Tag Archives | resourcing yourself

BEING DEAD IS BAD FOR BUSINESS

Consider this your wake up call.

Yes, I’m talking to you.. the person reading this. If you’re working right now, the likelihood is that you’re working TOO HARD.

“What? ‘TOO HARD? What’s that Jo?”
Well it’s when you work yourself into the ground, for no real good reason. Its when you work really hard and don’t feel like you’ve achieved anything. And its when you’re working faster and harder but less effectively.

You see many of you right now are tired. Tired of work, tired even of life. Why? Because you are all working TOO HARD.

Working hard is fine, WHEN you get results. But when you are working apparently for no good reason, it gets soul destroying after a while. Every day you work hard and all your bosses can pick up on is what you didn’t do or got slightly wrong, rather than the shedloads that you did do. Either that or they then ask you to do more.

Business right now has reverted back to its own etymological meaning: no longer is it a place where we get things done, it’s a place where we are busy, being busy! (etymology – Business: a place where we are busy)

You see when the financial crash happened we were all happy to step up, chip in, do that bit more to ensure the survival of the businesses that we worked for.

“Of course I’ll work that extra hour to get the project done,” you’d say, “Yes, its OK I’ll take a pay freeze if it means that the business stays in business.”

“Yes, I’ll work longer hours if it means that I keep my job.”

Why did we do that? Because the vast majority of staff are essentially good people who want to do the best they can in their jobs. They are not ‘shirkers’ who avoid work, the majority of people want to do a good job and will do what it takes to get the job done well, even if that means staying after hours or putting the business first over their personal lives. Learn more about business handling at https://www.paystubcreator.net/.

So what did businesses do during the recession?

They streamlined, they restructured, they stripped themselves back to the bare bones so that they could reduce costs and keep their losses to a minimum. Sound business sense you might say, and indeed it is. However the new structures relied on the remaining staff working flat out, often doing the jobs that were previously done by two or three people.

That kind of workload is perhaps sustainable for a little while, 6 months, a year – we can all understand the need to do that for a short while. But it’s been 6 years now, and people are just worn out, dog tired, knackered.

You see as soon as businesses moved back into profit, rather than re-investing in their staff (the people that helped keep the business afloat through their tireless working in the recession years), they carried on reducing costs and streamlining their businesses, so that their shareholders/owners could recoup their capital from the profits that started to come through before giving anything back to their staff. The result? Those that were left staffing the by now anorexic organisational structure had to carry even more of a burden. They were loading their staff up like pack horses, and rewarding them not with a carrot but a stick.

“Well if you can do that, you can do this for me too.”

“I don’t want to hear the reasons why you can’t do it, I want to hear that you will do it and when it will be done by.”

“How about you step up into a interim senior manager role? We can’t pay you any more, but you’ll the have the experience and it’ll be good for your career.”

“It’s just one more project in your portfolio, I don’t see what the problem is.”

AND to top all that off, no pay rises (or minimal ones) or bonuses, for the majority of staff – the organisational machine was an insatiable beast, hungry for more, in less time, for less money, with just as good a quality, to create more profit for the business.

Now why am I saying all this?

Because it is WRONG.

Someone needs to say it. So I’m saying it. How business is being run right now is just plain wrong.

It’s not the way to treat people that have helped you out of difficult times, and it’s not the way to do good business. It’s not sustainable, and people are becoming ‘resources’ not real human beings and are being treated like animals.

“WOOOAH!” I hear you cry! “Jo, that’s a bit emotive isn’t it?”

Yes it is, but isn’t it time that we put a stop to bad business practices? Isn’t it time that we at least had a frank discussion about what’s really going on?

On the television every couple of months we hear that the economy is now nearly at the level that it was pre-financial crash. Now I don’t know about you, but that just makes me angry. To hear that ‘the good times’ are here again, is just ridiculous, because I don’t know of ANYONE right now who is in a better position than they were before the financial crash. Never mind that, I don’t know of ANYONE who feels GOOD right now, full stop!

So if the economy is really that good (and let’s bear in mind that the economy figures do come from the office of statistics – a governmental department), where has the money gone from the profits in business? It certainly hasn’t filtered down to most managers and leaders that we know. Isn’t it time that businesses began to pay back their employees for the selfless work they have been doing over the last 6 years?

It’s not happening at the moment, and the likelihood is, that sadly, its probably not going to happen. In fact most managers/staff that we know are working longer hours and working harder than they ever have.

So what to do?
Well, when we are stressed and overworked, we tend to narrow our focus, it tends to become about ‘me and my to-do list’. We don’t think about the wider picture or the grander vision, we just have to get through today and ensure that our boss is happy and that my to-do list just gets a bit shorter. We haven’t got the time or the energy to do much else. Work becomes all-consuming, its demands mean it ends up being a tide of work that never quite goes back out again. We let it slip in to our personal lives, we don’t push back, we just let the tide come in more and more and more. The result is that now most people will work when they get home in the evenings, and most people will work at least to clear emails on the weekend.

The problem is, that we don’t know how to say no anymore. And as a result work has become the main time consumer in our lives.

“Well Jo, its always been like that, it’s just how it is.”

Actually it’s not always been like this. Yes we worked hard, but we also worked in a way that was more natural. I was watching a documentary on the first world war recently and the government ministers would clock off at around 4pm to ensure they got home for dinner! Even factory workers had shifts that are probably a lot shorter than the ones that we have now!

You see bio-chemically we are not designed to work these sorts of hours consistently. The amount of sustained stress that our bodies are currently facing is greater than probably ever in our histories. We just don’t know what effect those stress hormones have on our bodies when sustained for so long, however one thing is for sure, it’s making us very sick.

Right now everyone reading this will know of at least one person who is off sick with stress. Everyone reading this will know of at least one person who is seriously ill as a result of overworking/stress. I’ve been working at Meta for 13 years now and during that time I have seen a tremendous increase in the amount of stress related illnesses and I’m seeing a worrying trend of people that we know and love getting serious, life threatening illnesses as a result of their work.

So I want to tell you something, something that I’d like you and any  organisational leader that reads this to hear. This is something that needs to be said and it needs to be read out at every staff meeting and every board meeting and every shareholders meeting: to remind those that are at the very top that their staff are not just a ‘resource’, they are human beings, human beings that are reaching their limits of capacity and in many cases are already beyond them.

“BEING DEAD IS BAD FOR BUSINESS” 

It may seem shocking for you to read. But I know personally of at least 10 people from the Meta Family who have had life threatening conditions brought on by work related stress in the last 5 years.

So i’ts time for you, the reader of this update, to do something about what is happening to you. You may not be able to change your organisation, but you can change how you treat you. You are tired, you are worn out most likely, so it’s time to begin to look after yourself again. If your work is demanding more and more of you and you cannot see that stopping, then consider your health, consider your family. Being dead is not only bad for business its also bad for families, loved ones and bad for you!

You may think that I am over reacting, but I am not. I am seeing too many people that I love getting seriously ill and it’s time we said something very loud and clear about it. At Meta we stand for a different way of working, a way that is more natural, sustainable and less stressful, where MORE gets done because we are working more effectively, with the natural ebb and flow of our own working patterns, where organisational structures are not based on reducing costs but what will be the most effective to get the work done and where people are thanked for their hard work and rewarded properly for the time and effort they put in.

It’s time that businesses started thanking their staff for frankly saving their skins these last few years. Shareholders, think for a minute, haven’t you earned enough? Isn’t it time to reward your staff for bringing you and your organisation back from the brink to profitability? Directors/Chief executives, isn’t it time that you started thanking your staff for all the hard work they put in and started looking at how to work effectively rather than just harder and faster? Managers/team leaders, make sure that you are looking after yourselves, so that you can find the time to notice, thank and develop your staff and treat them in the way that you would like to be treated.

So what I am saying is this:
It’s time to start looking after you, time to revisit all those tools you’ve learnt from Meta over the years that are to do with self-management and filling your fuel tank. Most of you are now running beyond empty and you really need to take time to refuel and recharge. When you are fuelled up, when you feel that you are in a better more resourceful state, THEN it is easier for you to start standing up for yourself and for your staff. You will start to believe in yourself again, and perhaps you will start to put in some boundaries to stop the tide of work overwhelming you and taking up your precious personal time with your family.

When someone writes your epitaph, you won’t want them to write “He was a bloody hard worker.” Or “She gave her all to that company.”

So let’s put work back into perspective. It’s not the be all and end all. Yes it pays the bills, but it’s not worth killing yourself over and it’s not worth losing quality time with your loved ones either.

Remember the mantra:

‘BEING DEAD IS BAD FOR BUSINESS” – (and it’s even worse for you..)

Got it?? 

If there’s one thing you take away from this update, it’s to look after yourself better and to make sure you begin to create time for you and your family/loved ones. It’s time to re-balance, time to re-focus on what really matters. I’ll leave you with this thought..

How would you like to be remembered?
As a hard worker?

Didn’t think so..

Time for a change, don’t you think?

And you don’t have to do this alone by the way!
Oh no, if you’re reading this you are part of the Meta Family, so if you don’t KNOW how to get the balance back, if you don’t know how to get out of the place you’re in, if you’d like some help or advice, a rant buddy or just a friendly ear, then both me and Di are ALWAYS available to you. Just give us a call or arrange a catch up over a cuppa. We’d love to hear from you, and we’d love to help if we can.

Much love to you all,

Jo xxx

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FOOD FOR THE SOUL

I recently went to see Bruce Springsteen in concert, and was struck by the level of joy he creates with his band and his audience. At the same time as loving the concert, I was reflecting on how rare it is to simply enjoy yourself: to sing, laugh, dance, and take pleasure in simple things.

We have been taught through the consumer culture to search for our delight through more, bigger, better, instead of listening to our hearts, which say simple, natural, shared.

This may sound idealistic, not of the real world. After all, how often can we go to concerts, or just dance? It’s not our everyday. Well, it can be: look at the sunshine, the flowers in the gardens. Listen to that lovely happy song on the radio as you drive into work. Taste that special cheese you decided to treat yourself to in your weekly shop. Smell your child’s head – how sweet! Feel the grass with your bare feet first thing in the morning. None of these are expensive or rare – and they all feed our souls.

And why do we do it – feed our souls? Because it is essential to our health and well-being.  It causes our brains to release those hormones which keep us well, and help us to thrive. Consequently, when my soul is fed, I am a more pleasant person to be around, I notice and appreciate the more positive aspects of my life, and I feel able to handle what the world throws at me. What is more, I don’t need the compensation of ‘stuff’ to try to fill the void.

If shopping did it for us, wouldn’t everyone in town look happy? If gadgets did it for us, wouldn’t everyone using their technology send positive messages?

We all have a sense of what feeds our soul: if your heart warms or sings at the thought of it, you know that works for you. That is what is worth investing in, spending time on.

This month, take a little time every day to feed your soul, and keep yourself well. The world is full of soul food, if we care to look for it – you don’t need to go and see Springsteen – although I would recommend it!!

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FILLING YOUR FUEL TANK

In Meta we emphasise the importance of keeping yourself resourced, to give you the energy and resourcefulness to be at your best. This is something every small child knows naturally – you need to keep yourself feeling good, so that you can get the best out of your life. Yet as we grow older, we are actively discouraged from listening to our own needs. We learn to eat at certain times rather than when we are hungry, to sleep when it is bedtime rather than when we are tired, to keep still when we want to move, and to move when we want to rest – the list goes on and on! The consequence of all this is that we begin to ignore the messages from our bodies, our minds and our hearts that tell us we are running low on energy, and to push ourselves on, against our inner wisdom.

When this becomes habitual, we leave ourselves exhausted and depleted, and that is when illness can creep up on us, or bad moods, making it impossible for us to be at our best. We want to encourage everyone to remember how to look after yourself, in a natural and easy way, so that it is easy for you to give of your best and still stay healthy and happy! We like to use a metaphor to explain what we are talking about.

Imagine that you have a fuel tank which contains your energy and resourcefulness. Most people tend to empty their fuel tanks faster than they fill it, so the orange light is constantly flashing on their dashboard. When your fuel tank is almost empty you will never perform at your best – that requires a full tank of energy and resourcefulness. Now if this were a real fuel tank, we all know that it is expensive to keep filling it up, although vital if you want your vehicle to keep going.

Fortunately topping up our imaginary fuel tank is very simple and easy, and generally costs nothing. Every time you smile or feel good, you put some fuel in – it need only take a breathspace. We call it having treats and we recommend that you have lots of treats every day.

A treat is anything which makes you smile or feel good that you can access through your senses: sight, hearing, taste, smell and touch. Observe small children – they find hundreds of things to smile at, laugh about or feel good about in a day. They notice the birds flying past and singing, the clouds whizzing across the sky, the colours of the flowers in the garden. They love the feel of the gravel under their feet or the grass with dew on it, the softness of a cushion, the roundness of an orange. They smell the roses, the fruit, the freshly washed sweater. They listen to the wind in the trees, the rain on the window, the music they love. And they instantly decide whether they like the taste of something or not, and show you by their reaction! These things are all around us in our everyday lives, and we can use them, as children do, to top ourselves up, just for a moment.

We can also give ourselves an extra boost to our fuel by allowing ourselves to have something we call turbo-charges. These are anything which involves us completely, making us forget our everyday worries for as while. For many people this will be a hobby or interest: cycling, exercising, doing a jigsaw, watching a great movie, or theatre production. Sometimes it is just those things which we often deny ourselves: the long luxurious bath with wine, candles and a good book; or the couple of hours where we just do whatever we feel like doing, rather than the list of chores. Such things are not self-indulgence, they are how we revitalise ourselves, and a turbo-boost will top your fuel tank up rapidly and more fully than the simple treat does.

At Meta we believe that treats and turbo-charges are the fundamental requirement for us to bring out our own excellence. When we feel energised and resourceful, we all perform better, come up with better solutions and ideas, and behave better with others. We need to remember to look after ourselves in this way, for our own sake, and for the world we live in – what a different place it would be if we all kept ourselves feeling good most of the time!

We recommend that you:

Make a list of possible treats for each of your senses

Allow yourself at least one breathspace an hour for a treat

Allow yourself at least 1 turbo charge a week

The world is full of potential treats and turbo charges, so exploit the possibilities and make yourself feel good.

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THE TIREDNESS VIRUS

There’s a disturbing new virus that is hitting at the core of every part of society. It’s called the tiredness virus and it’s something that we at Meta are committed to eradicating. There is no doubt that the tiredness virus is badly affecting organisations right now, it’s hitting the productivity of organisations very hard.

Why? Because tired people are NOT good for your organisation, nor are they good for anything! Think about it – when you’re tired:

  • Bad decisions get made
  • Awful mistakes happen
  • Office tempers flare up
  • Work seems harder to do
  • Efficiency is vastly reduced
  • Dealing with anyone is hard work
  • You end up being busy rather than being effective
  • The to-do list seems never-ending
  • And some days you feel like nothing has got done!

No-one is effective when they are tired, and everyone finds work and life more difficult.

Most people right now in the workplace are playing catch up with their sleep. They work longer hours than ever. With the wonders of smart phones and Blackberrys now, there is no escape from the office. You are being contacted at all hours and expected to respond at all hours. You probably live off coffee/tea/Red Bull at the moment and are rarely eating a proper lunch. Your body and your mind are tired, worn out and in need of some respite. Not because it’s a nice or right thing to do, (although it is the right thing to do) but because actually it makes sound business sense. If you are properly rested and you have filled your fuel tank properly, the by-product of that will be that you work more efficiently and more effectively.. And feel better for it!

So what can you do?

Well, if you are in a position of power within your organisation, realise that if you want more to be done in an effective way, you must allow people to have their personal time, to take their breaks, let them go home on time, and don’t email them at 12am – they’ll think you’ll expect a response.

If you’re a leader then lead by example. Make sure you’re getting enough sleep, and show how effective you can be with sleep. When you feel tired, stop and have a break. Give yourself a chance to refresh when your effectiveness quotient is down.

The best solutions, the most exciting innovations come from downtime and reflection time. How many times have you been stuck and then got up and moved around, or sat down and reflected, or even gone to the loo and had a moment of inspiration?? ‘Inspiration’ literally means to ‘breathe in’ and so if you haven’t even got time to breathe (and lets face it a lot of us are just too busy right now) then its not surprising that inspiration doesn’t come calling very often.

I work mentoring young people (16-18) in my old school and I’m seeing a worrying trend (in the last 5 years) which is that young people are becoming as tired and exhausted as their parent role models. They are also running beyond their natural limits. What kind of example are we setting our own sons and daughters if we are constantly tired, grumpy and over-worked?

The evidence shows that if you are well rested your brain functions better and you get more work done in less time. You are more effective after a decent night’s sleep and when you work more effectively more gets done.

So if you want to get on top of your to-do list, keep your organisation healthy, and set a good example to your work colleagues and your family, do a few simple things –clear yourself of the tiredness virus.

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STOP THE BURN-OUT!

Maybe you don’t suffer from it – you’re OK, you’re thriving on the pressure and the adrenaline buzz that goes with it. But most of us have times in our lives when the thriving on pressure becomes surviving pressure, and then barely surviving pressure. So beware! You could be on the slippery slope to burn-out, even if you haven’t yet reached that stage.

And many of you will know just what I mean: the feeling of being tired most of the time and exhausted some of the time; the reluctance to get up in the morning; no time or energy for enjoying yourself – just some of the signs of burn-out.

There is a high cost being paid in every industry for the continuing pressure to be competitive, and the resultant increase in workload and longer working hours. The amount of stress-related illness and absence in work is increasing exponentially, and everyone knows someone who is close to burn-out through just working harder.

We have a friend who, with his wife, comes to stay for a weekend occasionally. The Friday night meal is a waste of time, because he is too ‘wound-up’ to enjoy the food. By Saturday night, he is a little more human, but on Sunday he is winding back up again. His ‘free time’ is reduced by the post-work effects and the pre-work ‘wind-up’, and there is little enough of it in the first place.

When is it burn-out?

All of us have more highly pressured lives than used to be the case. Society has changed significantly, with instant communication links, geographical mobility, and expectations that everyone will fit more into their lives. So what’s the difference between working hard and having burn-out?

It’s a difference of control. I can have a day when I have been very busy: I may have travelled to work for an hour, then run a course all day, then travelled home, had some dinner, and spent an hour gardening, before sitting down to answer post, deal with e-mail, or do some word-processing. After a day like this I will be tired, but I will still feel that I am choosing how my day goes, and I can sleep well and get up ready to start again the next morning. When I’ve reached burn-out, I won’t feel as if I choose how my day goes. It will feel as if I’m driven by external circumstances, with little choice on my part, and although tired, it will be the weariness of someone who has kept going with, but not finished what they had to do.

Our fuel tanks

I often use the metaphor of a fuel tank in a vehicle to describe how many of us feel. Imagine that you have an invisible fuel tank attached to you, which is the container for your energy and resources. Many of us have become accustomed to running with the orange light flashing on the dashboard to warn us that the tank is almost empty. In fact, we are so used to the orange light flashing that we don’t really notice it any more.

What we do know is that we don’t have that much spare to give out to others and their demands on us. We resent extra demands because they may ‘empty our fuel tanks’, and we slump in front of the TV or go to bed early to just allow our tanks to re-fuel enough to get us through the next day.

One of the consequences of running your engine with the orange light flashing all the time is that you pull the ‘gunge’ through the system, causing, over time, blockages and breakdowns. We are warned about this on our vehicles, how come we aren’t warned about it with our personal ‘fuel tanks’?

So what can you do about filling up your fuel tank?

It is actually simple to top up your fuel tank, although not what we have generally been encouraged to do. Once upon a time, we all knew how to keep ourselves resourced and energised – it came naturally to us – and we had to learn how to neglect ourselves.

Watch small children. Without even thinking about it, they automatically go for things which will keep their fuel tank filled. Their preference is for anything which will make them feel good, if only for a moment. This is strongly sense-based – it’s what they can look at, hear, touch, smell and taste, primarily: a piece of clothing they love, even if it is ‘inappropriate’ for the occasion; a favourite toy or video; a favourite type of food – all these ‘feed the senses’, and in the process, top up the fuel tank.

This works equally well for us as adults, but we have learnt not to allow ourselves these ‘treats’. We wear sensible clothes and save favourites ‘for best’; if we enjoy a film, we watch it once; our favourite foods are saved for special occasions. Children soon realise that you are not supposed to keep your fuel tank topped up – but they were right, we were wrong!

How many ways could you make yourself feel good, just for a moment, in a day? I don’t doubt you have favourite clothes, smells, tastes, music or sounds, things you like the feel of. Our unconscious wisdom tempts us into making those choices, and putting them in our environment. They don’t have to be expensive or rare. I remember working with some hotel staff, and one of them said to me: ‘I long for baked beans on toast, instead of beef en croûte!’ I pointed out to him that a can of baked beans cost very little, and it was a very easy meal to prepare!

Most of the time, it only takes a moment or two to appreciate something by noticing it, or to make a different choice of clothing or what you listen to. It is not time consuming to fill your fuel tank, and it has such enormous pay-offs.

You have more energy and resourcefulness, so you can manage yourself and your day better. We all know that when we are ‘on form’, we work more effectively, deal with others better, handle difficult situations better, and generally view the world more constructively. This is within your control – you just need to re-learn how to keep your fuel tank topped up.

Working smarter

Once you have learned the fundamental principle, and resource yourself more effectively, you will find it easy to recognise and apply ‘working smarter’ principles.

  • Take ‘time out’ from whatever you are doing at regular intervals – we can only remain effectively focussed on a task for relatively short periods of time. When you find yourself beginning to lose concentration, move, have a break, fetch a drink, something to shift your focus and top up your tank. Then you can pay attention again.
  • Take a moment or two to check out that what you are doing really matters. We often pay attention to tasks because they are urgent rather than because they are important. Ask yourself (or your manager) what matters most in this job, and ensure that you give your best attention to those things.
  • Organise your day to suit your personal flow of energy. We all vary – some do their best report work in the morning, some in the afternoon, and so on. Observe yourself for a few days, and then plan your activities, as far as possible, to suit your own pattern.
  • Go home! Very long hours do not equate with effective work. And taking work home with you often results in a larger burden of guilt, rather than more being achieved. We all need to work, rest, and play, as an advertisement once said. If you lose that balance, you continually reduce your own effectiveness at the work.

Above all, listen to your own messages. We all have an intuitive wisdom that enables us to be at our best. External pressure produces short-term results and long-term burn-out. Internal awareness produces results long-term. What choice will you make?

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WHAT IS IMPORTANT IN LIFE?

When we are caught up in our busy lives, it is easy to forget what really matters.  Out time seems to be eaten up by those never-ending ‘To Do’ lists: targets to achieve, chores to be done, projects to complete and there’s always more to add to the list, no matter how much we get done!  It is depleting, exhausting and we end up malfunctioning in one way or another, because we are not machines, designed to do things, we are human beings, designed to be human!

And what does that mean, to be a human being?  We are a living system within a larger system and our purpose is to live in relationship with ourselves and with others.  Originally when we worked together to achieve common goals, it was to feed, clothe and house ourselves.  We realised that it was easier to achieve these things by co-operating and supporting each other, using our different strengths to play our part, and encouraging each other, so that we would all want to be a part of it.

Our ‘organisations’ are really just groups of people forming a bigger living system, so that they can achieve what they want to achieve more easily.  So why have we forgotten about how to use these systems well, and got caught up in just getting things done?

It’s time we remembered that it is through our relationship with others that we achieve more, it is by taking better care of ourselves that we really utilise our strengths.  It isn’t hard to do, in fact it comes naturally!

So for the next month;

  • Give yourself a break before you are completely exhausted, and just take some breathing space to be.
  • Address the human being you are dealing with before you just ask them to do something.
  • Offer help to others, and
  • Ask for help from others
  • Encourage others to take a breathing space with you

None of this needs to take up much of your time, in fact it will be better use of time than the attempts we make to keep going or look as if we’re keeping going, when we’ve really had enough. Instead of depleting your energy, it will help to re-energise you. When it comes down to it, none of us will want our epitaphs to say: ‘She finished the to-do list!’

 

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“FOUR YEAR OLD FEET”

So, you’re beginning the day, you gently swing your sleepy legs over the edge of the bed and stretch – the same as you do every morning.

You look at the clock, 6.30am again – Same as yesterday’s clock. That floorboard creaks as you walk on it, reminding you that you must do something about it. The tiles at the bottom of the stairs are cold on your feet, reminding you that you forgot the slippers again.

And so it continues, you’re daily routine. The cups, the two sugars, the saucepan and porridge oats.

The slightly impatient call from the bottom of the stairs to the sleeping family that lets them know you have given them an extra 5 minutes slumber!

How quickly we fall into routines that, over a period of time become uninspiring and enhance that feeling of monotony.

But wait…. the sound of smaller, lighter somehow excited feet are heard.

These are feet that woke up with a purpose – These feet wanted to feel that carpet squirming between their toes!

These feet now want to jump down those stairs in front of them – maybe from the top all the way down! They thrill at the cold of the floor tiles underneath them at the bottom of the stairs, making them move faster.

Attached to these feet are also two excited legs and a body that holds up a face that is brighter than sunshine. This is because through these eyes, nothing looks the same!

In the world of this four year old, every day is new. The previous day is somehow partially wiped from memory so that the opportunity to create magic today is presented.

Every task or challenge, from waking up to getting dressed or brushing teeth is embraced with gusto!

We live in busy times, our lives are sometimes so full that we just climb on the treadmill with everyone else and join the queue, not really thinking about where we are heading because it’s the same as yesterday.

So the challenge is…. slip back into those four year old feet again tomorrow morning and feel the carpet between your feet; look out of the window at a new and different day and grab it with both hands.

Re-frame what always happens into something with a wonderful, slightly odd and exciting feeling, the one you lost touch with when younger – And love it. Then at the end of the day, sleep soundly and dream of where those four year old feet might take you tomorrow?

 

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BEING FREE TO LIVE YOUR LIFE

You can also listen to a podcast of this Workshop.
[audio:metaspirit_workshop_being_free.mp3|titles=Being free to live your life]
Download this podcast

Life is for the living.

At least that’s what they say. I’m not quite sure who ‘they’ are, but one thing is for sure, there are not many of us who can honestly say that they are free to live the life they want to?

We like to blame circumstance, or others for our life not being how we’d like it to be, but ultimately I feel that the block lies with us. Continue Reading →

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GIVING YOURSELF PERMISSION

You can also listen to a podcast of this Workshop

[audio:metahome_podcast_giving_yourself_permission.mp3|titles=Giving Yourself Permission]

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For many years, Meta has been giving others permission to be themselves to make themselves feel good, to take better care of themselves, to trust their intuition. I consider it one of the more valuable things that we do, as all of us suffer from the need to know it’s OK to do things we have learnt are generally not allowed, for whatever stupid reason.

When we were born, it seemed obvious to us that we should choose how we wanted to be, and what we wanted to do, following our hearts. Then we learned that the world doesn’t work like that, we incorporated the should’s and ought’s into our way of talking and thinking, and lost sight of our own unconscious wisdom.

How many times do you say to yourself: ‘I shouldn’t really…’ or ‘I’ve got to…’ or ‘I’d better just…’ – there are endless variations on the theme! And what they all do is deprive ourselves of what we really want to do, and push us on with our obligations, or at the very least, make us feel guilty for still following our hearts.

What would happen if we decided to turn this on its head, and find a myriad of ways of giving ourselves permission? We could say to ourselves: ‘I deserve to…’, ‘I have done enough to be able to….’, ‘I really feel like… so I will….’, ‘It’s OK if I …’ – again the list can go on and on.

It seems to me that it is time that we all took responsibility for giving ourselves that permission. And I started, as we all have to, with myself. Although sometimes quite good at it, I realised that there were still a lot of ‘should’s’ driving me on, particularly around work. So I have been paying more attention to when the ‘should’s’ drop into my thinking, and asking myself what I would rather do.

And I am finding that giving myself permission to stop, to do something I really feel like doing, to follow my heart, is having a radical effect on my life – in a good way. Strangely, more gets done more easily, even though I take more breaks from the tasks, and put my feeling ahead of my rationality. And I am happier, and I have more energy – what is going on?

I feel that the experiment is far enough along to begin to encourage others to adopt the same experiment. So why not have a go at giving yourself more permission just to be how you are, to follow your feelings, and to challenge some of those times when you are driving yourself along.

We would encourage our friends to be kinder to themselves if we saw them exhausting themselves or forcing themselves on, so be your own best friend for just a while, and do notice what the effects are…

 

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SLOW DOWN!

You can also listen to a podcast of this Workshop

[audio:metahome_podcast_slow_down.MP3|titles=Slow Down!]

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Have you noticed how the days have become a non-stop dash for many of us, much of the time?  We jump out of bed, do our morning ‘stuff’. Hurry to bus or train or car, get to work, and start immediately on the ‘to do’ list.  Even after the daily dash through as much as we can get done at work, we don’t often slow down.  It’s home, tea, maybe more work, the children, and finally we collapse in bed, to have a rest ready for the next daily dash.

Are weekends any better?  Gardens, housework, kids’ activities, socialising, maybe some of the jobs we didn’t get done this week at work – the weekend can easily turn into another list of chores.

Your poor bodies and minds and hearts!!  What happened to us?  We wouldn’t fit in breathing if it wasn’t automatic!!  And we are paying a high price for all this dashing: high blood pressure, bad backs, viruses that knock us flat for days, barely surviving relationships, poor digestion.  It doesn’t even give us real compensatory rewards:  do you ever finish that ‘to do’ list, at home or at work?  Do people praise you and love you for your out-of-control Protestant work ethic?

I know, I know, it’s hard to break the habit; it seems to be what’s expected of us; if I don’t, what might happen?

So my challenge is this: can you find a few spaces in each day to just slow down for a while?

  • How about 5 minutes in the morning, just tasting your breakfast/coffee/tea?
  • How about 10 minutes around lunchtime, just walking slowly and noticing what’s around you?
  • How about 15 minutes when you first get home, sitting quietly or strolling round the garden?
  • How about 20 minutes before bed, just relaxing?

 

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