WAR AND PEACE BY LEO TOLSTOY – SUCH A DRAG…

I’d firstly like to state that I only read this book purely to be able to say that I have read War and Peace written by Leo Tolstoy because it’s a massive book and quite an accomplishment! (Side note – I didn’t even read it, I listened to it on Audible).  I also loved the book Anna Karenina written by Tolstoy, however this book was such a drag!  As the title of the book suggests, the book is about war as well as peaceful times.  It’s set in the 1800s amidst Napoleon’s attempts to take over just about everywhere.  The book oscillates from discussing the war back to what is happening in the high society of Russia. 

If I was the publisher for Tolstoy, I would have told him “Mate, scrap the whole war part and just write about the high society of Russia, because the rest of it is rubbish”. 

Fair to say that: I have no talent as a publisher and I’m simply a meagre commoner who has no appreciation for the Classics.

Anyways, the story follows quite a lot of characters from the Russian city of St Petersburg and how the war affects all their lives.  It focuses on three families; their marriages, interaction with the free masons as well as rise and falls from grace and fortunes.  The main male character Pierre seems to be the biggest goof troop ever and the female character Natasha seems to be the most terrible depiction of a ditsy and naïve girl. 

To top it all off, the author writes an ADDITIONAL chapter at the end of the book to babble on about a whole lot of nothing.

To summarise:  This book filled me with plenty of eye rolls and exasperations.  -3 / 10 

JOURNEY OF SOULS: BOOK REVIEW – A MUST READ

Imagine a world where every human knows where their raw, negative emotions such as anger, hate, fear and pain originated from.  Imagine a world where everyone is aware of their soul, used it for their mutual benefit and gained insight from a source that knew only peace and love.  Imagine us truly appreciating the value of positive feelings.

A quote from the book reads “During our  lives all of us will experience opportunities for change which involves risk.  These occasions may come at inconvenient times.  We may not act upon them, but the challenge is there for us.  The purpose of reincarnation is the exercise of free will.  Without this ability, we would be impotent creatures indeed.”

Apparently, the test of reincarnating for a soul coming to Earth is to overcome fear and negative emotions within a human body, since negative emotions tend to take over our decision making skills.  Michael Newton was the Psychologist and Author of “Journey of Souls”, a newage book. He then became a Hypnotherapist, heralded for his own regression techniques that took his clients beyond their past life memories and into a more meaningful soul experience between lives.  The book contains case studies from some of his clients and how by overcoming negative emotions or events, creates growth for a soul. 

Everything I wanted answers to, I found in this book.  I was transfixed by it all.

The narrative of the book goes through the different stages of what happens in the spirit world once a soul dies. It also goes into how our guides help us in the process of self-evaluation and what happens between lives.  Newton recounts people’s spiritual beliefs against what his clients advise him when in a superconscious state. He also finds that most souls are presented to a panel of superior beings to review their most recent life and celebrate what went well. 

“Journey of Souls” has raised my awareness and consumed majority of my imagination these past few months.  I can only echo Newton, “At a wat temple in the mountains of Northern Thailand, a Buddhist teacher once reminded me of a simple truth.  “Life”, he said “is offered as a means of self-expression, only giving us what we seek when we listen to the heart.  The highest forms of this expression are acts of kindness”.

Learn more: https://www.newtoninstitute.org/

Previous Post: Journey To Your Next Life

JOURNEY TO YOUR NEXT LIFE

As a born and raised Catholic girl, ex-‘Catholic Youth Co-Ordinator’ and designated weekly Sunday Gospel reader; how did I end up conjuring images of having a past life or even past live(s)?  It goes against the grain of all I’ve ever been taught, the Western societal norm and what the Catholic church teaches.

Socrates wrote: ‘I am confident that there truly is such a thing as living again, that the living spring from the dead, and that the souls of the dead are in existence’.

Carl Jung wrote: ‘I could well imagine that I might have lived in former centuries and there encountered questions I was not yet able to answer; that I had to be born again because I had not fulfilled the task that was given to me’

There was a period of time when I believed, like the rapper Eminem said, ‘You only get one shot’.  But my recent musings into the ‘New Age’ literature advises otherwise.  And this seems to be of a great relief to me!  I get another shot?!  And another?! And another?!  Now that’s my kind of living.

As opposed to the Catholic view of humans living once and after that having a big ‘judgement’ day.  Even Jesus himself is not to have been reincarnated.  He was ‘incarnated’ as he had a pre-human existence and was from heaven (not earth) and never had a previous human experience.  He did however have a ‘resurrection’.  And that again is different to reincarnation, because he came back to the same body and was the same person after his death on the cross. 

It’s a belief in the Catholic ‘circles’ that if you believe in reincarnation then you are reducing human beings to the same level as animals as well as losing human dignity and moral code, as no matter how ‘bad’ you are in this life, you get another chance at it.

Needless to say, I oppose these teachings and have more curiosity about what could possibly happen after death. 

Can anyone prove me wrong?  Nope. 

Am I certain in my belief?  Nope. 

All I have is a curious, imaginative mind and an openness to the unknown – as life after death is exactly that – Unknown.

The late Michael Newton is fairly well-known in the New Age ‘circles’ for his studies and accidental discoveries in Hypnotherapy and accessing memories of former lives and what Souls did between lives on Earth.  He aims to answer the big questions:  Why are we here on Earth?  What will happen after death?  This is attained by hypnotising clients into a ‘superconscious’ state, and it’s in this altered state that they can recount their findings.

Every case has its own uniqueness, and yet also has a consistent thread that encompasses most scenarios which is quite intriguing.  The clients in the case studies vary on the ‘religious’ spectrum.  Some came from highly religious backgrounds and others had no solid beliefs.  By the end of a hypnosis session, the client was to have had a ‘healing’ process by finding their place in this World and gaining more meaning and understanding of their current life. 

Is it all legit?  Who knows?!

Do I want to try it?  Hella yeah!

Will the age old ‘Catholic guilt’ make me feel like I will go to hell for trying it?  Probably.

But, one of the delights of being a Human is ‘Free Will’ and with that allows varied life choices. 

I would like to rest the Catholics minds’ at ease (if that is at all possible by this stage of my writings).  The representations of Michael Newton are that Souls reincarnate into the higher intelligent beings – which on Earth – is Humans.  Also, that reincarnation does not pose a threat of ‘do whatever you want – because it all doesn’t matter’, because Souls recount that their lives are reviewed and most of the judgement on their lives is made by themselves.  In addition to this, we are given a choice to live another life and learn another valuable lesson such as compassion, sacrifice or generosity.  Last but not least, there is no ‘dogma’ created from Newton’s findings.  It is simply literature that shares his experiences.

To finish off, I will provide one more quote.  By Freidrich Neitzche: ‘Live so that thou mayest desire to live again – this is thy duty – for in any case thou wilt live again!’

Previous Post: The Journal Response

THE JOURNAL WRITING RESPONSE

Have you ever tried journaling for clarity?  Try some of the journal prompts below throughout the week.  Dedicate a response to each question each day.

  • Describe your happiest childhood memory
  • List 10 activities that light up your soul.  How can you do more of this?
  • What mistake or failure that has happened in the past, somehow led to a positive opportunity or experience?
  • Who is someone currently in your life that is inspiring you to take action?
  • What is a lesson you’ve learnt recently that you’re truly grateful for?
  • Who was the last person that made you smile.  What do you love about them?

At the end of the week, let me know how you found it!

Previous post: The Power of Your Thoughts

THE POWER OF YOUR THOUGHTS

For me, mornings are a time for meditation and reflection.  One of the methods I enjoy using is visualisation.  I truly enjoy being able to call up particular visions and focusing on creating a scenario in my mind’s eye.  I’ve also been getting good at adding feelings that intensify the moment and helps cement that vision.  It’s amazing how tapping into a sense of achievement, freedom and gratitude can change a person’s entire demeanour.  I find that it sets me up for my day and throughout the day I tend to go back to how I felt in that moment.

The best inspiration you can get is from yourself!  Try it out:  Imagine yourself completing a goal that you may have. 

What actions did you have to take? What can you see around you? How do you comport yourself in this moment? How does it make you feel?  Can you sense immense gratitude?

No matter what is happening throughout your day, you can always use a visualisation technique.  It will help you take actionable steps towards your goal.  It’s not simply the matter of will power.  It’s using the combined efforts of your mind and your body to achieve what you desire.  Whether it be to connect with certain mentors around the world.  Or to simply love what you do.  Or maybe to have more time to connect with the Divine. 

Whatever your intention, use your creativity and imagination to set yourself up for success.  Remember everyone’s goals are unique to themselves and the reality of achieving that goal will be different to the person next to you.  For example, many people have the goal of ‘Being healthy’, however what that means for one person is totally different to another.  So use your imagination to create what ‘healthy’ looks likes for you.  Does it mean; training at the gym nine times a week? Or does it mean; being able to look at yourself in the mirror and love what you see?  Or perhaps it might mean; effortlessly creating healthy meals.  It’s different for everyone.

Practice visualisation every day and notice how good things come your way, you begin to see more beauty within the world and you also get excited about what the day can bring!

Previous Post: Creating A Relaxing Hot Yoga Practice

CREATING A RELAXING HOT YOGA PRACTICE

How can someone do yoga in 38 degrees heat and still be relaxed?  How can certain people receive ‘bad’ news and still remain focused and positive? 

I use my Hot Yoga practice as a way to build resilience within me.  When I look around a Hot Yoga class and see people composed, not fanning themselves down, doing their practice to the best of their abilities; I know that they are strong willed, have a clear purpose and a firm intention.  This is something that I work towards and I know that by attending Hot Yoga it’s a simple yet effective way to build my inner lioness and help prepare me for set backs that may come my way.

Basically, my goal is to make that mind and body connection so that my mind responds to adversity with peacefulness and clarity rather than resistance and fear.  It’s such an important trait to be able to transcend from the conditions of your environment (the things that surround you), it could be simple things such as: whether you think someone is sitting too close to you, the lights might be too bright or your towel has decided to scrunch itself right up. 

Or perhaps you need to surpass a habit you’ve created; for instance giving up when things get slightly harder or getting stuck in that loop of negative self talk or complaints.  I know that I personally find this challenging.  Not everyone is going to start out nailing it and some days are just tougher than others.  But being able to accept it for what it is, is a gift within itself.

I also find that my yoga practice helps me to excel emotional memories stored in the body.  So often certain postures will release emotions within you that you’ll need to work through.  Whether that be guilt, shame, anger, resentment, joy, abundance, freedom.  Lean into the emotions that are being created and walk the path it leads you.

So, what does all of this mean for me? 

My aim is to increase my mental capacity in a lot of ways and one of those is creating greater resilience.  This means that I’ll be able to recover more quickly from ‘failures’ and adversities, allowing me to continue to focus on my personal growth and development.

I’ve found that when you decide to change a belief or perception you have about life or a situation, you need to prepare yourself to allow that change to happen.  It won’t happen overnight, but rather you will need to have been applying that belief to smaller incidents in life consistently leading up to the situation.  And this is what my yoga practice is for me: a way to prepare myself for when sh*t really hits the fan!

Now I’m not saying that resilience is an absence of stress or trauma.  No.  We certainly need that light and shade in our lives.  Resilience means being able to bounce back and not stay in that state of ‘stress’ or ‘trauma’ for an extended period of time where it then starts to overcome you and all of your decisions.  Resilience is building that internal focus, knowing that you are worthy and believing that you can do what you set your mind to.

Try it out for yourself!

Previous post: 3 Key Lessons To Tap Into Your Inner Self

3 KEY LESSONS TO TAP INTO YOUR INNER SELF

Good morning!  As you know, journeying towards ‘inner self’ is my main focus these days and with it comes a lot of break throughs and opportunities.  Being more connected to my inner self has made me feel more confident within myself, I find more joy in the simple things and I’m grateful for the life I’m living. 

Here are some suggestions on how you can align your life with your soul’s intentions:

Keep a journal – When you start keeping a journal, you’ll find yourself wanting to write more.  Sometimes I write a page of gratitude and others I slow my mind down and tap into my intuition for peacefulness and clarity.  My main goal is to simply focus on doing that one thing: writing.

Spend time outside – Nature always has something in store for me.  It’s something that I’ve been making more of an effort with.  I’m not the kind of girl that jumps at the idea of hiking up a mountain, I’m more of a “let’s sit and read outside or on the beach and soak up some rays!” kind of girl.  Either way, get yourself outside, take some deep breaths and appreciate your surroundings.

Get moving –  Decide to move your body in some way.  I find yoga rewarding because I get to do deep stretches, it improves my cardio, builds up strength in my upper body, works my core and on top of all of that it satisfies my soul, slows down my brain waves and increases my happiness levels.  Not once have I ever left a yoga class feeling like sh*t.  I always feel like I’ve done a good thing for myself.

I trust that when these things are happen, good things are coming ; )

Previous post: A Simple Method for Staying Calm in Crazy Situations

IF YOU’RE WAITING, YOU’RE NOT PROGRESSING

I’d like to jump right into one of the best lesson I’ve learnt this past few months.  As a Goodreads user I had been keeping a list of books I wanted to read, and the next book on my list to read was Lost Connections by Johann Hari.  I found it confronting that I had added that book to my ‘wish list’ a year ago and it had taken me that long to eventually read it!  And it is an awesome book, with so much insight! It made me realise that I had been adding books to my wish list to read, but not making a big attempt to get through them and I was missing out on progressing my self interests. 

I sat down and realised that I had been waiting to do a lot of things, not just reading.

I felt dismayed by the mountain of things that I’ve been waiting to do, and yet not implementing any actions or plans to implement them.  To be honest, I was disappointed.

I decided to take everything I had been ‘waiting’ to do, into things that I was going to do this year and implement a plan for things I couldn’t do this year.  So at this point, I stopped doing the things that kept me procrastinating or distracted from what I aim to achieve.  I started to reconnect with the ‘how’ I was going to progress, rather than continuously dreaming about ‘what’ I was going to do.   

I think that a lot of us live much of our lives waiting…  Perhaps  take some time out to reflect and see what goals you can restore by placing actions in place. 

Previous post: A Simple Method for Staying Calm in Crazy Situations

PEACEFULNESS & CLARITY: JOIN THE 30 DAY MEDITATION CHALLENGE

Winter last year marks the time that I chose to do my own 30 day meditation challenge.  Back on 21JUL18, when I started the challenge I was 9 months into a my new business Peak Physique Hot Yoga Gabba.

A lot has changed since then for my spiritual growth.  I’m now meditating every morning and am wanting to help people build a stronger soul connection. 

However, looking back at when I first started this challenge, my mission was to create a meditation practice despite having a busy life juggling a full-time job and running a business.

Previously to doing this challenge I was meditating infrequently and only when I was drawn to do it (Usually when I was stressed out or feeling low).  By changing up my practice so that it’s daily and automatic has created a massive change for my mindset.  It’s much more preventive, rather that prescriptive.  It’s truly just small changes, that have made a massive impact on my overall joy and passion for life. 

If you’re looking to incorporate a meditation practice into your life, I strongly suggesting starting off by doing a 30 Day Challenge so that you can see where it takes you.  Even if you meditate for only 15 minutes daily, you’ll be inspired to keep that peacefulness with you throughout your day.

I hope I’ve helped you become more excited about meditating to grow your self-awareness.  Simply commit to meditating daily for a minimum of 15 minutes for the next 30 days.  Tell me what you experience!

Previous Post: A Simple Method for Staying Calm in Crazy Situations

IF YOU FEEL RESISTANCE AROUND ACCEPTING ANXIETY OR DEPRESSION MEDICATIONS, THIS BLOG IS FOR YOU

In today’s blog post I’m writing about ‘Lost Connections:  Uncovering the Real Causes of Depression – and the unexpected solutions’ by Johann Hari.  He is an author that has experienced depression for many years, was on prescription medication and then decided to delve deeper into what causes depression and what can help people with it.  Johann Hari, found the journey of discovery very confronting as he kept coming up against evidence that was in contrary to his own beliefs around depression and the story he had been telling himself for years.  It threatened what he knew about himself: that he should take anti depressants, that the drugs sometimes worked and that he had low serotonin levels.  

As he continues on his search for a solution for himself, he finds that most things that will help him has nothing to do with medication, but more so around his external environment, people and connections.  You will need to read the book to get all of his suggestions, but one of my favourites was: Connecting with the Natural World.  He covers how he trekked up a massive mountain reluctantly.  Which I can totally relate to, as I’m not one to put my hand up to go camping (I’ve never been camping in my entire life), trekking or going to the beach (unless I’m home in the Seychelles – then I’m all in!).  For me, nature is something I must force myself to make time for and this is something I’m going to consciously make more of an effort to do.

If you’ve ever wondered how to get more joy and release the feelings of anxiety and depression, this book is for you.  It has been one of the most powerful books I’ve recently read and provides great input in regards to the ongoing debate surrounding prescription medications and provided me more clarity around this topic.

Previous Post: A Simple Method for Staying Calm in Crazy Situations