Monthly Archives: February 2013

Your life in 10 seconds

28 Thursday Feb 2013

Posted by in Coping skills, Life Lessons

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Unless you have been living under a rock for the past week or so, you would be very familiar with the story that is gripping my home country.
Our hero, Oscar Pistorius, has killed his girlfriend.
Now I’m not here to judge anyone so I’m not going to say anything about my thoughts and theories, lest I get into trouble for what I have to say. Whether he is innocent or guilty is up to the courts to decide.
What interests me, and truthfully scares me, is how one split second of a bad decision can change your life irrevocably.
For me, it was like looking into a really scary mirror.
I know that there are times that I get angry and in that moment, I have to decide whether it is worth acting on my anger or not.
And when you are really angry, you are acting on adrenalin and not common sense.  If I didn’t pause to consider the consequences of my actions on a few occassions, then I would probably be in trouble.
When I was little, I was told to count to 10 before I reacted to anything. For me, it is more like having to count to 100 in order for me to calm down. For others it could be a few minutes or even hours.

We need to take this lesson from Oscar Pistorius and the many other fallen heroes that we will and we can choose not go down the same path because we made a stupid mistake that we can’t undo.

There is also a possible positive side to split second decisions. How often do you decide not to do something and then you wonder if you should have stopped and done it after all. But then it is too late? And you obsess about the what could have happened or what would have been different.
I saw a programme on TV (as one does) about emergency calls.  A woman walked past a car and saw that the person in the car seemed to be in distress.  She decided in that moment that it was none of her business and that she would walk on. Then she thought about it, turned back and called an ambulance and ended up saving that person’s life.

When you are in a situation, any situation, just take 10 seconds before you make a decision. Rather than acting impulsively.  Should I or shouldn’t I?  And if you are going to endanger yourself or someone else, you shouldn’t.  If you are going to save or help yourself or someone else, you should.
10 seconds can make all the difference, and a life lived with far fewer regrets.

And I’m sure that you will agree that sounds like a good way to live life!

Choose to be happy

21 Thursday Feb 2013

Posted by in Attitude, Life Lessons, Positivity

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This month in the Jewish calendar is called Adar.
They say that when Adar comes joy increases.
Now you may ask how a new month starts and suddenly everyone gets happy. But it happens!
If you have the attitude that something positive is happening or is going to happen and you decide to shift your attitude, then amazing things happen. Your experiences in life actually change.
I understand that we don’t have control over our lives and that things happen that can negatively influence our thoughts and emotions.
But if you choose to be happy, or try your absolute best to be as happy as you can despite of your circumstances, then you will notice a big difference in the way your life seems to work out.

A few days ago, I was almost killed in an almost accident. Well, that’s the dramatic version of the story.  My choice afterwards, once I had finished shaking and feeling absolutely nauseous, was either to focus on the fact that I could have died or that I am blessed to have survived such a near miss.
What happens to you is not a choice. How you deal with it is!
Stop saying but or what if or I can’t.
Start saying yes I can or I’ll try.

François-Marie Arouet otherwise known as Voltaire was a French writer, historian and philosopher who lived from 1694 to 1778.
He had a saying: “I choose to be happy because it is good for my health.”  Even way back then, he knew that positivity had a huge impact on health.
Now that we are in the scientific era, it has been proven that people who are happier and more positive, have stronger immune systems and better longevity.  So it is not only about your mental health but your physical health too.

I hope that you know that you are worth it and your life is worth living. It is worth living in a good, happy and positive way.
Let the happiness in!

Valentines Day Lessons

15 Friday Feb 2013

Posted by in Mindfulness, self esteem

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Valentines day lesson number one:
This morning I was driving in peak hour traffic and looking in wonder at how many red lights there were for valentines day.
Red lights? We actually call them traffic lights (and in South Africa for some inexplicable reason we call them robots).
Before you, probably very rightly, think that I have lost my mind, let me explain.
Of course I notice traffic lights. I stop at the red ones and go at the green.
But because I was so aware of it being valentines day and looking out for red things, the red lights became so much more noticeable to me.

It made me think of how often we are just not present because our minds are somewhere else. So, when you are driving, your mind is on where you are going and what you need to do rather than where you are now and what you are doing now.
If you choose to notice something, it just becomes so much more obvious how much we are surrounded by things that we generally don’t take in.
Who smiled at you? Who seems upset today?
You notice how beautiful the sky is and the light that filters through your window. You appreciate the taste of your lunch rather than just seeing it as something that you need to eat because you are hungry.
You notice the quiet.

And now that today is valentines day, what do you notice about yourself? What are your strengths? What do you value about yourself? What makes you special and unique?

Valentines Day lesson number two:
For me, Valentines Day is celebrated as Bolero day. It is the anniversary of Torvill and Dean winning the gold medal at the 1984 Olympics with their stunning performance of Bolero.
They were (and actually still are) the ultimate fairytale couple to me. And I don’t know what happened in their relationship but this I do know:
The lesson that I have learned from them is to never let a day go by without acknowledging your feelings and yes, your love for somebody else. It doesn’t have to be your life partner or the love of your life. What about your family? What about the friends who are there for you when you need them, the people who make you smile?
Don’t ever forget to let them know how much they mean to you.

I hope that nobody waits for once a year to appreciate and acknowledge themselves and those people that deserve your love.

Using your gut instinct

07 Thursday Feb 2013

Posted by in Attitude, Coping skills, Life journey, Life Lessons, Self growth

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Do you trust your gut instinct?
And what exactly is a gut instinct?

So, this whole month, I’ve had a horrible nagging feeling in the pit of my stomach that I’m making a mistake in something that I’ve been doing.
And I chose to ignore that feeling because, well maybe it’s my stubbornness or my over analytic way of thinking, or more likely it is my non thinking impulsive behaviour that causes me to do the things that I do.
But guess what? My gut feel was right and I made a royal mess up and now I have to deal with the consequences.
It could have been worse (well, that’s what I’m telling myself) but it could have been totally avoided if I had listened to that gut feel in the first place.

What is a gut feel? Some call it instinct, some call it intuition, others call it sixth sense.
The Heartmath institute has done research to show that gut feel, or whatever you choose to call it, is the innate feeling that is held in our hearts. Yes,our hearts, not our heads. And I guess that is where the idea of listening to your heart comes from.
When we listen to what our head says, we are using our analytical thinking and always thinking about consequences and what ifs.  When we use our hearts, we go with our feelings.
A lot of people ask me whether going with your feelings doesn’t cause you to have more problems because you haven’t made time to think it through.
In most cases it doesn’t.  Your feelings are generally more accurate than your thoughts.
And what if you make a mistake?
Well then you know what not to do. It is a lesson.  And in my case, an expensive one so I call it school fees. Money that you had to spend (ok, lose) in order to learn something that will hopefully be a lesson for life.

Trust yourself, trust your feelings, trust what feels right for you.
It will be so worth it in the end!

Driving forwards whilst looking backwards

01 Friday Feb 2013

Posted by in Attitude, Life journey

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Imagine driving your car without looking forward to the road ahead of you through the windscreen, but rather choosing to look at your rear view mirror.
I wonder how long it would take before you crashed into something?
And it is just laughable at the idea of doing something as crazy as that.
But is it? Because we actually do it all the time.
We really try to move forwards but we seem to be always looking backwards.
Re-examining the past. “I shouldn’t have done that” or “I shouldn’t have said that” and the best one, “I wish I could turn back the clock”
What are you going to do about it?
Time travel? (And by the way, I am willing to pay good money for anyone who is going to invent a working time machine, and I have had no shortage of people who have designs for a time machine, but that is a story for another day!)

Try to let the past stay in the past.
You did what you did because you are not perfect.  But it must have felt like the right thing to do at the time. Right?
Every now and then, check your review mirror, and learn from what you see and then look forward again. Move forward.
You have no idea how bright your future may be but you have to let it shine. And the only way that you are going to shine is by letting the past stay in the past.
If you have made mistakes, let go of them.
If you did shine in the past, well done! It doesn’t mean that you had glory before and that you won’t ever shine as brightly as you did in those glory days.  You can do it again, differently, better.
You can be brilliant no matter what.
Just allow yourself to be great.
Deep down inside, you know that you can be!