When not to help...

Learning from life is a funny business. Sometimes I find myself doing things I hadn't expected to do.

Other times, I have to stop myself doing things I usually would.

For example, I was going home on the bus a couple of years ago. The bus stopped. A young mother struggled on with three screaming children and hefty shopping bags. Highly stressed.

I wanted to go and help her stow her bags, park the pushchair and generally calm her down.

I didn't. A moment's reflection made me sit tight.

Why? Am I a mean-spirited person too wrapped up in my own issues to help another soul, or was I too scared of being rebuffed?

No to both. I could have rushed in to help her without the slightest hesitation.

I realised that it wasn't for me to decide whether or not she needed this difficulty. She was creating a lot of noise and commotion, but what was wrong with that? It felt like going against the grain, but could I just allow her to be in the drama she was in?

If I'd helped her it would have been like saying:-

1 There's something wrong with you struggling

2 I would be helping you by reducing your difficulty

I knew these things weren't true.

In my heart I believe we are here to learn from our problems rather than get rid of them. I couldn't say what or how she had to learn from her struggle. In fact, I know from my own experience that it's often when things get really out of hand that the penny drops, or we finally get a breakthrough.

What if this was building into an opportunity for her life to change for the better? I did not want to sabotage that!

It's so easy to fall into wanting to make life easier for other people by trying to reduce or take away their problems. To act blindly on this means making a lot of assumptions:-

1 I know this person shouldn't be having that difficulty

2 I know I can improve their situation by removing the difficulty

3 I know it really is a difficulty and not one created by my or that person's mind

4 In an ideal world I know difficulties should be reduced or removed

We may have to decide on a situation by situation basis whether or not to get stuck into helping people.

But there's also a greater goal - to put energy and thought into how to help others face and deal with their problems rather than removing them.

Something to try...

Next time you see someone in trouble, unless the situation is life-threatening, stop and ask yourself one question...

How can I help this person to accept their difficulty rather than playing along with the idea they need to get rid of it?

See what comes to you.

This is not an excuse not to help people. It's simply about being aware of the bigger picture.

It takes practise to befriend our problems, to come to know in an unshakeable way that they are there to teach us something important.

It takes even more practise to to allow other people to have their difficulties, and work out ways of helping them that honour the value of problems.

To change or not to change

We've been taught there's something about ourselves that's not quite right. Happiness is tucked inside some change we haven't yet made.

When you learn from life, you don't have to stop wanting to change. You accept your desire to change - what's different is that you don't take any action until you've seen what it has to teach you.

Try this...

1) Think of something you want to change about yourself

2) Welcome the part of you that wants to change with an open heart

3) Find out what you can learn from it

Easy way to help someone find out what to do with their life

Some people find it hard to decide what to do with their lives.

I recently discovered a couple of easy ways to make unconscious minds talk.

While I was chatting on the 'phone to a friend, she said:-

'I really don't know what I want to do with my life.'

Without a moment's hesitation, I said:-

'Yes you do,'

Immediately she said...'I'd like to travel, and work as part of a team where I can be valued for skills other than mothering...'

'Did you hear that?' I said.

A similar incident happened with my daughter. She was also telling me she didn't have any vision for what she wanted to do with her life. This time I simply stayed silent, believing she did know.

Without a pause for breath, she said:-

'I had a dream a few days ago that I was running a green events company.'

'So you do know really.' I said.

She seemed quite surprised to hear herself say it.

Whilst we think we don't know what to do with our lives, maybe part of us does. We just don't know that we do know, so we can't access this precious information on our own....

Test it yourself...

Next time you hear someone say 'I don't know what to do with my life,' simply remind yourself that they do know really - more accurately, their unconscious mind knows. See if you feel moved to either leave a gap in the conversation or say 'Yes you do'. Then wait and see if anything unexpected pops up.

Let me know how it goes. I'd love to hear your stories, and any other tips to prompt another person's unconscious mind to speak to them!

What if shit only happened once?

One bad experience...

Have you noticed how one bad, difficult, awful, ugly, painful, you-name-it-yourself type experience goes on to infect your entire life?

You lose your job, your partner cheats on you, you don't get the grade you wanted, that first problem you have trying to get your business off the ground...

This one bad experience doesn't just infect your life for a day, week, month or even year. Oh no. It can mess you up for a lifetime.

Whereas, good experiences...

When good things happen in an important part of our lives, we build a stronger consciousness of 'good things happening' in that area. In the absense of a bad experience, positive things continue to happen. We expect them to happen. It becomes natural for them to happen.

But shit always brings more shit...

However, when we have a 'bad' experience, we somehow know that bad things don't come in ones. They always bring their mates and gatecrash our lives in their tens and thousands.

From one event, we start believing shit has to power to become an unstoppable force for harm in our lives.

Worse, our minds will fill in the long term details - 'shit will now happen for ages' or 'forever', 'until I sort it out', 'become more confident', 'learn to stand up for myself', 'get healed'...

We end up in some kind of self-created war zone with no idea how to make it go away.

Sound familiar?

When the bad gets really ugly...

One bad experience, left unattended, doesn't just cause patterns of havoc to take hold in one area of our lives. It can spill over into other areas of our lives too.

This leads to downward spirals of depression and ill health. We give up trying, settle for fewer and fewer crumbs under the table, sink into raw disempowerment.

Now we want the good, but expect the bad - we've come to believe it's more realistic, more likely, so we plan for it, protect ourselves from it, work out what to do when it all goes tits up, belly up, arse about face.

Turning it around...

How do we know that one shit event means that one whole area of our lives will always and forever be total shit?

What if...shit only happened once?

What if we could deal with a bad experience as a one-off? You know, it hurts I got made redundant, but hey, shit only happens once. Good stuff will happen next.

What if we could watch how our over-active minds take one event and run amock with it? Trying to protect us and prepare us by telling us that one shit experience heralds whole armies of shit throwers? When actually they are staining, dimming and sabotaging our futures...making it more likely shit will continue to happen?

Fast forward several decades and you meet people who are still saying 'I hate work,'. 'I'm crap at relationships', 'I'd be fine if I wasn't always ill.'

All because of one shit thing that happened way back that's infected their lives like an incurable disease.

The remedy is dealing with shit as a one off.

This gives us the power to start thinking about all the good things that are going to happen next.

Try this...

Imagine how different your life would be if you knew that shit only happened once.