For many of us the autumn is a time of fresh starts – time to start a course, get stuck in and create something new, or make a change in our lives. So the dreams and ideas are there, but are we able to see them through? What about when we come up against obstacles or lose our motivation? It is challenging doing it all by ourselves, however, getting the right support can make all the difference between creating a dream and making it a reality.
That’s why at Thrivecraft we have our Set Your Life Free workshop in October. During the weekend (at our stunning countryside retreat, the Thrivecraft Home Hub, near Saltash in Cornwall), we take a complete life coaching journey to set in motion our dreams and plans supported by tried and tested know-how and inspiration.
Here is my quick guide to setting your life free:-
REVIEW
Review your current situation thoroughly. Identify where you are content and fulfilled and where you need and want to make changes, including scoring each area of your life – work, money, relationships etc – on a scale of 1 to 10 (where 10 is excellent).
REVISION
Allow yourself to fantasize about a life that is like a dream come true in every respect and describe it in writing. Don’t worry about whether it is possible, if you deserve it or how to make it happen. For now, imagine that there is a magic wand that can create that ideal life instantly. Step inside your ideal life and describe it in entirely positive terms and as though it is happening now (in present tense language).
RELEASE
Often when we allow ourselves to own and declare what we truly desire, our fears and doubts come to the surface. These doubting inner voices are the very things that keep us small and safe and living life in our comfort zone, even if we are not happy with it. One way of helping to release these ‘limiting beliefs’ is by writing out positive affirmations and repeating them out loud every day. For example, if we cannot believe that we will ever meet our ideal partner, write out “I am delighted to have met my ideal partner so quickly and easily.”
RE-COMMIT
Now that we have created our ideal life vision and released some of our inner resistance about moving towards it, we create a practical plan and take action. Identify one or two things from your ideal life that you would like to make a start with. Taking them one goal at a time, be as clear as possible about what you would like to achieve and when you would like to achieve it by. Think of what you can do to support your progress and what help you might need along the way. Write out the steps you will take and begin to take action, one small step at a time. It helps a great deal if you can share your plans with an accountability partner – a friend or coach that you report to regularly on your progress.
RE-EMPOWER
Step five is about adding a sprinkle of magic! At Thrivecraft we specialise in coaching spiritual and metaphysical intelligence – powerful principles and practices that inspire us and allow us to make rapid progress. Equipped with these tools, we take quantum leaps and create miraculous manifestations with ease. One of the practices we teach is the Ah Om manifestation meditation.
You can download instructions for the Ah Om meditation and the other life coaching exercises mentioned above at Maggie Kay Wisdom Free Resources
Better still, come along to a Thrivecraft workshop to boost your Set Your Life Free journey, or dive in to a personal coaching programme or retreat with Maggie for exclusive one-to-one attention. There is also the opportunity to train with Maggie to become an accredited Thrivecraft Coach or Meditation Teacher including business coaching to set up your professional practice and make a great living.
Maggie Kay is an inspirational coach, writer and founder of Thrivecraft Coaching. Formerly an ordained Buddhist, she specialises in spiritual intelligence for life, love and business. Maggie trains accredited life coaches and meditation teachers and runs retreats, workshops and programmes from her countryside home near Saltash in Cornwall where she lives with her soul mate husband, Pat. Her new book – Diving for Pearls: The Wise Woman’s Guide to Finding Love – is being published in spring 2017.
As it turns out, I’ve not only had weekday mornings to myself, but the entire weekend too! I’m sort of pinching myself. One minute I was tired, depleted and overrun with domestic demands, and the next – acres and acres of time and space and inspiration to write. The family’s happy, the sun’s shining and the retro caravan work space is all set up. Wow!
Well, I did ask for it. It just shows you what the power of intention can do. The suddeness and scale of the change can be startling, though. It strikes you how powerful you really are – that you can make anything happen just by wishing it! Of course there’s a little more to it than that. There is an art to using intention to bring about what you desire.
I made this video about it last summer called Attracting and Creating the Life that You Want. Not surprisingly, it’s my most viewed film! Take a look if you like…
More recently, at the Entrepreneurs Find Inner Wisdom event I ran this Spring, I also recorded a series of films about the art of manifestation. I taught an ancient practice, called the Ah meditation, that powers up our ability to bring into being that which we truly wish for in life. The whole series is on recent pages of this blog that you can have a look at, but here’s a shortcut to the video of me teaching the practice itself.
Achieving the results that I’d ‘put out for’ so easily was a little scary. So much so that I caught myself trying to subtely sabotage them talking to my 15 year old son yesterday – “Are you sure you want to stay out another night with friends, Jamie? Wouldn’t it be a good idea to come home, have a good meal, a decent bed, a shower? I can always take you out again tomorrow….”
However, mostly I’ve been doing quite well with my saying “no!” practise (to curb my habit of over-giving). Jamie did call me midweek (when he’s usually with his dad) to ask if he and his friends could come and stay at the wild field for the night. It was exactly the same request I’d fallen down the hole with last Sunday when I failed to say no. This time I noticed. I saw the hole coming and I didn’t even fall into it! “No, sorry, Jamie. Your friends can come and stay at the weekend but not in the week when I’m working” – See? Easy.
And so it seems I’m bearing the fruit of my efforts. It’s been the most glorious, peaceful, lovely few days. It’s allowed me to realise that I’m in love with the huge skies here at the wild field. Day and night it is ever-changing and beautiful – the light, the clouds, the moon. I keep wanting to photograph the sky, capture the unique beauty moment by moment, but its impossible. The best thing is to simply go out and gawp, especially at night when the vast canopy of stars above is simply breath-taking.
This is why we are here. Somehow, living like this in caravans in the big outdoors connects me so strongly with my rightful place in nature. As a coaching client described it this week, it allows me to feel “in my skin”. I’m getting fit and brown and can feel the grass between my toes and the breeze on my face. I can breath deeply and enjoy every mouthful I take and every movement I make.
In the first week here, sleepless and sobbing with exhaustion, my husband, Pat, could not console me. Instead he called me outside and took my hand beneath the sparkling night sky. “Look”, he said, pointing up. Gazing into the vastness was a perfect, wordless reminder of what I truly am – an infinite spiritual being tasting a moment of human form in an endless universe of ever-changing miraculous beauty. What could possibly be wrong?
It didn’t take long to try out my saying “No!” practice (my new device to help me overcome habitual over-giving). Last night, my 15 year old son, Jamie, was out in town. At first he said he’d probably stay over with friends, but at nearly bedtime, he phoned and asked if I could collect him and two friends (and his friend’s bike!) to stay with us at the wild field for the night instead.
Fetching the boys would involve a 40 minute round trip, converting Jamie’s caravan lounge (also my daytime writing space) into a sleeping area, rustling up food for three hungry teenagers, putting up with their noise and carry on until they fell asleep and then doing it all in reverse in the morning.
The night before I’d hosted a BBQ and was relishing not having to cook today. When Jamie phoned, I’d just shut the gate to the field, sat down with the last plate of party left-overs and opened a can of lager. The caravans and field were finally tidied up and all was peaceful. I was looking forward to a quiet night with Pat, my husband, watching TV and mending a silly tiff we’d had earlier in the day.
So what did I say to Jamie when he asked me if his friends could stay?… “Oh, I thought you were staying in town! Hmm, well, okay then. It’s a bit of a hassle, but okay. Where shall I collect you?”
Duh!
I’d habitually fallen straight in the hole again. It hadn’t even entered my head that I could say no for a change, let alone recognise that I didn’t have to justify it. There was no demand for my knee-jerk analysis of everyone’s needs (putting mine at the bottom of the pile, of course) before coming up with the best course of valiant servitude.
A few minutes passed and it suddenly dawned on me.
“My God, I could have said no then!”, I exclaimed to Pat. “Oh well, at least I’ll set some other boundaries. They can convert their own sleeping area. I’ll stick a bunch of rolls and peanut butter in the caravan and they can feed themselves.”
“Yes!” said Pat enthusiastically. “And you’ve spotted it. That’s a good start.”
And he was right. I often relay this analogy to demonstrate how we can break unwanted habits simply be being aware:-
The man walks down the road. He doesn’t see the hole. He falls into the hole.
The man walks down the road. He sees the hole, but not quite in time, so he still falls into it.
The man walks down the road. He sees the hole and manages to avoid falling into it.
The man walks down the road. There is no hole any more.
Spotting a habit, even in retrospect, is the beginning of being able to change it. The trick is to cultivate a sense of slowing down and really noticing our responses to the things. Then we can choose whether to respond this way or that way, rather than just reacting automatically. Meditation creates this inner choice gap beautifully – it feels like it slows down time and surrounds you with amazing, switched on, bright peacefulness. Then you can truly choose what happens next.
Check out this wee video for more on this phenomenon (me teaching at a recent workshop) – it’s a life changer! Creating Choice with Inner Wisdom
Peanut butter in hand in preparation for the teenage onslaught, Jamie contacted me again, at first with a text saying “Thank you very much mum x sorry about it all x”
“Cor, it makes a change to be appreciated!” I said. “Of course, it wouldn’t have happened if you hadn’t had your realisation about saying no”, added Pat. “Jamie got your new energetic message telepathically”.
We’ve noticed this before. A few months ago we were having a challenging time with Jamie and we didn’t know what to do with him. Then we realised that there was nothing we could ‘do with him’, we had to change our attitude, not his. We sat and talked for hours about it while he was out, realising what we had invested in things being this way or that. When Jamie came home some time later the first thing he did was ask for a hug. It was as though someone had flipped a switch in his psyche – all his anger and tension had gone and he was completely different!
Pat and I recorded our talks that afternoon on the Flip video camera. We’ve kept them private until now, however, we’ve just agreed to make the first one publically available in the spirit of Raw and Real. Do have a look if you are interested in how we started to work through our issues to handle our challenging teenager.
Parenting our troubled teenager part 1 – Power games, control and the teenage ego.
And as though to prove how positive changes of attitude do transmit instantly and telepathically, last night there was more. A few minutes after his text, Jamie phoned to say “You know what, mum, its okay, I’ll stay with my friend in town. I want to save you the trouble.”
And so I retrieved the peanut butter from Jamie’s caravan and settled down to the rest of my own meal in peace. It didn’t take long for Pat and I to let go of our silly tiff, enjoy a film together and go to sleep in each other’s arms.
Here is my quick guide to setting your life free:-
Thrivecraft with Maggie Kay 