I don’t often start my musings with a question, but today I’m going to. Do you have a daily routine? In fact, do you have any kind of routine for your life? It can be quite comfortable getting up each morning, knowing exactly what you need to do and how to do it. It gives stability and security, and a sense of being able to cope with what lies ahead. The problems (or should I say challenges) come when our routine is disrupted by others who dare to interrupt its flow! “Tsk – they know that at 7.10am each day I need to brush my teeth so I can leave for 7.15am to get my train? How dare they interrupt what I’m doing!” Sound in any way familiar to you? Maybe it does maybe it doesn’t, but I think you get my drift.

Routine can be great for planning what we need to do each day and when it needs to happen. It’s what we do to feel safe and not fearful. But when that routine is interrupted, all hell can break loose and fear can dominate: what if I’m late? What if I don’t get it done? What if it all goes horribly wrong? What if I get into trouble? How will I fix it and put it right? And so on.

Another thing about routine, of course, is that it can end up being very mundane and, more importantly, keep us stuck in a rut. How many people do you know that fall into a kind of automatic routine: get up, get ready for work, go to work, come home, eat dinner, watch tv, go to bed, sleep, get up, get ready for work, and so on? I remember, when I worked in investment banking I would be like that. Get up at 5am, get ready, leave at 6am, start work at 7am, get my lunch and eat it at my desk at 12.30pm, leave at 7.00pm, get home at 8pm, eat dinner, go to bed at 9pm. I did that for about 2.5 years before I got a wake up call.

You see the thing with the Universe is, it does like order. Most definitely. However it also wants change, and it will force change whether we like it or not. Ever noticed how life can sometimes seem to be skipping along in a routine way which we’re comfortable and used to and then suddenly BANG something happens that completely blows our world apart. The thing is, you see, the Universe has already been sending signals to us to change something but we’ve been so caught up in the automaton of routine that we’ve failed to notice them. So the Universe sends us something that will grab our attention. Something so huge that we cannot not notice it. Think about things that have seemed to come out of the blue for you, perhaps redundancy, illness, repairs to the home, things breaking in the home, someone around you needing so much help you cannot focus upon yourself and your routine, etc.

Ever seen the film Shirley Valentine? Wonderful story about a middle aged woman who’s married and stuck in a routine, day in, day out. They even have the same menu of food each week! Eventually she gets a wake up call whilst on holiday in Greece which, in turn, gives her husband a great big nudge too. They’d become so stuck in a rut that it needed something like Shirley’s trip to Greece to wake them up.

Do you see, the Universe wants growth, expansion, change, and evolution. And do you know what? It WILL get them. We can either choose to change with it, or be dragged along kicking and screaming. Either way we’ll change along with it. The question to ask ourselves is: Do I want to make this as comfortable and enjoyable as possible or do I want to stay where I am as long as I can and make it painful?

One thing to understand about change is, that it doesn’t have to happen in huge ways all at once. Undoubtedly there will be times when it does, but most change that happens is gradual. Like the change in waistline or the number of wrinkles and grey hairs we get as we get older! Do you see, the more comfortable we are with change, the more enjoyable and pain-free it can become.

Ever had those moments where you’ve ended up somewhere and you don’t know how you got there?! You remember setting off but then, all of a sudden, you are where you were headed for but don’t remember the journey. That’s automatic pilot and we can end up doing that a lot of if we don’t pay attention.

What can make change easier is if we pay attention to what we’re doing as often as we can – ideally all the time! Also, begin changing small things in your life – walk a slightly different route to work, get up 5 minutes earlier or later, eat something different for breakfast, choose to read a book instead of automatically switching the TV on and so on. By getting used to small changes, the larger ones are much more easier to manage. Unless we test and try new ways of doing things we’ll never know if our lives could be more fun and interesting.

Remember, we are all in control of our lives, what we do, and (on the whole) how and when we do it. We always have a choice. If we don’t like the routine someone else is pushing on us we can make that choice – try to change it, or get out and find a way of doing things that works for us. Choose to begin changing now, or the Universe will most certainly have a “big bang” waiting in the wings for you

We all have expectations of ourselves and we live up to those expectations. We also have a tendency, at times, to try to live up to others’ expectations of us and make them our own goals to aim for. This isn’t necessarily “wrong”, but it isn’t always that helpful, especially if the expectation is that you will fail or not do well or, even worse I think, that you will never be able to change. That’s a phrase I hear quite often from people “he/she will never change”. Says who? A blog for another time perhaps, but suffice to say, we change every single second. We are not who we were 5 minutes ago, let alone 5 years ago!

But I digress. Expectations are what we live up to. Change the expectations and we can change our life. The down side of that, of course, is that sometimes the people around us don’t like the fact that we are changing. It unsettles their views of us and can, perhaps, make them think about changing some things about their own lives. Oooh too scary! This can culminate in rather attacking behaviour: “You’re not who I thought you were”, “Who do you think you are?”, and so on. This is not to say that others can be blamed for us being where we are – we all have a choice at the end of the day. Other people’s opinions and views can be helpful in terms of us taking a step back and viewing it from a number of different angles and perspectives. Only we will really know what is “right” for us at the time. By “right” I mean “feels right” for there is no right and wrong really: just different outcomes.

One of the things that can stop us from feeling good about changes we’ve made is fear about what other people will think of us. We don’t necessarily want to stand out in the crowd, or here’s a great one “get ideas above our station”! Ever heard someone say that?! “Who does he/she think he/she is?”! So when we’ve achieved something we can have a tendency not to tell some people around us for fear of what they might think and feel. Doesn’t matter that we feel brilliant and fantastic about what we’ve done. We downplay it and confirm to patterns that others expect of us so as not to upset the apple cart.

Can you really honestly say that you are not really pleased for a friend when he or she gets ahead? I think it can be one of the most wonderful things when someone you like and care about shares their joy with you. You get the benefit of celebrating with them. So when it comes to sharing your own achievements feel good about them, and feel good about feeling good! There’s nothing to be ashamed about when you’ve achieved something that’s really meaningful for you. Hell, you’ve worked really hard to get it, why shouldn’t you be happy?! I’m not saying ram it down people’s throats – joy and being over-proud are two different things.

It’s time to feel good about feeling good about all the things you’ve achieved so far in your life. Let go of shame, embarrassment, or guilt. They are all Ego-based emotions designed to keep you in a rut. As the song goes:

I am what I am, I am my own special creation,
So come take a look, give me the hook, or the ovation
It’s my world that I want to have a little pride in
My world, and it’s not a place I have to hide in
Life’s not worth a dam, Until I can say
I am what I am!

So, feel good, about feeling good! By doing so, you’re also helping others to do the same.

Imagine, if you will, the most stunning, beautiful lake you have ever seen. Peaceful. Abundant with life. Majestic and magnificent. Fresh air abounding. Gentle breeze rippling the surface of the water and the feathers of the birds floating on the surface. Warm sun shining down. The sound of the breeze swishing the grasses, plants, and trees around the lakeside. The sound of the water lapping the shore, and the gentle “plop” as a fish pops up to the surface. Totally unspoiled and pure.

How disappointed and angry would you be if people started to spoil the lake by leaving rubbish by it. If companies started emptying out toxic waste into it. Think how horrible it would be if the only things that were put into the lake were unhelpful to life and growth. Sadly this happens to beautiful places around the world.

Now, imagine that lake represents you and your life. For make no mistake, we are all beautiful beings. Within your “Lake” is a wealth and variety of things to experience, within, around, and on the top of it. Imagine now that your thoughts are what feed and flow into your “Lake”. Are the thoughts you think energetic, beautiful, and filled with life? Or are the thoughts you think toxic, and trashy? Make no mistake, it is our thoughts which create the world around us and the life we experience. What we think, we begin to believe. What we believe, we live by. What we live by, is what we create.

All the time that we are thinking negatively about people we know, or resenting and hating things that have happened to us in the past, or worrying about what will happen in the future – we are polluting the life we are living.

There is a public outcry when companies dump toxic chemicals into beautiful places. And yet, when we dump toxic thoughts into our minds and our lives – who’s going to stop us? No one really can force us what to think. We have to make a choice. In order to make that choice, we need awareness. Awareness of what we are thinking. However, we have become so used to the internal dialogue that goes on within our heads that we often don’t notice it, let alone what we are actually thinking.

The best way to be aware of what we are thinking is to pay attention to our emotions. Our emotions are caused by what we think. It’s a lot of very hard work to monitor every single thought – however it’s a hell of a lot easier to monitor our feelings. In order to create and maintain the beautiful Lake that is our life, we need to take responsibility for how we are feeling, what we are thinking, and, thus, what we are creating.

No one can change our thoughts and feelings for us – we can only do that ourselves. With this understanding comes awareness and the ability to begin to make wonderful changes in, and to, our lives and the world around us. Change your thoughts. Change your life.

and have a listen on YouTube ☺

So, what’s all this about today? Well, as the title says, don’t worry, be happy. But let me expand upon that.

We live in a world which is incredibly fast paced, and one where so many are trying to get somewhere quickly. Nothing wrong with fast-paced per se, just as long as you’re enjoying the journey to where you’re going. It can be great whizzing along the roads I know, but the downside to that is that you can’t really appreciate the scenery around you as you do. You see people all the time zooming along at unthinkable speeds because they want to get somewhere fast. Many will be thinking “I’ll be happy or pleased when I get there”.

Now there’s a phrase you probably hear quite regularly “I’ll be happy when”. You might here something similar “I’ll be relaxed when…” or “I’ll be at peace when…”

You know what I want to say when I hear phrases like that? Well probably you don’t know but I’ll tell you so you do! “Nooooooooooo!”. Very simply, the reason I respond like that, is because I want people to understand that being happy in the Now is just, if not more so, important. Ironic as it may seem, being happy now will actually get you to where you want to be far quicker than stressing about getting to where you want to be so you can be happy. Did you get that? Being happy now can provide all sorts of short-cuts to where you want to get to. Have you noticed that the better mood you’re in the more easily your life flows? The better the mood you’re in the more surprise solutions to your problems seem to appear from nowhere?

When you focus upon being happy in the moment, not only does your life flow more easily, but it’s a hell of a lot more enjoyable and less stressful. We can become so blinkered to what’s going on around us at times because we’re so focused upon “getting somewhere”. We can also miss all sorts of delicious opportunities for fun and enjoyment – all because “we’re trying to get somewhere that will make us happy”.

Why deny yourself happiness in this moment? Why not say to yourself “I choose to feel happy now”. Chances are the happier you are now, you’ll create even more happiness on your route to where you’re trying to get to. Then it won’t matter if you necessarily get to where you were originally headed, or whether you decide upon a different goal altogether. The point is, you’ll be happy no matter what you decide to do, or how long it takes. Of course the other thing to think about here is, if you keep focusing on the fact that you’re not where you want to be so you can be happy, that’s what you’ll create more of. In other words, if your attention is always on “getting there” you’ll probably never get there.

So, choose to be happy in the moment, and enjoy the journey to even more happiness. And if you do feel a bit down, just sing along:

“Here's a little song I wrote,
you might want to sing it note for note,
don't worry,
be happy”

Last night I was watching a programme about Amish teenagers having a visit to the UK. I found it absolutely fascinating. Just how different their lives are to those who live in a world where connection and interaction with others is a normal, everyday occurrence.

It was interesting to see just how accepting they were of each other within their community. There appeared to be no petty jealousies or in-fighting. No violence. Just an acceptance of a peaceful way of life, where everyone is part of a sharing community. Now I’m not saying that, for me, the Amish way of life is perfect as there were a few things and beliefs they have which really jarred with me. However, what really struck me was their acceptance of each other. What was also interesting was how they responded to all the new things in the outside world which completely went against their set of values and beliefs. At first, they appeared to struggle with the idea that people would have children without being married. It was interesting to see them moving to a place of tolerance and acceptance in a relatively short space of time.

Tolerance and acceptance doesn’t necessarily mean you have to agree with what another person does, but that you accept them for who and where they are. It also doesn’t mean you have to endure particular behaviours that you find uncomfortable.

Tolerance and acceptance can also mean you’re able to look past the exterior of the Ego Self and see the beauty of the Soul Self beneath. One of the young boys in the community made quite a poignant statement which really struck me “Just because someone is beautiful on the outside, it doesn’t mean they are on the inside. I look for the beauty beneath”.

In today’s society, it’s very easy to get caught up in the need to be "up-to-date" where clothing is concerned, and “classically good looking”, to focus purely on external image in order to be loved or attract others to us. There is so much pressure to look and dress in particular ways to be accepted. If only we could be more accepting of individual preferences for this kind of thing and, as the young Amish lad said “look for the beauty within”.

I think we’re all guilty at some point in our life of making some kind of judgement about others and the way they look and dress. It’s time we started to let go of this shallow way of valuing and judging others, and begin accepting them more for what’s inside, rather than how they look or dress.

Pay attention over the next few days and notice how often you hear yourself judging on how another person looks (whether in your head or out loud). If/when you find yourself doing it, don’t judge yourself “bad”, just let go of the thought and focus instead on looking for the beauty. Everyone is beautiful. Everyone is perfect. We just have to train ourselves to see it clearly.

If you’ve been reading my musings for some time then you’ll know that I regularly talk about The Law of Attraction, and the power of positive thinking. No surprises today because I’m going to talk about it again ☺ The reason I say so much about it is because it’s so fundamentally important for us all to understand the power of our thoughts and feelings in terms of what the life we create for ourselves. When we are connected to our true self, our authentic self, feelings of joy and happiness really begin to flow. When we are connected to our true self and not our ego, we can think and act from a place of truth – as I was explaining last week. The more we connect with who we really are, the easier life can become. The more we connect with who we really are, the easier it is to create a life of joy and happiness.

So creation then. How do we do it? Basically we create by what we think and feel. What we think gives us feelings, our feelings have energy and power behind them that we send out into the world. Our thoughts create the actions that we take which will have a knock on effect in our lives and the lives of those we touch. So the long and short of it is, be careful what you think because where you put your focus is what you’re actually creating.

The thing about taking action when we’re creating is that it’s imperative that we take action from a place of centredness and happiness, not from a place of fear and panic. The problem with the latter is that a) we end up wasting our energy doing all sorts of things to try and sort things out and b) we make ourselves incredibly stressed and ill. The other important thing here about creating from a place of fear is when we try to take action and create from a place of fear what we do is actually create the thing we’re trying to avoid. Let me repeat that last bit again: we actually create the thing we’re trying to avoid.

Why is this? Because that’s where you’re focus is: on the fear, not on the place where you actually want to be. Let me give you an example, you’re running out of money and you’re beginning to panic about being able to pay the bills. So you think to yourself “I’ll do whatever I can to get more money so that I don’t end up going to court or losing my home” and then you start to look around fearfully for ways of making money. The more you try to find things, the less and less you find them. The more stressed you get. The nearer the date comes for when you need to pay your bills, and so you get more stressed and search even harder and still find nothing, or grab at the first opportunity even if you know it’s not really the most helpful thing to do. All because the focus is on “so I don’t end up going to court and losing my home”.

Let me give you another analogy. This time from the Harry Potter books by JK Rowling. For those that don’t know the story, here’s a very brief synopsis: Voldemort is an evil wizard trying to kill off Harry Potter and anyone who’s not a Pure Blood Wizard, and ultimately take control of everything. Now the thing that Voldemort feared most was that Harry could beat him because of part of a prophecy he’d heard. Voldemort totally feared what Harry might become so tried to kill him and ended up killing only Harry’s parents. If he hadn’t killed Harry’s parents Harry never would have grown up wanting to end Voldemort. Thus Voldemort set up his own downfall. Do you see? If Voldemort hadn’t gone out of his way to kill Harry he never would have set in motion Harry’s determination to take revenge.

Unlike Voldemort, we are all capable of love. We are all capable of being centred and of feeling good, despite what is going on around us. What we must do when we fear something is allow the fear to wash over us and focus instead on doing whatever we can to get back to a place of centredeness. We need to focus our thoughts on feeling good and take action from a place of love. We need to take action that will take us to where we want to be, not take action to avoid what we don’t want. Subtle difference I know, but it does make the world of difference.

One way of taking action is powerless and energy draining. The other way is empowered, powerful, and completely flowing. I know it can be challenging at times, especially when we feel the grip of fear take us over completely. Those are the times that we need to take some deep breaths and then do whatever we need to in order to get back to a place of centredness. Always act from the heart centre, never from nervous reflex and fearful reaction.

Intention is the key here: the intention to speak our truth, and act from a place of mutual respect and pure, unconditional love. When truth comes from this place of unconditional love it may sometimes be painful at first, but it brings with it healing and insight. By acting in this way, we give permission to others to do the same, and find that others treat us with the same, loving respect.

It can be so very easy to make snap judgments about others when first meeting them, can't it. I certainly don't mean this in a critical way - more an observation (even though our first snap judgment may well be critical!). We have been conditioned to learn since childhood the apparent necessity to make decisions about people and situations quite quickly in order to respond in terms of possible "fight or flight". What's that phrase "you only have one chance to make a first impression" - that may well be true... but I believe you do have more than one chance to make a lasting impression.

Let me give you an example of where I recently made a bit of a snap decision about someone and allowed myself to get a bit cross about it. Over the Solstice weekend I went to Glastonbury with Bill and the lovely Karen Peach (who co-created the Essences of Illumination with me) and her husband Chris. We stayed in quite a nice B&B within walking distance of the Tor and Glastonbury itself. However, I was slightly taken aback by my perception of the apparent blunt and slightly cold exterior of the person who ran it.

Unfortunately I allowed myself to make a snap decision about her and all sorts of judgments flickered in and out of my thoughts. Not good! Not helpful. And, as it turns out, certainly not justified! Fortunately Bill reminded me not to get knocked off centre and to aim to see the whole of the person not just one aspect. Well done Bill!

The morning after the first night we engaged our host in conversation and she completely lit up! Her demeanor changed completely! Talk about transformation. It was really pleasant chatting to her such that I felt such a pang of guilt about my previous judgments! Fortunately I didn't allow myself to wallow too much in the guilt as that's just the Ego self trying to beat us up (it's a persistent little b*gger isn't it! - the Ego I mean!).

The whole experience reminded me that it's helpful to give something of ourselves to others before expecting them to open up to us. By holding back, all we're doing is withholding from ourselves the love that everyone deserves. It also reminded me that we all have more than one aspect to us and we need to look at bit more carefully to see things as they truly are. For example, when you look at the leaf of an oak tree, you know it's an oak tree leaf.. however you also know that it's not the tree itself. It's just a part of it. By taking a step back, we can allow ourselves to see the whole tree - but even then, we're only seeing one side of it.

The main point here is about learning to take a step back and try to see as much of the person as you can without any judgment and before making any decisions about them. I'm not saying it's wrong to discern that you do not wish to engage further with a person, just that it's unhelpful to judge them for what you see initially. Is an oak tree any better than a yew tree? Certainly not... they're different, have different qualities, and so have different strengths in how they can be put to use. The same goes for humans... we each have different qualities even though we're all from the same race. Accepting diversity in a non-judgmental way can be one of the toughest challenges we have face in our physical experience, but when we've "got it" life can be so much more enjoyable!
So the face you see on someone isn't who they really are - it's just one aspect that you're seeing in that moment. The more you give to others in supporting and respecting them, the more likely you will be to see a more open, supportive, and respecting response. Remember, the world just reflects back to us what we ourselves are portraying.... What aspect are you portraying right now?

"We are extensions of Divine Source. We are the architects of our life. We are the creators of our experience. What are you creating?" Alun Illumine