Archive for November, 2008

I'm just about to do the Big Peace yoga retreat at the weekend. (Now sold out! sorry! You can sign up for priority notification for the next one here.)
And my wonderful yoga teacher Viv has just sent me this information about changing a habit in 40 days and thought that it was encouraging fodder for the Big Peace December ahead….

"

*40 days will change
a habit into a more positive one. Meditation for 40 Days

In the yogic tradition, meditations practiced for a certain
number of days have a certain effect. Forty days is the minimum to break a
habit and set the stage for an internal shift. One student asked me
once-"Forty days in a row?!" The whole class laughed. Yes, forty days
in a row…. And if that seems like a long time, in the past many spiritual
masters have taken 40 years to achieve enlightenment. I imagine that all of us
have done that path in other lifetimes. This lifetime, we are attempting to get
quicker results, so that we can enjoy peace and happiness while still in the
body.

* 90 days confirms
the new habit in you…..

* 120 days allows the
habit to become who you are……

* 1 000 days ensures
that you have mastered the habit……..

Start your Big Peace
now, begin with 40 days of watching your breath, the flow of the in breath and
the outbreath….the natural breath

Then extend this to
mental counting of the breath lengths, extending to the point where you are
comfortable…if possible an equal ratio of 1:1

Then add pauses/hold
at the end of the in-breath and the out-breath (these are known as kumbhaka’s)…
starting with a natural pause/hold then building this up to an equal length of
the in-breath and out-breath….

Enjoy and watch your life change in 40 days."

Now there's a promise. Change your life by just breathing in and out.

I will be starting Big Peace December on Monday. I'm off to the Big Peace Yoga retreat tomorrow so will be off air for a couple of days.

Suzy x

Perfectionism is a glorious way of setting yourself up to fail in
spectacular style. It is a way to constantly affirm to yourself that 'you're no
good'/not up to the mark/are failing every single day of your life.

Because
generally, the perfectionist has set themselves an impossible task. Their
standards are so high that they never can relax and give themselves a pat on
the back. There is always, always something better they could have done. The
perfectionist will focus on that tiny detail that wasn't quite right rather on
the massive, amazing event/meal/report that they have just completed. 

Perfectionism is a 'survival mechanism' we learn in childhood. You
learn from an early age that to be loved and approved of – to survive in the
world – you must be perfect. As a child, you built a belief system that you're
not good enough/clever enough/enough just as you are. Scratch any
Perfectionist, and you'll usually find a little five-year-old who has decided
that to be loved they must attain perfection. Perfectionism is simply a way of
constantly trying to prove to the world that you are good enough. It is
exhausting and self-defeating because generally no matter how hard you try you
will always find yourself lacking.

The antidote? A big leap in thinking. It is letting go of the ideal of
constant self-improvement and embracing the idea of self-acceptance. I call it
acceptance of the 'what is'.

Let's face it, reality could probably always be
better – we could be thinner, more beautiful, have more time, less stress, have
a holiday planned to the Caribbean rather than Cardiff. If we thought about it
hard enough, we probably could always 'do better, try harder, buy a bigger and
better life.' But what if you could simply accept yourself exactly for who you
are, how you're doing and what you've got right now.

Let's ponder that thought for today…..

.

So, very excited! I'm going to run The Big Peace programme daily from this blog through the month of December. Love it! Hopefully all that focus on peace in December will ease me – and hopefully you – into a 2009 of loved-updom and peace to all men (and women, dogs, you know what i mean)

I'm really lucky because the weekend before 1st December I'm running The Big Peace yoga retreat so I'll
be so chilled out then anyway!! (By the way…there are 5 places left now and if you sign up NOW, I am
throwing in three months of one to one coaching with me! I've had a lot of feedback about this retreat and the main objection has been that it's all very well going on a workshop and feeling great for 2 days but then you always end up falling by the wayside….so with three months of me by yourside, the big peace programme via blog as well as the workshop – I think we'll make some progress)

To book a place click here: www.bigpeaceretreat.co.uk/

INSTRUCTIONS FOR BIG PEACE DECEMBER ON MY BLOG….
I will be doing the warm ups next week so just log in daily and I'll be giving us some warm up exercises to get us in the peaceful mood. Starts in earnest (although not too earnestly, if you know what I mean)
December 1st!

It's a small thing but a big thing. I drink coffee. Sometimes A LOT of coffee. (10 cups or more a day) I told my workshop group (I went to the wonderful and amazing How to Self Publish a Best-Seller seminar on saturday with the creative and genius Jacqueline Burns and Kirsty McClachlan of Freethinking.tv) and they all gasped and told me that no wonder I always seemed so hyperactive. (I think the word they used was manic!) Me? Manic? Not the look I was going for.
But yes, it's true. I can be a tad overexcitable. Especially after 10 cups.
So I've decided to wean myself off in the next month. By Christmas, I promise to be caffeine free.
Will it make me more peaceful? I'll report back.

I was very excited to get to interview Dr David Hamilton, author of his
new book How The Mind Can Heal the Body

David is a scientist, a trained chemist who was inspired by the
field research tests he conducted for chemical companies.
Realising that placebo tests produced comparable results with the
sample that received the actual drug, David set about understanding
why.

His research has resulted in his accessible and extraordinary
books, in which he has assembled all the research from mainstream
scientists and writers such as Gregg Braden and David Hawkins to
create a convincing and inspiring case for the power of compassion
and kindness to really make a difference in the world – as well as
healing our own bodies simply by thinking different thoughts.

In my interview, David gives us a brilliant examples and tips of
how and why visualisations works – plus exercises to do at home!

He also dances – twice. David has also agreed in principle to come
and talk at our Big Peace event early next year (once I get some
dates together.)

Here's the link:
http://www.bigleaplife.com/audios/davidhamilton.mp3