Wednesday, 20 August 2008

Strategies for Wellbeing

I’ve been using this simple but powerful strategy for some time now to maintain good health:

Eat Well – work out what kind of diet suits you best, stay clear of foods that don’t agree with you. Create regular times for meals so your body knows when to expect food and doesn’t panic when it’s running low on fuel.

Sleep Well – again it’s about discovering what time best encourages restful sleep for you, dragging the body when it needs rest is damaging. Once you know what bed time ensures you a good night’s sleep stick to it as far as possible.

Move Your Body – Think about what forms of exercise you really enjoy and include them into your schedule on a regular basis. You don’t have to be gym person - mine are morning yoga and evening walks and I feel the difference. Keep it simple and enjoyable.

Think Positive Thoughts – The mind and body are connected and work together as one system. Any thought you have has an immediate effect on your body, causing changes in breathing, heart rate, posture etc. Thinking positive thoughts enhances physical and emotional wellbeing. We don’t always have control over life situations or events but we can choose how we think about them.

Thursday, 14 August 2008

The Victim and the Bully

The bully’s position is always defined by the victim. If there’s no victim there can’t be a bully.

As soon as the victim realizes their personal power and is no longer a victim the bully either disappears – since in order to maintain their position as a bully they must seek another victim or less frequently the bully too is empowered and transformed.


At one time, somewhere in the past the bully will have also been a victim. They too will have been bullied or abused and this pattern can often be seen going further and further back into the family system. Thinking about it in these terms bullies are really victims of victims. This is not to condone their bad or abusive behaviour but to understand why they do what they do. The important point is to know that the most powerful person within the bully/victim relationship is always the victim.

Monday, 11 August 2008

Charhdi Kalaa Jatha

The Charhdi Kalaa Jatha were in town this weekend as part of their U.K tour. I first heard them doing Kirtan at Harmandir Sahib in Amritsar last April, they were the first Jatha to start the mornings Kirtan and it was enchanting. This is them at Singh Sabha Gurdwara, Southall.


Thursday, 7 August 2008

The Power of Visualization

I’ve been in my current home for over a year now. Here’s a little story about how I found it.

I needed to move quite quickly. From experience I know that the power of visualization is all in the detail. So I sat down and created a floor plan of the property, where exactly I wanted each room, right down to the positioning of the doors and windows. I designed the kitchen with beech effect units and cut out all the types of appliances I wanted from a catalogue and stuck them into their respective places. I really liked the Zanussi oven in the old place so I cut out the latest model of it and glued it on too.

I drew a white bathroom suite and a nice semi-circle basin, with the particular type of mixer tap I had seen somewhere and liked - not forgetting a lovely towel rail I had seen in someone’s house. There were to be fitted wardrobes with panelled doors and wooden flooring. Everything had to be newly installed too as I just wanted to move in and hang my clothes up.

There were lots of other things I wanted along with my new home – safe parking outside, shrubs and greenery, friendly, helpful neighbours and a park nearby where I could take my evening walk. The location had to be close to town, but very quiet and peaceful, somewhere I could hear the birds sing.

Having designed my perfect home, every evening while washing the dishes I would visualize the property and walk through it in my mind. I’d spend on average 4 hours a day house hunting. The more I did my visualization though the worse the condition of the properties, to the point I’d joke with the agents that they were showing me ‘haunted houses’. The situation was getting stressful, I was spending lots of time, money and energy on trying to find this property, I knew exactly what I wanted and then one evening – while washing dishes of course (I find it very therapeutic!) I stamped my foot on the floor and said to myself ‘I DESERVE TO HAVE IT’. In the space of 48 hours I had found the property, viewed it twice and finalized the agreement.

So whatever you want to achieve – make it as specific as possible. Visualize it in every detail so that it feels familiar. If you hit obstacles along the way – check out what you believe about your goal – do you believe you deserve it? Do you believe it’s possible?

Needless to say everything I visualized about my home was there with amazing accuracy. I’ve kept my original floor plan and drawing, here are a few shots: