Robyn MacGregor

Do the hard stuff

Robyn MacGregor — Wed, 19 Jun 2019 08:18:08 +0000

“Go for 5 more minutes, c’mon, it’s easy!”, says my gym loving boyfriend from the machine next to me.

We have all been there. You are on the treadmill for some or other reason and are doing something that is meant to be running but it’s turned into more of a brisk walk. You have all the best hits streaming through Spotify and you think “Ah I’m good here at this speed, this is just right for me”.

I used to think that the mere act of showing up at the gym should be enough to get me a pat on the back, but soon you begin to realise that no growth comes from comfortable couches.

“But it was in this moment, lying in bed late at night, that I first realized that the voice in my head—the running commentary that had dominated my field of consciousness since I could remember—was kind of an asshole.”

― Dan Harris, 10% Happier

Rule your mind, or watch it rule you.

In my experience it’s more than physical exertion or discomfort that forces us give up on a new habit. It’s the voice in our head telling us that for one reason or another we can’t do this.

Luckily we are starting to wake up to the realization that the minds prime function is to think.

To create, to problem solve, to justify, explain or understand.

And we expect this to just not appear when we try to do something differently to the way we have done it our whole lives.

Notice for a moment, the next time that you are doing something that is difficult for you.

The moment it becomes less and less easy and the enthusiasm isn’t as strong.

Notice what you are telling yourself.

“You are too fat/unfit/unhealthy/terrible and this is actually a huge waste of your time and you know you are going to eat a pizza after this anyway”.

I began to think of the voice inside my mind as the shorter version of me that thinks she will never get old, can survive on coffee, bread and cigarettes forever and wants to ignore the fact that walking briskly on the treadmill for 5 minutes twice a week is not in fact exercise.

She frequently gets upset at the gym when faced with another set.

She also frowns a lot and her favourite word is “NOPE”.

When we challenge ourselves to really do something out of our comfort zones, we alter the neural pathway of this particular action and the way we have always performed this action.

Think about it in this way.

You walk to work every day.

The route goes through a straw field.

You walk the same route every day and know it well. You are comfortable with it and pretty soon you don’t even need to be looking in the direction you’re going, can read or listen to music while walking it and feel safe and happy.

Pretty soon, you notice that there is a pathway that has been created by you walking the way every day. The straw is flat and if you were a bird and able to fly high above the field you could see the clearly demarcated path from beginning to end.

Now imagine that one day, about to start your journey, you decide to go different way. The straw is almost taller than you are and since there is no clear path because you have not yet tread this way, you now have to create a path for yourself.

This is the same way that habits are formed and become part of our lives. We begin to perform the same habitual behaviour in various parts of our lives.

They are our automatic, auto pilot response to whatever we are faced with and something important to note is that until we learn to develop new habits and new responses to triggers, we will always default back to what we know, the habits we are comfortable with and the responses that are programmed into us.

This is why dealing with new and challenging things are so difficult.

It is much easier to just eat the pizza.

It is very important to challenge ourselves and to fill our lives with things that are not comfortable, familiar and doesn’t help us grow

A few things that could start you off to get-out-of-your-rut:

Get up 30 minutes earlier in the morning.
Commit to making a delicious and healthy dinner once at week.
Try someone else’s routine and see if you could adapt aspects of them into your life.
Commit to working out consistently at least 4 times a week for 30 to 45 minutes per day.
Dedicate some time every day to a non-work related project you have been working on.
Spend less time on your devices and get out more.
Meditate.
Read.

The question is Why?

Why would you do this to yourself?

Why would you struggle everyday and try to over power the voice. Why would you do something that doesn’t feel good and that you almost hate?

Because we are our own worst enemy and if you want to grow and better yourself, be healthier mentally and physically, going back to your default setting is not an option.

That person just wants to play the victim and have things easy all the time and thinks if you weren’t born fit, there is nothing you can do about it now.

When we keep trying again, after failing so many times, coming up with new ways to progress and pick ourselves up after the umpteenth time and still these things are important to us, is life’s way of teaching us lessons that keep coming back to us until we have learnt them.

How do you shake things up and get out of your comfort zone? Tell us in the comments.

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What we allow in

Robyn MacGregor — Thu, 23 May 2019 14:24:45 +0000

In the last year or so I have been on a journey to becoming a minimalist.

The word minimalism has become a buzzword recently and I am glad I discovered it. It has led me to question myself about a lot of things and is leading me to a life of less, of less clutter, less time spent making decisions that aren’t important.

Less perfection and more simplicity.

A few years ago I began experiencing a form of anxiety that would come around whenever I would start cleaning my home. I would get up early in the morning and start with the housework. Very quickly into my day, I would start to feel overwhelmed. I would stop and have to take a break and then try and go back. The number of things that had to be done was weighing on me and when I would spend hours cleaning and organizing and arranging, I would at the end of it feel as though I wasted my entire day.

This happened every weekend when the time rolled around for the weekly tidy. I started to resent the time I would be locked in my flat doing housework, feeling like I was chained.

How could other people not lose their minds having to do this much, are they losing it the same way I am?

I thought it would stop when we moved into a slightly larger place with a pretty garden and for a while it did. I could never understand why I felt this way when this was a normal part of life, was it not?

Opening bulging closet doors to clothing that would fall at my feet as soon as they weren’t being held in. Having to stand on a ladder just to be able to reach a plate. The sheer struggle of having to find one thing under the mountain of items I had piled onto it made me want to throw everything in black bags and leave it outside. Not being able to find something I was looking for and discovering things I thought I had lost.

Do we have too many things? Are we bringing so many items into our houses and our lives that they eventually become something we have to create our lives around instead of taking in less and having those things fit around our lives? Attempting to lead a more minimalist lifestyle is teaching me so many things, and I would like to share some of them with you.

We allow things to define us

My boyfriend and I are big coffee lovers. We always buy the same coffee and even though it’s a little pricier, we enjoy it a lot more than other brands. One day we were in the shops and they didn’t have our regular kind. We spend 30 minutes in the coffee aisle deciding which coffee to buy until my boyfriend finally said: “babe just get any coffee please, we can’t stand here all day deciding which one to buy”.

There have been times that I have spent way too much time trying to decide if this was the right buy for me and if it was my style, if this was me.

We don’t question our purchases

I have a bookshelf filled to the brim with books of all genres.

Some I have read and some I will read someday.

Some were given to me and most of them I purchased.

When deciding if I should buy a particular book or not, I only have one requirement that needs to be fulfilled.

I want to need the book in my life, I want to feel that having this book would add to my life (this is why I have so many self-help books).

I need to connect with the book, the message and the lessons it is going to teach me and if I feel I am not going to get that, I don’t buy the book.

I do this by looking at the cover, and not just reading the synopsis but also opening the book randomly and reading a paragraph. If I read something I connect with I get the book.

We make decisions based on temporary happiness

We impulse buy way too much and say yes to things way too quickly because for a moment we have a void to fill. Think about that next time you are buying something, ask yourself why you want it? This is why we buy bulk clothes at lower prices rather than quality items that will last longer.

We bring in more, but we do not let other things go.

When we buy clothing, do we donate an equivalent amount of old items to someone else? What I have found is that with clothing, they represent some stage in our lives and if you have outgrown that stage, you do not need the clothing as a reminder.

If it’s not a hell yes its a no.

If you do a sweep of your clothing cupboard and try on the clothes, if you do not absolutely love the dress or blouse you have on, give it away.

It will not be a waste, someone else will get something from it.

We keep things in case we will need them or for practical reasons rather than how they make us feel or if we really like who we are in them.

There is so much more that I could say about this topic and so much to learn but what I can say is that the things we bring into our homes we also bring into our lives and they have a way of affecting us on the inside. We need to decide if we want to be affected negatively or positively.

What could you get rid of today?

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For the me of tomorrow – What will you do for the life you want?

Robyn MacGregor — Wed, 08 May 2019 08:38:12 +0000

We observe people we aspire to be, admire them for all they achieve and what they have created for themselves. But seldom do we hear about what they had to sacrifice to get there. We are living in the age of instant gratification and the “if you build it they will come” mentality and because of that, we think that if we put something out into the world it will be a success the first time round.

What have I learnt?

It doesn’t matter how small your goal is, whether it’s getting up early to make yourself breakfast or get to the gym before work, studying or starting a business, there will always be sacrifices.

It’s almost like the universe is testing how much something is worth to you, or how hard you will work to get it and that is why it doesn’t just get handed to you without any sacrifices.

Something that we learn when we grow up that does not get taught in school is that not everything that we endeavour to do and not every idea that we have is meant to become a success.

Since I was 12 years old I have loved the violin and classical music. When I was a teenager, I was the only person I knew that listened to classical music and dreamt of owning my own violin one day. I would go to the music shop and listen to the same classical cd’s on repeat until I eventually owned one. I would speak to everyone I knew about how beautiful the violin was and fall asleep listening to Vivaldi and Vanessa Mae. I would watch the string section of an orchestra with tears in my eyes because I so badly wanted to be one of them. I would read books that I only became interested in because the main character played the violin. Throughout my 20’s I would go to shop upon shop and ask to see their violins and query how much it was. I would even pick them up and pretend I was playing one.

When I was 26 my boyfriend surprised me with a violin for my birthday. I named it Linn. I was so excited. I sat up till 2 in the morning trying to play scales and learn how to read sheet music. I finally found a teacher and started going for lessons. After a few classes, I found that I was beginning to want to skip classes, hoping that my teacher wouldn’t be home when I arrived. I stopped practising my scales. I eventually stopped going to classes altogether because I had a job that demanded more of my time.

My violin has been packed away for the last year. My boyfriend always asks me when I am going to play it again and I always turn away and give him a non-committal answer because I feel like a bit of a failure at something I wanted to do for so long. The truth is, is that I didn’t enjoy it.

Playing the violin is hard work! I naively thought that because it was something I wanted to do for so long I would take to it instantly and you would never be able to take my violin out of my hands. But I didn’t take to it. I got frustrated with how difficult it was, how hard reading sheet music was and how sore my body was after an hour of playing. Most of all I couldn’t get over the feeling that I would never be able to play a decent tune and that I was, in fact, wasting my time.

It didn’t have to be like that. I could have pushed through and ignored the voice in my head that was telling me I was too old to be doing this, but I didn’t. I just gave up.

Was I not willing to sacrifice for my dream?

Maybe it was just a dream.

What I learnt from my experience now helps me to more clearly make decisions with regards to what I choose to bring into my life.

Why do I want to do this?

What value will it bring me?

How much time and money do I need for this?

When we speak about sacrifices we don’t just speak about the money and time we need to give up. We speak about the early mornings and late evenings. The time we give up with our friends and family to pursue our goals and the times we have to say ‘No’ and focus on one thing rather than many.

If you find yourself complaining or annoyed at the changes that pursing your dream is causing you, perhaps it’s a good time to reassess your expectations, if you really want this or if there is another way to do it. While holding on to your blessings.

Not everything has to be so serious and stressful.

Tell us in the comments about some sacrifices that you made for your dreams… or when you realised that, perhaps, it was meant to be just a dream.

Sign up below for a free self-worth mini course or click here to get instant access to the Remembering your worth e-course.

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If I had to live my life over…

Robyn MacGregor — Mon, 18 Mar 2019 12:06:49 +0000

If I had to live my life over.

I would have slowed down more and not been in such a rush.

I would have captured little moments in my mind instead of quickly rummaging for my phone to take a photo.

I would have bought the dress that made me feel amazing instead of worrying that it was too expensive.

I would have not spent my 20’s trying not to make mistakes and instead make more mistakes because it meant I was growing.

I would have been ok with a plan not working out instead of feeling like, because I had had the idea, I had to make it work.

I would have lived more in real life and less in my head with my imaginary problems.

I would have worked more consistently when it was time to work instead of allowing it to eat at me during the time I was meant to be resting.

I would have bought more flowers, for myself and my sister, my mother and my grandmother without wincing at the cost.

I would have spoken to loved ones that aren’t here anymore about more – but I didn’t because I thought they would always be here.

I would have spent a lot more time working on my outside as I did on my inside and not used lack of time as an excuse.

I would have prioritized sleep so that I would not now have to look at myself and wonder how I let myself get so tired.

I would have put my phone down- and read to learn… or to laugh.

I would have let go of friendships that didn’t work anymore and done so with love, instead of hang on so long that the friendship became ugly.

I would have worked harder for the things I wanted even though people told me I was too old.

I would have listened when people told me to put a little money away and not always say that I didn’t have enough.

I would have found joy in things that, as a child felt like a chore, if I had only known that feeling would carry over into adulthood.

I would have written more poetry, tried to learn another language, and not worried so much about how I looked when I danced.

I would have spent more time developing my own sense of style and learned to love dressing up instead of taking so many unwanted items from others that would have me drowning in things I didn’t love.

I would have asked for help in learning about money instead of growing to fear it.

There are a lot of things I would have done.

But my life is not over, not even close (touch wood). I am not at the end of my life, I am about to turn 30 (oh gees I said it).

There is a small blessing in being able to reflect when you are young because it gives you the chance to change your story from I would have, to….

I did.

What would you do if you had to live your life over? What will you start doing today?

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How to deal with Shadow emotions and what happens if we don’t

Robyn MacGregor — Fri, 15 Mar 2019 11:36:17 +0000

How do you deal with yourself when you realize you were acting a little whack the other night?

When you go to a job interview and the interviewer asks you what your strengths are, do you enlighten them as to how much of a team-playing, detail-orientated perfectionist you are, but when they ask what your weakness’s are you have no idea what to say and instead think “I can’t tell them what I suck at and am not good at”.

In our article “Manipulation: A Shadow Action” we mentioned that sometimes, with all of our good intentions and well wishes, we can be the manipulator. I wanted to further explore the moments in our lives when we are the ones in the wrong. Where the Facebook quotes about ‘not letting haters get us down’ and ‘5 ways to cut toxic people out of our lives’ is aimed at us – because we have become the toxic haters.

This time we look at the part of ourselves that we might try to hide because they are not the best version of ourselves. We look at how we can be more aware and what happens if we don’t change.

Firstly, I want to start off by saying that we are not perfect.

We always say this but I think we have lost the concept on what that means in our everyday lives.

We expect everything to be perfect and done on time. But, more than that, we expect to have our emotions in order, to never overreact, to have all our ducks in a row, to never get upset, to never be a little ticked off or irritated. As I have gotten older I have realised that the less wiggle room we give ourselves with these traits, the more stressful it becomes and because we think that we have to be perfect all the time, it makes us miserable… because we are falling short.

The best thing I have heard this year is “We are not gods, we are flawed mortals” or something like that. I liked it because it was lends a shoulder to those of us who have a difficult time dealing with some aspects of ourselves that we struggle to accept.

When I look at myself and try to figure out when the times are that I am not my most happy self, sometimes I find it is when:

I am overwhelmed by all that I have to do.
I am criticized.
I am feeling taken advantage of or taken for granted.
When I am worried about money.
When I am not reaching my goals.
When I am stressed.
When I am hungry.
Or when I am tired.

When I look at myself and try to figure out when the times are that I might lash out or be the nastier version of myself, I am actually surprised to find that most of the time the things that make me unhappy are also the things that trigger my hidden self to come out a little more.

In those times I will admit that I can be

Irritated.
Moody.
Short tempered.
Angry.
Upset.
Just generally unhappy.

If you do not deal with these aspects it leads to a loss of balance (as much as we try to have balance) and, more importantly, throws our perspective and good decision making skills right out the window.

Some of the ways I find that when I am unhappy how it affects my life

I do not enjoy any of the work I am doing.
I find that I dwell on negative aspects.
I am not appreciative of what I have.
I am constantly bombarded with negative thoughts.
I might develop a ‘poor-me’ mentality.
I might want to sleep a little more than usual.
I do mind-numbing things like watch too much TV or scroll through social media more than usual.
I am short with loved ones.

Some things that we can do

Set goals: Every week set achievable goals. I am not talking about the end goal, like workout 5 times this week and develop a morning routine.
Start small: This is the only time thinking smaller is actually a good thing. Pick 1 or 2 things for the next week that you would like to work on. Like getting up a little earlier in the morning, or working out at least once (you have to start somewhere).
Be realistic: This is something I think we all forget to do. We set these huge goals and do not have smaller achievable goals set that would lead us towards reaching our bigger goal. We only see ourselves at the top of the mountain, we forget about packing in water, having the right shoes, getting the body ready for the walk. We forget the journey.
Find hobbies: Something you really like to do that brings you joy. Forget the word passion, just look at something that you like or are interested in. Have a quick look in your Google history for inspiration.
Ask for help: Talk to family and friends and see where they can assist you. If you are wanting to stop eating junk food, ask a family member for an easy recipe that they love to use. Speak to your partner about what you need from them and also what they need from you in order to both live your life in harmony.
Learn from other people: I cannot tell you how beneficial it is to get outside of your mind and see how other people live their lives. What their habits are, how they structure their days, what they spend their time on, how they manage their money and their time. Speak to people to gain some insight that you can learn from and apply to your own life.
Try and eliminate nastiness and negativity from your life: Whenever you want to complain or feel negative, in your mind give a short thanks for something you are grateful for. I am not a positive-preach all the time kind of gal but when you do this it does give you some perspective and lessens the time you spend focusing on the negative. You can find some great gratitude journals here.

Remember that our lives are short and that one day, we won’t be here anymore. Who wants to live a life full of negativity, anger, irritation and unhappiness?

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What do you do to notice your shadow side? How do you recognise it and how to you address it?

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Meditation that works for me.

Robyn MacGregor — Mon, 11 Mar 2019 08:14:52 +0000

If I ever go looking for my heart’s desire again, I won’t look further than my own back yard.

Because if it isn’t there, I never really lost it to begin with.

–Dorothy The wizard of Oz.

Why is it that whenever we picture mediation, we think of something close to the image above.

Of looking out over a vast skyline, or ocean view, high up with the wind blowing in our faces?

Why do we think that happiness and sanity cannot be found in the tiny moments throughout our day?

In this day and age there are all different kinds of meditations. Walking meditation, love and kindness meditation, gratitude meditation and just a whole lot more a-tations.

Something that I have learnt about meditation is that it is not going to clear your mind of all your thoughts. It is not going to quiet the voice in your head this is telling you that your bum does look big in those jeans, and it’s definitely not going to make you not want that cupcake.

What it will do is tell you where you are holding stress and why, it will also remind you to let it go. It will give you a moment to thank your body for all it’s done for you and will allow you a moment in your life that is completely yours. It will also allow you to look at your bum objectively and see that you are perfect the way you are or to see yourself without judgment if something needs to change. Oh- and it will make you feel a lot less guilty about that cupcake.

Something that I have also learnt about meditation is that I have absolutely no idea how we make it through our day without meditation.

Why? Why can we not take just one moment?

The common reasons are

It is not working
I am doing it wrong
I am not good at meditation
I won’t be able to do that for an hour
I am too fidgety
I can’t clear my mind

When meditating, noticing that you are distracted and then trying again is proof that you are meditating right.

The success in meditation doesn’t come from having no thoughts run through our mind. It comes from how aware you are of the thoughts (what you are thinking about in the quiet moments and why these are the thoughts that come up) and the repetition of returning to the breath.

The mind is not meant to be a vacant lot. Our minds are there specifically to think and work and be active. It’s like telling puppies to not be cute and avocados to not be delicious with everything… It’s not going to happen.

It takes just one minute

Some things that I do during my day to come back to the present moment

Focus on the breath – Exhale first (cause you gotta get all that old air out first).
Then take one deep slow inhalation in through your nose. Count the length of time it takes to completely fill your body up. When you exhale slightly part your lips and allow the breath to escape with a slight “haaaaaaa” sound. Match length of your exhalation to your inhalation.
When on lunch, all I do is eat. No you tube, no earphones, no television. Enjoy your food without rushing and distractions.
When I travel, there doesn’t always need to be something going on, I don’t always need to be doing something and sometimes, looking out the window is perfect in that moment.
To calm my mind before I go to sleep I place my hands on my tummy while focusing on my breath.
Walking to work taking note of the trees, the weather, the wind… paying attention to the work around me in that moment.

Our lives move at too fast a pace to not slow down just a little and enjoy the moment that we are in right now.

Comment below to tell us how meditation works for you.

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Manipulation: A Shadow Action

Robyn MacGregor — Sat, 16 Feb 2019 08:11:05 +0000

Before I start I would just like to admit that in doing research for this article I did not realize how much we have to deal with different kinds of manipulation every day, and have had to since we were children.

Lets start by identifying what manipulation actually is (because I do not remember this being covered in school).

Manipulation; a type of social influence that aims to change the behaviours or perception of others through abusive, deceptive or underhanded tactics.

Let have a look at some verbs used to describe manipulation

Blame
Control
Handle
Alter / Edit
Manage
Mislead

You get my drift…

How manipulation has been showing up in our lives.

Let’s talk about why manipulation is something that we have had to deal with since we were children.

If you think about the relationship dynamic that are your parents, they are our first lessons in life on basically everything. Back then it might not have been outright manipulation, but reverse psychology. Perhaps when your father wanted your mother to do something (like cook supper) he would say something like “You are so good at it, your food tastes so much better than mine”.

When playing with a friend that might have been younger than yourself, if you really liked a toy they had but couldn’t ask them if you could have it… or, you know, just take it… cause that would be stealing, you might have said something like “I wish I had a toy like this, it’s so cool” and they would give it to you.

Fast forward to your time in school, learning to deal with kids of all kinds, you might have faced peer pressure head on (which, thinking about it now, was our first and probably most important lesson that would set us up for how we would deal with different personalities, and pressures in later life). Think of the times that you felt forced to think something was cool when you didn’t really think it was or were coaxed into doing something bad cause the cool kids did it…. and we all wanted to be cool.

Now you are #adulting and still trying to define yourself, your beliefs and values. In the working world where everyone is different and has varying personalities, morals and values, strengths and weaknesses.

How do you know if you are being manipulated?

I do not believe that everyone that has manipulative tendencies always recognises they are being manipulative. I also think that even if you are a person prone to being manipulated, that you too might be a manipulator in some areas of your life. I do not think that this is something that can always be avoided but, with open and honest communication and self-reflection it is something, that we can improve on.

If you experience any of these emotions after a conversation with someone, it might be something you need to reflect on:

Questioning yourself (whether you were correct with what you said and whether you said it in the correct way).
Going over the conversation in your head or taking about it with a friend.
Feeling like it was your fault and the other person was justified.
Feeling a little duped.
Looking for justification that you were not wrong.

What can you do

A common trait that I have noticed about a variety of people that lead happy, balanced lives and never allow themselves to be manipulated…

They have boundaries.

At work they do not spend all their spare time with one or two people only, they chat to a variety of a people about different topics.

They do not spend every moment in the office. They take a couple minutes of their day to go outside, out of the office.

They don’t just work all day. They talk to people, greet them properly, ask them how they are doing and take an interest in something other than their emails.

What if you are the manipulator?

In this world of Facebook quotes about accepting the things we cannot change and not letting anyone dull your sparkle. What if you were to find out that you are actually the one that is manipulating and causing someone else a bit of stress and angst.

Notice the thoughts that you have throughout the day about a certain colleague. Perhaps if you catch yourself feeling a little annoyed of irritated… hey we are human beings, it happens. Think to yourself why you might have those thoughts and notice if it affects the way you speak to them or treat them.

With your partner or a family member we sometimes don’t let our best selves out but instead allow the grumpier, difficult, unprofessional, moody version of ourselves call the shots- because if I can’t be myself with my family then where can I be myself? Again notice who irritates or annoys you or makes you feel a certain kind of way, and which people you are your perfect self around.

For myself for example I have noticed that sometimes in different areas of my like I tend to gravitate and give more of myself to people who withhold from me or make me feel like “if they like me then I’m all good.” And tended to not give as much to someone who is overly nice to me or has never said a nasty thing to me. I’m working on it.

Does this resonate with you?

Have you ever noticed that you might be engaging in manipulative behaviour to get someone else to act in a certain way? Tell us in the comments below and sign up for our free self-worth email course below.

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Trust your gut- what your intuition is trying to say to you.

Robyn MacGregor — Wed, 13 Feb 2019 07:15:22 +0000

I think recurring life lessons are little whispers that lightly touch our ears every now and again, encouraging us to stop and pay attention.

If I think on my own experiences there are thoughts that keep coming up, little voices inside my head telling me ‘it’s okay‘ or ‘try it this way, that way isn’t right for you’.

Sometimes we call it a gut feeling or intuition and we may choose to listen to them or not.

Why are these whispers so important?

I believe that these whispers is the universe (or God’s) way of guiding us.

After all we all need a set of guidelines according to which to live our lives. A moral compass that tells us when we are going off our path and forgetting who we are and what is important to us.

I also believe that these whispers that keep reminding us when we are veering off our path are sometimes saying that there as a symptom of something bigger- a need to look a bit deeper.

An unfulfilled wish or desire that we haven’t quite gotten around to yet. And if you listen when the whisper speaks, you will find that this is not just some sort of superficial thing to improve your life with, but things that your soul is calling you to hear and change.

Have you ever had a recurring dream?

You wake up and realize that you have had this dream before. It is the exact same every time.

You sit up and think on it for a few moments and perhaps if you haven’t done so already, you look up what it could mean and what it means that you have had this dream before.

Why do we not do this with thoughts and feelings that keep coming up in our lives? Why do we not dissect it and try and figure it out? Why don’t we Google it, or keep a diary about it, or speak to our friends about it, or think about it as we go throughout our day?

Here are what the voices in my head are saying.

“Travel; but not just for the sake of going to new places, travel for broadening your horizons, view point, learnt from other people and cultures. Get out of the little box I have been in for the last 30 years.”

“Learn to feed yourself; And I am not just talking about knowing how to make a bad ass bowl of noodles… I mean learn how to nourish yourself and feed your soul through food.”

“Get more sleep; because you just know how you get…and you know that you are not your best and do not make you best choices when you are not rested.”

“Slow down and take notice of life; Take notice of what is going on around you, give thanks for all that you are and all that you have. Take time to know yourself and others and don’t live above the surface all the time. Because those people won’t always be there, you won’t always be this young and you will never have this moment back”.

“Soak in the learning opportunities around you; see everything as a chance to learn, to improve and to be better.”

“Really go after the things that procrastination has stopped you from going after and that keep you up at night. Don’t be so scared all the time to try new things, do something different or to be something more.”

“Don’t worry about the washing up.”

“And for the love of your own sanity, would you meditate once in a while please?”

So will you, at the end of your day sit down and allow a few moments to just breathe?

In through your nose and out through your nose.

Feel the body rise and fall with each inhale and each exhale….

Listen to the whispers that will keep trying to tell you something…

Until you get it?

Tell us what your intuition is telling you in the comments below or sign up for a free course on Self-worth by filling in this form.

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The importance of Shadow Emotions

Robyn MacGregor — Wed, 06 Feb 2019 09:00:56 +0000

It’s been a great day. I woke up slowly to the sound of birds tweeting. I got to work early, ate well, laughed with my colleagues and am now seated on the bus listening to some good music making my way home.

Scrolling through my phone gallery I find a photo of my sister that makes me laugh and think to myself how lucky I am at this moment in my life. To have safe timely transport home, to have a great job, to have a lovely little home that I get to live in, to have enough money to not have to struggle and to have a family.

All of a sudden a feeling comes over me after a quick thought about certain family members who are struggling with their own battles and demons and who unlike me do not have their health or happiness and I suddenly feel sad……but not a momentary sadness. A sadness that I have felt before that comes and goes and leaves me feeling guilty. A sadness that burns my nose and cheeks and makes my eyes water. I can’t cry on the bus? But why do I feel sadness or guilt?

It’s not by my doing that they are there.

And, within minutes my lucky life becomes something that I feel bad for having.

It had been a great day, hadn’t it?

Fear, anxiety, depression, anger, and guilt.

These are just some of the negative emotions that we as human beings must learn to deal with on a daily basis. They show up in a variety of ways and sometimes catch us off guard. Sometimes they are like hot coals that we hold in our hand – burning ourselves in spite of someone else.

These are bits of ourselves that we hide. Most of us are lucky enough to have close ones that understand and bear with us when these emotions show up unannounced, knocking at the front door like some estranged friend. We always feel so terrible when we are jealous of someone else’s luck in life, or angry when someone else gets what we want, or fearful when we just can’t do the thing we want to do. But we are never really taught how to deal with these emotions that we will inevitably feel. We will feel them because of the fact that we are…..and I’m going to drop a bomb here… flawed human beings…..and we always will be.

Why do we sometimes hide these feelings? Because we feel they are wrong? There is no black and white? Even if we are completely justified and the other person has wronged us, sometimes we would rather stew in the feeling than confront them. I feel that I am like that because I perhaps don’t know what the best way is to deal with it.

What happens if we do not deal with negative emotions?

I realized a while ago that a big reason why it is so important for us as children to attend a normal school, have normal friends and experiences is because school prepares you for the working life. It builds respect for work and a work ethic (think homework). It also prepares you to deal with different situations, people and emotions. Sometimes, though, I do feel that a little more emphasis could be placed on how a particular situation- and your reaction to it- is a learning curve for adulthood.

I was one of the many teenagers that were bullied during school and I sometimes feel that because of how it was addressed followed me into adulthood. Not being able to properly confront a situation without needing to think of exactly how I am going to deal with it and all the while the frustrations of it bubble up.

When you become an adult learning how to deal with negative emotions is very important because it shapes our relationships, as well as our self-esteem. Sometimes it may feel as though anytime that there is an issue that needs to be resolved, we might shy away because we feel the only outcome of attempting to take on a disagreement would be through argument. When we feel jealous or guilty over a situation we forget that there is another way out other than continuing to feel that way.

Perhaps that is why they are called shadow emotions. Because they follow us where ever we go and until we learn how to confront them and our own fears about them they will continue to drag behind us, weighing us down.

How do you deal with your shadow emotions?

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Confessions of a Yoga teacher – sitting with your shadow.

Robyn MacGregor — Mon, 04 Feb 2019 08:09:30 +0000

I am a yoga teacher. Being a yoga teacher gives you the opportunity to do and learn so many things.

You learn about the history and philosophy of yoga, anatomy and how the body works. You learn about the breath and its importance in our lives. You learn about the varied styles of yoga, what makes them different and how you would teach them differently. You learn how to cue poses and plan classes.

What you don’t always learn is how to deal with yourself.

How to deal with the multitude of fraudulent feelings that arise when you enter this over-saturated industry and begin to teach. You don’t learn about finding your own voice and don’t get taught how to develop your own style of teaching and what your niche actually is. You only know that it is very important and will be the only thing that separates you from other teachers.

You walk into a class that you are about to teach. There are about 15 people in the class, none of whom you have met before. They are all chattering amongst themselves and you realize that they are not speaking English. You have a look at a couple of them and see they all look quite fit and generally happy to be there. “Oh my God they are going to hate me“, you think to yourself.

You plug your music in, select your playlist, unroll your mat and sit down. You introduce yourself, thank them for coming and ask if there are any injuries you should know of or if anyone in the class has never done yoga before. To which you only receive silence back. I’m not joking, you get no answer and have to go on their facial expressions. And then as you ask everyone to close their eyes and breathe in through the nose……you go completely blank and realize that you have forgotten you have a mouth and can’t remember your sequence.

I am a yoga teacher, and although when I went into teacher training it was not for the sole purpose of teaching ( it’s more common than you think), I am happy that I decided to pursue this career because of how much I have learnt about people and myself. I will admit, though, that sometimes being a teacher has made me have to face some emotions and feelings that honestly, I would have been fine never having to deal with ever.

The reason I speak about these hidden emotions here is that it is not very often that a yoga teacher will admit when they are struggling.

We have to face things like

Learning how to project your voice, say what you mean and mean what you say…when you are a complete introvert.
Planning classes, music, themes, and sequences… when you can’t even plan your weekly grocery list.
Feel confident in your ability, experience, and knowledge….even though you completely forgot what the opening instruction of your class was.

We don’t really talk about

How we feel when a class goes terribly wrong or when that one student kept looking at the time.
How we struggle to make the class interesting and worry when the students look bored.
How there are millions of other teachers with far more experience and years, who have gone through workshops, training’s and studied yoga because its become their life and all you have at the moment is your basic training.
When the last time was we really practiced and how we struggle with our home practice, even though it is the single most important aspect to being a good teacher, and yet the one thing I have heard a lot of teachers say they have difficulty maintaining.

There are a whole world of boundaries to break and fears to confront.

When we speak about hidden emotions, there are 3 ways we as humans have evolved to actually press down and squash these feelings so tightly within ourselves that we eventually burst from too much hot air.

- We project -”I do not feel confident with the class or feel that I am good enough to teach or that the sequence is good enough to be taught and so feel that they will not like the class.”
- We rationalize – “Well I didn’t have enough time to plan the class better because I have a normal job”.
- We put on the social mask – “I am a yoga teacher and meant to be full of positive thoughts, sparkly unicorn farts and know how to cure that niggle in your knee.”

The only way, I feel, to get out of this is to go through it. Teach as much as I can, learn where I can and improve where I can.

I have an entire lifetime to teach and it can only get better.

Sometimes we just need to sit with our thoughts (and our shadows) and dissect what it is that is weighing on our hearts. Even when we might need to shatter the unrealistic facade that we have created in our attempt at perfection.

How do you sit with your shadow?

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