Tips to find Focus and use its Power!

Wanna know one the most interesting thing about our children and ourselves now a-days?

We all have problems with focus.

We think we’ve got it down. That we can focus when we “put our mind to it.” But in truth, we’re continually flipping from one thing to another, and that’s where life gets incredibly scattered.

I like to compare it to tabs on an internet browser. We all do it. We all have our email tab open at the same time as our social media. We all come up with some idea of something to check up, so we surf a bit for a solution, at the same time waiting for a notification. We are a generation of distraction and we’re passing that on to our children.

Our children are scattered and then they are getting into trouble for not focusing.

So, what is focus, really? Is it simply the ability to put attention on something for a specific period of time? Is it the concentration on a project or the ability to stick to one job until it’s completed?

Currently, I have children doing schoolwork downstairs, I have some laundry that needs to be done, I just cleaned up the kitchen, but was thinking about this post while I was doing it... I’ve promised a son I’m taking him to the park in 20 minutes and I’m awaiting responses to some emails.

It feels a little pushed and pulled in my opinion.

Also, I just had to shift gears on a webinar I was planning and change it to a course, so somewhere in my subconscious I’m designing that, so all in all, I could be really stressed and scattered if I wasn’t aware of it.

I believe focus is more than just about zero-ing in on one thing at a time.

Focus is about intention... and intention is about aligned energy.

It’s the wish-washyness of indecisiveness that creates chaos. Once we line up to some intention, everything seems to flow within that direction.

Often guilt, or the super-mommy complex gets in the way and within that one poisonous thought of “when I focus on that, surely my children will just be aimless...” that we run around trying to “set them up”, before taking care of our own energy direction.

But then, you ask, how do we choose the direction if we’re so scattered we don’t know how to form priorities.

First step... meditate.

It doesn’t need to be a long sit down meditation. Rather its the simple concept of gathering your thoughts and energy to form a focused stream. Imagine your thoughts... each creating energy.. and you simply focus on the energy for a moment... letting it gather in front of you.

Create that ball of light and love in front of you, reminding yourself that there is nothing more important to that to radiate as yourself before you do anything else.

By that focus of feeling grounded in Who You Really Are... you then allow inspiration and other universal powers to help you lay out your intentions.

So... first breathe. Breathe in for the count of 5... hold for the count of 5... and exhale for the count of 5.

Repeat 5 times.

Now, you might find you’ve forgotten what was so scattered and the day feels clearer.

Next... very pragmatically, I usually write a brief list.

No specific order... just what would feel nice to have accomplished in the day... and then I put it in an easy order to let it flow through.

But... let’s face it... we have children and sometimes plans are made to be broken. Sometimes, sandtables need to be played with, or we need to jump on a trampoline.. sometimes we need to break all order to have some fun.

Next remind yourself that that’s where life shows up... in between plans.

and in that aligned energy of your day... allow things to show up. When you've started with meditation, than you can sense the energy of what's flowing in. You can line up to taking a break from your list. You can show up with your children at the park, rather than letting the back thoughts in of "I should be doing something else..." So lining up to the moment is also a trick of focus.

I’m working on own focus, really. I’m working on my social media consumption and how to schedule it rather than be absorbed by it. When we were travelling on the road I had no access (I won’t allow myself a smart phone), and I know I became more present. But I also felt out of touch with my clients and work, which didn’t suit me at all. So, I’m researching and feeling my way.

Because I don’t like my thoughts to be tabs in my own brain’s server. Rather, I want them to be directed streams of energy... full of joy and emotion and feeling... full of power which can be picked up on from the universal source that can bring in more of the same.

Life is exciting when we allow it to be and a scattered brain, leads to nothing. It’s full of deadends and the attraction point is simply chaos.

Vibrational Focus!

Want a focus exercise?
 Find an overall vibrational focus... an image of something that feels wonderful. Be it the feeling of being on a family bike ride, or being by the beach... something that resonates with freedom and order and fun and laughter. Something that resonates with your dream day.

Rest your tongue against your teeth, at the bottom of your mouth and simply allow the feeling of the thought flow over you. Stay there for a few moments.

When you are doing this short exercise, you are actually training your focus to reach a vibrational goal. You are feeling something strongly and holding it.. allowing it to build and show up in your day.

If we can teach ourselves to do this first thing in the morning we are simply making a suggestion to the universal source about what we want to feel more of... and then we can let the day flow in accordingly.

So, I’d like to hear what your favorite feeling space is? What’s an image that calls it up?

And if you focus on it... does your day flow in with that same feeling? Easily unfolding in joy?

And if you want to pop over to the FB Group or Page to share your intentions and focuses... it’s a great way to explore how they feel and to share with others.

Because together, we can help create a stronger focus and radiate Who We Really Are.

Setting New Year Intentions- A process of creation

I love New Years. It’s a time to re-focus, review and reset intentions for a new time. I look at the past year, acknowledge what went well, and what didn’t, and reset my sails accordingly.

It’s easy to fall into the trap of spinning my wheels in the same rut if I don’t stop and look at intention, and where I want to turn my attention.

Intention- just as the title of my book release this year- Intentions for the Spiritually Aware Parent. Intention has been a strong theme of 2015.

 Life is a pressure pot of power and when we have a simple vision, even waking up and setting the intention to be more present in our moment, with a little focus we can reap a million fold. It’s an incredible experience to hold an intention for a moment, let it slip out to the universe and then watch it unfold before you.

I got a theme for my intention of 2016, and I’m taking it from the Queen’s Christmas message... although the quote is supposedly an Ancient Chinese proverb, but I hadn’t heard it until this Christmas day.

“It is Better to Light a Single Candle, Than Curse the Darkness.”

I come from a family of gossipers. We’re a big family of a lot of women and we get around and talk... a lot. Often the conversations growing up were about other people, or complaining about situations, or at least just observing what was in our situation. Over time I’ve learnt about intention and about how our perspective can illuminate what once could feel dark. It is sometimes only about telling a different, deeper story and shifting focus in a direction that feels better, to change the course of a conversation or a day.

Ok, curse the darkness might be a little strong... but it is actually apt. For when we observe what we don’t like and hold it in our thoughts... things get dark and all we do is make it more intense with our focus.

Therefore, I would like to invite you to create a New Year Intention this year, rather than a resolution. Rather than focusing on what is wrong and planning on changing it, consider focusing on a feeling that feels wonderful and letting it resonate and radiate through you. The more we put focus on something the more it appears. Let’s put focus on light and love.

But how do you find that pure intention? That one you really mean?

I invented a little exercise which has brought a lot of clarity for me and I hope my girls will try their own take on it.

 I call it the New Years Tree.

The tree represents the Year... and starts with a seed.

The seed is your intention. Your focus. A small intended shift that has big impact.

For instance, if you can tell in the photo, my seed is to have more self discipline (which is defined by more scheduled days and focus.)

From that seed, roots will sprout.

The Roots are the spiritual grounding effect the seed will bring when active.

For me, things like clarity, security and freedom will come from my seed of self discipline.

(Therefore, they aren’t a goal, they are a result.)

Next is the trunk... the process or path the year will take.

A path of mindfulness and awareness comes from self discipline.

And from that, the fruit.

From that route, I will grow further co-creation and interaction with my readers and clients, I will have more play with my family, more adventure, more fun. I will have more experience and expansion.

But those things don’t have to be on the list of my Intention as they are results of the intention ,or the seed, planted in the year.

It’s a playful, yet insightful exercise and one that can set a clearer intention for the new year.

 We’ve done other exercises, my daughters’ and I;

 we’ve written intentions down and thrown them in the fireplace to send them to the universe. 

We’ve done inspiration boards, visualizing what we intend. 

We’ve had lit candles, blowing out the old year and giving light to the new.

And, since I was a teen, I’ve written a year in review and the year in preview in a journal.

It’s an exciting time of re-birth and rejuvenation that I hope lights you up from the inside.

In case you are wondering, I have great plans and news coming over the coming months of 2016.

 I am honored to have you on this journey with me. If you want any help setting up your New Years Tree, don’t hesitate to contact me. We are all in this together and together...

We can light a lot of candles.

Happy New Year everyone.

Shine on!

Natural parenting.

So there’s natural parenting and then there’s Natural Parenting.... as in how they parent in nature.

6 weeks ago we became the proud grandparents to four kittens. Their birth was momentous, with mom cat (Paws) having no clue what was happening and leaving her first born on the steps as she ran around the house in a panic. Luckily my husband, who has helped 2 of our children and a couple of goat kids arrive earthside, scooped up little FB (first born... but who now is known as Facebook oddly enough) cleared her face and woke her up and then called over mommy cat to show her what was happening. Once mom saw FB her face literally lit up and she excitedly ran to her “nest” in the kennel we’d set up for her and successfully, and happily, birthed the other three.

Mom Cat, or Paws, has been one of those focus-less cats. She was picked up with her two siblings for our farm 3 years ago and our eldest daughter took her under wing, but then an adopted stray caught our daughter’s attention and Paws became the family’s cat... or no one’s. She ate what we put down and wouldn’t have anything to do with anyone. And then, she fell in love. She snuck out one morning and her lover came... along with a rival. Poor Paws lost her innocence and came home which was suddenly her sense of security.

A few months later, FB was being left on the stairs in confusion... much like Paws’ life. But then... with one glance... clarity and focus.

For the first week and a half Paws was on duty. She never left her kittens, except for a moment to go to the litter or grab a quick bite. The minute she heard stirring she was back to her babies. As her kitties would fall asleep while feeding, I was struck with how many times my babies had fallen asleep at my breast in the same way, how they looked punch drunk from milk and how Paws was in that euphoric state of mommy bliss that comes for those first few days.

(I often talk about that post birth period, when the pregnancy is in the past and the future doesn’t seem important. I think the moments after birth and those first few days are some of the most present, magical and spiritual moments I’ve ever experienced. There seems to be a quiet, conscious contentment that settles in the air.)

After that first week and a half, Paws looked more to self care. It had turned extra hot, so she shifted to finding comfort sitting outside the kennel, where the babies were starting to pull themselves around, with their eyes shut and their curiosity peaking. Sometimes one of our children would be watching them from outside the kennel as well, and Paws would leave for a few minutes to stretch her legs, leaving my children in charge of hers.

Over the past few weeks, I’ve watched Paws in awe, as she weaves in and out of her children’s explorations. They now run and play all over the place, and Paws sits in the middle of the room, mindfully knowing her children’s whereabouts, but waiting until she’s needed to interfere. If she thinks one of them is in trouble, you can hear her meowing away, telling them to find her. If they need help, she’s by their side. She has truly become the epitome of a positive parent... who is encouraging her children to be independent, yet surrounding them with love and security as she offers them tools to excel.

Natural Parenting is being given too many rules, too many restrictions. It’s not about what carrier you use, or what words and phrases you say. It’s about keeping things simple.

We need to love our children and lovingly offer them tools to have a happy life and to be the best of themselves. We don’t need to punish them or control them into becoming the version WE want them to be and we don’t need to hover over them, making sure everything goes their way. We don’t need to leave them to their own devices, without any sense of security to build them up stronger. Rather, life is simple balance. Watching them and allowing them space to grow, learn and Be. Being there for help, security and play and Loving them, from afar or from up close, or with that blissful connection as they fall asleep in our paws... I mean arms.

I was so nervous about having these kittens. I raised my hands to the universal powers and exclaimed “WHY?!” But, I’m so thankful I didn’t follow the advice of others and found a way of stopping the experience. I have watched a spirit focus into her dream, I have watched maternal instincts and love blossom before my eyes. I have witnessed how parenting is defined in nature and how, in all simplicity, love and respect spreads across all species... yet as humans, we tend to make it all more complicated then it needs to be.

A Child Isn't a Joke

The situation would be frowned upon if it was about race or gender, but if it’s about children, society has no problem cracking a joke.

A seemingly harmless Facebook status about how hard it is to concentrate on work when surrounded by cute kids opens a gateway for generalized comments and jokes, such as “they’ll be doing something disgusting soon enough” or “Imagine them 10 years down the road stealing your car.” Somehow, even just the two word response “beat them” is considered funny. 

What? When did it become okay to make that sort of comment? 

Why is an age slur different than a race one and when are we as a society going to start treating our children as respected citizens?

2015 started off with many heated debates regarding free speech and what it meant. With the horrifying tragedies in Paris, some still questioned whether ridicule and criticism regarding any group was a fair representation of free speech. I have a problem with the statement “people should learn how to take a joke” especially since we are consistently battling bullying for our children in the schools. It feels like a mixed message.

We tell our children not to hurt others and to respect differences. We tell them to help others smaller than themselves, to see people as individuals and not stereotype groups. We encourage them to accept that others have different beliefs and cultures, but then, in grown up society, we can mock, sneer and jeer at whomever and whatever as long as it has a certain quality of wit. 

When I commented on the Facebook comment thread, simply saying that my kids were too incredible to be distracted from, I was told that “everyone loves their kids, but they like to laugh too.” I was being a killjoy. Because I was suggesting that children, individual human beings, who are at the beginning of learning about life, who are often struggling to adapt to adult surroundings and being expected to know how to be without being taught in simple steps, CHILDREN shouldn’t be laughed at, labelled as simply cute and stereotyped as people headed for trouble.

Is it social media that has us so cut off from basic consideration for others, both individually and as groups? Are we so desperately in search of that funny status that we’ll make fun of our loved ones or anyone standing too close?

I don’t even understand how it comes about. Why are children so often, generalized negatively when we were all young once? It’s not like different cultures where unless you live and breathe them it’s difficult to fully feel what they are. I remember being a child and my attempts at learning as I went along. Generalizing how I was going to behave based on my age often did me harm. In fact it left me isolated and confused. You remember, don’t you, that feeling of walking into a store and the staff watching you intently, and convinced you were going to sneak something into a pocket, all the while knowing it was usually the least suspecting that would shoplift.

In my mind any ridiculing of any stereotyped version of a group does one thing: it perpetuates more of that perspective. The power of words is that they create, they empower their message. The more we put focus on the mess children can create in their explorations, rather than on the excitement of their explorations themselves, the more it’s the mess we see. The more we comment on our children’s downfalls, even generalized downfalls which other people have made a joke of, the more we look to our children to back it up and the more we have a distorted view of who they are. It is like a projector goes up between us and them, and the image we watch of them is simply an image, no longer capable of personal connection.

My children and I laugh all the time. We joke about and have been known to raise passing people’s eyebrows with our giggles and goofy behaviour. However, they are being raised with the care not to make fun of things. If you make fun of something beautiful, even a fairytale, you will never see it the same way again. If you mock something then be prepared for your perspective to change forever. We’ve all occasionally watched a skit on a show like Saturday Night Live and repeat it in our minds with a laugh whenever we hear about the issue or person again. It’s the comic’s greatest legacy and responsibility to shift perspective to the humorous side. Do we want to change perspective of how we see our children?

We’re an ever evolving and developing human race. We are suppose to be forever moving forward, but we have to ask ourselves, can’t we learn that bullying is bullying, no matter the age or the cause, and that no victim should have to be told to “take a joke”. Verbal abuse is often in the form of ridicule and it is abuse, whether directed at one person or at a group, and generalization of children, like any group of people, simply creates walls against seeing people as individuals.

Our children, just like ourselves, are individuals. They sometimes make messes, make mistakes and occasionally act ridiculously cute, just like us. It’s all the process of this thing called life and all of us often need a helping hand of support not to be the butt of a Facebook joke.

The Facebook Log off Week and the inspiration that followed.

As I mentioned last post I’ve been doing the artist’s Way by Julia Cameron over the past few weeks and the results are mind boggling. I have found myself burbling up to the surface, barely aware that so much had been gently being ignored as it was shoved under my consciousness. Crazy isn’t it?  A woman who writes under being Spiritually Aware suddenly finds out that maybe I haven’t been quite as Aware as I’ve been wanting to be. Hence the lack of posts over the past couple of years I suppose.

But like all unawareness the coming back into awareness is sublime. Like a wonderful page-turning novel I am discovering so much about Me and what I’ve expanded to over the past few years. Its like catching up with an old friend.

It is reminding me that is exactly what life is about. We are spiritual beings in a physical reality. We come here to live and often in that living we become closed off from the spiritual being we really are. If we live entirely from the Spirit perspective, we feel closed off, like observers to a movie scene. We are involved, but sometimes a little distant from the human experience. Yet, when we are unaware of the Spiritual element of life, we get so caught up in the illusion of it all, in the game that we become a victim to our own reality. Balance. The great Teeter-Totter of life.  I am back to LIVING my life, no longer distantly watching it or getting caught up in it, LIVING my day to day. CREATING my day to day and greeting the sun with a smile and a wave.

I was so excited on this new journey that I almost didn’t notice my exercises last week, until my jaw dropped. Cameron had suddenly announced the week of reading deprivation. No newspapers, no books no reading. Well that would be OK if it was twenty years ago when the book was written. Now, here in 2015... it meant no Facebook.

We run a small business. I post on SAP all the time, I email. Suddenly I found myself ponder, how was I to go Internet surfing free. I gave myself guidelines. Writing, no reading. No scanning newsfeeds, no clicking on links, only emails and posts to write. I was on for about 5 minutes twice a day. My computer wasn’t even turned on at home. I was free.

Yes, seriously. From dreading it, wondering how I could do it and horrified at my own habit, feeling like an FB junky, in a quick switch, I was free. Not only that, my posture improved, I stood straight and I focused on my family more. I could feel energy from my head to my toes and like darling Julia predicted, my thoughts were my own again.

That’s the idea. We are bombarded by thoughts all the time. We are inundated with information (plug, my husband wrote a song called Information Overload which he will be releasing on his next album, keep in touch at www.vibrationraisers.com) and it literally is forming what we think. It tells us how to see the world. Our perspective, which is really our own identity, is being formed by the information we take part in and now, in the age of the internet, we take part in more than before.  A day into my internet free week and I made a scary discovery. My emotional detachment, my sense of observing which I often had thought was a sense of spiritual awareness was none other than a symptom of information overload. Yes, I was observing life, but not for spiritual expansion, but for the postability of the event. How could I share it with others? How could I take a snapshot of the experience? Meanwhile, I was too far removed to experience it myself.

Yes, I’ve called myself back from the Facebook Abyss. I’m demanding my emotions back again. After all, yes, positive thought is the key to happiness but avoiding feeling offness cuts you off from your inner guidance system. FEELING is key to living! I needed to hear that inner voice again.

So, I enlisted one of my favourite tools. A tool I have passed on to so many. The wonderful world of Inspiration boarding. I went to my library, who had just sorted out their past issues of various magazines with very good timing, and I brought back a stack of everything from Parent Magazine to Architectural Digest. I browsed, I scanned and everything that made me feel good I cut out. Soon I had a box full and yesterday I started. My new desk I got a few weeks back had a glass top, so I carefully removed it and started scrapbooking underneath it. Nature images, quotes, pretty things, Opening French Doors with sunlight pouring in, beaches and one simple antique desk with a pulled out chair inviting me to sit down, now greets me when I sit here to create. I’ve told my children it’s my place for escape. I can visit any one of these images whenever I wish. I can imagine walking on the beach or sitting under a tree. I can do as I wish. What’s fascinating is the selection of images. As I cut them out I found myself re-introduced to my own inner self, learning I’ve grown and expanding as a person since starting the SAP site 5 years ago. That was the last time I did an Inspiration board (and from then to now a lot of what appeared on there has manifested into real life) and the difference is incredible. From my board based on cozy home life, on little children, babies, warm kitchens and comfy chairs, my new one is expansive, wide open spaces and inviting doors.  Its full of the unknown, full of adventure. It’s exciting.

So, why blog about this? Why confess to you that I, a Spiritually aware living coach, has been off lately and just connected? Because, I surprised myself with how the computer disconnected me. It blocked me. Before I went offline I read an article saying that children are actually becoming unable to recognize  human emotions through facial expressions because of screentime. It was a study performed somewhere. But I think its deeper. WAY deeper. I think we are being shut off from our emotional guidance systems. I think we are exposed to so much we are observing our lives, not as Spirit, but as.... as a viewer. We need to claim ourselves back again. Now will I be back on FB?...um yup. I’ll be posting and interacting. Will I scan my newsfeed and check out the Trending column, probably not. I love my FB community of SAP, it fuels me up with the interactions and people I’ve met. But I’ll also be logged off a lot more. I’ll be lying on a beach... somewhere in Spain.... or walking through a sunlit door... or walking down a bluestone path... and I won’t even have to leave my chair.