As you start to read this article, I invite you to stop and take three, deep, slow breaths. Are you aware of how you are feeling right now? Are you anxious, tense, relaxed, stressed ? How does your body feel ? We all feel levels of stress, it is a part of  life. We need a certain level of stress to function and get things done but there is good stress and bad stress. Sometimes it can feel like one of those rides at the fairground. You know, the one you should never have got on and now it wont stop. HELP! Then we grit our teeth and bear it and that’s our life?

Almost everyone wants to change something in  their lives. Often, we don’t know what or how to start and that keeps us stuck.  Most of the things that concern us and take up our thoughts, are external and anything external that absorbs our energy in a negative way, is just another way for us to be distracted from what is really true for us . When we are unhappy, we often  search outside ourselves for the cause. Our jobs, partners, past, lack of education can all carry the blame for a while. It is the nature of the human condition  that we spend much of our lives trying to change others. The reality is that change can only come from within us. In order to access this potential for change, I believe that we need to turn our focus inwards .

If we don’t take the time to stop and assess where we are in ourselves, we just get pulled along, doing anything and everything we are asked, without even considering that there might be an alternative option. Disturbed sleep patterns, anxiety, depression, mood swings, overeating/under eating, headaches, stomach problems, skin rashes can all be symptoms that indicate we need to stop and take a look at how we are living our lives.

We often think we know what we should be doing, we may have shelves of books telling us to breathe, relax, make time for ourselves everyday. But how to take that first step, is the million dollar question. If we tell ourselves we must we certainly won’t! If we tell ourselves we should then I’ll be damned if I will! My heels dig in and there I stay.  For me, the only way is by moving my focus from the external to the internal. By removing my need for an answer, solution or decision or action to take, by not striving for a perceived outcome, I find that the way forward often  appears effortlessly. Only then am I ready to take a few small steps forward.

Sometimes, things have to get worse before they get better . There is a grain of truth in the saying that we have to hit rock bottom before we ask for help and sometimes we still can’t ask. We just carry on in the same old, unhappy way, believing that that’s our lot.  Things can only improve when we are ready to let them improve. That means that no-one can force us towards a better life, everything has its natural rhythm and sometimes we need to stay where we are for a while longer. Even if that place is not comfortable. The more we fight, scold and berate ourselves, then the more we fold away and hide. I believe that conflict within us can arise because we are hanging on to a personal vision or outcome that is no longer true for us and that keeps us frozen. Fighting with what is, keeps us in pain. Learning to trust and adapt to what is, is freedom.

Fionnuisce , Herons Court,  Market Quay  Bandon, Cork. For more details and bookings contact Mari at westcorklifecoach@gmail.com or tel 086152 3432