress and its negative effects lies in our blood type.  For me, this means that I react to the first ‘alarm’ stage of stress.  My adrenals become super-charged, producing anxiety, irritability and hyperactivity.  My immune system gets weaker, and my nervous system becomes more sensitive.  I then become unable to fight infections.  As a Type A I have a more tightly wired system – in blunt, I bottle up all my anxiety! 

How To Find The Laughter In Your Life

When it comes to self-help, there are a plethora of treatments to choose.  Acupuncture, reflexology, reiki, massage, crystals, meditation, art therapy, homeopathic remedies - the list is endless.

Some of these therapies will cost you money, and others can be done with little or no cash.  Meditating, for example, is free, and one of the best gifts you can give yourself.  Another activity that will cost you nothing but boost your wellbeing is laughter.

I am fortunate to be a half-full personality type and together with my positive attitude I also have a tendency to see the funny side of life.  Think about Peter Kaye for a moment, he uses everyday activities and stresses to build up his act, with hilarious results.  Sarah Millican uses her own weight issues to reduce her audience into fits of giggles.  Learning to laugh at yourself can help you to view life with less negativity and emotion.

 

How Crafting Can Help With Wellbeing

A hobby, good book, or even a jigsaw can all soothe the soul when we are searching for a little calm in the swell of our day.

Crafting has, for a long time, been one of the go-to interests for creating the balance we crave.  Just look at the rise in popularity of the adult colouring books on the market.  I subscribe to Art Therapy, a weekly magazine packed with images waiting to be coloured in and displayed around the home.  As an avid meditator, this activity is perfect for me.  I can lose myself in the attention to detail and any disorder in my mind is replaced with a quietness that I can’t find anywhere else.

It’s not just colouring-in that can give you this release.  Take a look at the Stitch Links website, the home of therapeutic knitting since 2005.  They advocate the ‘use it or lose it’ strategy.  A belief that our brain, as well as our muscles, needs to learn something new to stay active.  When we learn a new skill we increase connections within our brain and this in turn can help strengthen our brain against such diseases as Alzheimer’s, depression or chronic pain.

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.

What's Your Power Word of the Day?

Last week I talked about leaving behind the rigidity of goal setting to allow for the relaxed beauty of ‘flow setting’.  You can read that post here.

Today I want to introduce you to a new motivational past time that I stumbled upon whilst writing up last week’s post. 

 

It’s no secret that I adore journaling.  My home and office are full to the rafters with pretty notebooks, matching pens and folders.  ‘My name is Shelley and I am addicted to Stationery!’

So, as I spent a luxurious hour on Pinterest, my ‘super-stationery-senses’ were activated when I found a link to the seaweedkisses blog.  Michelle’s beautiful page is dedicated to her passion for journaling.  As well as sharing her tips, she invites us to take a sneak peek into the notebooks, journals and organisers from people all over the world.

Before I go on, I want to set the scene of just how excited I was to find this site.  First of all, let me ask you a question.  Who has watched Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989)?  That’s the one with Sean Connery in it.

No Need For Goal Setting - Try 'Flow' Setting Instead

Normality has returned to the Wilson household (well, as normal as you can get with three teenagers under one roof!)

We all shuffled back to school, college and work this week with as much enthusiasm as a wet mop.  I’m not surprised about the kids – that comes with the territory, but I’m a different story.  I love my job very much and yet I returned with a melancholy aura.

 

My evenings aren’t much better.  At the end of last year, I would finish work to do my household chores.  I’d feed the kids, clean the fish and then settle down in front of my laptop to bash out a chapter or two and tackle an article or blog post.

 

Instead, I find myself staring at the wall with a bewildered expression plastered to my face.  It’s not writers block.  I know this because my head is crammed full of story and blog post ideas that scream at me with every waking moment (thank goodness for post-it notes!). 

 

It finally hit me at 2am the other morning as I tossed and turned in bed and eventually turned the light on to empty my thoughts onto paper.  I’ve been so busy organising my blog content to help motivate my readers that I forgot all about setting my goals!

 

I feel like a balloon let loose in the sky and is floating aimlessly.  That perfect quote, ‘a dream without a plan is just a wish’ is on repeat in my brain.

Sink or Swim? How to Handle the New Year.

At this time of year I feel like Kate Winslet's character from the movie, Titanic.  It's that moment when Rose and Jack are clinging to the railing of the doomed ship, with seconds to reflect, before being sucked into the icy depths.

The New Year feels similar.  I'm clinging on to the old year, full of its adventures, loves and losses and wondering if I'll survive what's to come.

Just like Rose, I hold my breath and kick like crazy for the surface.  What I find each year never fails to amaze me.  I learn new lessons, meet new mentors and discover a little bit more about myself with each passing moment.

To be able to cling on so hard to the back of my ship I need to add a little structure into my life.  Writing my book, How I Changed My Life in a Year taught me the importance of planning.  Nothing changes unless you make it happen, and to do this you need to sort through your thoughts and catalogue them in the best way for you.

Every new year I ask myself two questions:

Do Something That Scares You

No matter how old I get Halloween still holds that special magic for me.  I loved bobbing for apples when I was a child and carving the pumpkins.  My children still enjoy getting dressed up (although it's more teenage zombie than fairy or cute ghost nowadays).  Going out trick-or-treating with friends and dressing the house up with giant spiders and plastic bats holds a giddy fascination.  I have been known to wear purple velour and a pointed hat on occasion!

With Halloween fresh in our minds, I thought it was the perfect time to think about the scary stuff - not headless horsemen or flesh eating gremlins - the day-to-day stuff that stops us from achieving our goals.

Many years ago I set myself a challenge to take part in NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month).  A writing competition to pen 50,000 words in 30 days.  I didn't do it.  Why?  Because I was scared.  Scared of failing, scared of taking part, scared of writing drivel, scared of what people may think. 

How many times have you allowed your fears to stop you from doing something?

Last year I finally took part in NaNoWriMo, of course this was part of my Resolution Challenge, a year full of resolutions that I had to achieve whilst blogging my progress.  It was a fantastic experience and not only did I thoroughly enjoy the event, but I finished with time to spare and the first draft of my debut young adult fantasy novel, Guardians of the Dead.

What had I been so scared of?  After the event I understood how valuable the experience was and realised what I had been missing out on because of my fears.  Before we can achieve we must first face our demons.  My demon looked like me; brown hair, brown eyes, five foot ten with a slight muffin top and laughter lines (I refuse to acknowledge them as wrinkles!)

So how can we do it?  How can we do something that scares us?  During my year of challenges, I faced several demons, all of them were self-made.  Knowing that I was writing my progress here on my blog gave me the strength to get on and do it.  I found the confidence to just write and over time I stopped over-analysing myself and my work and began to enjoy it.  Once this happened I started to receive feedback from people all over the globe.  I'd faced a fear - failure - and came out on the other side unscathed. 

Happy Business Birthday To Me!

This week I celebrated one of my greatest achievements.  The sixth birthday of my holistic health business, Body & Soul Holistics.

So much has changed in six years.  My business has made many twists and turns along the way.  As a newbie entrepreneur, I assumed that I needed to offer as many treatments as I could.  I spent huge sums of money and precious time training in everything from the metamorphic technique to waxing.

I hated waxing!  I have a huge amount of respect for all the therapists out there who rip hairs off people's body parts day and night, but it wasn't for me!  Of course, to drop a treatment after you had paid for the course and dedicated hours to training and case studies was a sin, or so I thought.

The further along my spiritual/business journey I travelled, I began to realise that it was okay to walk away from the parts of my job that weren't working for me.  If they weren't adding benefit to my personal journey then why did I keep them in my life?  I took waxing off my treatment list, along with spray tans and facials.

15 Ways to Boost Your Well-Being

Writers' block is something I have never had to worry about.  I suffer from the opposite problem of having too much to write and no structure in place to streamline those thoughts.

However, as I was sitting at my laptop ready to type this week's post, I stopped.  I experienced that moment of emptiness with my fingertips hovering over the keys.  Not because I didn't know what to say, but for once in my life, I didn't know quite how to say it.

Allow me to explain.  This week has been a blessing for me, I love my holistic job and facilitated a successful workshop on creating vision boards.  I started my meditation classes up again for the new term and I completed the first edit on my debut fiction novel.  Just this morning I received a beautiful email telling me I had been nominated for another Blogger award (that's two in as many weeks) and a second email asking if I would like to be interviewed for a very prominent blog.  Fantastic!  Last week I checked the sales of my non-fiction book (How I Changed My Life in a Year - http://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B00KAAUE88) and found that I was still in the top 50 of Amazon best sellers for self-help and memoir.  Feedback continues to be positive and reviews have been incredible.

How To Give Yourself a Spring Clean

The last of the chocolate Easter eggs have been devoured, the lazy bank holiday is behind us, and now it's time to crack on (no pun intended) with life, until the Summer arrives.

The sun is trying to break through the grey wash of clouds, the flowers are beginning to bloom and the trees are sprouting new leaves, and yet we still find ourselves nodding off at 2pm - oh, is that just me?

I'm waiting for results of a recent blood test and of course the waiting is always the worst bit.  What could be wrong?  Is it serious?

Every lump, bump and creak of the joints has me thinking the worst.  I am an incredibly upbeat person and I don't normally worry about such things so I began to tick off a health checklist in my head.  I realised there was nothing wrong with me (other than a possible lack of iron) and I needed a few early nights and more fruit and vegetables in my diet.

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:-

How to be Mindful at Home and Work

As a holistic health practitioner, being mindful is a huge part of my day to day role.  The relationship between me, the therapist, and my client can only work if I am grounded in the present.  Then and only then can I help them, as my focus is entirely on their needs.

Living a mindful life doesn't have to be a challenge, I practise what I preach by using mindfulness techniques at home as well as at work.  Choosing to include mindfulness in your life is one resolution you will want to keep.

If you are just dipping your own toe in the whole mindful pool of knowledge, you may be wondering how you can implement the techniques in your own home life or work environment.

A New Vision for a New Year

New starts, new beginnings, new year's - they offer each of us some exciting opportunities.  But what if you're still unsure what direction you would like your new year or new start to take?

Panic not!  There is a simple way to discover what lies hidden in your subconscious and that's vision boarding.

I touched on vision boards many months ago, as a way to help a writer find inspiration for their short stories or characters.  The post was well received and even featured in The Writers' Idea Store, written by Paula Williams for the Writers' Forum Magazine.

For our New Year vision however, we can develop a board to help us set and achieve our personal goals.

So what do you need to get started? 

15 Top Tips for a Balanced Life

Working as a holistic health practitioner means I am privileged to be a part of someone's life journey - that could be a road to better health, much needed relaxation or an understanding ear and support.

I am very vocal about my own life and don't hide the highs and lows I have experienced, in fact I use these experiences to help me be a better practitioner.  I left a physically and emotionally abusive marriage with three children under the age of 5, to say I had hit rock bottom would be an understatement, but I did it, I dragged myself kicking and screaming back into reality.

As I recovered and tried to find myself I learnt how to laugh and smile again, I learnt from others how to interact, trust and love again.  It's quite incredible how much we do learn from those people that surround us on a daily basis.