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!

I saw a Facebook post the other day which said, “Dear 2020, this wasn’t on my vision board!"

I chuckled to myself when I thought of all the vision boards I’ve made over the years, how I would take careful photos of the optimistic images I’d created so that I could carry them around on my phone to remind myself of what I wanted to achieve in my home and in my life. I even ran workshops and mini-training sessions with clients to support them to make their own ideal dream board so they could too benefit from this positive technique. After all, we get more of what we focus on… don’t we? 
 
Well…yes, many times we do but sometimes, events overtake us and we are sent challenges that we have to work our way around. This present situation is nobody’s idea of a good time and it demonstrates to us all that sometimes things just happen that we can’t plan for. That doesn’t alter the fact that what we focus our attention on tends to grow. If we look for the positive elements in a situation we tend to find it. 

It is also the case that we can easily overwhelm ourselves with fear and dread if we watch every single update or news bulletin and goodness knows that there are plenty of them at the moment. The last thing I would ever want to do is dismiss genuine anxieties and concerns and I know that so many of us are missing our loved ones and sad that we can't see family and friends. There are also people who will lose loved ones and that is a terrible reality for so many. 

Throughout our lives we construct our routines around familiar people and things and surround ourselves with people and activities that we love and can rely on. For some of us that can be time with family and friends, for others it’s getting out and about and meeting people for coffee or drinks and some people thrive on regular visits to the hairdressers and presenting themselves in a way that they are comfortable with.
 
We become so used to defining ourselves by our work, by our relationships and by what we do that anything that deprives us of these things is threatening and scary.  Most of us will never have been thrown on our own resources in this way. Routines that we relied on to give our life structure and people who are precious to us seem lost, albeit temporarily, as we retreat to our caves and hope that we can all get back to what we know and value when this is over. 
 
But, what if we decided to think about all this differently and recognise the opportunity to make real changes and new decisions about how we live in the future?  
 
Sometimes, we think that what we always did is the only way to live and we try to impose control by filling up our time with as many ‘normals” as we can. We think about what we can find in the shops to feed ourselves and our families, standing patiently and not so patiently in long queues to buy toilet rolls and pasta as if those things sustained our lives.  All in a thinly disguised attempt to take control of something we can’t control. 
 
The truth is, we were never in control…at all.  It has taken this virus to show us the reality of that. But what we can influence is how we think about what happens to us. The good news is that we all have the potential to come out of this differently from how we went in. 
 
We all need to consider how best to support ourselves as we come through this situation and what and who we will be on the other side. Maybe now is the ideal time to focus on a new vision for our future. What if we decided to use this time to plan how we want our lives to look after this period is finally over? 
 
Everything passes and this will pass too, now is a golden opportunity to look again at things we do because we’ve always  done them this way and begin to make plans for the months and years ahead. 
 
Services at Orrganise are available online at this time so if you would like a chat about what is going on for you or if you would like to book a session please don’t hesitate to get in touch.
​

How many times in the past few weeks have you heard someone say how strange these times are?
 
So much around us has changed over the last couple of months and many of the things that make up our normal lives are out of bounds at the moment. 
 
We are being invited to exercise at home, to communicate with family, friends and colleagues via Zoom, Skype or House Party, to learn new skills and even to revamp our cooking to make the most of what we have in our kitchen cupboards. That ancient jar of five spice might finally come into it’s own.
 
The temptation is to fill up every available minute and the same people who declare every year that they are going to make this the year that they will get fit, stop eating chocolate, hit the gym four times a week and get that new job of their dreams, will find it difficult to resist the temptation to pledge that they are going to use this lockdown to learn a new language take up knitting or crocheting or get super fit.
 
There is little chance that any of us will have missed the memo about what is going on at the moment but, for me, the most important thing is the recognition that we all need to build new habits to support ourselves. 
 
A cursory glance at daytime television reminds us that we are all in this together and while that is absolutely true, we are also all individuals and we will all be experiencing this situation differently. Some of us will be at home with young children or teenagers who want to be out and about or maybe we are with partners who usually leave the house at the crack of dawn and don’t get home till late or perhaps we are at home alone and don’t speak to anyone from morning till night.  
 
I don’t know what you are feeling but I can guarantee that, whatever it is, eating a ton of chocolate, draining the gin bottle or binge watching endless box-sets won’t make any of us feel better.
 
What we will benefit from is taking the time to focus on the things that we can do for ourselves to make the best of this period.
 
This is an ideal time for us all to develop positive ways in which we can support ourselves. The first thing we can do is focus on this moment that we are living in right now. Many of us spend a lot of our time projecting ourselves forward into this or that imagined future scenario. Terrifying ourselves as we go.
 
The truth is that none of us know what’s ahead and we can deplete all the energy we have by worrying about things that haven’t arrived yet and, hopefully, never will. 
 
Many of us have lost the ability to sit  alone and allow ourselves to be still and focus on the here and the now but there has never been a better time to look inwards and build our resilience. 
 
This is the perfect moment to work on building healthy new habits to take us all through this challenging time and into the future. 
 
It is vital that we all acknowledge our feelings instead of squashing them down and declaring that we are fine!!
 
Avoiding negative emotions may feel like an effective technique but, it never works in the long term, we are simply postponing the moment when the feeling we have stuffed down breaks free. 
 
Perhaps we find ourselves driving along behind someone who brakes suddenly and without any warning. Suddenly a rage out of all proportion to what has just happened erupts inside us. 
 
Ignoring your emotions is like trying to run away from something that’s right on your shoulder. The only way to be free is to stop and face your feelings.
 
You might worry that your emotions will overwhelm you completely and this can happen but most of us tend to get stuck because we are not actually allowing ourselves to feel. 
 
Over the years, many people have told me that they never cry and when I ask why, they often respond that they are afraid that if they start they would never stop. 
 
The truth is that many of us feel like that from time to time but we have to remember that everything passes happy or sad events alike and allowing ourselves to feel our anxieties and our pain is the first step in letting them go. 
 
If that feels too overwhelming and there is a need to keep some control, we can choose a time of day when we can sit down alone and think about the thing that saddens, frightens or worries us. Allow 15 or 20 minutes for the process, think it through, and then let it go for another day. Even 15 minutes can help to process our emotions and move us forward.
 
There is evidence from across the world that this crisis had led to a lessening of pollution and even the canals in Venice are running clear.  Wouldn’t this be the ideal time for us all to reset and prepare to move forward in the healthiest way possible? 
 
I am happy to chat with anyone who would like to get in touch and talk about what is going on for them. If you would like to talk online, please don’t hesitate to get in touch or if you would like to book an online session we can do that too.
 
Don’t Agonise…Orrganise