Trust 3 - An Inviolable Sense of Self

I changed my mind about what to do next due to a very good comment on the Facebook thread I mentioned in Trust 1.  It reminded me of an often neglected area of trust - an inviolable sense of self.

It's very very hard to hold on to your sense of self in this life.  Unless you're extremely lucky to have been raised by supportive parents, have always had 100% genuine friends, and have met only positive, supportive, people.

Let's say that you haven't had this luck.  Let's say that you've had a normal life path and stumbled through a number of painful relationship realities that have broken your trust and made you feel that you can't trust anyone ever again.

An affair might have convinced you that you're middle aged, fat and frumpy, or not good in bed.  A friend may have betrayed you, a colleague may have stabbed you in the back in order to get the promotion you were both up for, a boy/girlfriend might have left you after telling you that it's all your fault.  In fact your life path might be one of betrayal after betrayal and who can blame you for losing trust in...well...trust.  Certainly not me.


Your problem is your sense of self.  You have allowed the actions of others to wobble your belief in who you are.

This DOES NOT mean that it's your fault, far from it.  What it does mean is that you were never taught to look at yourself and decide who you are and how you feel about it.  You were never taught to look at your strengths and appreciate them, because of course that's big-headed and arrogant isn't it.

I'm going to give you an exercise that someone gave me when I first put my feet on the Spiritual path and believe me I sympathise, it was the hardest thing I've ever done.

I want you to make a list of everything good about yourself

Yes you CAN do this and yes there ARE good things about you.  You must do this because you've got to become realistic about who you are.  I'll guarantee that you know your faults but I want you to become acquainted with your strengths and good points.

I want you to do this so that you start to focus on why you deserve decent treatment.  More importantly why you have the right to decent treatment.

Then I want you to think about some of the bad treatment you've received in the past, go back over it in your mind and ask yourself this important question:

What do I think of the person who treated me that way?

Do you like those people?  Do you admire their behaviour?  Realistically you will have been involved in the situation but do you admire the way you were treated?  Would you like to treat anyone that way?

I'm asking these questions so that you get into your true emotional understanding that these people who hurt you were not nice people, or they were nice people who did not behave well under the circumstances.

Realism is the most important factor in learning to trust again.  My first marriage broke up in a wave of anguish that is still a tiny bit unbelievable to me 20 years later.  I won't go into it but I was betrayed not by my ex husband but but everyone else around me.  I held a party for 50 people in the December, I could have invited 100 but we didn't have room.  By July of the following year I knew 5 of those people.  

I was involved of course, but I am 100% comfortable in my own mind that I did not deserve the treatment I received.  That is because I trust who I am and I trust my ability to judge situations fairly.  I'm not perfect, I'm not always right, I don't always know what to do or how to do it, I make mistakes, but at the end of the day I do trust me completely.

And that's what makes me confident enough to trust again, and again, and again.

Connect that idea in your mind to the concept that everyone is human, and you will see why you need to:

Heal the past in your mind.

Understand your part in situations, but that you were only a part of it.

Think clearly about whether you respect the other people involved...

Or feel that their behaviour was unacceptable.

Be real about who you are and that you are NOT always wrong or to blame.

Get to know yourself.

Learn to respect yourself.

And never EVER let anyone affect your self respect again.

That way trusting people will never again be frightening.

I'm not saying what's coming next this time because I think I've just changed my mind anyway.

Deb :-)

Trust 2 - Emotions and Communiation

Having tried to identify what trust is and who it is we're trying to trust 100% of the time for all reasons, no matter what (human beings).  Let's look at the tricky little number that trust affects and that is our emotions.

You've got them and you know that they're difficult things to deal with.  Sometimes you know exactly what you feel about everything and at other times you haven't got a clue what you want or need.

You also know that sometimes you feel that other people should understand what you're going through and yet one of two truths are in play:

You don't know what you feel.

You haven't told the people around you how you feel.

You haven't told them what you need.

You don't know what you need.

The problem is it is very difficult to go into a new relationship, whip out your generic trust agreement and make people sign it in blood on pain of death if they break it.  You know what it's like with written agreements, first you have to actually read them, then you file them, then you have to remember where you put them, and anyway, subtly...oh so subtly...you reworded them to suit your needs and understanding even while you were nodding politely.

The same goes for verbal communication, you'll say anything to get someone's clothes off, get a new job, etc., but in your mind you're reworking your understanding to suit what you know you're going to do.  "I will definitely love you and only you forever unless someone taller/with a larger bust comes along."

So...you can't set up a Draft Heads of Agreement for trust within a relationship.  You may not always know what you need and what you feel, therefore the people around you might get it wrong.

PLUS a few problems...

Other peoples' needs and emotions are not the same as yours.

Other people's ethics are not the same as yours.

Some people are natural empaths and some are naturally dense and unaware.

Some communicate clearly and well, others can't speak their needs at all.

You can surprise yourself so you can certainly surprise others.

You have changed and grown as a human being and so have they (mostly).

In other words...

It goes back to this whole human being issue again.

So, what can you do?

You can set relationship standards for yourself and be that person.

You can ask clearly for what you need.

You can say clearly that what's happening does not work for you.

You COMMUNICATE.

You LISTEN.

You DISCUSS.

AND most importantly

You are REALISTIC and AWARE!

You have a right to have standards by which you would like to be treated, but you must be prepared to also deliver those standards.

You must communicate with people around you and tell them what you need, what isn't working and how you feel.  You must listen to them and understand where they are coming from.  Be prepared to discuss but be wary of too much compromise if you're the one constantly backing down something is definitely wrong.

You must also be aware of what is going on, realistic as to whether the relationship is working for you and if you aren't prepared to walk away then you must take responsibility for staying and putting up with it.  It can be incredibly difficult to move on sometimes but people have escaped from the most difficult and damaging of situations and you can too.

If a relationship has demoralised you to the point that you feel like a horrible person who deserved it all:

Go quiet and don't create difficult situations.

Find help (medical and complementary).

Build up your inner strength.

If you need to diet.

Exercise, it raises the endorphins that make you feel generally better.

(seek advice from your GP if you have any medical conditions or concerns regarding fitness)

Get your hair cut into a nice style or learn to style it or put it up so that it looks good.

If you can afford to update your wardrobe.

Then when you're feeling stronger and better all round...

Walk quietly away with the minimum fuss and the maximum speed.  Not easy to do in difficult relationships with partners or families but if you ask around you will find support from people who have managed to extricate themselves from toxic relationships and if they can do it you can.

However, the bottom line here regarding trust is:

You set the standards.

You observe realistically.

You communicate.

You take action depending on how things go.

It is all about you.

Next "Trust, the Bottom Line"

Deb

Trust 1 - The Basics

I asked a question on Facebook the other day about what people really need help with and Trust came up as a big issue.  I started writing about it and I can confirm that it IS a BIG issue.  So I'm breaking it down into bite-sized chunks.

Let's start by thinking about what trust is.  You may disagree with me or be able to take this thought further but the best I could come up with when I really went into the feeling is:

Trust is what I hope for in all relationships.  

It means that I will never be hurt by anyone.  

It means that people will always mean what they say and do what they say.  

It means that they will always know what I need and deliver it.

I'm sincerely glad that I don't have to ask for what I've defined above as it felt completely unrealistic even as I wrote it.   Because...

We are all human.  

All humans make mistakes.

The greater percentage of human beings mean well.

Most humans mean what they say until they realise that they can't do it.

Most humans mean what they say until they realise that it had a different meaning for you.

Most humans try to be nice by saying yes but sometimes they really meant no.

Relationships have ups and downs.

A lifetime is a long time to love one person.

People change.

Feelings change.

Hopes and dreams change.

Forever is a long time to be perfect.

Nobody is in your life to serve your purpose, not even your children.

Stress affects all relationships.

That children comment is a tough one, but at the end of the day everyone is an individual even the child you gave birth to/sired, and nobody is born to make your life ok, to be perfect around you or for you.  No one, not even you.  You can't say the words "I'm only human!" without remembering that so is everyone else.

Even you don't get things right for yourself all the time.  You make wrong decisions.  You say you'll do something and you don't really want to so you find a way out that fools no one.  You have changed since you were born, maybe more than once, and you will do so again.  If you're honest do you love him/her the same way you did when you met?  Were you really surprised when it broke up or deep-down did you know?

Right, it's a start.  If this makes any sense to you or you can rethink it to make sense you will immediately see that we have high expectations of ourselves and other humans.  

Perhaps the best start with dealing with trust issues is to realise that no one is perfect isn't a cliche it's the truth.

More later

Deb

Personal, Spiritual and Psychic Mediumship Development

Morning all, hope no one has melted in the rain!  It's been an interesting summer so far to put it mildly, but the good news is that summer didn't officially kick in until 21st June so we've only lost three weeks of potential frying!

As you may have seen, Nicky and I are running a Spiritual Retreat in October at the wonderful and relaxing Buckland Hall in the Brecon Beacons, 5 minutes off a main A road, 20 minutes from Monmouth railway station, and yet the moment you get through the doors of the hall the modern world somehow ceases to exist.

As you walk into the Baronial Hall you're confronted by two roaring log fires surrounded by the kind of comfy sofas you have at home, or for those who are hot stuff a huge bay window that looks out over the surrounding hills and valleys of Wales.  The gardens are amazing, the bedrooms are comfortable and as big as anything you'll see in a decent hotel; in fact far bigger than many hotels bedrooms of my acquaintance.

It's also one of the most Spiritual places I've ever been to, and the paranormal activity is friendly and comfortable.

Why though would you come on a course of this type?  Why not just psychic mediumship development, or personal or Spiritual development?  Why the mix?

The answer to those questions is because Nicky and I apply every aspect of our psychic mediumship work to our own lives - because it is applicable to being at work, having relationships, dealing with family, bringing up children (her not me, I just chase cats round the garden in the rain and clean up fur balls), and anything else you do between getting up and going to sleep. Oh...and understanding your dreams.

We both have close contact with our Guides Amos and Shanamaya (to name but two of our amazing team) and they are always there to give us advice on how to cope, often coming up with something we would never have considered, the gentle wisdom of which blows us away.  There's no doubt in our minds that we're both better people because we have them to help us.

So when it comes to the psychic mediumship training, whether you want to be a worker in the Spiritual field or whether you would just like to be able to hear your life Guide or Guardian Angel, or feel the love from your loved ones and friends in the Spirit world, the training is useful.

If you've ever had paranormal experiences that have concerned you a course like this can also answer a number of questions, put your mind at rest, and you will learn about psychic protection and what is and is not a matter of concern.  If you have a child showing psychic or mediumship tendencies it can be very useful to understand the field yourself and know where to go for guidance and help.

If you just want to handle people at work by being more understanding then the psychic exercises will be a great help, or if you want alternative means of guiding your life in the right direction other than trying to think logically, then learning about your intuition and finding out how strong it is will be very useful.

Spiritual development isn't a fluffy concept either, with the exception of the points mentioned above, it is real life development that works in the real world.  If you learn to meditate you have means of calming your mind so that you can think.  The body won't sleep if the mind won't relax, so meditating in bed can be an effective way of relaxing.  Even if you don't sleep you can tell your body it is totally relaxed and resting and still bounce out of bed rejuvenated and ready to rock.

You can learn the difference between a dream and a lucid dream or even a Spiritual journey undertaken during the night, and you can learn how to understand the messages your mind and higher self (Spiritual aspect of you) are sending you.

You can learn how to react to people in a completely different way, and most importantly you can learn how to be happy.  Yes, it is possible to learn how to be happy and feel that your glass is completely full 90% of the time.  You can learn what else is available to you to support you through your life in order to have a bigger toolbox of help when you need it.

Here's another thing that might surprise you - I know beyond doubt, and so does Nicky, that she would have had a far harder time recovering from her accident of 2 years ago had she not been a Spiritual thinking.  I have also changed completely from someone who suffered from permanent acute anxiety for over 20 years to someone who gets flashes of it when they get stressed or tired, and knows that's just a message to "Do Something!" about it.

Personal development may sound different, but naturally Spiritual development leads to personal development and magic happens in real life.

Lastly, you will know the difference between a psychic and medium and you will know whether you want to pursue any of the fascinating work available in the field.

When I say lastly I mean that loosely of course.  I haven't even got to nature readings, walking meditations for those who can't sit still, fire readings, psychic games, inspirational speaking, colour readings, seeing auras, exploring healing, learning about holistic therapies, and all the many wonderful things we have at our disposal in our lives and want to share with you.  And the new friends, there are always new friends on courses like this, which means that if so far you've felt very alone with your changing Spirituality you won't be when you leave Bucklands.



In case you haven't seen the advert it's £238 for the two days full board and all teaching, payable in 3 amounts £80 now, £80 in August, £78 in September.  If we get over 33 people the September amount will be a bit less.

There it is, we so want to get our teaching going and start really helping people to improve their everyday lives and perfectly normal human abilities.

Wishing you happy days and peaceful nights

Deb and Nicky xx

Married to a Monster!

I am married to a monster!  A nice monster but a heinous wretch all the same.  Why you may ask?  You may well ask!!!!

He uses my little car for trips to the recycling centre and promised on a stack of bibles and with his crown jewels in a vice that he would NEVER ever allow any eight legged creatures to set up home in my car.

Today I was driving to meet a friend when to my horror (and in the presence of much shrieking) a spider was doing the fandango across the windscreen in front of my very eyes!  Up it went threatening to climb the roof and drop into my hair (I could tell it had that kind of cruel look about it), down it came to spin a neat little web across my line of vision, and all the time I'm trying to stay on the right side of the road and avoid the articulated trucks coming towards me.

I stopped to grab the wretched creature and deposit it in a hedge but of course the little tinker dropped rapidly off the windscreen and disappeared out of sight...until I started driving again when it reappeared from the crevice it had taken refuge in with an evil grin on it's chops and a glint in it's eye.  "Where will I land next?" said the look.

Now it is true that it isn't actually a huge spider, in fact one might call it bijou and compact, but even a 1/4" arachnid is distracting when it's waving it's butt at you as you're driving and looking like it might have a big family secreted somewhere around your person.  I know this because I swear it was singing the theme tune to Friends as I drove along!

Trouble is I can't kill it.  So...

If anyone wishes to reach Tony Hawken this weekend he will be living in my car, clutching a glass and piece of card to trap the damned creature, and as soon as he exits the car I will have his special places in athat vice!

Enjoy the Jubilee everyone!

Wishing you happy days, peaceful nights and a spider-free life - unless you have one as a pet in which case I wish it nothing but well and a strongly sealed cage surrounded by 8 metres of electrified barb wire!

Deb

That's What Happens When You Get Busy!

I know that I have followers from several parts of the world who read my blog, and I have to apologise for being so absent from this site lately.  I've been studying.

I've been writing a book for years and I realised that I wasn't actually doing it, just noodling around with a few words here and there but not committing myself, but I didn't know why.

Fortunately I saw an offer on the internet to join www.transformationalauthor.com for a set of free seminars and I have to say that it's been amazing, full of content and really useful information for aspiring writers, but it's also been hard work.

Each day I've listened to 2 hours of content, and the rest of my time has been taken up with putting into practice what I'm learning, and that for me has been the key step - doing something with the knowledge I have.

I think the moral of this story is that sometimes you have to take a step back from normal everyday life and do something completely different, enjoy what you're doing and really get into it, because it gives you a fresh perspective in life and maybe some fuel for your inner boiler of energy and enthusiasm.

I've enjoyed doing something different even if it's meant neglecting a few of my old stalwarts - not forever, but just to have a bit of a mental and emotional refresh!

Give that some thought, thank you for your continued support, and let me know what you choose to do to give your life a new coat of paint.

That website again is www.transformationalauthor.com, or look up Christine Kloser on Facebook.

Wishing you happy days, peaceful nights and new opportunities

Deb

Are You A (problem) Keeper or Solver?

Are your problems your best friends?  "Of COURSE not!!!!" you're yelling at the computer screen, wondering if I'm completely and utterly nuts or have just lost my senses for a moment.

I'm neither, I'm a person who has worked with people on their problems for over 20 years and I can tell you that what I'm saying is true - many people hang onto their problems in the same way they hang on to a friend who may not be a positive force in their life but is better than no friend at all.

The way they do this is to complicate the problem out of all recognition until it's so big and difficult that it can't possibly be solved.  They try to see into the future and imagine how they would solve the problem, and then get scared and don't solve the problem at all because the end result seems so huge.

Whereas problem solvers take a long hard look at the issue and then take it one step at a time until they solve it.  Slowly and methodically.

One of the hardest things in life is to know yourself, warts and all, and trust yourself to be able to manage your own life.  These are attributes that should be taught in schools alongside Maths and English, because those strengths would get you a lot further in life than purely academic abilities alone.  But they're not, to the detriment of those who have gone before, those going through the system, and those yet to come.  To my mind positive thinking and problem solving attitudes should be taught in schools.

So once we've been trained by the people in our past to be the person we are, now we have to take responsibility for that and change it.  That's what I did and it's been a long road and sometimes a hard one, but from the day I made the decision that I would take out of my psyche all the things I'd been taught as 'truths' that I now knew a) weren't truths and b) were nothing to do with the person I am, everything has been that much easier.

How to do it though?  I can only suggest simple steps in a blog.

1. Keep a journal and note whether you're a positive or negative thinker (remember, you don't always need to think negatively about difficult issues, you can think positively in a difficult situation). 
2. Focus on happiness and nice things.  Really notice all the good around you, the birds, the flowers, the rainbows, the opportunities to go out and have fun.
3. Go out and have fun.
4. Read loads of books by 'thinkers' and build a mindset that is all your own.
5. Go to see many inspirational speakers and find out what makes them tick and why.

These are good starting points because you have to change you in order to change your mind.  You don't want to be leaping in trying to change yourself all at once.  That simple step of journal keeping will tell you where you are emotionally.  The focusing on happiness will fill your mind with much better thoughts and that alone will put you in a positive space for dealing with your life.  Having fun will turn you into a fun person whose glass is always half full.  Other ideas will give you just that, other ideas to have in your head rather than the negative ones that have been taking up space.

The last big fear to be dealt with is "who am I without my problems?"  There's an entire book or counselling year in that, but here's a simple answer to start working with - someone happier.  Imagine that!  Imagine that every day, spend mind time thinking about it, feeling how it would be, visualising how you would live if you were happier, make it so real you can feel it and guess what?  It will happen.  

Just snuck another step in there.

Wishing you happy days, peaceful nights and no...oh what was the word..p...por...pro...no it's gone out of my head!

Deb :-)

Viva La (Psychic) Difference!

I'm not a person who launched into or has ever done this work purely for the buzz it's given me, like everything I do in life I think deeply about what I'm doing.  I examine my motives for doing it, and I work to ensure that I do my absolute best for my clients at all times.

Over the years I've become aware that I'm a very different Psychic Reader to most people but I've never understood why.  I give what I'm given through the cards or what I pick up from their aura, and that's all I can give because that's what's there to be shared.

Many clients have come back to me telling me that everything I said in the last Reading I did for them has come true, and I know of at least two people who met their current partners in exactly the month I said that love would come in.  However, I still don't understand why some Psychics seem to work mainly on predicting the future and I don't, and I know there are others like me.

When I have a problem like that I always put it over to the Spirit World and ask my Guide, Amos, to help me understand the plan.  This morning I woke up with the answer.

I don't work purely on the surface level, which is to say working on the obvious such as when will love come into someone's life, in exactly what month should they leave their job, telling them yes and no about moving home. I work at an emotional and soul level.

Everyone is here to live their own life and to create that life to their own satisfaction and happiness.  We all know that the right two people can meet, and then mess it up spectacularly later on.  We all know that the right job can turn up but the wrong mindset within that job will always find fault with it and make it difficult.

I realise that I've told many clients over the years that things other psychics told them didn't work out because of deeper emotional reasons going on with them - not with other people. You see, you can believe that things keep going wrong for you, particularly romance, because you attract the wrong people all the time.  Whilst that is partly true, it will mainly be because there is something going on with your feelings and approach to life that creates an attraction to the wrong people in the first place.

So no matter how much bounty and happiness you're promised, if you have blocks to accepting the joy in life then it will be really hard for you to find the joy that you deserve.  That's where I come in with my work.  Helping people to identify their underlying life and soul issues so that they're ready to jump on any brilliant opportunity that comes their way, and not so busy looking on the dark side of life that they don't see the flash of light that passes them heading on to find someone who was watching.


I've also had to deal with a fair number of clients who have received negative predictions and are now officially terrified of the future.  However, when I look into it for them I usually discover that there are positive ways to avoid much of the mess they've been promised because nothing is written in stone until you write it.  Sometimes, sadly, it isn't possible to be positive but that's very very rare and there is always coping advice that can be given to support the person through that time.


I now know that my job is to help people deal with their lives on that emotional level, to help them clear the blocks within them, deal with problems confronting them in a positive way, and enable them to manage their own emotional, Spiritual and physical lives successfully and with minimal assistance by teaching them simple techniques for managing life.

Wishing you happy days, peaceful nights, and plenty of happiness and relaxation

Deb

Living with Laughter

As you probably know by now, I'm a co-creator of "The Do Something! Tour" (c) with my friend Nicky Marshall.  The Tour is about helping people in the audience work out simple solutions to everyday problems and irritations so that they can leave the event with an action plan for change.

After much thought and consideration we decided to try to make the Tour and it's work as funny and light as possible.  It was a difficult call because you would never want anyone to think that you were trivialising the things in life that upset them, but by the same token we've realised that the heavier and deeper you get into problems the worse they become.  Whereas on an evening where much laughter is shared amongst the wisdomness and inspiration we get better results and feedback.

This taught us that most people don't want to take ordinary life problems too seriously, they want to feel light and energised and able to deal with them.  If you think about it this makes sense, the lighter you feel the easier it is to lift yourself above your problems and see the road ahead without them.  The more miserable you are the bigger problems become, until the point where a broken fingernail or ladder in your tights, scratch on the car or red wine on the tie, become unendurable in the greater scheme (or should I say mess) of things.

So if you want to come to a Do Something! Tour event or workshop, or listen to our Radio Show on Paramania Radio, remember that there will be a lot of laughter and giggles shared to add that spoon full of sugar that makes the medicine go down oh so sweetly.

After all, laughter is the best medicine!

Wishing you happy days, peaceful nights and giggles.

Deb

The Do Something! Show
www.paramaniaradio.com,
Thursday 7.00 pm GMT/BST, 2.00 pm EST
Bring chocolate!

The Do Something! Tour (c) Newsletter - Introducing the Hagony Aunts!

In the not-too-distant future - in other words as soon as our nail polish is dry - Nicky and I will be putting digit to keyboard and sharing a fictional and humorous look at life's challenges and irritations.

The letters to the Hagony Aunts will be based on fictitious letters from people who don't exist but despite their non-existence still suffer from life's bug-a-boos and chaos.  We will be answering those people who aren't there in an entirely humorous manner whilst dropping a few pearls of real wisdom in amongst the giggles.

Email us at dosomethingtour@gmail.com if you'd like to be inspired by laughter.

The more the merrier!

Deb

Please join me

Hi Dear Readers, whoever you are.

I get a phenomenal amount of people reading my blog but I have no idea who and from where.  Please join up if you have a moment I'd love to know who you are and who I'm reaching.

Deb xx

Self-Improvement Doesn't Always Have to be Serious!

I have an irreverent sense of humour.  I was born in the days when political incorrectness was the norm and no feelings were spared in the quest for a laugh.  Mother-in-laws were fair game, two grown men could make you howl with laughter whilst sharing the same bed - as friends, and Thames Television got away with "Love Thy Neighbour" despite numerous audience complaints.

When you were young at the time I was laughing at life was compulsory and no one took anything more seriously than they absolutely had to.

Fast forward 30 years.  I'm now a Psychic Medium and Inspirational Speaker, Writer and Life Coach, and my raison d'etre is looking after people who aren't happy and working to help them find their inner sparkle again, in a day and age in which we really need all the giggles we can get, but political correctness makes laughing a lot more worrying than it was in simpler, more innocent times.  Even laughing has its issues nowadays!

However, my years Coaching and Reading for people tell me that we do need to lighten up as much as we can.  Whether that's by realising that the really serious issues can't be forgotten so just accept that they sit in your memory and access those memories as infrequently as possible.  Following on logically from that, the less seriously we take everything that doesn't fall into the 'really serious' category the better off we'll be.  We can perhaps do that by accepting that in reality very few things are truly serious - most are just majorly over-thought.

One of the best ways to avoid over-seriousness-ing things is to stop making up stories.  If something is bad then it's inescapably bad.  Yet making up stories of how bad things that are not inescapably bad might get only detracts from sorting those things out.  Creating scenarios in your mind as to what others might do only prevents you from having a conversation with them that might prevent the 'might'.

Staying in a job you hate because you've made up a story that you're in the frying pan and the next step is the fire, or this is the only possible career on the planet you could ever have, or there is simply no other way of making money, or change is impossible for a million reasons,  is just inside the box thinking that has no place in a happy and fulfilled life.

The other thing we all take too seriously nowadays is identifying our issues and recovering from them.  It's one thing to work to identify your truth and once you've found that truth then "Do Something!" about whatever it is that needs doing something about.  It's quite another to spend your life in therapy, lurching from practitioner to practitioner, therapist to therapist, reader to reader and coach to coach, whilst never actually doing something about anything you've identified.  Don't be on a constant quest for the answer - become the answer.

My friend Nicky Marshall and I are shortly to launch a positive and inspirational newsletter based on fictitious life problems worded in deliberately amusing terms and answered with a fair dollop of good, old-fashioned, off the wall humour.  There will be nuggets of pure inspiration and useful advice carefully sprinkled amongst the silliness, but given a choice as to whether to impress you with our worthiness and knowledge or make you laugh out loud whilst we're trying to help you - we'll go for the giggles every time.

Besides, more often than not a joke will stick in the memory far longer than a few well chosen words of advice.

Off to create a touch of mischief.

Deb

Good Grief! Has it Been THAT Long?

Well one and all, don't I feel silly that I haven't blogged since the beginning of February, but it's been one of those times.

You know the kind of time, 10 weeks of your life have flashed past and if you're honest there's very little to show for it.  I have done a course for my lovely Swedish students and now friends, which included a private trip to Stonehenge where they got to walk amongst the stones; don't teach about earth energy introduce them to it!  That's my motto.

Yet I can't honestly find another reason for such a prolonged silence or neglect of my work.  It seems to me that lack of motivation is one of the quickest ways to have your life rocket forwards leaving you behind wondering what to do...and it has to stop.  How though?

Discipline of course!

It's no good my sitting here pretending that I want things to happen, I need to make them happen.  I need to knock on doors, make telephone calls, talk to people, make plans, and basically CREATE something!  After all, before one can "Do Something!" (c) one has to create the energy that generates the energy to get things done.

So, today I've blogged, set up a mailing list, written out a nice new but easy to cook healthy recipe, and had a wonderful lunch with two friends of - we now realise - of nearly 10 years.  Yesterday I tidied my desk and threw stacks of paper that I'd kept I know not why into the recycling.  Tonight I'm joining some great mates and the lovely Nicky Marshall on the UKPN radio show...so much better than sitting heap-like in front of the TV.

Not a motivational blog at all, just a sharing of the kind of things that drive us all crazy from time to time.

Happy creating and doing

Deb xx

P.S.  I can copyright "Do Something!" because it's the name of our Tour!  LOL

Your Right to Grief

As you may imagine, as a working Medium I spend a fair amount of my time helping people to come to terms with grief.  Part of that work is obviously seeking to bring through their loved one, friend or pet from the Spirit World, but the other part is purely practical - helping them to cope with their feelings.

Having lost a few people (to put it mildly) and a few pets myself I know how weird grief is, and that there are no rules.  Losing my grandfather felt nothing like losing my grandmother 30 years later, and nothing like losing my father 12 years after that.  All four of my cats left behind a completely unique experience of missing them, and every other pet and person I've lost has been mourned in their own individual way.

This is why people telling other people how to grieve, what to do, what do say, how to behave and when to be 'over it' and 'getting on with life' annoys the heck out of me.  I hate it.

Like all the major events of life humans are not trained to deal with grief and no one has a clue how their grief will hit them, what feelings and emotions it will raise, and how they will react at any given second.  People think they're doing well and getting over it, then a small thing happens and they're bounced right back to the hurting part of the programme again.

The worst problems occur when the families and friends of a lost loved one get together, because far from drawing people together grief can create barriers that feel insurmountable, particular because there can be a lot of anger around death.

One of the things I wish never to hear said but is said only too often is "it's worse for me because..." or "it's worse for them because...".  If someone loses their life partner then of course that someone is experiencing something unique to them, but that doesn't invalidate anyone else's grief or their reaction to that grief.

Sometimes partners who have shared a lifetime of love cope better than friends who have relied on having that person in their life, because the lifetime of love carries that partner through whereas the friend has lost a special and valued confident.  It doesn't mean that person a) is hurting more or less than person b), or that they have a right to hurt more or less.  There is no sliding scale of grief.

All it means is that individuals mourn individuals in individual ways.  Repetition is deliberate!

So if you're going through grief and finding that people are telling you what to do, what to say, how to say it, how to behave and when to be 'over it'.  Just gently tell those people that you are way outside your comfort zone and knowledge base and are coping as best you can.

If you find things too difficult then it may be necessary to put some distance between you and them for a while, but don't whatever you do react with anger and finality.  Just make yourself unavailable in person, keep in touch by phone, and make excuses to get off the line quickly if the going gets tough.

There are so many different and competing emotions around it's better not to react for at least a year if you can possibly avoid it.  Don't lose the people you love and care about just because you can't cope with the way they're grieving.

I hope this helps a bit.

Wishing you happy days, peaceful nights, and years before you need this advice.

Deb xx

The Dishwasher, The Cat and the Cottage Pie

This is actually a serious post, but I wanted to add in the amusing part to improve the tone of it.

Those who know me well will know that I very rarely post a negative or sad story because whenever possible I prefer to be an upbeat and positive person in the lives of my family, friends and acquaintances.  However, I believe that unpleasant as it is this story needs to be told.  Fortunately it will be rescued at the end by a cat.

On Sunday evening I was mentally swishing across the ice with the latest stars of Dancing on Ice when something called me to go out into the hall.  As I approached the front door I realised that there were reflections of blue flashing lights everywhere.

As you know this is never a good sign so I opened the front door with some trepidation, only to find that there were 3 fire engines outside my next door neighbours' house and n the drive was a distinctly melted dishwasher.

We went straight out and asked the fire personnel if there was anything that our neighbours required or anything we could do, and they assured us they'd pass on the message.  We asked what happened and this is what they told us.

The circuit board on the dishwasher had malfunctioned and caused what could have been a very serious fire.  Fortunately our neighbours were indoors at the time and had managed to evacuate the house and call the fire brigade before too much damage had been done.  The fireman told us that dishwasher fires are one of their more frequent call outs.  I asked if they had seen my neighbour's cat who normally naps in that garage but they said no.

The next day I visited my neighbour to check that all was well.  She told me the whole story.

She had been about to dish up their evening meal when she realised that she was short of a plate, so she went out to the dishwasher and took out a plate to wash.  Having done so, which as you can imagine took mere moments, she realised that she was also short of a fork and asked her husband to fetch one from the dishwasher.  He went out to the garage to do so and called back in immediately that there were flames coming from the dishwasher and she should call the fire brigade and get the children and animals out of the house.

She did so, the fire brigade turned up and extinguished the fire, and all that remained was to find the cat.  As you may imagine the family were fairly frantic that he couldn't be found and most concerned that he had run away in fear.

However, it didn't take long to find him.  There he was, sitting in the bowl eating the final few mouthfulls of their supper, whiskers dripping with beef and potato.  For a normally nervous cat he had sat solidly in their supper dish and applied himself to eating their food with great courage and gusto.  Even flames, smoke and 15 fire personnel hadn't persuaded him to leave a burning building.

Fortunately all was well, everyone is ok and the cat didn't pop -well  he had eaten the supper of 2 grown adults, two growing teenagers (and you know how much they eat) and a child.

The reason for telling you this story is to pass on the information given to us - never run an electrical appliance such as a dishwasher or washing machine overnight or whilst you're out.

I'm sorry to tell such a disturbing story and I certainly don't want anyone feeling worried, especially as it is so easy to remain safe by being in when these things are working and turning them off when you're out of the house.

I hope you enjoyed the cat part though.  One last giggle.  Our wonderful neighbours have rallied around providing crockery and such like as required, what did we provide?  A spare cat collar because their old one was broken and they need to label their cat as he's one of three extremely similar cats within one small area.  You can't get more neighbourly than that!

Deb

Out With the Old...In With the New!

Woo hoo it's new year!  That means that all the angst and irritations of 2011 are gone and we can all leap into the perfect year, because at the stroke of midnight on 31st December 2011 everything changed...didn't it?

Of course it didn't.

Firstly the person who creates your life is you, so unless you went through some kind of sudden and dramatic metamorphosis on the last bong of Big Ben it is likely that things will continue pretty much as they always have.  True, you might get a new job this year, buy a puppy or kitten, move house, give the kids away, or whatever you have planned.  However, your life will only change fundamentally if the person you are inside changes.

That's easy then, all sorted and we can get on with 2012.  Hold on!  Wait a moment!

Let's look at this a little more carefully.  Before you rush headlong into change for changes sake, has it occurred to you that you might just be fine as you are?  You need to look at that first.

If you decide that actually you are doing pretty all right as a person and your internal world is a fairly happy approaching joyful place then you don't need to undergo a huge personal change in order to have a great 2012.  What you do need to do is to take note of the situations in which you find yourself (romance, work, hobbies, fitness, etcetera) and make sure that you're happy in all those places.

We tend to blame ourselves when we aren't happy and feel that in some way we must be wanting because we're not having a blast.  Yet sometimes the only problem is that we're in the wrong place doing the wrong thing.

You won't blend with colleagues if you aren't in the right job, company or career.  You won't be in a happy relationship if you or they are Miss-ter wrong.  You won't have great friends if you insist on spending time with people who are so un-you that you all appear to come from different dimensions!  You won't love your home if you don't love where you live or you don't decorate and de-clutter to suit you.  You may struggle to feel healthy if you don't make time to keep fit and insist on remaining in stressful situations.  I could go on but you get the picture.

The point is that even if some or all of these things are wrong it doesn't mean that YOU are wrong, it only means that you're doing the wrong things.

One key pointer towards sorting these things out is to watch for the signals because there will be signs and portents that show you what isn't working if you know what to look for.

Take me for instance.  I love Mediumship, to me it's second only to the people and animals I love.  It floats my boat, fills me with joy, gives me peace and a feeling of amazing health.  It's the cherry on the icing on the cake of my life.  Yet when I launched myself on the world as a full-time working Medium nothing went well.

I was invited back to demonstrate at different places, I did get a lot of referrals for readings, but nothing would quite click with me, but Cricket St. Thomas Hotel has to be the best message of all.

I was working there as a Resident Medium and nearly every day I was there I was rushed off my feet, lunch was a distant dream and I was normally at least an hour late home.  I had people coming to find me because their friends had a reading on their last visit and I'd been highly recommended.  I was so happy.  I was busy, busy, busy doing the work I loved, meeting fantastic new people, getting referrals for telephone readings from all over the country, working in a 4 star hotel where coffee and cake was always on hand, and having a thoroughly amazing time.  Then it all stopped.

The hotel group decided to change the way they presented the entertainments brochure to their clients and instead of having an A5 sized insert in the brochure I was moved onto the back page and had only 4 lines.  You might think that it was logical that this would affect things, but to be honest the heading on the section was very clear, if people are going to read a brochure they will look at the back page and there was a great deal more on there than me to draw them to the page.  The brochure had always been full of exciting and interesting things for the guests to do, and no matter how large your advert if people aren't interested they aren't interested.

However, my work went from flat out to zero inside 24 hours and never picked up again.  It was so weird.  So after a few weeks I sadly packed up my little room, said goodbye to the staff I'd worked with, and exited stage left with my spotted hanky tied to the end of a stick. Boy was I miffed!!!! (Deliberate use of 4 exclamation marks there!!!!)

I had lost my work completely.  I was sad for months and although I tried other things I lacked the motivation and interest to bring them in.  By October of 2011 I was basically sitting on my thumb all day discovering that demotivated people don't write well, and wondering what the heck to do next.

Then Nicky Marshall uttered the immortal words "we haven't done much this year, we need to do something."  I replied with a joke "Okay, let's pencil 'do something' into our diary in January next year"  and to cut a long story short the "Do Something! Tour" was born.  Then something very strange happened.

Within weeks we had 5 events set up, we launched in November at the Witches Brew, were in Thornbury at the beginning of December, and by that time we had 2 events set up in Covent Garden, London for next year, plus a charity event and a speaking engagement for another organisation.  Not only that a major department store had talked to Nicky about presenting an event for their staff.  Absolutely amazing!

This of course means that I'm/we're in the right place at the right time doing the right thing.  It didn't happen at New Year or in line with any man-made date.  It didn't happen because we needed to change.  It happened because the time was right.

So whilst you're embracing resolutions you may have already forgotten or regretted, and thinking that the New Year means you MUST make a new start.  Whilst you're worrying that it sounded great to say you'd job hunt the moment the clock clicked over to 00.01 on 1st January and now it doesn't feel like such a good idea, or you're fretting that you may not actually want to break up your relationship, move house, and become a struggling artist.  Stop, breathe and relax.  You don't have to do anything or everything at once, and you should avoid the trap of thinking that huge change is required when maybe smaller changes would have a better long-term effect.  AND you don't have to throw out the old without first considering how much the old is still serving a useful purpose.

New Year can be a fantastic time to create change and a wonderful time to think about refreshing your life, but it can also be a pressure and a trap.  You don't have to take leaps of faith without a clue what you're doing just because you said it on New Year's Eve during a drunken party.  You have the whole of 2012 to move forward carefully in a considered manner, making one change at a time.  Every day is a New Year if you play your cards right.

So my advice is to put the New Year's resolution on the back burner, do a life review, create a vision board in February, and once you've got your head clear as to what you want then go for it!

Wishing you happy days, peaceful nights and positive change at the right pace and right time

Deb