Is it money you give to those less fortunate or in trouble? Is it drinks you buy for others? Is it sharing your lunch with someone who is hungry? Or is it giving up your time, for others?  

What occurred to me a few days ago is that I am being most generous when I am being generous with myself to others. I am being generous with my energy, my being. Flashing a smile so that someone feels your genuine warmth and sees your sparkling eyes is powerful. Not only does this cause “mirroring” in that person, so that they smile back, but if they open themselves up, they can also feel the warm energy that you have shared.   

What is that moment, that transfer of warm energy, worth to them? If it happens in the morning, and they accept it wholeheartedly, it could directly affect them, possibly for their whole day. They could gain considerable positive momentum and forget their troubles. The possibilities are limitless.

I’ll give you an example. If you are in London, chances are that at some point you’ll use the underground tube system. The unwritten code of conduct is to avoid all contact with other people, especially eye contact. People stare down at their newspapers or shuffle with their Ipods. Eye to eye contact is usually avoided at all costs, much to the bemusement of most tourists.

Imagine someone is sitting opposite you and doesn’t look entirely happy. It is within your power to connect with them via an authentic warm eyes and relaxed smile. You are supplying them with your positive energy and it is reassurance for them, that the world is alright and today might just be a good day after all.

That person can take that energy and it could affect them in all sorts of ways. They might even pass the energy on and affect other people. A whole chain of positive warm energy could circulate around London.

Imagine if thousands of people did this! You can be the cause of that. This is available to you at any time.

Being generous with yourself is giving them what only you can possibility give, your authentic self. Share in fun with people. Share your energy and your vibrancy. You can brighten their day. Hiding yourself is being incredibly stingy.   

Being generous opens your “doors” to let energy flow from you to them. Opening your “doors” also allows their energy to flow from them into you. In that respect, being generous is very rewarding indeed.

Warmest wishes,  

Dan

We all have the experience of stuff ‘going wrong’; the tool you are using breaks in the middle of a project, you hurt yourself or notice you are not feeling 100%, someone makes an observation about what you are doing or the way you are behaving, people start responding differently to something that you have been doing for a while.

Much of the received wisdom of our society is that these things are coincidences.

Another view is that “God” or “The Universe” is communicating with us.

A third view is that we create precisely the situations we need, even if we don’t think we want then, even if we really don’t think we want them.

Perhaps all three are true in different circumstances. Perhaps the cause is irrelevant?

For example, I have learned very reluctantly that if I train to hard on my bike, I might feel some slight cold symptoms. Eventually I realised that these symptoms are a message telling me to rest. If I listen and rest they go away. If I don’t they get worse.

So this is clearly an example of my body creating the situation I need to help me.

Another example of this kind of thing are the kind of stress related illnesses that are so common. It might start with similar cold symptoms, but if we don’t listen and give our bodies the space to recover, the symptoms will escalate.

But what about the other stuff?

What about when your computer starts acting up when you are trying to get something done, or your car breaks down or someone makes a comment that nags away at you.

Perhaps that best way for all situations is to examine them for potential learnings AND potential opportunities.

If things don’t turn out the way you were hoping, what can you learn for next time, what are the new opportunities created by the space left by ‘failure’.

If you have an accident or illness and are incapacitated for a while. How can you use the time for self learning? What are the opportunities for different things to do or ways to do things?

When you car or computer packs up at the vital moment, what can you learn about your level of dependence or the margins you allow in the way you plan?

When the market takes a dramatic downturn and you income disappears, how might you innovate to adapt to the new market conditions?

Success can hold back our learning, but challenges can focus the mind and bring new insight and transformation.

If you can learn to focus on learning and opportunities you can always move forward, no matter what challenges appear.

How are you going to apply this message to your life and your work?

If you would like help you might want to consider:

Authentic Transformation Day Liverpool or business coaching or personal coaching or self coaching with Seven Stages of Authenticity.

Drop me a line and we can work out what will work best for you.

With love

nx

neil crofts  - coach, consultant, facilitator
Authentic Transformation - join the evolution
UK mobile 07775 658534
neil@authentictransformation.co.uk 
www.authentictransformation.co.uk

“Failure should be our teacher, not our undertaker. Failure is
delay, not defeat. It is a temporary detour, not a dead end.
Failure is something we can avoid only by saying nothing,
doing nothing, and being nothing.”

Predicting the future is a risky game, but there are some meta trends going on that are worth noticing and responding to. These trends will affect our lives, our businesses and our children’s lives.

The trends we are already experiencing suggest more dramatic changes in the way we live over the next 20-30 years. If these predictions sound far fetched just think how you might have responded if you had been told about how the internet or mobile phones would have changed the way we live in 1978.

We can respond to these changes in two ways - we can deny them or we can embrace them. If we deny them we will be left behind, if we embrace them we will find opportunities for happiness and fulfilment.

Oil - the price of oil will continue to rise. Massive increases in demand from China and India coupled with falling new discoveries means that supply will be squeezed pushing prices up. This is a good thing.

A significant proportion of the affluence we enjoy in some parts of the world is based more on the availability of cheap energy than it is on human ingenuity. Human ingenuity is a sustainable resource, oil is not. Higher oil prices and climate change will encourage investment in more creative solutions for transport, heating and other energy than simply digging it out of the ground.

Our pensions and disposable income are already being eroded by rising oil prices and it is likely that oil prices will double again over the next two years. If we want to maintain our lifestyle it is time to invest in decreasing our dependence on oil.

We need to disconnect ourselves from our addiction to fossil fuels and start creating and inventing our way out of it.

Here is an example of how it can be done:

www.zerocarbonhouse.com

We also need to dramatically change our attitude to travel. Travel is important, meeting people and learning about new cultures is important, it promotes the kind of compassion and ingenuity that we need to live peacefully and sustainably. Isolation is not an option.

Commuting and much business travel, on the other hand, is enormously wasteful. Since moving to Mallorca we have found that much of the travel we did in the UK was unnecessary. My work is now more international than ever, with clients from the middle east to the west coast of the US and from Norway to South Africa, virtually all of it is web or phone based and I travel less than ever.

Rising oil prices will help us evaluate our travel needs more carefully.

Water - is following closely behind oil as demand increases and supply becomes less reliable due to the effects of climate change. Clean, safe drinking water will continue to become more and more expensive. The price of water will become an issue for all of us within 20 years.

Now is the time to invest in water saving technologies, such as rainwater harvesting and reusing grey water. We do not need to use precious drinking quality water to flush the loo or water the garden.

www.mywaterwisehome.com

Make increased self sufficiency in water, fuel and food part of your ‘pension’.

Work - It is becoming more and more clear that, in many cases, employing people, or being employed is far from being the optimum solution for either party.

Being employed instantly creates hierarchy and removes responsibility. As most managers know, managing people is an extremely challenging and stressful job. And most people who dislike their job cite a poor relationship with their manager as part of the reason.

There is already a strong trend towards more and more independent working, but for many this is high risk and challenging.

Over the next 10 years there will be an increasing movement towards self-employment especially in areas that have traditionally been low paid and manual work. This ‘micro outsourcing’ will be driven by businesses looking for ways to reduce cost and risk and made possible by technology which will facilitate just in time ordering and reduced cost of transactions. One of the benefits of micro-outsourcing is that it will remove the limits on what people can earn that tend to go with employment.

If you employ people - how might you help them to become more independent?

If you are employed - how might you propose a higher level of independence to your employer?

If you want more support in innovating your business or life to the new paradigm, drop me a line and we can see if I can help.

Or come and find out more at the Authentic Transformation Day in Liverpool on 13 June.

With love

nx

neil crofts  - coach, consultant, facilitator
Authentic Transformation - join the evolution
UK mobile 07775 658534
neil@authentictransformation.co.uk 
 

 My phone has been ringing this week as my clients with hay fever are experiencing their annual symptoms. Although it can sometimes take a little while to find the right remedy for them they find that a few doses of their individually selected remedy always works well and keeps their symptoms at bay.It is surprising when I look at their case notes how they will phone almost on exactly the same day each year.

Yesterday I had a call from a schoolboy’s mother asking for a remedy for her son. When I looked at his case notes I saw that he had needed the homeopathic remedy on 4th May 2004 4th May 2007, 12th May 2008. He had not suffered at all in 2005 and 2006. Incidentally he is a patient I have been treating since 2002 for eczema, which has almost completely cleared up now and is only an occasional problem which always responds well to the occasional dose of his homeopathic remedy.

Each case is individual and so I usually go through a questionnaire with my clients to check what is most bothering them: eyes, nose or throat and to get as detailed a symptom picture as possible. I then match their symptoms to the homeopathic remedy that most clearly matches their exact symptoms; there are over 30 homeopathic remedies that are suitable for hay fever symptoms.

A client telephoned me on Friday to report that her hay fever had started, as well as the more common symptoms of sneezing; constantly blowing the nose and itchiness of nose and throat, her nose is bleeding too. Last year she was asthmatic at night with the hay fever, this improved by 75% within a matter of day of her starting treatment. So far her symptoms are much milder this year.

If you would like to read more about Homeopathy and Hay fever, please send for my free factsheet.

Mike Andrews DSH RSHom

Registered Homeopath

Clinics in London and West Sussex

mike@westsussexhomeopathy.co.uk
www.westsussexhomeopathy.co.uk

Last night I went to my very first meditation class. It was a group of eight people and one teacher. I’m not sure if he is a Buddhist monk, I didn’t ask. It is likely though, as he was wearing the traditional orange robes, was perfectly present and had a stillness that had me gawp. During his introduction he told us that he had been meditating for 17 years.

I have flirted with meditation for perhaps four or five years now. A friend of mine gave me a book which challenged my thinking at that time. The book was called “The Power of Now.” and I found it very powerful indeed. It gave me ideas on how to focus on my breathing patterns and feel energy in my body, from my toes to the crest of my head.

I practised a bit over the following days and weeks; and I felt a clear head, for sure. At first it seemed impossible to ignore my constant thinking and distraction. To clear my head of thought for more than a few minutes was a battle. Surely it is supposed to be easier, or was I doing it incorrectly?

Last night I took the plunge after spotting an advert in a local coffee shop near my home. Meditation classes for six weeks, every Monday night. Why not, I thought.

We started off with pre-meditative focus on breathing. Now I understood. I had been doing the entrée thinking it was the main course! Once we fully relaxed and were in-line with our breathing (after perhaps fifteen minutes), we listened to our teacher talk to us about desire and how it cannot bring real true happiness and contentment.

I have to admit, I was a little challenged by what he was saying, as I am pretty driven. I find desire is like a fuel for me. I need that fuel to climb up my mountain. It drives me. I asked him how Buddhist wisdom sits with achievement through desire. Part of his response was that aspiration is very different from desire. He went on to talk to us about contentment and in the final fifteen minutes we meditated on contentment. It was a very surreal time for me.

As I concentrated on contentment I considered what contented means to me, how others look and behave when contented. What makes me feel contented? My eyes were closed, however I could visualise many things and people and places that give me a contented feeling. Then I began to consider where I am, who I am, what I have, what I can do, who I know …. and all of these give me tremendous satisfaction and contentment.

I felt my chest puff out and my face contorted until a smile broke out. :-) Energy pulsated through my body and when our teacher asked us to open our eyes we all radiated our inner glow.

This morning I added ten minutes meditation to my new morning routine after jogging through the park. The sun was out and sparkled. My journey to work was really enjoyable. Rather than shuffling through my Ipod searching for a pick-me-up tune, I drew great satisfaction listening to anything that came my way.

It’s a lovely day today and I feel content. Yes, very content.

It’s all good.

Dan Elman – Self Developer