So as I consider subtraction I wonder what this would entail and how one would go about implementing it. I have often said in stress management seminars that I have run, that we need to spend as much time on making lists of what we ‘should not do’ as we do on making lists of what we ‘should do’. So how do we decide what should go on the ‘what I should not do list?’

The answer that comes up for me when I ask this question is: we need to identify our value system and then work from there. We need to know what is critically important for us and then make sure that nothing gets in the way of that. Once we know what our top ten values are we can quite easily identify what can be subtracted and what can not. I sometimes find that my meditation time gets sacrificed and yet personal growth and wellness are top values of mine. By the same token, my relationship with my children is very high on my value system, so I have to be careful not to subtract from the time I have with them.

Sometimes I say yes to fitting a patient in to my after hours time or slotting a talk into my weekend time, and this leads to subtraction in the wrong place. So I have absolute clarity, from experience, of what not to subtract, but I still sit with the question of ‘what should I not do?’ I find that life just continues to grow and time can not grow as profusely! Long winded conversations and interactions that are not based on ‘win-win’ feel to me like the only thing I can subtract at this stage.

Sometimes my need to be polite and nice makes saying no and being assertive difficult. Conversations in my head and indecision are also time wasters and can go on the ‘what I should not do’ list. Going against my own value system is very definitely a cause of mental chatter, so this is a clear subtraction point. Please tell me what you think!

Today I set my intention on seeing clearly. Well the first thing I have seen clearly is how amazingly I have learnt over the past 20 years. I noticed how I take my ever increasing understanding and tool box so for granted. Sometimes in my life I have been so focused on learning and acquiring knowledge that I have hardly ever stopped to appreciate all I have learnt and be grateful for how every new concept has floated into my life at exactly the moment I needed it to. I have never ever thought: ‘what next?’, because the next step has just come up when I was ready. Now I look around and new ideas and opportunities are all around me as always and today I suddenly saw it so clearly. There has been synchronicity at each and every turn and even though I am often teased by my family about being a course junkie, nothing has been wasted and it has all woven together into a blanket of stuff I can relax into using.

Today was an epiphany as I experienced fully how blessed I have been. And my last learning bout…. hypnotherapy and ethno psychology has brought huge new scope to me. I have been blown away by how many different ways I can use it and how powerful it is!
I have an exam to write on Saturday and I have ideas of what is required to get prepared. I have been trying to squeeze some studying time into my life, in spite of a full schedule and loads of commitments. The time slot I have made available which is pretty late at night has created some sincere inner resistance from my body…. It has decided that I need sleep and it has warned me for several days now and I can feel the warnings getting louder each and every day. I just don’t know what to do about it except give in and either turn up to my exam unprepared or to make some other changes somewhere else.

I am actually chuckling as I write this, because Sunday I woke up literally begging for more sleep and did a run which my body consented to despite how I felt on waking. Monday I woke with puffy eyes and dark rings and felt even less like getting up. I had no vooma for even a tiny run. Tuesday was worse and today I have a headache, a running nose and can’t even concentrate, never mind run….. What will I do? I promise I will sleep early and give in allowing the tiredness, without insisting my way is best. I will see what my body says tomorrow morning. I watched my natural mindless response to pain, which was to reach for a Panado on waking. I decided not to take it, because if I haven’t listened I deserve to feel slow and sluggish and sore so I can take an easier day for myself and take care today. I really know my body is supporting me and helping me. My way is not necessarily the best way!
My way has always involved being responsible and doing the work and more required to do well in exams. It has also been to just keep on adding things to my life and never subtracting anywhere. So I add studying, but don’t take anything away to make it possible and up until now apart from moaning that I don’t have enough time, I have always got it right….. Maybe now my body thinks it is time to try a new way of operating. Maybe my next learning is to be in the field of subtraction not addition!!! Sounds scary, but if my body thinks this is where more joy lies I’ll go with it and see what happens. Let me know what this evokes for you!

The body can respond to strain in many different ways, and as a physiotherapist I get to see and touch the tissues and identify the different responses.

I had a little boy in my treatment room today, who suffered a trauma to his little back a week ago and a further trauma yesterday when he fell over the back seat into the boot of his Dad’s car. His response to the inflamed and sore tissues was profound muscle spasm and complete aversion to movement or weight bearing. His little mind decided that he should not walk on the leg and should just not load the tissue in any way. I tried to compare his body’s response to that of another person who sprained her ankle 6 weeks ago and who continued doing a trail walk she was engaged with long after her injury. Her body responded by swelling the ankle up and making her joint stiff and rigid and thereby enabling her to walk on the joint without damaging the tissues too much further. Both people had suffered spraining of the soft tissues and ligaments around the joints they damaged.

I found myself pondering the question: ‘why?’ did each person and each person’s nervous system respond the way it did. Our obvious response is to imagine that one injury was worse or that one person was more sensitive, yet I am not sure that either is true. I think that the conclusion I have come to is that the nervous system gives you the response it thinks will get the most survival enhancing result. So the little boy’s brain trusted that he would be cared for and he could just lie back until he was better to enhance his survival. The lady’s brain decided she should be facilitated to carry on at all costs never missing much of a beat, for her survival. These survival instincts are subconscious and quite primitive. In order to heal it is very helpful to understand them.

So, the little boy will need to be gently encouraged to trust his body and will need encouragement to get going, reassuring him all the time that careful note is being taken of his pain. In fact a lot of my treatment involved explaining how brilliantly his body could heal anything and how clever his body was. I assured him it was safe for him to walk with my assistance and that I would help as much as was necessary. I told him his body was talking to us both and we could listen and know how much help to give. (Obviously I had ruled out the possibility of the pain being due to serious pathology or a fracture.) With the lady with the badly sprained ankle, I took a totally different approach. I reminded her that support and help are available and are all around her. I gave her an ankle support and encouraged her to rest a little, allaying her fears of loss of control of her life with effective affirmations. I reminded her of the value of taking a rest and of being a little bit ‘weak’ every now and again in order to allow her body time to heal. Even as we talked and as I gently and supportively moved her ankle, the swelling came down and the joint loosened. It was almost as if the inner splint was no longer needed.

This is the part of working with the body that excites me the most.. every body speaks a slightly different language or dialect using a different tone or pitch and I find I get the best healing responses when I am as connected as possible to these subtle nuances and am sensitive to the body language in the most vigilant way possible.

So Easter has come and gone and I have been reading: ‘The Power of The Sub-Conscious Mind’, while at the same time doing some of the exercises in Kiki Theo’s ‘ The Alchemy of Money’. More than ever before I have realized that what we think and believe deep down in the hidden recesses of our subconscious minds is what manifests in our lives.

I had plenty of long luxurious runs in the magnificence of the Natal Midlands over Easter weekend to really examine my thoughts. One thing I noticed is that I have always trusted my physical endurance ability, implicitly. I never ever doubt my capacity or ability and have taken on some very daunting events and undertakings with unshakeable confidence. I realized that there is not quite the level of self assuredness in some of the other aspects of my life.

I do a lot of public talks and run many workshops and I often have to overcome a degree of self doubt before I stand up. I also have to survive some hectic self imposed post mortems after some of these events.

This weekend as I ran through the Autumn colored trees and feasted my eyes on the soft green rolling hills, and as I meditated on the patio of the house we were staying in, I allowed my mind to bathe in the possibility of having as much trust in all the aspects of my ability. I allowed myself to stretch my belief to encompass unlimited success in any project I chose to engage with. It felt good.
I know this needs work and if I stop now there will be no shift and I will have achieved nothing. I need to do this mind stretching for at least 30 days to really reap the results.
I am using a visual image (as an affirmation) of being like an overflowing dam, filled to the brim with abundance, knowledge, wisdom, insight, power and ability. All of this is contained in the dam and can be basked in at anytime by me or anyone else. I can trust that it is not transient and will not run away.

The more I hold this image the more quickly I will manifest what this represents in my life. Let me know if this resonates for you. Maybe you have used a similar image as an affirmation. Maybe you would like to try?