Take a moment to pause in your pursuit of happiness to just be happy!I just love this, because it is so possible to be so busy searching that we don’t notice we already have what we are looking for.

Remember to be grateful, add to your gratitude journal every single day!

The mind is programmed to give us bad news and we have to use our conscious awareness to override this and find all the good things. This is cognitive behavioral therapy… So easy and so effective. Consciously take a moment to notice all the good stuff. Every day!

Body Brilliance Course: http://www.bodybrilliance.co.za/weight-loss-and-mental-wellness-workshops

It is so easy to get into the mode of wondering why things have to be hard. We often say things like: “I just don’t need this in my life!” or “it’s enough!” What does this attitude help? Does it ever change things when we argue with them? Does it ever stop raining because we think it should?

What would happen if you remembered this little mantra: “Challenge is compost” and said even a half hearted, grimacing “thank you” for the compost? I find the moment I change my attitude like this, that my body becomes lighter and my frown disappears (even without Botox) and I feel I can face what’s coming my way.

Remember we are funny people and love to prove ourselves right. When we are holding an idea that life is all wrong right now, we will search inadvertently for evidence to prove this to be true. This certainly doesn’t bring upliftment! When we feel light we can see possibilities and create opportunities. When we are dense and deflated our creativity is inhibited and our vision is limited.

Enjoy the challenges life throws your way this week!

Headaches are a huge affliction for many people and they are truly debilitating. Life is simply not much fun when you are in pain all the time. For many people the fact that they suffer from headaches means that they live on tablets which leave them feeling off colour and which also put their kidneys and liver under constant strain.

Poor posture can compress the structures at the base of the neck and unless you effectively change your posture, you will continue to squash these pain sensitive structures and create pain for yourself. So book now for a posture assessment and/or purchase a DVD showing you some visualisation techniques which effectively and permanently change your posture.

When we feel defensive within ourselves we bring stress and tension into our bodies. This stress is held by the muscles, ligament and tendons of the body and it leads to tightening of structures and compression of joints. Think of a child who is shouted at for doing something “wrong”. Picture that child’s face and sense the tension in his/her face muscles. Can you sense the child holding its breath and sucking its tongue tight into its mouth almost to close its mouth off and give it more of a sense of self preservation?

Usually in the instance of a child being chastised this defense will terminate. Maybe the child will be given some or another punishment which can mark the end of the experience e.g. “go to your room” or “clean up this mess now”. Any one of these gives the child the opportunity to restore his sense of centre and to drop the defense (unless the chastisement is more than just a once off thing). If you are an adult and much of the chastisement is inside your own head and does not go away, the defense response in the body may become a learned habit and simply trying to relax is not going to be enough to help this situation. Learning to relax is a 4 fold process:

 We need to remove the ‘chastisement’ source or other stressor.  This may be a projection into the future that someone might chastise us. This may be ongoing negative feedback from ourselves in our own heads. Or it may seem to be coming from outside us. Usually criticism on the outside of us that is coming from critical people is a projection of our own inner critic onto the people around us. A strong inner critic or dictator would mean that we encounter critical attitudes in critical people around us.

1. We need to combat the criticism with awareness and rationalization, searching for the truth. For example, if I look in the mirror and say, “Look how fat you are, you are revolting. It’s because you are lazy and a greedy pig”, I would get an inner defense. If I rationalized the thought I would immediately see the untruth. The inner message implies that I am fat, when in fact the truth may be that I have gained a little weight and am feeling out of shape. The message of being revolting conjures images of negativity that certainly are not fair when applied to a few extra kilograms or millimetres of adipose tissue. I am always lazy and greedy. The truth may be that I can be lazy and my behaviour or my thoughts are at times greedy. So the truth is I can be lazy and greedy at times and at other times I am neither lazy nor greedy. When I tell this truthfully to myself I don’t need to defend against it, I can relax.
2. We need to physically relax and break the habit of holding on. We need to breathe differently in order to relax too. Unless we consciously change our breathing pattern we can not relax the part of our body that is tense because when we defend we change our breathing. We saw this in the child we visualized being shouted at.
3. Dropping defense starts with awareness. We need to be aware of when we are feeling defensive. Our body language is often a useful clue. When we suddenly find ourselves crossing our arms or touching our face we are being given feedback by our body of the uncomfortable feeling it is experiencing.

Imagine a body with no tension, a body in perfect balance. This could be your body if you drop your defenses. Have fun trying. Even a few millimetres of shift makes a difference so don’t feel you have to be defense free. Just move towards a little less defense.

I was reflecting once more on the Himalayas and all that they taught me. I remember standing looking at the mighty Marsyangdi River and realizing on the most profound level how futile swimming up river really is! The current was so obviously and so strongly downriver and trying to swim against it would cost a huge amount in energy and would gain no ground at all.

I have used the affirmation for myself ever since: ‘go with the flow’. I realized that if the river was taking you somewhere, fighting it would have no effect. Yet being in flow with that surging energy would be an awesome feeling. I have used this visualization as part of the affirmation many times since returning home and suggest you may find this useful too! I try to increase the effect of the visualization by feeling the current carrying me as well as seeing it. I practice letting my body go in the river and allowing it to carry me in my imagination. Even when this is scary, because I want to be in control, I find it helps me let go and just flow.

By popular demand I am doing another Spine Workshop on 18 May at 6.30 pm.

I have used the mantra: ‘Surrender!’ for many months now to help me.  I want to suggest that it is an incredible word and a very helpful concept. We have been renovating and building at home for 6 and half months.

 We have lived through the mess, the filth and the chaos and I have survived only because I persuaded myself day by day to ‘surrender’. Every few days my mind would argue and create a story about not being able to handle any more dust or noise and I would tense up and become unhappy and disgruntled. If I could catch myself in this spiral I would smile to myself and say as kindly as I could ‘surrender Sue.’ We have a big family and have had no kitchen, lounge or dining room for 6 weeks and although it hasn’t been ideal, it has been an adventure. We have all learned a lot!

I found this worked amazingly well in many instances on my trip too. Just for example, we were hiking in freezing conditions and there was no hot water. This meant we had to go without bathing for many days. We often couldn’t wash our clothes either. There was an amazingly fine line between being perfectly happy with it all and being unhappy and wishing it were different. There were days when I became irritated by the situation and argued with the way things were. If I could discipline myself to remember to surrender then the displeasure would just melt away. I laugh when I think it didn’t actually take a shower to make me feel okay, it took a single word! Surrender!

Just by the way, showers do make me feel really good now I am home! I say: “Thank you, thank you and thank you’ every single time I step into my wonderful hot shower!
Have a great, healthy and peaceful few weeks

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Last Wednesday I ran a “Take Brilliant Care of Your Spine Workshop”, I discovered, as I always do, when I run such a workshop that many people know very little about their bodies. This lack of understanding leads to lack of awareness and renders people unable to care effectively for their spines and their bodies. It is so thrilling to have a group who soak up the information like sponges and I just know they will use it to change the way they think and live. Just knowing how to stand up straight is a help! Knowing how to switch on your core is essential and getting a realistic idea of how your spine and pelvis function is crucial to caring for it properly! I loved running the workshop so much that I have decided to make it a monthly event. Please take the opportunity to come to one and learn and empower yourself. Yours spine is one of your vital organs and this course will change the way you think and use your body.

Read what one of the delegates from last night had to say about her experience here.

We woke long before sunrise and lay in our sleeping bags wondering exactly when we should set off. Neither of us was keen to leave the warmth of our bed and so no-one pushed things. At about 5.30am we got up and got going. We put on every item of warm clothing we had with us, including outer shell water and wind proof pants and jackets. We had balaclavas, beanies and many layers of scientifically designed mountain clothes. We never said much and the tension was quite high.

By 6.10 am we were ready and waiting at the host’s hut for some hot water. We couldn’t leave without some water and ours was totally frozen. We had arranged with him the previous night that he would give us water and some food if we wanted any. He was fast asleep and it took a long time to get him going. The tension grew as we became more and more aware that the blue skies of the previous 16 days were not an indication of the weather that day. It felt and smelt different and snow flakes started softly falling from the sky.

Ellis was very concerned that we would lose the path and get lost. He has read many books on mountaineering and is a realist. I am an optimist who refuses to hear bad news, ever. I have an inherent belief that I will always be safe and protected. Sometimes this is based purely in intuition and although I would have stayed at the hut and aborted the climb that day if my intuition had warned me to, I was determined to go. I knew that if we did not get over the pass that day, we would probably be stuck for many days waiting for a chance to get safely over. I just wanted to go and not stop until we were in the next village roughly 8 hours walk away. The host told me that if we followed the black poles we would be fine and find the way, so I set off!

Somehow we had linked with another Japanese girl and her guide who had come walking up from low camp and had made a loose arrangement with the Japanese man that we would go together. I started walking and felt intense discomfort in my shoulders. My pack was pulling terribly since I had far wider shoulders than normal as a result of the additional clothes. I had to remove my balaclava since I felt as if I was suffocating with something on my face. Having frozen cheeks and lips was better than having no air. Quite a few cross words were passed between Ellis and I as a result of the tension and the frustrating delay in getting walking. I walked off at a cracking pace. Ell waited back for the Japanese man. Soon I was far ahead and had a chance to sort my pack out. I stopped and took my time arranging my straps. I had planned this stop and knew I needed some serious distance between us so my stop wouldn’t make him have to wait and freeze doing so. He had no idea why I was racing ahead and got steadily more furious with me as the distance grew. He thought I was oblivious to the need to stay together and that I had left the Jap to his care and just seen to myself.

This was a perfect example of how different stories look out of different sunglasses. I was being considerate and caring in my eyes and in his eyes I was being selfish and uncaring. I thought we could leave the flailing Jap knowing that there was a guide and another Jap behind us all who were walking VERY slowly. I didn’t see any sense in us all getting cold and stuck. I knew if we got snowed in and had to turn back, we would miss our flight home and my children would be let down etc etc and I was not keen to take that risk. I would have taken it, had I thought someone was in danger, but in my mind there was backup and support for him and we should just get to the top and down the other side as fast as possible.

The snow was coming faster and faster and soon we couldn’t even see our hands in front of our faces. I waited for Ellis once I had sorted my pack and had no idea that he had strained himself terribly to catch me. He was angry and afraid for our safety and I was dogged and determined to walk and move on, trusting all would be fine. We had a very heated and passionate fight from our reconnection place all the way to the top. When we saw the top, and had enough breath to hear each other out, we let it all go and the emotion died down. The challenge didn’t! We had to get down the other side of the pass in the fast freezing snow, almost zero visibility and not having any idea where to go. Our GPS didn’t work at that altitude.

It’s late now and I’ll tell you more when next I find a gap!