Transform your business

27 May 2010 — Aannsha

I just heard of the The Entrepreneurial Goddess Telesummit which over the next few weeks is featuring leading business-women who are passing on their insights and tips for those of us women who want to do better at business.

I’m working through blocks and resistances towards becoming more financially independent (Conscious Inner Transformation covers all areas of life after all).  I heard of this series of teleconferences just recently and have been very inspired by both the facilitator and also the speakers I’ve heard so far.

They talk about many useful areas of transformation, including releasing subconscious blocks to realise your true self, rather than limping along through life or one’s business, hampered by our programming.

Very inspiring.  So I thought I’d share it with you.

Entrepreneurial Goddess Telesummit.

Posted in Conscious inner transformation, Transformation, Transforming emotions. Tags: , , , , , , . Leave a Comment »

Behind my anger was vulnerability

8 May 2010 — Aannsha

I don’t know about you but everyone I meet lately is having issues with frustration.  Even those people who spend time on inner work and are usually quite cruisy.  If you’re into astrology, you might see it reflected in astrological events, but I’m not an expert in that field, so I’ll leave more in-depth comments to the professional astrologers.  Astro.com is a good place to start, if you want to learn more about your own chart.

Anyway, there’s one person at the moment who is pushing a lot of my buttons and on the positive side, is revealing in more clarity some of my more pressing (pardon the pun) issues.   My earlier post outlined the beginning of this particular cycle of inner growth and talks about the trap of getting stuck in an emotion.

Well, after a couple of weeks of becoming increasingly angry at what felt like constant unfair criticism of how and what I was doing, but also of me as a person, I realised I couldn’t continue in the same manner without blowing a fuse, storming away or suppressing it and becoming sick (dis-ease describes when we are ill at ease).

If something makes us feel angry it is usually pointing out that we feel powerless in a situation.  If we are receptive to this inner emotion and do not hold any judgment about it, like it’s wrong to feel angry, it’s scary to express anger, then we can act on what it is telling us and do something appropriate to empower ourselves in the situation.  (Notice the word appropriate here!)

Generally, I don’t think blowing a fuse or erupting in anger at another person is helpful in a situation as it doesn’t really help, as the other person will probably react out of anger themselves, or become fearful.  Neither reaction is empowering.  If you’re on your own, quickly dissipating the energy by verbalizing it may work, as long as you truly release it.  Often we can express an emotion but still hold on mentally to the cause and therefore not really resolve anything with the outburst.

Storming away can sometimes be the right move, if it’s used in a “time out” way.  “I really need some time out here – I’m feeling very strongly about this,” could be a way of expressing yourself while you walk away and calm down.  But storming out and shouting “That’s it, I quit!”, wouldn’t necessarily be useful if you walked out of a job into unemployment with a mortgage and lots of bills to pay and a couple of starving kids waiting for dinner.

Suppressing an emotion isn’t healthy either. Often people who don’t like conflict, or the thought of hurting someone will do this.  But suppressing an emotion and carrying it around as baggage isn’t good for long-term health.  Carrying around anger for example is a cause of dis-ease and is not recommended for long periods.  Emotions, by their nature, are energy in motion (e-motion) and when we are in balanced and centred and do not carry any judgments or unresolved issues about a situation, we can allow emotions to flow through us.

But in those moments when our buttons are pressed, well that’s a sure sign we’re holding a judgment about the situation, or ourselves, or how the other person, or taking it too personally – or we are holding onto an unresolved emotional issue from the past that is being triggered.

What to do?  I use a several-pronged approach.

  1. I resolve to express myself differently.  In the case of anger, I hold on to this emotion when I’m afraid to express myself in the situation because of a disempowering belief I either have of myself or I’m afraid of the consequences and what will happen to me.  It’s something I learned as I was growing up and an emotion I personally find hard to address.  We’ve all got different emotions we’re uncomfy with, anger is one of mine.  Rather than express anger at a (projected) authority figure by expressing my own displeasure, I will often remain silent and then resentment and anger can build up. So deciding that next time I will express myself appropriately, such as saying, “When you say that, it makes me feel really useless.”  This doesn’t guarantee any change in the situation, but it is at least giving myself permission to express myself in a way that’s non threatening and lets the other person know how I’m feeling.  How will they change their behaviour if they don’t know it’s affecting someone else.  (Of course it’s also a possibility that they may never change their behaviour!)
  2. I try not to take it personally. I remind myself that often what’s being said is more about where the other person is coming from, rather than a statement about me.  Not taking it personally is easier said than done, especially if one is looking to the other person for approval, or feels bad if the other person is not happy.  Often empathic people are sensitive to other people’s ‘stuff’ and are more easily caught up in the other person’s ‘dramas’.  Remembering that we are not responsible for the other person’s emotions is helpful.
  3. When I have time to myself, I take a moment to centre myself, connect with the All That Is, God, Higher Power, Higher Self, whatever you call that all-encompassing energy that surrounds us and fills us.  I also send my energy down to the earth, to get a sense of support from the planet that provides me with my home and food.  Then I feel the anger (or other emotion/s) in my body, imagine I’m lifting it up through me with my hands and up out of my head and mentally give it away to the All That Is.  I know when I’ve really released this, because I often do a little shake like a dog shaking water off its back.  Within moments, there is a shift in my emotional clarity and I often have difficulty remembering what the problem was all about (which to me is a sign I’ve really let it go).
  4. I remember what the emotion was telling me.  For instance, in the workplace, anger might be showing me that I felt powerless to escape the situation because I couldn’t see another way to earn money.  How could I use that feedback to empower myself? I could look within myself at my talents and abilities and find another way to earn extra money.  Following through on that might be enough to gain a sense of empowerment, knowing I was not as ‘useless’ as I was being ‘made’ to feel.  Alternatively, it might provide an extra or alternative source of income, with somewhere to go if the situation didn’t resolve itself in any great way.
  5. Next time I am with the same person, I choose to go into the situation with a blank mind.  Not dumb and vacant.  Blank.  In other words, I choose not to think, “Oh this person’s  going to make me feel bad again”, because that will immediately switch on my defences and I may inadvertently make the same thing happen by my own actions or words.  In other words, if I go in thinking the person’s going to bully me again, I am likely to unconsciously portray victim behaviour and actually cause a repeat scenario.  If I can’t actually envision a positive outcome to the situation, I do my best to go into it with at least a blank mind, which means that I resolve not to imagine a bad outcome, another argument, or whatever happened before.  I choose to keep my mind focused on what’s in front of my nose at the time.  And continue to do so when I’m in the situation.  While it is difficult to do, I work hard to keep my thoughts focused on the present moment.  The Right Here, Right Now Moment.

So, going back to my example recently, I released my anger and decided to meet the next day with an open mind.  The next morning when I awoke, I actually felt sick with fear.  Interesting.  Anger was replaced by fear.  So I went through the releasing, and chose to remain focused on the here and now.  Throughout that day, I kept feeling fearful and very open.  I felt vulnerable.  It was difficult to operate with such strong emotions flooding me, but I did my best to remain centred.  Interestingly things I touched kept going wrong and this fuelled the other person’s criticism more.  But I was determined not to rise to anger because I felt powerless.  Instead, I remained with that open feeling of vulnerability.  When confronted with my inability to function, I merely said, without a trace of anger or pride, “funnily enough everywhere else, people come to me to fix things.  Here lately, I seem to be always in the wrong.”

What I did there was remain in my centre, stayed with how I was feeling and expressed myself honestly.  While near to tears at my own vulnerability I had walked through a fear barrier.  The one that had caused me to feel angry for so long before.  Anger had been my way of protecting myself from feeling vulnerable.  That state that we all feel so often as children and yet harden to as we grow older.  Yet vulnerability goes hand in hand with an open-hearted embrace on life and is closest to expressing our soul nature.

What happened when I expressed myself that day?  Strangely, those words spoken so quietly, were heard and after that, while I was still requested to do things differently, I was requested rather than told, and requested with an explanation rather than a harsh cutting comment on my uselessness.

The other thing that happened was I had an idea to sell some of my creative products.  So out of that difficult ongoing scenario came a determination to find more of my own power by tapping into my creativity and following something that gives me a real feeling of joy and fulfillment.  So even though the situation I find myself in daily is not always ideal (and let’s face it we’re all human, so what is ideal anyway?), it is giving me the impetus to grow beyond my original frustration as mentioned in my earlier post.  To fulfill more of my potential and in that way walk taller, with quiet gratitude, rather than anger.

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Life’s ups and downs

15 February 2010 — Aannsha

I haven’t posted lately as there have been a couple of family issues that have come up and have been taking up my thoughts.

One of the things I notice is that in times of crisis, I tend to default into old habit patterns in an attempt to avoid feeling anxiety or other difficult emotion.  I think a lot of us do that – maybe you can identify with what I’m saying?

For me if its a really difficult situation, I sometimes get very lethargic and want to sleep (that’s a real shutting down mechanism in extreme circumstances).  Alternatively, I crave comfort food – biscuits, or chocolates (which contain those lovely chemicals that make a person feel loved) and mask what I’m really feeling!

A better way for me of handling these times though, is to get up and move – walk the dog, go for a jog, dance a bit – which changes the stuck emotional energy into physical energy that can more easily move through my body, leaving me feeling more alive and positive.

I also find meditation or toning my mantra particularly helpful, although one of the things I’ve also noticed is that I’m less likely to want to sit with myself or do my mantra or meditation technique when I’m feeling ikky. Do you find that? Bizarre isn’t it?! And yet, that’s exactly when we’d benefit most from tried and true techniques. Depending on the type of meditation and/or mantra, they can help us change our vibration at a mental or cellular level and that really contributes to our being able to shift through the emotional clunk that we may find ourselves in.

Ultimately, the meditation or mantra or other practice that we may be practising, is the means to transform at a deep level, which an end in itself.   At the very least, it can show itself as different experiences – ripples of change – in our outer world, as well as a stronger sense of true Self within, that will enable us more easily move through life’s circumstances.

To fully identify with our true Nature though, we have to uncover It, through layers of belief systems, ‘programming’, unresolved emotional issues and judgments that cloud our view of ourSelf and reality.

So the challenge is – next time something we’d rather avoid happens in our lives – instead of heading down Habit Highway, perhaps we can consciously choose to take the action that we know in our heart will be better for us in the long run.  That may be exercise instead of blobbing on the couch vegging out in front of the mind-numbing TV; it could be eating an apple instead of a bag of chips or tub of ice cream (and I don’t get the attraction to do that myself lol); it could be choosing to sit and feel an emotion and breathe it through our body, rather than shout our anxiety at someone we love.

Conscious change often requires us to embrace a healthier choice that may initially feel a poor second choice to an otherwise seductive pull of an habituated knee-jerk ‘fix’.  It may not taste as salty or sweet because its not full of additives; it may cause our body to groan in protest at movement rather than blobhood, and it may be extremely hard to rein back on the sarcastic comments to someone who can’t defend themselves against the onslaught of our frustration.

Whatever it is, only you can decide if you’re worth the effort.  I’m hoping that if you’re still reading this, you may resonate with what I’m saying and perhaps have just made such an effort.  Or maybe next time, instead of knee-jerking your way out of a crisis into the numbed stupour of an addictive avoidance mechanism – you will remember that you really want to rediscover your true Self, and remember too that the only way you’re going to do that is by walking down a road you haven’t spent a lot of time on.  The one of conscious inner transformation.

Here at Conscious Inner Transformer, you will receive encouragement to take that journey.

Posted in Conscious inner transformation. Tags: , , , , , , . 3 Comments »

Eating catalyzes emotional release

1 February 2010 — Aannsha

Photographer: Salvatore VuonoIt had to happen sooner or later.  Since I’ve changed my eating habits to include mainly fruits and vegetables and cut out stodgy, starchy and fatty foods the inevitable happened today.  Well, its been building for a few days, if I’m honest.  Some of those emotions that I’ve avoided dealing with in the past and instead ‘stuffed down’ by overeating comfort foods, has started to bubble up and make themselves known, in no uncertain terms!

That’s the thing with suppressed emotions; if you take the lid off, eventually they’re going to make their way to the surface and scream to be let out!  And if you’re into Conscious Inner Transformation, you’ll welcome them.  Well, maybe not welcome them exactly because if you’ve avoided them, you’re probably scared stiff of them, or in judgment of them in some way.  So welcome may not be the right term – perhaps grudgingly acknowledge their presence as an ongoing aspect of your finding true inner freedom.  If you look at them in that way, you can at least allow them to come up, knowing that you’re on the way to releasing more emotional baggage that you don’t want weighing you down.

When I say ‘release’, I really don’t mean you have to fly off the handle in rage, or literally pull your hair out with grief or whatever – although sometimes, if you’re feeling particularly overwhelmed, there’s nothing wrong with some time out to shed a few tears or stamp your feet, if that’s what you need to do.

Release in terms of consciously transforming is more a grace-ful letting go of what has been long held within and giving it up to one’s higher/greater/divine self, or whatever term you use to describe your higher conscious awareness.  What is happening at this time (and forgive me if I’m telling you something you already know – this is for anyone who is new to this process) – is that what you have chosen to avoid in the past – an emotion that you may have judged as being ‘wrong’, or one that was simply too overwhelming to deal with – is that you are now feeling it returning after its release from your subconscious.   ‘Sub’ – in that its below your consciousness, and at the time you experienced the emotion or judgment about yourself, the way to preserve your equilibrium was to nicely suppress it where you weren’t aware of it.  Hence it ended up in your sub- (or un-) conscious.

As this section deals with eating – and experiencing transformation through changing your eating habits to healthful ones – then the most likely way these unwanted emotions were stuffed down were by the use of food.  Some people overeat to do it, some eat ice cream (although I can’t see the draw in that one myself lol), other like myself as I said above, go for starchy, fatty foods.  Whatever you may grab out of the kitchen in times of emotional crisis though isn’t really that important, its that when you decide to eat healthfully, you will find yourself facing whatever you chose to ignore the first time around.

The good news is that this time you know that rather than being in the actual situation you were in at the time, this is now an old emotion, an old memory, and in the past – although the emotions themselves will feel absolutely real as they come up.  One thing that can also happen is that your subconscious does not know the difference between the past, present and imagined and you might think these emotions are as a result of what’s going on now – or project onto the present situation, making Out There the bad guy.  If you do that, you will find yourself stuck in a loop and will keep coming back to this place again and again, a bit like Ground Hog Day.

I’ve found the best way to deal with strong emotions – and really, it doesn’t matter if they are old emotions being released or from something you’re experiencing in the present – is to simply let them go.

Easier said than done maybe, but a process that in itself is simple, and yet deeply healing and ultimately, profoundly liberating.

In the next post, I’ll describe the process.

Posted in Conscious inner transformation, Healthy eating. Tags: , , , , , , . 3 Comments »

Eating Transformation

30 January 2010 — Aannsha

Globe ArtichokeI’ve noticed that transformation as it occurs, radiates through my life, touching every aspect of it. Lately I’ve been very much more focused on what I eat.

I’ve struggled with my weight off and on – even when I was a beautifully slim UK size 10!  I always compared myself with skinnier women and thought that I was fat and ugly.  That issue has come up a lot over the years and each time I’ve delved into the pain of feeling ashamed of myself, ugly and unlovable.  What I came to realise was that being ‘fat’ didn’t make me feel ashamed and unlovable.  I already felt those things – and believed them at a deep level, holding judgments about myself and how bad I must be.  My body, parts of my body, and my weight all became areas where I unconsciously projected this self-hate.

As I got into personal transformation I worked at releasing the deeply held emotions and the destructive beliefs about myself – and even though I’m as big as I’ve ever been, I can honestly say that I love myself and my body now.  I even prance around on the beach in bathers, unconcerned about other peoples’ opinions of me.  (Even though no-one’s probably even looking at me lol!)

Towards the end of last year and the beginning of this year (2010) I began to really focus on my health (rather than a fat/weight issue) and started to feel a strong desire to attain optimum health and fitness that I can enjoy now and into a very long and active and youthful old age.  I have long known that my eating habits for the last 12 or so years have been less than ideal for my system, especially since I’ve been married with a child and have made do with what’s easy more than going for excellence in nutrition.

Surfing the Net for information one night, I came across a site called www.peertrainer.com, which I found to be an incredibly valuable resource for people wanting more health and fitness.  Among the articles there was information on Dr Joel Furhman’s work, including the first chapter of one of his books, Eat for Health.  He has coined the term Nutritionist to describe someone who chooses what foods they eat based on how many micronutrients they contain.  To cut a long story short, I bought the book, and also hired another of his books, Eat to Live from my library and am totally enthused by what he presents.

I will let Dr Furhman speak for himself if you’re interested at: www.drfuhrman.com – but suffice it to say, I’ve adopted the mindset of choosing nutritious foods, rather than what’s quick, convenient or artificially tasty.

Now I’m having fun experimenting with healthy food – smoothies, soups, salads, and not only using recipes from Furhman’s  books, but also making my own and really enjoying a new eating experience.  My family (husband and son) are less veggie-orientated than I am, but to their credit are giving the recipes a go and while I still cook to their tastes for them, always try what I’m having.  I don’t believe in converting people, but giving them the opportunity to try and change, if they wish, themselves.  Although to me, its vitally important that my husband and particularly my son, adopt a healthy lifestyle (eating and exercise) now, so they can enjoy a full, active and healthy existence.

In the meantime, along with having fun eating (no guilt attached when you can eat as much as you want of nutritious foods) I am losing weight!  Since January I’ve effortlessly released almost 3Kg.  I say ‘released weight’ as ‘lost weight’ might imply that I want to find it again haha.

If you’re interested in following a day by day account (with photos) of Dr Furhman’s recipes, you might be interested in Jana’s blogspot at http://janadrjoel.blogspot.com .  I found it very enjoyable to read, loved the photos and liked how she and her husband graded each recipe.

So in summary, transformation of oneself takes many forms and as we grow, release limitations and embrace more life within, we find that our lives open up and bring us many opportunities for increased health, fulfillment and opportunities.  Healthful eating is one of those areas that can give us the opportunity to  be more creative and adventurous, enjoy more sensuality in cooking and eating, and discover the unfolding wonder of increased health and fitness now and into our later years.

Posted in Healthy eating. Tags: , , . 3 Comments »

Uncovering Facts, Understanding Interpretation and Releasing Judgments

25 June 2009 — Aannsha

In Our Orientation in the Present Moment, Aristomenes looked at the benefits of remaining in the present with our back to the future, and facing our past. When we take the time to look at our past, we start to see patterns in our choices and how they have helped or hindered us in shaping the present in which we find ourselves. Let’s look at one of the mechanisms that can be responsible for shaping our unconscious decision-making processes: Facts, Interpretation and Judgments.

Here’s an example: Imagine a little girl, brought up in an environment where her mother and father have an explosive argument in front of her and her father storms out of the house. As he leaves he turns, points his finger at the mother who’s hugging the little girl and shouts, “You women are all the same. You’re nothing but trouble! Well I’ve had enough! I’m leaving!” The father never returns. When the girl grows up she finds herself in short-term abusive relationships where the males keep leaving her. Yet she yearns for a long-term relationship with a man who loves her and treats her well. The repetitious behavior of men leaving her, only reinforces a deep belief she holds about herself that she’s ‘trouble’ and that all men leave in the end.

Imagine at this point the woman stops for a moment to review her life and begins to realize that perhaps not all men leave, after all several of her friends are in long term relationships – but maybe there’s one common denominator – herself. So imagine that she turns away from her nebulous future and instead looks at her past, looking for answers to her continuing unfortunate choices in men. She reviews her experiences, the choices that she’s made in terms of finding a caring partner, and sees a pattern emerging. Through looking at that pattern, she also realizes that deep down she holds a belief that as well as thinking all men are undependable, she also believes that she doesn’t deserve happiness. At that point, she might ask herself, “Where does that belief come from?”

Then she remembers her father leaving and what he said. She reviews her memory and looks simply for the bare facts and remembers that her parents had a bad argument. The father snapped and made a sudden decision to leave. Angrily, he threw a parting shot at his wife. He left and didn’t return.

As she reviews that memory, she remembers that as the little girl, she was huddled next to her mother as her father left, and when he shouted at his wife, she also took what he said to heart and at that moment made an interpretation that had gone into her subconscious to be replayed over and over again. As a child, her Interpretation was “Men leave because I’m trouble”. She realized she had also judged men as bad for leaving. And she had judged herself as bad for causing her father to leave in the first place.

Realizing this at a deep level is one key to this woman using her past as a key to releasing her in the present to make different relationship choices. At this point, she can consciously release the interpretations and let go of those judgments and choose in future to respond in the moment – the here and now – whenever she is with someone. Over time, these new choices will bear different fruit.

At the same time, this woman may well find that as she identifies again with the child in that memory, the strong and mixed emotions that she felt as a child but was unable to process, flood her emotional/physical body. Rather than attempting to suppress them again, if the woman is able to accept them and then release them as she senses them, she is another step closer to being freer to find real happiness in the present (and future).

This simple illustration shows how we can use this powerful mechanism to release more of our past conditioning and become freer in the present to make conscious, life-affirming choices that bring us more joy. Not only that, but as we have actually let go of painful emotions that have weighed us down, along with deeply ingrained beliefs about ourselves, we actually can feel noticeably lighter and more loving of ourselves. I would like to add my thoughts here that because we are resonating differently, sending out different subconscious messages to our environment, we also start attracting circumstances to us that have a different ‘feel’ / resonance to them. The only challenge we have then, is to remain in the present to respond in the present – rather than knee-jerking back to an old familiar reaction. ;)

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Hello!

11 June 2009 — Aannsha

… and welcome to Conscious Inner Transformation blog.

In brief, to get the ball rolling …

This blog been set up as a supportive environment for souls of like purpose to read articles and share thoughts, find community and validation.  In particular, its designed for for Conscious Inner Transformers who share similar traits to myself and others I know.

The Conscious Inner Transformer (CIT) reclaims, heals and transforms with ever-increasing awareness; conscious and sentient; into the expanding wholeness of their potential self.

You will find in this blog more information on the definition of a Conscious Inner Transformer, and also a questionnaire to help you identify if you are such a soul.  If you are, then you may find that as this blog grows, it is filled with really useful information for you in your journey to wholeness.  It will also be a place where you can add your own comments, ask questions and share your pertinent life experiences with others if you choose.

But for now, welcome! :)


Posted in Conscious inner transformation. Tags: , , , , , , , , , , . 4 Comments »