Archive for September, 2009
I’m on the magical island of Skyros this week, teaching The Big Peace.
So I’m not around.
But don’t forget that next week we’re launching our Big Peace Live globally! It starts on Monday 5th October.
Over the next three months, I’m going to be working with a small group of people and training the brain for contentment – via telephone, email and weekly telephone workshops.
There’s still time to join us, if you feel like making a leap into the Big Peace.
If you want something slightly more traditional, The Big Peace Yoga Retreat is 6/7th November – roaring fires, lots of yoga, big comfy beds and the Big Peace. I can’t wait for that one. We’ve had brilliant reviews from our last retreats. Anita Chaudhuri from the Sunday Times Style called it ‘the bootcamp for the soul’!
Right, just off to find Pierce Brosnan. I know he must be here somewhere….
It was my BIG book launch last night. It didn’t start so well. I’d had a busy day and was running late and missed my train. So jumped in the car to get to the next few stations along (I’m not sure that trying to race the train was such a great idea!)
I got to the station to discover I’d left my purse at home. I didn’t have time to go back to the house so I begged the station guard to let me on the train for free. “It’s my book launch, I can’t miss it. You have to let me on.” As you can imagine, this got me nowhere. I was saved by a lovely older lady, who heard my pleas and she told me she’d give me the money to get into London. She gave me her address so I could post her the money and I gave her my Big Peace book as a gift to say thank you. As my train set off, I realised I’d left all my speech notes in the book.
Big Peace? No, not really. I was in pieces. But on the train, I pulled myself together and decided I would just have to speak from the heart versus from my notes. If anything, this incident made me stop and realise how kind strangers can be and how supported and lucky I really was.
The launch was amazing! We were hosted by the beautiful Nicole from Alchemy, this amazing little retreat in the middle of Camden. They have a brilliant menu of events (Marianne Williamson is speaking there next week) Check them out. A very special place.
My talk was very heartfelt, if not very polished. I was talking about how love really does make the world go round, about connection and the kindness of strangers; how creating the Big Peace in our lives is a moment by moment decision – deciding to operate from our most loving/wise/expanded place versus our mean-spirited/stressed out/contracted selves. And how you can bounce into The Big Peace (which lights up a different part of our brain) by thinking about people you love, appreciating and feeling grateful for what you have (a gratitude diary is scientifically proven to switch off the anxiety mechanism in your brain).
I was very grateful to Ann of Edenbridge who was kind to a stranger and allowed me to share my message.
I decided to send Ann some flowers this morning and was telling the florist the story and she gasped when I told her who it was – an old client of hers that she had lost contact with so she decided to deliver the flowers herself. ‘She’s a lovely lady,’ she told me. ‘It will be great to see her again.’
Then Ann left me a message on my mobile to say thank you for the flowers and she had given my book to a friend of hers she’d seen that evening who was struggling after losing her partner.
A random act of kindness from a stranger connected people, help me deliver a more heartfelt message and definitely created a little more gratitude support and love in this world.
May the force and The Big Peace be with you!
Thank you for everyone who came to my launch. I appreciate your support and your love.
Suzy x
Just try answering some of these questions:- Who do you most love and why?
- Who loves you the most and why?
- Who has had the most positive impact on your life and how has that made your life different?
- Who makes you laugh the most and why?
- Who makes you smile on a daily basis and why?
- What is the most positive thing that someone has ever said about you and how did it make you feel?
Last week, I vowed to create ‘the perfect Sunday’ and what can I say?
Well, it was Ok. I had a lie-in, went to Lewes, avoided cleaning the kitchen floor. But I was so focussed on trying to have a good time, that it wasn’t as good as I thought it ‘should’ be.
But then one of our Big Peacers sent me an email saying that …wasn’t the whole idea of The Big Peace to enjoy the every day versus constantly chasing the next thrill?
And of course, she’s right.
It led me to get out my The Miracle of Mindfulness book by the Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh.
It helped me remember how washing the dishes (or washing the floor) can be wonderfully fulfilling activity to do (bear with me…..) – if we do it mindfully i.e. keep our mind focussed on each stroke, each splash of water, watching the flowers bob outside the window.
I also found this great clip on you tube too:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=4018343704501897813#
I have washed my kitchen floor this weekend, I’ve also sorted out the airing cupboard (which hasn’t been sorted in….actually it’s never, ever been sorted), I’ve done a pile of ironing and I don’t iron. And I didn’t feel resentful, cross, sorry for myself once. I stayed in the moment, watched the steam, folded towels, mopped away.
Ok, I know! I know! It doesn’t sound the most exciting time ever. But this is me, who’s been hooked on the rollercoaster/by the drama in my head for so long. And there I am enjoying doing the ironing.
If anything has proved to me that the Big Peace is working, it’s that.
I think that Thich Nhat Hahn might be on to something, you know.
xxx
Research carried out by David Schkade, PhD, a psychologist and professor of management at the University of California San Diego found that we’re not very good at prioritising and planning good stuff into our lives.
“Some people had tears in their eyes” said Schkade when they realised that they spent the vast majority of their time with people they don’t like or on activities that drain them. “People don’t devote enough time to seriously thinking about how they spend their life and how much of it they actually enjoy,” says Schkade.
The good news is that Schkade says that if you transfer even an hour of your day from an activity you hate (cleaning the kitchen floor/doing your filing) to one you enjoy (reading a good book/taking the dog out), you should see a significant improvement in your overall contentment. But the most important piece is taking action.
Suzy x
P.S The Big Peace Live has now launched. Live Big peace coaching
until January 2010. How do you want to wake up in January 2010 -
calm, focussed, fulfilled? The come and join us. Click here. 3 x
one to one live coaching sessions with me are added bonuses if you book before or on Sunday 7th september.
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