Some time ago, before life events, in the shape of Covid, Lockdown and Zoom, I wrote about wearing something sparkly for the whole of December to add sparkle and shine to our everyday lives. At the time, it seemed like such a good idea in the face of all the stress of organising Christmas whether that was about battling around the shops and coping with the endless shopping and cooking or visiting those far flung relatives and friends we don’t see from one end of the year to the next. Since then life has changed for so many of us and I wonder if sparkle and shine sounds shallow now.

Last year was a really different Christmas for so many of us. After months of lockdown we really hoped that things would resemble the festive seasons that went before even if it had to be in a more scaled-down way.  We looked forward to celebrating with family and friends as we had always done and tried hard to adapt our plans to fit in with restrictions. No big parties or office get-togethers and a reduction in the number of people we could have around the Christmas table didn’t daunt us as we did our best to adapt. 

Then we found ourselves locked down again and no matter how necessary this was, it was so disappointing for people who had gone through many months feeling isolated at home, communicating via Zoom or Facetime and who had looked forward to some kind of return to normal. 

This coming Festive Season is already being portrayed in the media as a return to the glittery old days and a casual glance at television advertisements and magazine covers show cheery groups of people wearing festive hats and cheesy grins having a brilliant time.  Social media has the inevitable ‘selfies’ of people in glittery clothes pouting at their phones to demonstrate to the world how fabulous their lives are. 

You may think that this is pretty harmless and I’m sure it is unless you are one of those people who feel that their lives do not resemble what they see in front of them and feel sad that they don’t have that life that they see portrayed.

Someone once said ‘don’t judge your insides by other people’s outsides’ and this has never been more appropriate or timely.  

Remember the last time you took a flight anywhere and the flight attendant told you to put on your oxygen mask before trying to help anyone else? Well, how would it be if we applied a little of that same logic to our Christmas preparation?

What if we decided to change how we look at the whole thing and made changes to the way we approach the festive season this year?

If the last two years has given us anything positive it must surely be the chance to rethink how we do things and how we mark those big occasions. 

This year the shops aren’t quite so full of shiny things to buy and, for months now, suppliers of festive food and the ‘must have’ toys and gifts, have been warning of shortages and the need to start early. 

What if we decided to do everything differently and celebrate in a way that’s perfect for ourselves and those we love?  We could decide to dress up in glitter and eat our body weight in cheese and chocolate all washed down with our tipple of choice or just stay in pyjamas all day eating toast and watching old films..

We could decide to take things easier this year and make sure that we build in time for ourselves between the present buying and parcel wrapping. Time to just breathe…make a cup of tea and put our feet up for ten minutes. 

Writing this in the wake of so much drama and turmoil over the past two years and talking about donning sparkle may seem a little shallow. But, I can’t think of a more appropriate time to remind ourselves of how magical this time of year can be regardless of our circumstances and if that involves a bit of sparkle what harm can it do? It might even make someone else’s day as they go about their business at this, the darkest time of the year.

For myself, I thought this might be the perfect moment to stop all the rushing around, take a moment to breathe and take stock of the year just past.  To take a little time to say a heartfelt thank you to my family and friends.

I would also like to thank everyone I have worked with over the last two years. It has been an honour and I wish you all a happy and restful Christmas, however you spend it.

If you would like to give the gift of confidence, stress management, weight loss or anything else to yourself or your loved ones, gift vouchers are available ……

Don’t Agonise, Orrganise!

Time to start a new adventure...

​The author Paul Coelho once said ‘If you’re brave enough to say goodbye, life will reward you with a new hello’

I can’t think of anytime in recent memory when this was more true. 

Over the last eighteen months many of us have had to accept very real change in our lives and our routines and I have lost count of the number of people who have told me that they just want life to return to normal.

The last year and a half has shown us that all those things we thought we were in control of were fragile and subject to change with no warning at all and that what we thought was normal and would always be could not be relied on after all.  For many of us, it has been a wake-up call about what is really important to us and what our priorities actually are. 

No matter how afraid we are of new ways of living or of different challenges, dealing with self-doubt and believing that we can achieve what we want to achieve is one of the most powerful ways we can deal with those fears and anxious thoughts. The defining feature of any situation we find ourselves in is the way we think about it. 

We have very little control over what happens to us on this rollercoaster of a life but, what we can influence is the way we choose to think about what happens to us. We can choose to lament our perceived losses or to decide that we are open to change and excited to see how everything will look.
By the time you read this, it will be October and a few short months before the end of another year. Maybe we decided back in January that this would be the year that we’d make all those long-overdue changes. We’d shed body weight, get that new job and maybe even move house. 
This could be the ideal time to decide what we really want to do, what we actually want to change and what we want to hold on to going into our futures. Who knows, maybe those annual resolutions to join the gym, lose weight or take up crochet aren’t so attractive after all and we can finally take them off that list of resolutions that we make every single year. 

Now that things are opening up we all have very real choices to make and there is a real prospect of exciting new adventures ahead. If only we decide to do things differently and embrace those new opportunities. Letting go of our need to live as we have always lived could be just what we need to allow us to welcome those new adventures.

Why not make some new choices today and decide that it’s time to say hello to new experiences and adventures.

To find out how Hypnotherapy and Coaching with NLP can help you to embrace those changes.

Don’t Agonise, Orrganise!

Just this morning I was making a routine appointment and the receptionist said, with a cheery smile, “ah that will be mid-October, not long till Christmas!” I did a double take, surely there must be some mistake?  Half joking, I told her she may have skipped forward a month or so and politely asked her to check.
 
Of course, I should have known that she was right and I apologised for my apparent lack of faith in her and went on my way shaking my head.
 
I don’t know about you but I feel like this has been one of the fastest years I have ever experienced and like many of you, I am keen to put new things in place, to make the best of the rest of this year and to take the opportunity to grow and develop as a result of the last eighteen months. 
 
I believe that we can’t move forward without letting go of what’s behind us and never in my life has this felt more true than it does now. 
 
All around us we see people trying to get back to their old routines. Young people have headed back to school and many are embarking on a new journey as they head off to university, further education or the workplace. 
 
This should be an exciting time but recent events have cast a shadow that many of us are finding it hard to crawl out from under.
 
Many of us are getting back into our familiar routines now and we just want things to be the same as they were before. But not to take advantage of all the lessons of the last eighteen months is to lose really valuable insights. 
 
The truth is that absolutely nothing stays the same and maybe we shouldn’t want them to?
 
It would be really easy to step back into our old lives again and to try and pretend that nothing has changed but wouldn’t that be a waste of what the experiences of the last eighteen months has given us? 
 
It would be really easy to rush headlong into our familiar patterns and those old ways of thinking and to convince ourselves that there is no way to live if we don’t stick rigidly to what went before. But, for many of us, the same old patterns are no longer relevant to the lives we are living now. 
 
Let’s all decide to accept those changes even if they have been forced on us.
 
Here at Orrganise, we are now working face to face and online via Zoom, Facetime or Skype
 
Why not get in touch to find out how Reiki, Hypnotherapy and Coaching with NLP can support you to embrace the next steps. 
 
 
Don’t Agonise …Orrganise
 

Can you bring to mind the last time that something you did had an exceptional result? What was special about that time and what did you do to achieve that result? When I ask people to do that little exercise, they often really struggle to find that positive thing to focus on but can give me ten examples of the time that something went wrong. 

And yet, it’s as simple as changing what we decide to see. Is it that one time we ‘kerbed’ our tyres or those hundreds of times when we drove smoothly and calmly and nothing at all out of the ordinary happened? 

This new habit would be one of the most supportive things we can ever do for ourselves.

When we decide to focus on those good results and on what we do well, we don’t waste time and valuable effort on worrying about the times things didn’t work out. We learn whatever lessons there are to learn from the experience and we move on.

Sometimes we play the “ah but’ game when someone gives us a compliment on something we have done, on a meal we have prepared the clothes we have chosen to wear. We find ourselves saying ‘ah but, this bit didn’t work, I put too much seasoning/too little seasoning in, I think this colour doesn’t really suit me”. Suddenly a feel-good moment is overshadowed and the unfortunate soul who ventured to offer us a compliment scuttles away doubting both themselves and their judgement. 

One of the most important gifts we can give ourselves is the realisation that, with some things, good enough is good enough. 

This is really important for us and for any young people we are caring for. We can all feel that we are never good enough or achieving enough and a gentle reminder of the times we did something really well has a huge impact on the self -esteem and confidence we need to carry us all forward.

I believe that it takes three weeks to make or break a habit, wouldn’t it be great if we all decided today that we are just going to stop criticising and judging and see the amazing things we are all doing on a daily basis? 

Let’s start today and see where we are three weeks from now.

Don’t agonise… orrganise!

As I write this, the sun is streaming through my window and there are plenty of green shoots in the garden to remind me that Spring is definitely here. It’s a really welcome sight after a very long and dark winter that seems to have gone on forever.

The sunshine and calm weather this past weekend has brought people out in their droves and the beauty spots and footpaths around here were extra busy as families and sole walkers alike were out in the fresh air and enjoying just being outside. 

No one could deny that this last year has been one of the strangest years most of us have ever lived through. 

For many, there has been real loss and on-going sadness and I think few of us will ever forget the sight of older people last Mother’s Day being forced to smile and wave at their loved ones through closed windows and locked doors. Even though we all understood the reason and knew that it was the only thing to do it didn’t make the experience any less sad.

Sometimes it can feel like we are all caught up in a game of  ‘mirror, mirror on the wall, who is the saddest of us all?’  and many people have said to me ‘I know I shouldn’t grumble when there are many much less well-off than me or some who have struggled more than me”. Confronted with what some have experienced this year, it can seem like the rest of us shouldn’t complain about not being able to get a haircut or go out for a coffee. But, even if those are the only things that we have missed during this interminable period of lockdown, it doesn’t make our feelings any less valid and we should always honour our own needs and look after ourselves. 

The next few months have the potential to really open up our world again and most of us can hardly wait for that. Maybe for you it’s the potential to travel again to meet friends for coffee or cocktails, or finally getting back to our hairdressers to fix those pesky lockdown roots! 

Whatever you have been missing over the last year, none of us will be going forward completely unchanged and chocolate or cocktails or pizza might simply not be enough. Perhaps now would be a good time to build self-care habits into every day of our lives from here on. 

If you would like to find out how NLP or Hypnotherapy can support you in developing those new habits, don’t hesitate to contact me. 

Don’t agonise… orrganise!

Covid continues to be talked about as if it is an uninvited guest, an interloper with the temerity to shake everything up and prevent us from doing what we always did. No ski holidays, no trips to warmer climes to escape our freezing weather and absolutely no trips to the sales. Many of us are grateful that there is nothing expected of us and are happy just to take it easy and stay home but it can’t be denied that some of us feel isolated and lonely and are daunted by yet more weeks of home schooling. 

There has never been a time in living memory when life was so unpredictable and felt so different. Most of us have lived for years doing the same things year in and year out and any losses and other changes we have experienced have been limited to ourselves, and those close to us. 

This last year, for the first time in most of our lifetimes,  we are sharing experiences with so many other people even though everyone is reacting differently. Some are fairly relaxed and ready to go with the flow and others are stressed and anxious. 

The trouble with life being the same for long periods of time is that we get used to that being the case and we begin to believe that we have power over what happens to us and it can be really difficult to adapt to any unpredictable life events over which we have no control. 

At the end of last year, many were fixated on the hope that 2021 was somehow going to be a reversal of fortunes and that a magic wand would be waved somewhere in the universe which would turn everything round and we could all breathe a huge, collective sigh of relief. 

I have decided that this year I am going to be more accepting and kinder to myself and to be more patient with what’s going on around me. None of us know how long we are going to be living with the restrictions we are currently experiencing so let’s all decide to adopt new supportive habits, whether that’s walking in nature every day, having a relaxing bath or not putting ourselves down when someone compliments us.  After all, using our energy to protest about restriction and to lament that we can’t do what we always do saps our strength and prevents us developing positive new resilient habits that will support us into the future, whatever that looks like.

If you would like to develop new techniques to support you through this period and into the future, please get in touch. 

Don’t agonise… orrganise!

Has lockdown and all the confusing talk of tiers, travel bans and bubbles just been too difficult for you? Are you one of those people who lament the limitations we are all subject to and do you long for a return to some kind of ‘normal’?
 
No one at all can deny that 2020 has been a challenging year for many of us. Some people say that they have enjoyed being able to retreat from the world and have welcomed the chance to just be at home. For many of us however, the strangeness of not being able to do what we always do, to see friends and family and to be free to travel has been difficult to get used to not to mention the endless Zoom meetings. If someone had said at the end of 2019 that this would be how we would be living as we approached Christmas and the 2020 festive season, most of us would never have believed it.
 
But it can’t be denied that, in among the hard bits, this year has given many of us the chance to think again about how we live and the choices we can make about our future. 
 
Self-care has become a bit of a byword and many of us don’t really give it much thought beyond the odd bubble bath or early night. However, we can all choose to live differently as we go forward into 2021. Yes, we can make those resolutions and set those goals but, we are also being invited to prioritise our own self -care. If this year has taught us anything it must be the importance of looking after our own physical and mental health. Remember the last time you were on an aeroplane and the cabin crew told you to put on your own oxygen mask in the event of an emergency before helping others.  Consider this your emergency situation and invest some time and energy in looking after you. 

Here at Orrganise, circumstances this year have changed the way we work. We still offer face to face sessions but now work really effectively via Zoom or Facetime too.  This means that carving out some ‘you time’ has never been easier, all from the comfort of your own home.
 
If you want the gift of self care for you or for someone who you feel would really benefit from taking some time for themselves and building healthy new habits. Why not order a gift voucher now?

​Don't agonise, organise!
 

It’s already pretty clear that Christmas 2020 is going to be very different from anything we have ever experienced before. In previous years, those old familiar songs would already have started filling the air in every shop or café up and down the country and we’d all have been grumbling that Christmas starts earlier and earlier every year and that it’s just not what it used to be. There was a feeling that, in time gone by, everyone was less materialistic and there was some magical meaning to the festive period instead of this craving for the latest games and gadgets, the overfull supermarket trolleys and the annual scrum to stock up on stuff that we definitely don’t need. 

This year there will be no dashing around bustling city centres and most of us won’t be taking part in that annual shopping extravaganza.  There will be no office parties, no visits to winter markets and no extended family gatherings. Instead, we are being invited to decide exactly how we want to mark this annual event in a new, scaled-down way.

It’s interesting to note that the very people who complained every year about having to make all that effort are already worrying about how they are going to manage to see everyone and how they will replicate all the Christmases they knew before and lamenting that everything needs to be on a much smaller scale.

It’s not at all surprising that there is anxiety and concern about having to give up on all those rituals, even if they weighed heavily in previous years. We all love a tradition and a routine and, when we can’t imagine what something is going to look like, it’s no wonder that we can feel anxious and unsettled.

After all the turmoil, uncertainty and change we have experienced for most of this year, many of us are feeling anxious, flat and totally lacking in energy. A splash of glitter and sparkling lights could be just the thing to spread some much-needed cheer. While it can’t be denied that, for some people, 2020, will have brought such personal loss and sadness that Christmas is the very last thing they will want to think about. The chance to suspend reality for a few precious days gives us all the opportunity to just stop and appreciate the things in our lives that really matter to us.

This year, I think many of us will really want to focus on the joy of putting up our sparkle and decking those halls with familiar decorations that have been packed away since January. When we stashed them away early this year, we could have had no inkling of how different life was going to look when we retrieved those familiar boxes from their storage places. As we take time to remember those family members and friends who are no longer with us and look forward to finding new ways to see loved ones on what has the potential to be one of our most precious festive seasons ever. 

Christmas 2020 has the potential to be different from anything that most of us will ever have known. But, as always, there is a bright side. We all have the opportunity to create exactly what  and who we  want to have around us this year. After the experiences of recent months, this might just be the perfect time to take a moment to say a heartfelt thank you for family and friends and to make positive choices about how we spend the festive season in a new, calmer way. Who knows, this new way of celebrating might even be so enjoyable that future Christmases will be scaled down too as we really appreciate the true spirit of the festivities.

Don’t agonise… orrganise!