Movies That Lift You

We were talking about movies today and our favourite scenes and why they are so memorable.

This is mine:

Even thinking about this scene brings me out in goosebumps and it got me thinking. If a scene from a movie about someone I don’t know in a situation I can’t really relate to can create this strong an emotional reaction in me, how much more powerful is a scene in my head about my vision for my future? And how much more powerful is that scene when I back in up with pictures and images, like watching a movie. If we use a vision board to really engage all of our emotions we will charge up our subconscious to go look for the solutions we need to get the results we’re looking for.

What’s your favourite movie scene?

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Its Not Easy

While letting go might be simple, we all know that its rarely easy. The theory is great, but the reality is that its a big change and the chances of waking up that Inner Reptile are very high. Letting go always means moving out of an old familiar comfort zone and you need to be prepared for the Inner Reptile to put up a fight!

So while its great to say “just do it”, the chances are if you try to “just do it” in one go, you won’t! You need a plan!

Firstly practice visualising what life will be like without the things that are holding you back. Get really clear on this vision, as always the more detail the better. And it really helps if you can make a vision board to help you hold on to this clarity when things get tough. When you put yourself under the stress of making big changes one of the first things that goes is your ability to see into the future, so having a clear and detailed vision will help you here.

If you can, practice letting go and then holding on again. Remember when you learned to swim or skate – the more you practiced letting go, the longer you found you could do it until eventually you didn’t need the support at all any more. Its not always possible, but if you can do this its a lot less stressful and the change is more likely to stick.

Start to spend more and more time with other people who are already where you want to be. Its a hard fact, but often letting go also means letting go of old friends and relationships and they will want to keep you where you are, not because they wish you ill, but because they don’t want to lose you. Make sure you have new relationships being built that will nurture the new you, otherwise its a bit lonely out there! You don’t always need to sever old connections completely but you do need to become very aware of when old relationships are dragging you backwards and be prepared to deal with them when the time is right.

Make sure when you let go you have something really positive to keep you moving forward. Otherwise the temptation will always be to slip back into old ways of being. Change is nearly always uncomfortable so be gentle with yourself. Recognise this is a process and that there may be times you feel like you’re going backwards. But staying conscious and focused on the reasons for letting go will help you get back on track quickly.

It might seem as if all these steps make the whole process really time consuming and tedious. But the truth is, taking lots and lots of small steps is almost always more productive and more permanent over the longer term than trying to make that one giant leap.

The question is, do you want results or do you want drama?

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Thank You! More Of This Please!

I have to admit I was kind of expecting it, though I really hoped it wouldn’t happen. But yes, true to form, one helpful friend had to point out to me that, although there was a Maserati parked in my garage, it didn’t actually belong to me and so it didn’t count.

Well, I’m sorry but “You Know Who You Are” – you are dead wrong and this is why: on my vision board there is a picture of my dream car, I haven’t specified anywhere that it is my car, just that it is in my life. And it is. Now, by activating my gratitude vibration I can attract more of what I want into my life. So by saying thank you for the beautiful car that I got to play with all weekend and thank you to myself for creating such a compelling vision board, I am telling my subconscious to go look for other opportunities to bring more of these wonderful things into my life.

Now if I had been thinking along “You Know Who You Are”‘s lines I would have been thinking “silly me, I didn’t want it that way!” Which doesn’t activate the gratitude vibration one little bit. Quite the reverse, it shuts it down. And that’s the last thing we want.

What I really want to say to my subconscious, or the universe or whatever you like to call it is “Thank you, that is wonderful, please can I have more like this”.

Remember, what you want wants you.

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Vision Boards Work!

OK, I know it shouldn’t be a surprise to me but every time it happens it amazes, and then amuses me, how things on my vision board have an uncanny habit of turning up in my life!

My vision board has all sorts of wonderful things on it and some of them are pretty big (OK for big read expensive!) and so while I really want them in my life, I am prepared to wait for my life to be ready to accept them.

So imagine my surprise and delight when I realised that one of my most outrageous “visions” was actually here already!

I’m a bit of a petrolhead. OK, I know girls are not supposed to be into stuff like that but I have been in love with fast cars since I was about nine, when I stole my cousin’s Matchbox convertible Porsche and refused point blank to give it back!

So on my vision board, tucked away in the corner, is my dream car – a Maserati Gran Cabrio. Its a pretty expensive toy so I really wasn’t expecting it to manifest for a good while yet – but the funny thing is, a Maserati has been parked in my garage almost every weekend for the past month! A few weeks ago it was the gorgeous Gran Cabrio, then it was the completely silly Stradale MC, now its the rather grown up Quattroporte! And the really cool thing – I haven’t had to pay for any of them!

So here’s the thing about vision boards – when you put stuff on them expect the stuff on them to show up! And don’t ask how! And say thank you!

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Thinking = Results…Not The Other Way Round!

A while ago I was working with a client who was angry and stressed about the way the world was treating him. Now this is a delicate situation for coaches – if I sympathise, or even empathise with him I might make him feel better temporarily but I can’t really help him change his results. But if I tell him the truth – that the reason the world is treating him badly is because he is angry and stressed, not the other way round, I am likely to get thumped! The key is to break the news to him gently!

It is one of the most difficult concepts to understand but one of the most critical. Even once you get it, actually acting on this knowledge consistently can be a real challenge and takes time to master. But it is worth it because once you do, things can change very quickly for the better.

Here’s my understanding of it: Your thinking changes the way you feel, the way you feel changes the way you act, and the way you act changes your results and your results dictate the way you feel. Its one big circle. Most people try to solve life’s challenges at the level of action – by changing the things they do. But that is almost never effective long term. To create real lasting change you have to start with your thoughts.

Now most people allow their results to dictate the way they feel. For example, someone treats them badly, they get angry at being treated badly and react in a negative way, because they are angry they treat the next person badly and the negative re-actions produce negative results and they get more angry. Its not unreasonable, we’ve all done it. The problem is it doesn’t work!

When you allow things that have happened in the past to dictate your feelings now, you are ensuring that those feelings from your past create your results in the future. Which means that changing your results is virtually impossible.

So what’s the solution? The answer is to flood your mind with as much positivity as you can. Listen to upbeat music. Surround yourself with images of the things you want in your life and the people who love and inspire you. Make a vision board!

Spend time with positive people who are achieving great results. The bigger the group the better – you won’t all be achieving fantastic results all the time but you can help keep each other lifted all the time. Create or join a mastermind group .

Write a gratitude journal every day and carry it around with you so you can go to it quickly when life is getting to you and remind yourself what’s wonderful in your life.

But most importantly learn to control your thinking. This takes time and practice but don’t give up. You are a powerful, intelligent human being, you can be the master of your own thoughts. Even if your reaction in the moment is a negative one, you can make the decision to control your response instantly. For example, if you are driving down Sheikh Zayed Road (the main motorway through Dubai) and someone tries to cut you up, your instant reaction will probably be fright, followed quickly by anger. If you act on the anger you are almost certainly going to make the situation worse, but if you take a deep breath and send feelings of love and peace out to the other driver you will (yes, I promise you will!) feel better and carry on your day in a positive way.

By the way, if you think its too hard to send out feelings of love and peace just try to visualise the look of utter confusion on the reckless driver’s face as he gets bombarded by love and peace instead of the anger he was expecting!

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Take A Map!

If you don’t know where you’re going, how are you going to know when you get there?

Its really hard, if not impossible to visualise something you can’t see. If I asked to to close your eyes and visualise your front door you could probably do it no problem, but if I asked you to visualise a heffalump, unless you were very familiar with Winnie The Pooh, you would probably have a hard time!

That’s why its so important to create a vision board or a treasure map. It will make it so much easier for you to picture where it is you’re heading to, and what’s more, when you get there you will recognise it!

Think about the last time you took a car journey to an unfamiliar place – you may have had a map but if you’d never been along that road before everything would be unfamiliar and you would have no idea where you were on the journey, other than a rough idea from the map. Now imagine the map had pictures of landmarks all along the way, and descriptions of what to look out for and notes about how long it would take you to get to the next landmark. How much more interesting would the journey be? And if you happened to stray off the right road, how much more quickly would it be obvious that you’d gone wrong?

That’s what your treasure map does for you. Its a powerful tool and its great fun to make and it will make your journey so much more rewarding!

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Have A Mental Detox!

Its all very well learning how to stop negative thinking in its tracks and fill your mind with uplifting ideas but to really change your results you need to get some direction to these thoughts. Thinking happy, positive, loving thoughts is a fantastic start but its not really going to create much action and its action that is the key to all of this.

One of the most powerful ways you can direct your thinking is with a Vision Board, often called a Treasure Map – you can get precise instructions how to create one here . Creating a map of all the things you want in your life is a great way of directing your subconscious to go off and find ways to get them.

You see, while your conscious mind does the thinking, its your subconscious mind which creates the inspiration for all your thoughts and if you’re filling your subconscious mind with rubbish, then all you will inspired with is rubbish thoughts!

So its really important while you are working on your thinking to put your mind on a health food diet – think of it as a mental detox!

As much as possible avoid negative people! I know that’s not always easy so if you do have to spend time with them, visualise yourself in a bubble so that none of their negativity can get at you. Negative people are energy vampires, they just want to drag you down to their level because they’re scared and lonely down there, so have compassion for them but don’t let yourself be sucked dry!

Don’t read the newspapers or watch the news – you don’t neeed to know this stuff. No, honestly, you don’t! If something happens that directly affects you or that you need to know you will find out pretty quickly.

If you watch TV, don’t watch programmes about violence and fear. Seriously, would you invite a murderer to sit with you in your living room in the evening? Of course not! And yet that’s exactly what you’re doing when you watch shows like CSI, or Criminal Minds.

There are so many wonderful inspiring, funny, uplifting movies around you don’t ever need to contaminate your mind with the dark stuff!

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