Wondering how to shift something in your life? Maybe a stale relationship, a stuck business or a repetitively negative mood?

The answer is often sought in something external to us, such as a management consulting team, a relationship counsellor, a mindfulness guru. And yet, while these options can be fantastic in terms of actually highlighting the issue and perhaps getting to the root of the challenge, there is something else entirely, something far more fundamental, that will bring the change we so desperately require.

This answer lies in considering and altering our habits – for it is our habits in the first place that underpin the behaviours that have caused us to be in the place in which we find ourselves.   

Motivation is what gets you started. Habits are what keep you going.

Jim Ryun

We all follow habits and very often a large part of our day can be constructed of many habits collated together. But, what separates landmark leaders (whether leading self or others) is that level of conscious awareness that goes into forming those habits. High achievers have spent a considered, focused amount of time creating, and tweaking their habits to serve them and give them joy....

Many of us already apply this powerful word to our lives.  Maybe not realizing how powerful it is. 

If I think of the benefits:

• It saves time,
• It invites ease and comfort,
• It costs less,
• It’s clean,
• Tidy not messy,
• It's easily understood and easily repeated. 

It’s that time of year again, the one where traditionally, you started shopping immediately, wrapped up the school year, the varsity year, the work year, renovations, projects and book club events for the year.  Just that in itself is exhausting.  

My invitation to you is to remind yourself that we’re not living in normal times – we’re living in the new AC – 'after Covid' times – nothing is “normal” anymore. If it's not dawned on you yet, then here’s the good news – if nothing’s normal – then you have a blank canvas – to write your own story, create your own festive season with a twist, paint your dream December and make it happen. If that sounds like too much.. then maybe just accept that you needn’t do everything the way it was BC (yup you guessed it – 'Before Covid').

When life seems crazy and like it’s getting more unpredictable by the moment, how do we handle it? How do we handle the constant change, disappointments, unknowns, curveballs? 

If the research and statistics are anything to go by, the answer to these questions is: With panic, worry, insecurity, anguish, stress and exhaustion. 

Vipassana means ‘to see things as they really are’.  The silence - known as the Noble Silence - meant more than no conversation.

 It implied absolutely no communication or contact with the outside world, nor with any of my 60-fellow meditators.  No gestures, hand signals, eye contact or even, a quick “bless you” when someone sneezed

We are taught to believe that the purpose of a question is to produce an answer. And yes, this is one of the outcomes that is possible.

However, the truth … of a well crafted question is the deeper, ever-evolving thinking and feelings that are produced when we grapple with it. When we are stopped in our tracks, and pulled out of our usual stream of thought by a simple string of words that has been designed to...

Have you ever stopped to think about what home means to you, and wondered what it might mean for someone else?

Let's explore the meaning of  Home  from a slightly different perspective.

A home invites a sense of peace, ease, relaxation, welcome, belonging and acceptance that allows us to fully be ourselves. ‘Home’ is the ‘place’ in time and space that we seek to return to or to find for the first time.

And yet the reality is that, in our seeking of a sense of home, we are not always clear on what that looks like for each of us.

The term Ahimsa is derived from the root word himsa, meaning "to cause pain," and the prefix "a", which means "not”.  To practice ahimsa involves refraining from causing physical and or  psychological pain to any living being. Thus,  to live in harmony with people and the planet alike. 
Of equal importance is non-violence towards oneself. 

We, in our actions, our thoughts and words, are to refrain from negativity – to practice kindness, self-care and affirmation of ourselves. 

If we practice ahimsa, we cultivate inner peace.  

As we cultivate inner peace, we begin to radiate a new energy into the world, and in so doing, slowly but surely, influence others to do the same.  This is how one changes the world for the better, from the inside out. 

We live our lives in flow – expecting things to fall in place, to work, to be the way we’ve been taught or told that they should be. Until it doesn’t.

"Values are like lighthouses, they are signals giving us direction, meaning and purpose" - Unknown

The process of understanding our values is an essential one if we are to move in the direction of our deepest purpose and live out our biggest impact and potential.

I’m finding lately that there is just not enough time to do all I want to get done, and it’s not just me.  It’s like the veil has been lifted after a long sleep, and we are being driven subconsciously to get things done before the end of 2021. I, for one, know that this isn’t healthy, and that this panic or anxiety I’m feeling in my belly has deeper foundations than just a to-do list.  

We hear so much about the importance of focus, goal-setting, and having a vision in life. Whether from an individual perspective or from that of a business. Having a strategy on how to progress and move forward is a given in our modern Western culture. 

However, there is a crucial oversight to this mentality, and it is this that is costing us dearly both individually and collectively. 

I was inspired by last Sunday’s glorious sunshine to explore, with our Equinox Morning tribe, how we can change the world around us by shining our light as brightly as the sun, and in as many ways possible.  Here are the five ways I believe we can all shine our light for others, and in so doing make even a little dent in the universe.

There are many universal truths and none is more true than that personal change is difficult.  But why is that, you may ask?

Neuroscience tells us that the brain is programmed to seek out routines and processes that are repeated many times in order to store these in our autonomic nervous system as a habit or habitual behaviour – thus creating space in our brains to store other, new or more important information.  An example would be, driving a car or brushing our teeth.  These are things we shouldn’t have to give much thought to – we have more important things to consider or new things to learn with each new day.