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Are you feeling happy?

Emotional Health, Love, Mental Health, Personal Development, Recovery, Spiritual Health

Do you ever find that sometimes the same thing keeps showing up in your life in different forms and situations like it’s in a slightly different colour to everything else so that it will stand out and you take notice? Well, I’ve been seeing lots of amazing projects and meeting with lots of courageous, community and system changing people lately that have brought a number of things to me to ponder upon.

I’ve been reflecting upon what we seek out of our experience of being alive. Personal fulfilment, a feeling of connection, a perception of belonging, happiness and a sense of self-worth all seem vital components to living a happy life (securing a definition of ‘happy’ would take another article so please just see it to mean what it means for you).

I have learnt that there are many simple things that you can do so as to have these in your life, but here are a few to get you started.

  • Pay it forward. I am continuously amazed at how the more I give, the more I receive. I seem to live on fresh air at times, yet me and my children have enough to meet our needs and a little more. I’m not sure how it works other than seeing it as an energy that flows around people who engage in this way of operating.
  • Get involved in a project in your Community. Find something locally and become a part of a bigger picture to make a difference. In Oxfordshire, there is a new project just launching called The OTCN Oxhop Challenge. There are always things happening in your community and if you can’t find something, create it!
  • When you stop to talk to someone, a friend, a colleague, an acquaintance, comment on how well they look, or how the colour they are wearing suits them, or pass on something good to them that you heard someone else say. It’s not hard to say something nice to someone but it can make the biggest difference to the receiver of the compliment and they’ll be left with a lovely feeling. The quote “People may not remember exactly what you did, or what you said, but they will always remember how you made them feel” springs to mind.
  • Being who you are is actually all you’re meant to be….self-love is the cornerstone to everything! Remember that….
What do you do? What brings you the happiness you seek? How do you feel a sense of belonging and purpose? What can you share about what you have learnt on your journey that might help someone else reading this post?

 

 

 

The Mindfulness of Massage

Benefits Of Massage, Emotional Health, Massage in Witney, Mental Health, Mindfulness, Spiritual Health

I have always been fascinated with the idea of meditation and have often wondered how some people appear to have the ability to sit calmly and quietly, focusing on breathing and not much else. But it was one of those things I felt was inaccessible to me. I have a very busy head, filled with excitement and ideas and creations and I can sometimes appear quite unfocused, which I’m actually not especially but my focus is untidy and a little unstructured sometimes and left unchecked, can make me feel very tired.

In May last year, I went away for a week to enable me to have some space to write, away from the distractions of daily life with a company called Serenity Retreat where I met a lovely woman called Anne who was running a Course there on Mindful Meditation. This was the first time I heard about it and I was stunned that I could even participate in short 10 minute group meditations without completely distracting myself.

I have gently and slowly built upon this introduction over the last few months. Mindfulness is about paying attention to purpose, having awareness, being conscious. I had never been able to deal with my continuing thoughts through meditation, but Mindfulness just acknowledges them in a non-judgemental way. They are not good or bad. But by awareness of them and redirecting awareness away from negative thoughts and using an anchor to bring thought back to, their effect on our lives diminishes and we can then create a space where calmness and contentment can be and can grow.

I often joke that I need to be a Massage Therapist as it’s the only time that I stop, mentally stop and become very purposeful and ‘in the moment’ about what I’m doing. I have become very aware that I Massage in a mindful way. I am completely focused on the person I am working with and what I am actually doing, the purpose,  and this is even more true when I use Reiki.  I also have some CD’s with short 10 minutes mediations on that I use for myself and also with my clients during a massage (as an introduction) and I have found, even in this very early stage of bringing mediation into my life, very helpful and centring.

Here are some suggestions if you’re looking to create some space in your mind away from negative harmful thoughts.

  • Find out about mindfulness and see if it resonates with you at all. Hugh Poulton runs courses in Oxfordshire which, although I haven’t been on one, I’m reliably informed are amazing and life transforming!
  • Try out some CD’s. Sometimes it’s just about finding a voice that you can relax to. I have a mix of accents and of male and female…you have to feel comfortable.
  • Become purposeful and aware in your every day activities. For example, don’t just eat, eat consciously. Don’t just walk, walk and know that you are aware of walking and what your body is actually doing to make this happen.
  • Become aware of your breathing without trying to change it. It’s not about doing it deeply or through the nose or mouth. It’s just about becoming aware…as it is.

I would love to hear about your experiences as mine are very new and from a beginners perspective and please do share about any courses, practitioners or CDs that you have tried and can recommend….Many thanks and please share the love, mindfully!

Authentic New Year Resolutions?

Emotional Health, New Year, Personal Development

So we have arrived at the end of another year, or in the words of the great John Lennon, another year over and a new one just began.  It is one of my favourite times of the year, far more meaningful to me than Christmas, and it spares any negative emotional yearning that the week prior to this always makes room for. It doesn’t take hold of me because of the external celebrations on offer but because of the internal opportunities to pause, reflect and create. This time allows us to quantify what we have achieved, note who we have in our lives that were not here at the beginning of the year and who we no longer have around us. The deepening of long term friendships is always a favourite reflection for me and it is the ability to project all of that information into the future in terms of thinking about what the following year may hold, that really captures me.

I have given 2012 an incredible amount of thought. I have a clarity about the year ahead and what I want to achieve that can only be described as daring. But, if we are to  fully understand that the future is made up by what we do in the present moments that we have right now, then we absolutely have to set ourselves challenges beyond our wildest dreams.

Glossy magazines and newspaper articles are currently spouting the monotonous resolutions dialogue that involves all that we should undoubtedly be striving for anyway…losing weight, getting fit and reducing death-enhancing substance use! These are the kind of goals that we set in order to feel like we ‘fit in’ with what we think people want from us. These are essentially setting resolutions for others’ approval. I’m suggesting that we set different goals altogether.

Make your future different, make it really different. Make resolutions that come from your inner desires born of your authentic self which stem from your very core. Set goals that frighten you as they seem out of your reach, like dreams. I realise that this is contrary to much of what you will read which will include ‘keeping to realistic goals’. But I absolutely wholeheartedly know, that if you reach for the stars, even if you get to the trees, you will have achieved something amazing.

I have set a goal for myself that is terrifying. I know I can do it. I believe it is there for me to do. I know I can make it happen. But the voice of doubt that sits on my shoulder from time to time is saying “You can’t do that”, “Why do you think you can do that?” and “Who do you think you are?”. Well, I am going to do it and I know that when I sit down next year and pause and reflect and look at what I have achieved and created, I will be able to know that I made it happen. I made it happen and I ignored the doubting voice and the constraints of limited thinking. So tell me, what will your resolutions look like? Are you looking at the same picture that you looked at a year ago or are you going to change your future into a future you want for yourself… because I know you can!

Is it that time of year again?

Christmas, Emotional Health, Homelessness, Love, Mental Health, New Year, Recovery, Relationships

It’s time for a Christmas post. I feel I have to do one and I absolutely know that my regular readers will not be expecting anything other than an alternative post from me compared to most blogging/articles on Christmas right now. Most posts in the Health section seem to focus on at best, managing family relationships, delegating some of the chores, managing the need to be perfect, dealing with guilt….I can’t connect with any of it. So this post is for those of you who sit on the planet I sit on.

The whole world, it seems to me every year, would have us believe that this is a time of year where families sit in one room together happily eating Turkey, playing charades (likes that’s a normal thing to do!) and smiling knowingly at one another. We’re led to thinking that all people are purchasing bits of plastic that no-one even wants, needs or can justify its very existence. That we all have fabulous trees plucked from the ground draped around the house and that we all eat and drink to excess and need an Alka-Seltzer to recover. And yes, some people do indeed live like that during this festive season.

But thinking outside of this, what is Christmas all about for the child in care or the care leaver? It’s a fat slap in the face as to how their life looks nothing like the lives that the media is showing. That knowledge that every person in their lives is paid to be there. It’s a day when the doors of whatever support services are being used are actually closed.

And what is it for the child who lives in fear of their parents? It’s the holidays, which means that  both parents are at home, fighting, drinking, frightening.

What is Christmas for the homeless person? It is absolutely nothing other than yet another day of freezing cold Winter weather and possibly some extra food being dished out by the overspill of irrelevant Supermarket food needing displacement prior to close of day on Christmas Eve. I remember one year dishing out food on the strand – freshly squeezed orange juice and strawberries from warmer climates seemed almost offensive but I desperately wanted to be involved in the solution, any solution, even though it seemed a weird way of being able to go about it.

What is Christmas for the parent who has lost a child? I cannot even begin to imagine and I daren’t.

The list could go on… and on and on and well into the rest of the world but I’ll spare us that.

What is Christmas for me? It has been many things over the years, each year bringing something else for me to ponder and each year being slightly less challenging. I spent many Christmases alone as a young person recovering from the effects of being in care and also as a homeless teenager, wandering the streets aimlessly clutching luncheon vouchers dished out from the night shelter. I have had many difficult Christmases but my children have helped me to some degree have some tradition and sentiment about it that I would never have allowed myself to have were they not in my life.

I love putting up the tree with every year of their childhood represented by an ornament made in their primary years. I love filling their stockings and ringing the bells on them on Christmas morning to say Santa has arrived – although last year they told me off as they were still asleep and it was “to early” (teenagers need sleep, even on Christmas Day it seems!).

I like the smell of cinnamon and oranges and I love the sparkly lights on the tree. Last night I sang with the local Singing Group which was lovely and had a Christmassy feel about it that I liked, especially with all the families there and children joining in.

What really cheers me up is when people step outside of their bubble and remember that Christmas is an incredibly difficult time of year for lots of people. But essentially, the world will not be a better place until we spend every day of the year trying to make a difference, thinking about others, understanding our own privileges and not making assumptions about how people live. I use this time  to reflect, be grateful and try and make a difference, not only for Christmas time but for every day, all the time. That to me is what Christmas is about….that is how I makes sense if it for me. Wishing you all a Happy Christmas x

Upcoming Project…

Emotional Health, Love, Mental Health, My First Book, Personal Development, Relationships, Single parenting

.

.

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Are you ordinarily exceptional?

Or are you exceptionally ordinary?

Have you overcome difficulties that may well have rendered you unable to operate in society but they didn’t?

Do you seek to make a difference? To inspire?

Have you made sense of your experiences and moved on from the pain?

Did you survive and now thrive?

If any of this makes sense, please contact me, Lisa Cherry on bookings@holistic-health.me.uk

This is for an upcoming project and I would love to hear from you….I know you are out there!

xx

Ten Rules For Being Human

Emotional Health, Love, Personal Development, Recovery

I remember being given a sheet of paper, many years ago and long before Google searched your needs out for you. On it were these 10 rules for being human. I cannot remember who gave me this and in what context but I carried it around with me just about everywhere and stuck it to any wall that was close. It felt like the instruction manual that ‘they’ forgot to give me when I arrived here to this thing called life! You may well have seen this before….

  1. You will receive a body. You may like it or hate it, but it’s yours to keep for the entire period.
  2. You will learn lessons. You are enrolled in a full-time informal school called, “life.”
  3. There are no mistakes, only lessons. Growth is a process of trial, error, and experimentation. The “failed” experiments are as much a part of the process as the experiments that ultimately “work.”
  4. Lessons are repeated until they are learned. A lesson will be presented to you in various forms until you have learned it. When you have learned it, you can go on to the next lesson.
  5. Learning lessons does not end. There’s no part of life that doesn’t contain its lessons. If you’re alive, that means there are still lessons to be learned.
  6. “There” is no better a place than “here.” When your “there” has become a “here”, you will simply obtain another “there” that will again look better than “here.”
  7. Other people are merely mirrors of you. You cannot love or hate something about another person unless it reflects to you something you love or hate about yourself.
  8. What you make of your life is up to you. You have all the tools and resources you need. What you do with them is up to you. The choice is yours.
  9. Your answers lie within you. The answers to life’s questions lie within you. All you need to do is look, listen, and trust.
  10. You will forget all this.

by Cherie Carter-Scott




			

	
			  
		
		


	
	
					
					
	

	
	    
	    
	    

	    
		    	    
			
	
				
After A While…

				Emotional Health, Love, Personal Development
			

	
			

			
I came across this piece of writing, writen by the then 19 year old Veronica A. Shoffstall and was taken by it’s beauty, observation and eloquence, particularly for one so young. I hope it resonates with you too….




“After a while you learn

the subtle difference between

holding a hand and chaining a soul

and you learn

that love doesn’t mean leaning

and company doesn’t always mean security.

And you begin to learn

that kisses aren’t contracts

and presents aren’t promises

and you begin to accept your defeats

with your head up and your eyes ahead

with the grace of woman, not the grief of a child

and you learn

to build all your roads on today

because tomorrow’s ground is

too uncertain for plans

and futures have a way of falling down

in mid-flight.

After a while you learn

that even sunshine burns

if you get too much

so you plant your own garden

and decorate your own soul

instead of waiting for someone

to bring you flowers.

And you learn that you really can endure

you really are strong

you really do have worth

and you learn

and you learn

with every goodbye, you learn…”


© 1971 Veronica A. Shoffstall

			

	
			  
		
		


	
	
					
					
	

	
	    
	    
	    

	    
		    	    
			
	
				
Walk With The Dreamers

				Emotional Health, Love, Personal Development, Recovery
			

	
			

			
I came across this fantastic poster which I periodically paste up all over the place and I love it, primarily because it forces us to think outside our little boxes, moves us to the edge of our comfort zones and reminds us that life is to be lived, felt, experienced and filled with longing….




 


 


I don’t want to leave my time on this planet having not pushed myself to my limits, having not explored every possible part of who I am or who I could be. Within that process, the aim for me has to be trying to leave the world a better place than when I arrived here….making a difference is what makes a difference to how I feel about everything I do. Will you walk with me too?

			

	
			  
		
		


	
	
					
					
	

	
	    
	    
	    

	    
		    	    
			
	
				
The Gift Of Life…

				Emotional Health, Love, Personal Development, Recovery
			

	
			

			
Why oh why does the whole world, the part of the world that does not have to be consumed each moment with searching out the basic needs of food and shelter of course,  not understand that Life is a gift? A gift given for just a short time for us to fully appreciate and enjoy all that is on offer?


Soap Operas and hateful jobs and meaningless relationships are not what we are meant to be doing. What would be the point in that? Sometimes I feel like I want to run up to people and say Wow! You have life! Now what will you do with it?




I have lived a life and I shall continue to live my life exploring all that I can be, because a life worth living is a life that has been lived, and I have lived…thank goodness, and I continue to expand every aspect of my being.


So go and look into the eyes of life and fall in love because my friends, life is very short. It is very short indeed…

			

	
			  
		
		


	
	
					
					
	

	
	    
	    
	    

	    
		    	    
			
	
				
And Life Is….

				Emotional Health, Love, Personal Development, Relationships, Spiritual Health
			

	
			

			
It seems to me that there is a distinct flaw in the human condition that somehow allows us to forget the point. The point of our relationships, the point of the work we have chosen to do, the point of our friendships that we have chosen to have, indeed the point of life.


We all do it. We all get bogged down in the minutiae of life’s noise on what she said, or he said, or that person or that place or that thing said or did or didn’t do, all of which we can’t quite deal with. We’re upset. We’re hurt. We feel alone in our pain.


It is in these moments particularly, that we must remember that we can change the way we respond to life, we can change the way we understand life and most of all we change the view of life that doesn’t acknowledge that life is a gift. We are a ‘we’ in this context. We have all been given the gift of life…


All the Philosophical and Spiritual teachers have sought to teach us as to what the purpose of it all is. From these teachings, I take it that the purpose of being here is to make a difference. I also take it to believe that the purpose of life of to be happy.


I found a lovely little Video being shared across cyberspace called Life is Coffee, which as a coffee lover (read coffee snob), I thought was a perfect analogy for me so I hope you like it and that you will share this message.


In line with my Just For Today Vlog from this week, I would like to add a little thought for the day, for my day, one that we can all use in our lives in whatever way works for us. For me, Just For Today I have everything I need and I am loved….