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What Would You Do If We Showed Up?
I'm really excited to say that Words To Live By will be published as a print edition on the 4th January 2015.... Here is the introduction page in full. Every single one of us, without exception, are of two minds, there’s our doubting mind and then the other mind that is ‘us’… some refer to it as the ‘i’ – that’s the authentic, the true us, who we actually are, the one that desires love and forgiveness… a life of excitement, of creating and achieving all those things that bring us joy, making us want to sing from somewhere breathtakingly high, it makes our heart beat faster and creates permanent creases near to our eyes because we have been smiling so hard they’ve become a feature of who we are. Culturally our planet teaches us to listen attentively to our other mind, our doubting mind, that judgmental us, the voice of caution, that tape we have recorded in our head that asks all those questions like, ‘yep right, who do you think you are thinking that!’ I’m sure you’ve heard yourself saying exactly that, because it exists in all of us… yes I want to do that, it’s my dream. But then the reservations come, ‘what will everyone think, or where will the money come from, or, or, or…!!’ We need to listen less to that part of us and to follow our heart, our true passions… it is only the fear our doubting mind thrusts into the mix that stops us, it sits there, the bloody little gremlin that it is, on our shoulder putting uncertainty and worry, even terror into any thought we might choose our lives to become. Then we tell ourselves that it’s only a dream and fall back into the life we have always had. But this is how we heal ourselves, the doubting mind is a part of our ego and is one of illusion. It takes anything we can think of and puts a barrier up, it puts the fear of God into us, but only if we let it. If we pay it scant attention and concentrate our thoughts towards who we really are, to what we would truly love to do with our lives, then we can fly, we can boogie into the face of any insecurity we might experience. So who shouts the loudest inside your head? I bet most of the time it’s your doubting-ego mind! But it is that other part of us the real ‘i’ of our imaginations that demonstrates truth, and if you learn to listen to it and to trust it then eventually the illusions have no value, we re-attune ourselves by recognising that aspect of ourselves, and then our lives can become extraordinary, full of anything our imagination can dream up. So did your doubting-ego mind just go… ‘yeah right!?’ There is only one way to prove it, and that is to try following what you do want your life to be rather than the one you don’t. Following the one you don’t is like standing in a room with two teachers talking at the same time, Mr Doubt and Mr Truthfully-Me and listening only to the one who yells whilst the other speaks in a tranquil voice… who are you used to listening to? Why not politely ask Mr Doubt to shut up for a moment and just listen to the wisdom and inspirations Mr Truthfully-Me speaks to us… and if Mr Doubt butts in ask that he leave the room… if you can practise that with every thought that comes into your head, then eventually your life will become extraordinary, it’ll be whatever you can dream up… In ‘Words To Live By’ I want to share some of the thoughts that have inspired me, ideas and feelings that have made me want to dance through what at first appeared the darkest of moments… but because I knew that so long as I kept my focus on what I wanted as an outcome and ignored completely my screaming, panicky, doubt-ridden-ego-mind then my life would become the one I focused on, my dreams rather than my fears. We’ll chat about life and living too… what is it all about? To be honest I have absolutely no idea, and I’m sure that’s the same for all of us, but what I do know is that we are all exactly the same, we all have the same desires, we all have a passion for something, we are all surrounded by the same rhetoric that booms at us day in and year out… and we are easily conned into thinking it’s important, more important than who we are… I also know that life is not meant to be a struggle for any of us, or unhappy or stressful in any way… unless of course that is what we choose it to be like. Our life should be and can be full of remarkable moments, of laughter and learning, constantly… who we are and what we want… the bottom line is love, not just getting it, but giving it too… and our lives will always be like that so long as we continue to believe it to be like that, to choose that in every moment. You might well ask, how do I know that’s true? Well it’s my own experiences, they’re my guide, and experimenting with it too, I have tried it both ways so often and it works both ways too, so the only conclusion I can draw from that is to always go with my preference, the outcome I’d prefer. I hope this little volume brings enough inspiration for you to begin your own journey towards what you do want to show up in your life - from this moment on. If you are already on the journey then I hope it helps you to keep going when a tougher moment creates more of an uphill climb, and you need a little push, a reminder of who you really are and to listen only to the one mind that is going to create the life of your dreams. Simon. Brighton 2014 Just published... and available on iTunes now...
'WORDS TO LIVE BY the book by Simon Lawrence £1.99 Please follow this link to find out more, download a sample or to buy a copy all for yourself https://itunes.apple.com/gb/book/words-to-live-by/id948316447 Today was the first time I’ve been able to write in the garden now the winters blown away. Next door I could hear two children splashing in the pool, and one of them said, ‘My teddy’s got a sore arm!’ ‘My rabbit’s got cancer,’ said the other. ‘What’s cancer?’… ‘It’s when you get really tired and then you die!’ It is this sort of conversation that can get me thinking. I heard once that those who have popped their clogs but come back again due to some medical miracle often say they saw their entire life flash before them, like some big review going on, and it changed their lives. But what if you didn’t get to come back and were really disappointed that you hadn't done all those things you dreamed you would do one day… if only I had been courageous enough to have taken that bold step, you may say... the one I feared in case I got it wrong, or it was too difficult or what would everyone think if I really followed my passion! So we lie there with our body broken from something so catastrophic that it took our physicalness away; and on some lofty cloud we watch a huge widescreen 3DTV… and on it a hologram that stretches from the second of our birth to the moment we die… every single thing that we did and we didn't do, and worst of all what would have happened if only we had taken that bold step into the unknown. What if it showed us even greater things! What if it showed us the life review of the entire universe; one stretching from the big bang, all that matter exploding from apparently nothing into being… that eventually gravitated into stars and suns and planets that had a life of their own, before they died too; exploding into trillions of elements that eventually made up this place we call earth. Then over millions of years our earth created it’s unique aquatic life forms that eventually popped their gills above the surface, crawling onto dry land and becoming ever more complex. Eventually reptiles and mammals then us… humans that began thinking and creating and rebuilding our wonderful planet – taming it so we could sit in comfort on a Saturday night, curled up snug on a sofa with our loved one; eating curry and chips, and watching the X-Factor! Evolution! Isn’t it a great concept! I think from that simple utterance by Holly, the little girl next door talking about her bunny getting tired all the time because it’s got cancer, has made me think perhaps I should do even more towards all those things I’m passionate about, those I only imagine myself doing, and begin to actually do them without delay! © Simon Lawrence Follow this link to download a sample or buy Simon's book http://itunes.apple.com/gb/book/many-faces/id946547893 ‘We’re getting married,’ she said and hugged me tightly… ‘Then let’s have a coffee and celebrate…’ I took her hand and whisked her into Nero’s. I have known Julia (JJ) a long time, we used to write together, our desks adjoined in a busy publishing office. We talked a lot about love, her loves mostly… so I got to know her better than the majority of her boyfriends and the pain and despair caused by the old ones. It was a holiday romance that stopped that, where she finally fell in love, in love enough to feel safe, secure in the knowledge that he might be the one… someone interesting, she thought trustworthy and who really loved her. A man who despite her quirky nature laughed with her and understood her mind, the way it worked, because he was the same… two peas in a pod I remember how an old school friend of hers described them and it was a pretty accurate description. I was nearly as shaken as she was when he left, for it seemed inconceivable that they’d not share the rest of their lives together… ‘I guess sometimes life has another path for us, I’m sure people come into our lives to teach us something, to show us some lesson we need to learn about who we are,’ I said trying to make her cry less. I remember she looked at me, her pained expression posing the question, then he won’t come back to me, he has taught me something and now he’s gone, to teach someone else a lesson too, to be in love with them and not me. ‘I lie awake at night,’ she told me, ‘waiting for him to text me… from the day we first met until the day he left there was not one despite his travels that we did not speak in some way…’ she stared to sob again. That was nearly five years ago… during that time she managed to keep in touch with him, and he with her, just enough to know what each other were up to. The hurt stayed though, and the anger that he had damaged who they were together. Then about a year ago I went to a party and she was there, a new man on her arm, another tall and handsome guy, and I guess he owned one of the Porsche’s lined up next to my old car on the drive outside. I winked at her, and as I kissed her and said ‘Happy Christmas,’ I whispered in her ear… ‘your new man then?’ I was introduced and shook his hand, we spoke a little before he went off to get us a drink. ‘He seems nice. Is this one serious?’ She smiled a little and rocked her head first one way and then the other, her way of saying… it’s ok, it’ll do… he has everything in the right place. She text me a week later… ‘It was so lovely to see you, let’s meet for a coffee some-place, make it soon!!xx’ She used exclamation marks only to say that she was serious and I really need to see you. We sat on our customary sofa by a familiar view of the busy high street, a place we so often used to sit for a coffee during our lunch break or just a get-together and a chat. ‘What’s up then?’ I asked… we both smiled but I could see the pain behind hers… her brown eyes had a sadness in them. ‘Are you with anyone? She asked… ‘Are you?’ I offered back. She looked like she was about to cry again so I reached and touched her hand… entwined my fingers in hers. We talked for an hour, finished another large cup of coffee before I had to go. ‘The thing is JJ, do you want me to be really honest with you? ‘Yes’ she said, ‘Why change the habit of a life-time – it’s why you’re my friend, you make me think, help me move forward however brutal I think you are sometimes, you’re usually right, you bugger!!’ ‘It seems to me…’ I said, ‘that you still love him, you are still trying to find another just like him and the chances of that are nil… every-one is so different; so why don’t you call him or when he contacts you again start a conversation, meet him like we are here for a coffee and see if he really is the man you still love deep down behind that denial of yours.’ She said something I hear so often… ‘I don’t step back!!’ I don’t want to move back to that town, it feels like a ‘step back’, I don’t want another job like I had ten years ago, it feels a ‘step back’, I don’t want another of those cars, it feels a ‘step back’, however much I love him I won’t go back to him because it’s a ‘step back’. ‘Why not!! Is that not cutting off your nose to spite your face? ‘It’s a principle I have’ she said… and my friends tell me that too!’ ‘Hmmmm…’ was my immediate reply. ‘So you think that stepping back is just going to recreate the hurt, you remember the pain when he left and you don’t want to face that again… yet you do every time you think of him, or something reminds you of him or you meet someone who reminds you of him then turns out to hurt you or annoy you; to not be the man you hoped he was once you really got to know him. ‘What do I do to move on then…?’ she asked her eyes welling up again. ‘Darling stop listening to others opinions, follow your heart… and this not stepping back fixation is ridiculous… there is no such thing, it only exists as something negative if that’s how you choose to look at it. We all have this bloody ego thing that sits there putting the fear of God into every thought we have and look it’s shouting at you right now, don’t step back you’ll get hurt again, or what will my friends say, or there’s a principle at stake here!!!?’ ‘It still hurts though, it’s still raw, it still makes me cry!’ ‘Then deal with it… stepping back is often the bravest of all things, probably the hardest too... simply because we think it’s a negative thing when in reality it’s the absolute opposite, especially if it’s something we really want however much we deny that to ourselves. Stepping back with the right frame of mind can be the most wonderful experience, because you are saying to yourself, look I have learned my past mistakes, I understand me and the situation better, I know how to handle this now, to not be afraid of it, and to take it to the next level.’ ‘But how do I do that?’ ‘Rewrite what your mind is saying to you about the past… go back in your mind, rewrite the thoughts to how you wish it had turned out, make it like a fantasy, a dream… then carry that thought forward into your future rather than the story of the past you think of now. You must stop pushing the negativity of your past into your future, because otherwise it will always be there in that form and keep that feeling of unhappiness alive.’ ‘None of that will be true through, what happened, happened!’ ‘The truth darling is only what you want to make it, how you want to perceive it… reinvent that and you’ll see how it changes your view, how it will make you smile instead of cry… you will see how you can move on and the only way of doing that is to step back first… And with him in mind it might just allow you to do that or you might find that love again… the two of you. What have you got to be afraid of? Nothing, it’s all positive, it’s all about letting go of the past, all the hurt and emotions whichever way you step. Stepping back is the beginning of going forward with this… with him or without the hurt of that time… then you’ll be running before you realise what is happening and you will have the BIGGEST smile on your face and butterfly’s again in your tum.’ It’s nearly Christmas again, and we’re sitting on the same comfy sofa, next to the familiar view of the High Street, but she is smiling now… She pointed her long finger at me… ‘look’ she said, I held her hand in mine, ran my finger over the cluster of diamonds… ‘When?’ I asked with a broad smile. ‘Just after I saw you last, he text me, asked me for a coffee… we cried and we laughed, he held me tightly when he left, it felt like no time had passed, like we had been together all of that time, just in a different time and space, somewhere parallel… waiting for the right moment for us to come together again. Now we’re getting married, in March, it marks a very special time for us and you know what, I did exactly as you said like the good girl I am… and you were bloody right again, just as you always are… so don’t get too smug about that!!’ I hugged her and said with more than a dash of self-righteousness, but feeling enormously happy for her too… ‘the power of your mind is always there sweetie, all you have to do is remember to use it…’ She kissed me goodbye again… ‘see you in March!!’ she said. ‘We have a date then…’ © Simon Lawrence Shakespeare said “To shine own self be true”… I remember reading that for the first time in college… ‘Oh!! God!!’ I said almost out loud… ‘I can’t understand it, I’m screwed!!’ My wonderful teacher at that time… Mr Thackery must have seen my bemused look, the frustration right across my face… he sat with me… ‘Look,’ he said, ‘you are starting out at the wrong end, don’t fire up with Act 1, Scene 1, Word 1… go backwards, learn the story from the characters perspective, what are their feelings, what motivates them… then you’ll begin to understand the words, it’ll all become easier.’ My phone rang, it was my publisher… she forgets there’s half a day time difference between us… ‘What?’ I said… ‘Afternoon Simon, you sound in a great mood!’ ‘It’s bedtime Liz, nearly midnight, what do you want?’ ‘Some photos please, I can’t keep using these they’re years out of date and I want something that’s more representative of your new book… can you get them for me this afternoon?’ ‘Liz it’s bedtime, I’ll get something sorted in the morning. Good night!’ I’ve been a photographer since I was 10 years old and have always made my living from either behind a camera or some published words… but I do not enjoy having my photo taken, in fact I absolutely hate it and when I saw the results of the last ordeal I have decided I enjoy it even less. I compared the new pictures with those taken when I was 40… and ok, I admit it, my vanity took more than a twinge at the thought of being presented to my readers as I am now 15 years on! It was more of a debilitating spasm! ‘Can you touch me up a little?’ I asked the photographer! ‘But that’s you! he said, ‘and you look fine, we all hate having our photo taken, live with it for a few days, see how you feel then.’ I didn’t have a few days, I had to get the photos off now, today. I looked again… I guess anyone over 40 should be responsible for his face, and that includes me. Fifteen extra years should give me a great deal more than a few wrinkles and some unwelcome folds around my chin… In that time I have become more intimately acquainted with life’s pain and pleasures, and the joy and sorrow of life and death… I’ve struggled and survived, had failure and great successes… At times I’ve lost faith completely and then found it again… and as a result this face should now show more wisdom than it did, a more tolerant smile… and I hope my sense of humour however twisted it can be has mellowed my outlook on everything and everyone I experience. As my photographer said, ‘that is me!’ so I should not try to erase the mark of age, because at the same time I’ll risk destroying the imprint of all the character building of those experiences I have had, those that are written truthfully into my face. I have just sent my photo as it is. © Simon Lawrence I was mooching along a busy Brighton street this afternoon when an nice-looking young woman met me head-on, ‘I’m from the BBC’ she said earnestly, ‘can we ask you a question for tonight’s news?’ She gave a smile that whispered… ‘I know you’ll not be able to help yourself, my offer of celebrity, albeit on the local news channel is just too enticing…!’ I’m sure you know what it’s like, during those moments you are pulled from your own private world and instantly hurled into someone else’s. My mind went promptly into summersault mode, trying to find something to get a hold of. For a mere twenty seconds of celebrity… from the two and three quarter billion of ordinary living I hope to accomplish during my entire life, I began to wonder if it was worth my already questionable reputation to say exactly what I felt about whatever she might ask? I’m far more balanced in my opinions on a written page than articulating them at a moments notice, especially with a camera only inches from my nose; so probably not! ‘What’s the question?’ I asked. I sounded keen but really I wasn’t… ‘it’s about us going to war in Iraq, about the UK supporting America in the fight against ISIS!’ she said enthusiastically. ‘Well,’ I said and smiled back as her colleague hoisted his camera to his shoulder and the soundman lowered his boom just above my head… ‘I can’t really answer… I’m sorry! I’ve not got much of the story in here,’ I said tapping the side of my head, ‘to base a truthful opinion on!’ When I got back to my computer I began to think more of the consequences had I proffered my view… and that when I hear someone expressing theirs… about anything; what is it really based on… actual fact or on hearsay! Is it their belief, or simply an emotional response they have… with no foundation on any truth or real knowledge. Do I ask the question… ‘How do you know that?’ Very rarely… or ‘where did you get that information from, how do you know that’s true?’ Again it’s an uncommon ask from me because it puts our conversation immediately into awkward mode and I don’t like the feeling of that. So I tend to say nothing, just smile and nod as if I agree or change the subject to something I prefer. But maybe sometimes I should be more daring, ‘are you acting on a guess, your assumption or perception of the facts?’ I should ask. Or, ‘how do you know that’s not someone else’s fiction, where are the facts? Is that opinion just based on your own bias, your own prejudices, intolerance and ignorance!?’ Perhaps that might lose a friend… be too harsh those words, get me a punch on the nose, wipe the smugness from my expression! But I have found in my journey through life that I like those best who ‘by no means’ offer wild, unjustified opinions about anything, especially other people… we are all on a journey to somewhere, and we all trip (up) regularly… it is called life. I like the people who stop and help those who have stumbled, give them a hand up again… especially if it’s moral support… rather than those who just stand and ridicule, deride… so often based solely on their own experiences of others having done the same to them. We must remember it is our birthright… the privilege of having our own thoughts and we must treat these as our divine gift, delight in them, give them the respect they deserve, but we must never let someone else do our thinking for us, or influence our thinking without first knowing what the real truth is. It was just a thought. © Simon Lawrence Our happiness, that great mistress of our dance through life, guides us in its meanderings… but leads none of us by the same path. There is no single way to find happiness, so we must each find it in the way that most appeals, makes us smile that broad smile; we must follow our passion even and especially if those around us are telling us we’re crazy for trying it. If someone is telling you that now then don't listen. Their voice of caution knows nothing of real joy. What joy is there doing something you can easily do… where's the excitement in that? Today try something that you could fail at… because that's really living… An extract from 'It's All About YOU!' By Simon Lawrence 'The Power of Believing' Chapter 3 To Read Part 1 Please click HERE Part 2
Possessing a positive belief system is just the first step to creating a more successful life. Let’s take an example… you might have a positive attitude about money; you believe there are plenty of ways to make money, yet you only ever seem to have enough to get by. Money comes in, and money goes out again, there never seems enough to create a more relaxed feeling about having plenty. That’s because somewhere deep in your subconscious you may be saying the opposite, that you will never have enough money, or who are you to think you deserve so much more. Many of us have been brought up not to ‘believe’... society surrounds us, envelops us in believing life is tough, that we have to fight to get ahead, or even stay afloat. We are taught that if you can’t see it, touch it, then it’s not real, non-existent and that it is an unacceptable way of going about our lives to think otherwise. Believing something is trusting that your deepest desires can and will happen. Believing is leaving no room what-so-ever that what you want will happen. So many of us in the rush and confusion of modern life are missing this element. Each day is taken up entirely at the beck and call of others, leaving little or no time for ourselves, time necessary to create our own future and fulfil our greatest ambitions. If you truly believe that you can be happy, and achieve the dreams you have, then you will transform your life. That is all it takes... to believe! I’m going to ask you three questions. •Do you believe, without a moments doubt that you can and will have exactly the life you desire? •Do you believe wholeheartedly you will be guided to those goals, those desires those right situations to get where you want to be? •Do you believe there is always a way to achieve your goals, even when you have setbacks? If you wavered at any moment, then you don’t ‘believe’, and you won’t achieve the life you want. To ‘believe’ is to trust entirely that everything will work out, that you have it in you to find solutions and a way of achieving your goals. Let me give you an example of true ‘believing’. If you have been fortunate enough to have had a beautiful son or daughter, or perhaps more than one, think of the first time you saw them... did you ever doubt for a moment that they would not grow up; be able to walk and to talk to you, it was only a matter of time. Yet when you first held your child in your arms, it was incapable of doing anything. It couldn’t feed itself, tell you what it wanted, or how it felt; it couldn’t walk, it couldn’t do anything for itself. But did you ever doubt it would not develop these skills? The answer is no; not for one moment did you not believe that this beautiful child would grow up, unable to walk, and talk and communicate with you and the world. Now, that is the sort of belief I’m getting at, that is exactly the belief structure you need in place to achieve your goals. You have to BELIEVE that what you most desire will come to you, without a doubt, you must trust that it is within you somewhere to create everything you wish for. Ok you might be saying, I see some truth in what you say Simon, but how do I get that belief structure into my psyche. Well firstly you will get there by taking small steps. By setting small goals for yourself, even goals that you know will happen, then you must trust and let go – let go of doubt, just let go and let these things happen. Sounds a bit too simple? Right, then lets take a simple scenario; going to work... driving, taking the train or bus, however you travel, simply trust you will get there on time, then let go… even and especially if you think you are going to be late and it is making you feel stressed... just relax, believe you will arrive on time, and then let the thought go. You will find you arrive on time, with no stress, you have had an easy trip. If you are late you will find that for some unfathomable reason it does not matter. Perhaps the person you were meeting was late too and you both arrived at the same time. Try this... Next time you lose something, your car keys perhaps; tell yourself you know where they are, trust you will find them, then let go; do something else for a moment even if you are already late, and see what happens. I bet you find them! Your subconscious knows exactly where you left them. When you relax and trust, a vision will come into your conscious mind reminding you where you left them. When you have a tough decision to make, in fact any decision you are not too sure about, tell yourself that you will come to the right conclusion, believe you will find the best result for you and those involved; then let go. That is the key, learn to let go, trust and let go, believe it will happen, disengage for a while. After a time you will discover the answer to your question, any question. Worry is the reverse of trusting and believing, by worrying you are saying ‘I don’t believe,’ but at the same time trying to convince yourself that you can make it better, but you can’t, so disengage, trust, believe and see what happens. Develop small goals into your daily life, and then when you need to make the big decisions, you will trust the process and know it works – you will ‘BELIEVE’ that great things can happen for YOU and they WILL! © Simon Lawrence Can we restart our lives from any moment…? What a simple question, yet one that might take a lifetime to explain! I can remember dark moments when I just wanted the world to stop… I wanted to get off. I didn’t think for a second what might come after that, or where I might end up! Of course I couldn’t stop the world, but that thought did became a recurring mantra for a few lingering years until I decided it was thinking that did not serve me. I have a wonderful quote, unfortunately I don’t know who the author was… but it is what brought closure to that part of my feelings. It goes something like this… ‘our lives are like reading the first verse of the first chapter of a book whose pages are infinite…’ I keep it posted on the wall nearest to my computer as a reminder that tomorrow can be anything we choose to make it. So many of us think of the future as being the same as we have always experienced ‘it’ in the past, we will just be older and perhaps less able to cope. Anything else we call a dream. But really that is just a lazy, fearful place our mind is used to being, it is comfortable there, but what if we can take the mysterious, hazy future and turn it into anything we can imagine… into that dream. We are all gardeners… we plant seeds, our seeds are the thoughts we have and we are exactly where we are right now, with every element of what is happening in our lives because of the seeds we have planted in the past. By planting first-class seed, we reap an excellent harvest, but by planting poor quality seed we get a useless crop. If we plant nothing at all then we have nothing to harvest! When we choose to create a future that is better than the experiences of our past, then we must not contaminate the seed with the blunders we may have made before. Who we think we are right now does not define who we can be, it is simply a reflection of who we have been. Our poor harvest is the result of our poor planting, so we must begin to plant only the best selected seed and our future will be a reflection of that instead. We will spend all of our lives living now, whilst now is always the planting season for what will come… every thought we have will affect our future and this is the beginning of creating a life of ‘anything you like’. © Simon Lawrence. An extract from 'It's All About YOU!' By Simon Lawrence 'The Power of Believing' Chapter 3 When you take control of your mind and the inevitable chatter we all have going on behind the scenes, you will discover an entirely new and wonderful person! That someone currently lies dormant within you. You will discover a new-found happiness, an exciting self, and soon that internal you will be externalised, allowing you to have a joyful and positive attitude at all times throughout your life, even when you encounter problems or difficulties. Creating a more positive mind-state only requires your commitment to it, and making it work for you. No matter how strange a way of thinking it may seem to you at first, the more you put into it and practice it, the more rewards you will reap. In this chapter we are going to discover the power of ‘believing’ ... and how you can change your life in a few simple steps. I’m sure that you have been told sometime during your life that if you ‘have faith’, that you ‘truly believe’ in something, then it really will happen. I know a lot of people don’t completely accept this idea, and there are those who say they have tried practicing it but have never achieved tangible results. But there are also those who are living examples of this thinking, and they are the people who truly practice the ‘power of believing’ and have tremendous success too. Researchers have found that what we think and the state of our mind has a direct affect on our life, our current reality and on how healthy we are. General science is now taking these ideas more seriously and studies have looked at the ‘power of believing’ and how beliefs impact on our health. Those who believe they are sick and are going to die will not cope nearly as well as those who ‘believe’ they can recover and will survive. Specialists at the Sloan-Kettering Cancer Centre in America are now actually teaching their cancer patients how their beliefs can make a difference to their chances of survival. What you believe is what you get… I think that just about sums it up nicely. Again there will be those of you who may not accept that entirely; but this is what happens when you believe something. For example if you believe that relationships are difficult and require a lot of work, then you will only attract people who will make your relationships difficult, or influence you to put a lot of work into them. Or if you worry about something happening to you, you will quite likely, over time, generate that scenario – a sobering thought isn’t it! Of course that doesn’t happen all the time - when you worry, a small part of you is still hopeful of a positive outcome, and this helps avoid a complete disaster. However if you were only to worry about some future event, considering only the worst case scenario, certain of a negative and destructive outcome, then you are in line for a pretty miserable time, because that is what you will bring to yourself. But there is more to ‘believing’ than merely creating beliefs.... I will post the remainder of this chapter later in the week. Many thanks for visiting. SL It's All About YOU eBook Edition By Simon Lawrence £3.99 + vat
It's All About YOU By Simon Lawrence https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/its-all-about-you/id924413646 Please click the book image or the above link to go to the Apple Bookstore Requirements: To view this book, you must have an iPad with iBooks 3 or later and iOS 5.1 or later, or a Mac with iBooks 1.0 or later and OS X 10.9 or later. I was sitting in the saloon of my tiny floating home recently, at times the sun would erupt through my high windows, then a rush of wind would come and nudge me, stretching my lines hard against the cleats on the pontoon… afterwards a brief shower ensued followed by another burst of sunshine… that seemed the pattern of the day… I hadn’t posted here for a while, so I searched amongst my paper clippings for a quote I found recently by Robert Louis Stevenson… ‘So long as we love, we serve; so long as we are loved by others, I should say that we are almost indispensable; and no-one is useless while he has a friend!’ What seems such a simple and obvious sentiment really has a great depth of meaning to us all, it emphasises the greatest ‘thing’ we can have in life and that is love and friendship. They have always been a great encouragement to me, especially in the quiet, concentrated mind of a writer we can feel alone at times, and this thing called social media can be a great comfort too. I know it gets a lot of criticism… but it is like assembling nearly everyone I know, sitting with you all over coffee, listening to your woes and your enthusiasms… laughing with you or helping you through a tough time, we all have those, we all get over them eventually too… and it is good that we are reminded that we can help our friends and our family in what seems to be a fundamentally struggling world. Of course it only appears that way at times, really it is not… when we are feeling strong and happy, then to share this with others is the greatest inspiration… giving a little of our selves, rather than just for ourselves, we do not really live unless we have our friends around us, like definite walls against the winds of the world. Here is my ovation to you all x © Simon Lawrence I woke early this morning, about six, it was dark and I could hear the soft tap of rain on the deck just above my head. I had been dreaming; something hideous, yet now it was only a feeling, and switching on the light the darkness disappeared as quickly as the memory of my nightmare. A nightmare is nothing but an illusion, gone as quickly as we wake, it does not last, it dies with the light… it is the world of the ego, a dream of what we think we are, that part of our mind that’s the delusional us… merely the thinking we all have that is ‘apart’ not ‘a part’ of who we really are. We cannot deny our ego exists so long as we continue to give it form and a meaning… yet when we learn to quieten its influence we are left with a feeling of awe and wonder. Do you remember when we were children, we experienced a lot of that, because then we did not have the illusion or delusion of our ego questioning constantly who we really are. When we learn that the ego is nothing, that it’s the ego that creates the darkness in our lives… the stress and the worry, the competition and the constant striving to be good enough… then the light comes… the ego is where the darkness was when we switched on the light. It is like the dream I had this morning… where is it? It has gone, nowhere to be found, it is truly nothing and nowhere. Where maliciousness was, now there is only civility. What is the ego? Where maliciousness was… where is the ego, in a malicious dream that seemed only real while I was dreaming it. So what is a life of awe? It is a dream as well! But to live in this dream rather than the one created by the ego, is to walk happy, to smile, to be unstressed by anything, to feel good about who we are, whatever the mirror in the bathroom has allowed us to create in our mind! And to look with a wry smile at what we left behind. What we left behind was our ego! The tape in our mind that has played the same tune for so long has now been quietened so we can hear the harmony of the real us… we've been there all along, but drowned in the cacophony of words and thoughts we paid such attention too. When the ego is quietened and the world of awe is your constant companion you will see a sudden brightness conceal the world your ego once made. I hope you all enjoyed your Sunday. © Simon Lawrence It was late, gone one in the morning and I’d not eaten since lunchtime, I had been driving non-stop for the past nine hours and I was still several from home. ‘Coffee please’ I said to the girl behind the counter… ‘Oh! And one of those too.’ I pointed to a yellowing photo of a burger with some salad and crisps scattered beside it… hoping for a little more colour when it appeared on my plate. She took my £10.00 and disappeared, so I found the nearest table and watched my weary reflection in the window. I hadn’t noticed him when I arrived, but a loud clatter made me turn to see what had made me jump… he sat slumped in his wheelchair and as I watched he slowly ran his long figures down each of the condiment bottles to figure out which he needed. His companion watched amused but seemed unwilling to help the old man. My coffee appeared without an acknowledgment, so I spooned in some sugar and gave it a long stir. As the froth curled over the chocolate topping I was reminded of a phrase my interviewee had said earlier in the day, ‘The days that make us happy make us wise’… The Poet Laureate John Mansfield wrote that, and hearing it again made me realise I had always thought it the other way around; and now sitting here sipping my coffee I finally grasped the true meaning of Mansfield’s philosophical observation. The wisdom that happiness makes possible lies in plain and unambiguous perception, not one fogged by anxiety or fear or stressed emotions. Real happiness, not just a satisfied grin or a contented feeling often comes to us suddenly, like an unexpected and brief sun shower on hot summers day. You realise what kind of wisdom has accompanied it. Like the summer cascade it makes the grass greener, and brings out the bird song. It helps lessen any problems we may have. Happiness is like putting our sunglasses on. Everything seems more colourful and easier on the eyes. Unhappiness or strained happiness, perhaps like we sometimes feel in a relationship, can cut our vision short, stunt our dreams and unbalance our clear perceptions… it is like standing in front of a brick wall and failing to turn around and see the wonderful view behind us. The sweeping panorama is there if only we look for it, the world at our feet, the people we love, our thoughts and emotions, everything becomes so much better proportioned when true happiness comes, and that is the beginning of wisdom. © Simon Lawrence ‘What if I mess it up?’ she said in a small voice, lacking any faith in her own abilities. ‘You will for sure then!’ I smiled at her… she looked a little surprised. ‘Why do you say that Simon, you are usually so positive!?’ William Blake the painter and the poet penned the words “If the Sun and the Moon should doubt, They’d immediately go out.” We should hold these words very close to our heart. I wish I had written them, how wonderful it would be if we had these in our mind before we started anything new… Having faith in yourself and a belief without doubt is the way out of the paralysing fear that stops us achieving the magnificent life we hold as a desire in our consciousness. It’s ok and natural to have moments when we are nervous and unsure, I’ve felt it whenever I’ve had to stand up and speak in front of an audience, all of my old feelings come rushing to me, they flood my mind, fog it entirely if I let them… the fear that I might open my mouth and nothing is heard, or looking at someone close to the lectern and they’ll raise their eyes at me with a hint of... who in hell does he think he is? But I have learned this initial lack of confidence effects all of us at certain times, it has probably been there right at the beginning of every great human accomplishment. Our self-doubt comes from the knowing that all of us grade and praise or blame whatever someone else does, our own ego makes a judgement based on our perception of whatever that ‘thing’ is. But perfectionism in an imperfect world is a perilous state, we must forget our doubts and our fears and get on with our task, whatever it is and do the very best we can. If we begin with a thought that we will fail in some way, then certainly we will, and if we push aside any doubt and look to the thoughts that it will be extraordinary, and to keep imagining that, despite anything that trips us along the way, then it will be that instead… it will be astonishing. I know that is hard to believe, but try it and I promise it will be exactly that. You have more power in you to create the life you choose than you have ever been told or taught. So I then said to her… ‘if you think only of a mess, you will surely achieve it, but imagine the praise and the smiles as you hand it over and it will be that instead. Think of your mind as a satnav, set the destination which is your end goal and begin. Doubt will make you deviate, so ignore any niggling uncertainty or what others might say… keep your sights focused exactly on your aim, and you will get there as surely as your car journey ends exactly where you set the address into your little electronic contraption. © Simon Lawrence This is a thought inspired by the writer Dale Carnegie who wrote the book ‘Stop worrying and start living,’ and especially I hope useful for your Monday morning. Lets just pretend the two of us are standing together right at this very second in time and we can look back on the time-line of our lives, the distant past that seems so unconnected to now, and then we turn and watch our future disappear into the furthest distance… But right now in this moment of time we are here, the meeting place of our past and what will be later today, then tomorrow and beyond… into forever. But we can never be in any other place than this moment, we cannot possibly live in the past, even if our mind attempts to do that, neither can we step into the future, we may try, but we only succeed in doing one thing and that is not living for today… so we wreck our lives, our mind becomes confused and depressed; stressed is a great word for it, we collapse under the burdens of all our yesterdays and the fearful tomorrows they created. So the answer then is to live for today, or more importantly for now, right at this place we are standing together. Yes some of today may involve reviewing the past or planning what we choose for tomorrow, but there is never an excuse for doing that with fear and regret. Today, or right now is the time to live, it is not a time for pointless worry about the future, because that is what we will eventually create, and we must stop… right now fretting over the clangers we have made along that time-time that is all of our yesterdays. I remember saying to my son as he grew to be the wonderful young man that makes me so proud to be his Father, and like all children, almost as I reversed from the drive, he would ask… ‘Dad, are we nearly there yet?’ So together we would mark our distance between mileposts, we would look for something familiar, and when we saw it we would look for the next and the one after that, it broke the journey into pieces and soon we were at our destination, of course it probably involved a substantial bar of chocolate along the way too. We can do the same with our lives… break all of our ‘NOWS into the present moment, and concentrate only on what we are doing… and inevitably better, more fulfilling tomorrows will follow… does this work, certainly, but the only way you will prove it is by trying it… by living it! © Simon Lawrence My phone rang as I wandered into Firth Street in London’s Soho, towards a crowd milling around a trendy café bar… I found a table and ordered a coffee and a sandwich. ‘So how’s your love life?’ said a familiar voice. ‘Hi Liz need you ask! You know its rubbish and you’re partly responsible,’ I protested. ‘If you would stop sending me all over the place maybe I could find time to settle down with a nice girl. Anyway, what do you want!’ I said rudely then laughed. Liz was my agent at the time, someone who lived life fast, far too fast, always in a hurry to get somewhere, yet that somewhere she had still to find. She was like so many people I meet who seem incapable of simplifying their thinking, never stopping long enough to work out a plan worth having. She really did not know what she wanted with her life, not really deep down inside of her… so she filled it with detail and busyness. The great philosopher Thoreau said in a quote: “Our life is frittered away by detail… the nation is ruined by want of calculation of a worthy aim… it lives too fast.” Henry Thoreau wanted to write a book, so for two years lived like a hermit in the woods. To feed himself he grew beans and corn… his idea was to escape the fritter and the agitation of his normal life so he could think about his book and then write it. He did and then he went home again. I don’t think we need to go to the extreme that Thoreau felt necessary, especially if you hate gardening… but it would help us all if we applied even in part some of his general principle. We all live in the midst of details that have us running in circles; stopping us achieving that goal we call our dream, we become tired, it brings on stress that can lead to a heart attack or a nervous breakdown. Maybe the answer is not to take to the woods, but to cut the detail from your mind and your day that fritter away what is most valuable in your life. I think what Henry Thoreau really meant was “to live deep rather than fast!” © Simon Lawrence I had an invitation a few years ago to give a brief talk about my work, something I felt unworthy to share… and the call had jangled my nerves. My old professor from college went to the lectern before me, and began his talk by demanding… ‘LAUGH! Everybody in the audience LAUGH! Out loud… that’s it,’ he said hoisting his hands towards the ceiling like a conductor. ‘Louder, louder!’ One after the other we began to laugh and pretty soon the whole place sounded like a drunken party… everyone was laughing and it was very real. When I had taken my seat on the stage, I hadn’t felt much like laughing, I was nervous and I had just come through a particularly testing part of my life… I had almost forgotten how to smile, and the grumpy expression went everywhere with me. But that evening I laughed with the rest of them, I just couldn’t help it, none of us could, it was infectious, and as I stood up to deliver my piece I felt altogether more me and the audience far more inquisitive of my words. I went away feeling much happier than I had in a long time. Laughter is a real medicine, it really does have optimistic vitamins in it, certainly it revived my sagging morale, I felt almost cleansed by that one moment of laughing and now I try to take at least one dose daily. © Simon Lawrence |
The words you speak and the thoughts you think are a confession of your private doubts and fears, or your joy and love of all things.
Here is some inspiration to create your life exactly as you want it, rather than the one you don't... SL x
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