1
SELF-AWARENESS
You may have picked up this book in the hope of finding a quick fix for your relationship problems, but although that might sound appealing, I know it wouldn’t really benefit you in the long term. Because to truly attract and sustain healthy and happy relationships, you need to look inward and become fully self-aware. And the exercises in this chapter are designed to do just that – they will help you become aware of your behaviour, and of any negative patterns and beliefs, and allow you to observe and redirect your focus to those areas of your life you would like to improve. All you need is to be committed and disciplined in doing the work, and soon your inner strengths and qualities will be revealed to you.
The words “Know thyself” are nothing new; in fact, they go way back to the philosopher Socrates. He believed that people were motivated by the desire for happiness, but that they could only make the right choices and achieve happiness by truly knowing themselves. Only when we do that will we create deeper, more meaningful and harmonious relationships in every area of our lives. When Robert Holden, author and psychologist and “Britain’s foremost expert on happiness”, said “Your relationship with yourself sets the tone for every relationship you have” he was spot on.
So it’s time to dive deeper, beyond the issues that are present in this moment and gain clarity, knowledge and understanding so that you can soar in your relationships and find true contentment.
“True power is living the realization that you are your own healer, hero and leader.”
Yung Pueblo
Change starts with you
As my coaching and hypnosis business grew, both online and in LA, it became more and more apparent to me that the relationship issues clients were dealing with had a common thread running through them. They all required my clients to accept that they could only change how they responded to things, their own behaviour – not the person or situation they had problems with – and decide for themselves which traits they needed to improve. They would tell me about their issue, for example about the person who was making them angry or sad, but the only thing we could do anything about right then and there was a) find out why this person triggered them in such an extreme way and b) work on making them feel stronger, more confident, and calmer so they were able to cope better when they had to face that person or a similar situation again. As we all know, if it’s a boss, colleague or family member, it isn’t always possible to just walk away. Neither is walking away always the solution – sometimes it’s better to stay and learn from it and heal the wounds that have been revealed to you through being in a particular relationship or situation.
“Every situation that triggers you is an opportunity to get to know yourself better and to grow.”
So my aim was to help my clients to navigate through tricky situations with more ease. What I found to my surprise in the early days of my practice was that when you improve your relationship with yourself, you fully wake up to the fact that it’s the most important relationship you will ever have. When that’s a loving, kind and respectful one, guess what… you will react differently to situations, you will choose differently and you will attract different things into your life. And even when met with difficult or selfish people you will be equipped to handle them without it destroying you or even, with time, disturbing your inner peace. Extraordinary people like Nelson Mandela and Mahatma Gandhi demonstrated very well the art and importance of self-mastery and the power of forgiveness to create inner and outer peace. I can promise you that once you have fully connected within, you will be able to handle most things with grace and peace.
“It’s like working any muscle in your body – each time you are confronted with a similar situation, you will be able to deal with it differently and feel stronger within each time.”
What do you need to heal?
I don’t believe in coincidences. I have seen way too much synchronicity in my life to believe anything but that whatever happens is meant to be. I truly believe there was a specific reason why you picked up this book, if not consciously, then subconsciously. You will get an opportunity to heal whatever frustration, hurt and disappointment was on your mind when you did so, through the work we are going to do in this chapter and beyond.
By looking inward and becoming more self-aware, you will find the areas of your life where there is room for healing, where perhaps it’s time to return home to you. Maybe you have detoured, maybe you have put the feelings and needs of others above your own and handed over the control of how you feel to someone else. Or perhaps you have been caught up in materialistic things or turned to substances, such as drugs and alcohol, looking to those to fill a void within. Wherever you have been searching for that one thing to fulfil you, my aim through this book is for you to realize you had it within you all the time. To know you are already whole and complete, and that you are love!
Noticing negative behaviours and patterns
When we raise our self-awareness – I think of it as becoming awake – we are able to notice negative behaviours and patterns we repeat that we would like to improve on. We can bring them to our conscious mind. According to scientist Dr Bruce Lipton, your life is run by your subconscious mind 95 per cent of the time and what is in our subconscious has been there since the first six years of our lives, so it’s akin to having a child run our lives 95 per cent of the time! That is exactly how it can feel at times, especially when we get triggered. As adults we realize that some of those old patterns created in our childhood are not aligned with how we want to think, behave and react now.
However, unless we consciously work with mind tools to change or improve some of those patterns, we will subconsciously continue to act and react in undesired negative ways. Dr Lipton explains: “The major problem is people are aware of the conscious beliefs and behaviours, but not of subconscious beliefs and behaviours.” However, he says: “Once you have become aware of the fact that invisible programs from the subconscious mind are running your life, then you are responsible for it.” The good news is that you can access your subconscious and create change via meditation, hypnosis and affirmations, as you will learn more about throughout this book.
Let’s look at what those patterns lingering in the subconscious mind from childhood can look like. Perhaps your parents split up when you were a child, leaving one parent devastated; such an experience may have made you grow up overnight – perhaps you took on the role of caring for the parent you were living with to help them through this difficult time. Then, later in life, that role is familiar to you, so you feel you have to save and fix everyone in every relationship you’re in, but deep down you are tired and would actually quite like to be saved and looked after yourself – the child within you is longing for that love you yearned for but didn’t always receive in the way you needed it. Or perhaps your parents fought a lot and you took on the role of peacemaker or stayed out of the way for safety, which made you stay in your shell as an adult. Another example is if as a child you had a very controlling parent, perhaps you couldn’t voice how you really felt and so your go-to was to get angry or frustrated. Later on in life when you detect this kind of controlling behaviour in someone else, you will subconsciously react in the same way, with anger or frustration or even by being controlling yourself. However, at this stage in your life, this probably doesn’t feel good to you – something isn’t aligned and you know deep down there is another, better, way to deal with it. You don’t yet know how to react in your desired way in the heat of the moment because you are still being triggered by the old pattern in your subconscious. You may long to resolve the situation by calmly and assertively letting the person know that you won’t be controlled in this way, or you may simply recognize the controlling behaviour and move on because you know that’s not for you and you have already healed that within yourself.
Another common behaviour to be aware of is being judgemental and critical of others and of yourself. This time-consuming and energy-zapping behaviour happens subconsciously for many people and can adversely affect your relationships, including the one with yourself. If you were raised in a family where it was common to judge everybody, this will be the norm to you. Through coaching and hypnosis I’ve seen great healing for my clients once they became aware of their judgemental behaviour and how they had learnt this from their parents or people around them as a child. Allowing yourself to be kinder and compassionate to yourself, and less critical of others, is so freeing and something we will work on in the self-acceptance and self-love chapters. It is often said you are your own worst critic, but if you want people to stop judging you and find harmony within and in the relationships around you, start by letting go of needing to judge yourself for everything and swap it with a newfound awareness and curiosity. Chances are you will inspire the people you meet to do the same.
“When you judge another you do not define them, you define yourself.”
Wayne Dyer
Taking back control
There’s often an element of control in relationships – one partner might be more controlling than the other – but what I’m really talking about here is having given someone else the control to hurt, disappoint or frustrate us. This often happens when we believe that someone will fill some sort of void within us. That they will fill the part of us that feels lonely, lost and not loved enough. The danger, of course, is that we are handing over the control, literally giving someone else the remote control to our emotions. This is a huge responsibility to put on someone else – that they make you feel happy, worthy or loved – because that also means that they can take this feeling away from you at any point. Imagine the emotional freedom and the kind of relationships you will attract when you feel happy, worthy and loved with or without that relationship. Suddenly you are in charge of your own emotional remote control and can choose your own frequency and levels – now that’s empowerment.
Many people hold onto relationships and jobs, even put up with unacceptable behaviours, for far longer than is necessary because they are scared of facing the reality of needing to fill a void the person would leave or having to create financial freedom for themselves. It may be that you are staying in a relationship with someone who you no longer love because you are scared you won’t meet anyone else or in a working relationship that no longer fulfils you. However, what I often explain to clients is that by staying they could be prevented from meeting the greatest love of their life or finding a better job. They will never know what could have been and are likely to end up feeling alone or lost in the relationship or dissatisfied in the job anyway. This is the time you might want to weigh up whether the pain would be greater by staying or leaving. Ask yourself: If I stay in this relationship or keep interacting with this person, at what expense to my own health and wellbeing? Then, if it’s a relationship or situation that you can’t avoid, ask yourself: How can I make sure I protect and respect myself?
Finding my voice
The first time I found myself in a relationship that made me feel so bad I could hardly get up in the morning was in my first real job as an apprentice in an estate agents. The lady who owned the firm believed in ruling with fear; we feared that if we didn’t do it her way we would be fired. I’d never been in a situation like this and I had to figure out what to do about it. When I thought about other times I had felt this way, I remembered being bullied at school and how I had not spoken out because I was worried about the consequences. What I was feeling now was just like the hurt and sadness I felt back then. I had connected the dots. This situation had come around again in my life so that I could heal that scar, giving me an opportunity to ACT in a new and different way.
I weighed up my options: I could stay and be miserable or be brave and walk away, even if that did mean being out of a job.
At that moment, something within me clicked into place and I chose to fully respect myself. I realized that I couldn’t expect others to respect me if I was allowing someone to treat me this way. When the lesson became clear to me, I stood up and said straight to my boss’s face, “I don’t accept being spoken to in this way. I’m quitting.”
Then, instead of sitting at home feeling sorry for myself, I called the nearby estate agents and asked if they were looking to take on an apprentice. I had three interviews within the week and three offers. Working for the one I chose turned out to be the most magical years in a fantastic environment. That situation taught me that lessons and chances to evolve are all around us and that when we truly respect ourselves, our values and our beliefs, we attract into our lives people who respect us. I believe that the universe rewards us when we have the courage to live our lives authentically, and it did so for me by giving me the opposite experience – working with fabulous people who treated me well. I don’t even want to imagine the miserable time I’d have had if I had stayed in that job or how bad I would have felt, because, trust me, even after being there a short time I was starting to feel drained, unwell and moody, and that would only have got worse. I had a lot of phone calls from my colleagues saying how I had expressed what many of them had dreamt of saying for years. Looking back, I can see that this experience was literally the power of reframing lifted off the paper and into real life.
“No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.”
Eleanor Roosevelt
Dana Michele’s story
“When I first walked into Camilla’s office, I was so annoyed and had a pit in my stomach because I truly believed my boss had it in for me. I worked in a highly competitive environment as an executive producer and I had to deal with a lot of egos and different heads of department every day. It was like being a juggler most of the time and deadlines were tight, so the last thing I needed was a boss that seemed to hate me. I was completely convinced he was not supportive of me and definitely didn’t respect me.
When I began doing the reframing exercise (see page 22) with Camilla, I started to connect the dots. I discovered that the situation I was in at the moment was in fact highlighting a situation from way back, and making me feel exactly the same way. Once I realized this, we started working on what pattern I was replaying here and what I needed to learn from the situation. After a few sessions I wasn’t as bothered anymore about the way my boss was treating me. I gave it less of my energy and attention, as I had decided not to take it personally and I knew I was doing a good job. I focused on what I was there to do, instead of on his behaviour towards me. To my surprise when I finished the project the boss I thought hated me, invited me out for lunch to say thank you for the amazing work I had done and even bought me a thank you present.
What I learnt from this situation is invaluable to me. This work relationship highlighted to me a deeper traumatic situation from my past that I had not fully dealt with, where I was not able to stand up for myself. It had made me fearful of uncomfortable situations, like this one, where I felt unsafe emotionally. If I had carried on believing that my boss had it in for me and had taken everything personally throughout, I would have made life and work for myself way more difficult than it needed to be. Instead I tapped into my self-worth and learnt to stand in my own power, believing in myself, my skill set and the value I was adding to the job.”
“If you don’t like something, change it. If you can’t change it, change your attitude.”
Maya Angelou
An opportunity to grow
I regard bestselling author Marianne Williamson as one of the best spiritual speakers in the world. When I was writing my first book Strictly Inspirational I had just moved to Los Angeles and I was thrilled to learn that Marianne was doing weekly talks at the Saban Theatre nearby (you can listen to her talks online – see page 170). At one talk she spoke about a person who she didn’t really see eye to eye with. She said the last thing she wanted was to constantly run into that person, but it kept happening over and over again. When she thought deeply about why the universe kept bringing her together with this person, she realized that each time was a new opportunity for them to heal their relationship. One day she took that opportunity and the relationship was healed by finally having a conversation. What I took from this is something I have passed on to my clients many times since. I tell them to have that conversation they have been putting off, but to remember to come from a place of compassion, with a desire to heal the situation. They must be prepared to listen and to apologize for their part, because if they choose to have the conversation to prove they are right and the other person is wrong they are putting up barriers to healing instead.
When teaching the principles of A Course in Miracles Marianne says, “Relationships are assignments made in order to increase the maximum soul growth of both people… It is as though a giant machine somewhere sees where you are wounded, and then picks out the person and situation in all of the universe in combination with whom you would most likely be healed.” Doesn’t this challenge us all to look at every relationship in a different way?
Marianne continues: “The ego sees the assignment as someone who will give me what I think I need to compensate for the lack that exists in me. But the universe is invested in your soul growth, not in your imagined need. The universe knows you have no need other than to remember you already are and have everything.” Choosing to believe these principles has helped me look at even the most challenging relationships with optimism and curiosity, knowing that they are aiding my growth on a soul level rather than just annoying me and making me feel bad.
Negative self-talk
I often refer to the brilliant, and in my opinion must-have book The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz; it’s one I tell all my clients to read. I have learnt some invaluable life tools from it, which I use daily. Two of these things are “to be impeccable with your word” and “don’t take anything personally”. One of my coaching methods is based on Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP) (see page 8), which also teaches the importance and power of how we use our words and communicate and how this can either hinder or help us.
I help my clients to become aware of choosing words to help and support them rather than restrict and limit them. Self-talk is one of my favourite things to focus on with clients who are trying to heal a relationship. I really listen to the words they use to describe themselves, or their situation or issue, and then encourage them to do the same. An example might be making them aware of saying, “I’ll never change that” instead of “I haven’t changed that yet” – the first is a strong statement, a belief that something will definitely never change, whereas in the second statement the person is open to possibilities of what could happen. Another one might be a keen runner saying, “I’d never be able to run a marathon” instead of “I hope to run a marathon one day”. Or “All my relationships are the same, they never work out”, “The people I meet always end up letting me down” – these are both very strong statements with no room for hope. They could be swapped with, “I used to struggle with relationships”, “I used to meet people who would let me down but now I choose differently”. Saying “used to” helps frame it as something that happened in the past instead of something happening currently. The examples I have used here are likely to be said casually at first, and then they become the story you tell, and believe about, yourself. This then turns into a limited belief that restricts your possibilities in life, holding you back from what you desire. Negative self-talk can also be horrible things you say about yourself like, “I’m not enough”, “No one loves me”, “I don’t like the way I look” and so on.
Later in the book I’ll ask you to become even more aware of your self-talk and get you on a positive path by constantly reframing any negative self-talk into positive (see page 116). For now I would simply like you to become aware of how you speak about yourself and others and the words you find yourself using a lot about the relationship you want to heal. These words will be very revealing and help you eventually improve your self-talk.
So many everyday issues can be resolved with good, honest and clear communication, whether that’s with others or yourself. Sometimes when I’m working with a couple it’s magical to watch them solve their differences and issues right in front of me by simply being mindful of the words they use. Many problems occur because a person’s ego gets in the way, preventing them from being open and honest, which leads to misunderstanding. Often we might not want to “lose face” – we might fear looking stupid or just need to be right or take the credit for something. When people seek relationship coaching or therapy, they are able to move into a space beyond the ego to find a more neutral common ground where the main aim is to resolve the issue. In this safe space, they can listen with compassion and actually understand where the other person is coming from. Even if they don’t agree, they can usually come to a place of understanding or acceptance. I wrote a whole chapter on ego in my last book Reinvent Me. If you want to read more about whether your ego is getting in the way of your healing and stirring things up for you, check it out.
“Everything is vibration”
So believed Albert Einstein! Words, vibrations… “What?” I hear you ask. Not to get heavily into quantum physics here, but science has led us to believe that everything is energy and that everything is vibrating at different frequencies. You may have heard of the Law of Vibration and the Law of Attraction, that “like attracts like”, meaning what we speak of and think of, we attract more of. I find all of this fascinating and it has inspired me to be mindful of what I’m vibrating or emitting into the world. There is a very apt quote: “You know the truth by the way it feels.” When we are speaking or thinking angry words, it doesn’t feel good within, your mood drops and you start to feel low and doubt yourself. On the other hand, if you think positive things about yourself, or even remember a time when everything felt good, you start to feel more upbeat and positive about yourself and the situation you are in.
So when you reframe a situation from a more positive outlook your vibration and what you are sending out into the universe changes. Think of a time when you chose to be nice to someone who was unpleasant to you, and you watched their mood and tone change to match yours – your vibration and suddenly the situation became less uncomfortable, perhaps even pleasant. Or think of a time when you doubted that something would happen, but then decided to simply believe and trust that all would be okay and suddenly everything turned out in your favour.
Esther and Jerry Hicks, authors of the #1 New York Times bestseller Money and the Law of Attraction, and many other fabulous books, are masters in the area of law of attraction and vibrations. Years ago when I was struggling to make it in my previous career, I knew I had to change my relationship with money to fully align myself with my dreams and desire of living a life of abundance. Going through a financial struggle personally brought up all the limited beliefs I had created around money, mostly inherited from what I had learnt or listened to growing up. Even if parents have the best intention at heart, how they speak about money and their actions can affect their child’s beliefs about it. Examples might be that however much money there was it was never enough, or money instead of time or affection was given to show love. The child learns that love is conditional or that money is love, or if there is anxiety around money they might fear it will run out.
I wanted to change my outlook on money and switch it from one of lack to one of abundance, so I used to read Esther and Jerry’s books and listen to their financial abundance meditation on repeat. Their work hugely inspired and supported my belief of the power of reframing and the power of our thoughts. The teachings include, “When your vibration shifts, your point of attraction shifts, and, by the powerful law of attraction, your manifestational evidence or indicator must switch, also. You cannot talk consistently of the things you do want to experience in your life without the universe delivering the essence of them to you.”
This works for the negative thoughts we put out there, too. So becoming aware of how we talk about a relationship or an issue makes us aware of what we are actually asking the universe to bring more of. If you want abundance in your life, you have to start talking about money with great love and not lack. If you want a great relationship with your boss or with a lover, you need to become aware of how you are talking about the relationship you are currently having or not having because remember what you speak of you attract more of. So if you are constantly complaining about everything that is going wrong, guess what… more things will go wrong and the relationship you desire will be even further out of reach. Instead, start talking about what you do want and use all the enticing words to make the situation as healed and desirable as you want. Improving how you think, feel and speak about that relationship will help the situation change in a positive way and help you attract what you are ultimately looking for.
A change of perspective
Taking inspiration from the NLP (see page 8) tool “Perception is projection” I will help you look at your situation from a different perspective. Really notice what you are projecting and what is reflected back at you. Through the exercises you will start to become more and more aware of what is in your control to change and how when making these changes within, it can improve the situation that was causing an issue.
It’s not personal!
By becoming self-aware, we better understand our reaction to people and situations, and this can help us to not take things so personally. One of my clients was upset and frustrated by her boss, who would shout and blame other people when things went wrong. I explained that her boss was probably unaware of her behaviour and how it impacted on people and that to behave that way she was clearly in pain and turmoil within. My client felt singled out, but I told her to consider that it wasn’t personal. I explained that her boss would probably behave and speak like that to anyone, which helped to ease her stress. Rather than trying to change her boss’s behaviour – something that would be impossible to do unless she realized herself that she had an issue – her job was to figure out what it was triggering in her, in much the same way I had with my difficult estate agent boss (see pages 26–8). When you remove the emotional charge behind how you are feeling, you can start to deal with the situation in a more rational manner with less emotion. I realize, by the way, that arriving at a place where you can allow yourself to observe a situation for what it is and not take it personally takes work – a lot of work even – and you might even decide to not bother, but that will bring its own issues in the long term, like the behavioural pattern repeating itself in a different relationship.
The two ways my client could behave were worlds apart. Imagine how she would behave and feel if she took it personally compared to if she didn’t. When you don’t take a situation like that personally, unless of course it’s actually bullying or worse, and you take it to the HR department, you will act from a place of calmness, strength and dignity and a response from this place will be more effective than one based on feeling hurt and having a bruised ego. If a pattern like this repeats in your life, however, it is time to look at why that is happening and work on what you can change within your behaviour – what learnings there are to help you move on. It’s worth acknowledging, though, that these kinds of challenging relationships often are the greatest teachers. And, of course, once you have learnt from them you might move on or find that the person who challenged you moves on. I see this all the time with my clients – things naturally evolve once we have learnt what we needed to from a person or situation.
Resisting change
Resistance can be a huge roadblock and stop you from truly blossoming, if you aren’t aware of it. When I start working with a client, they always ask me how long I think it will take for them to change a pattern, behaviour or habit. I tell them that it depends on their willingness to make the changes, starting with taking responsibility for what is in their power to change and how much resistance there is, if any.
You have to work through resistance before you can tackle the actual issue, but how do you recognize that you have resistance? Well sometimes it can be a reluctant feeling, a worry or fear of what lies ahead of the changes, uncertainty of how to navigate through it. Sometimes you might be unaware of what is lingering in your subconscious, literally believing that everything that is happening is happening to you and not for you, being comfortable playing the victim and feeling sorry for yourself and blaming everyone else for your problems just so you don’t have to do the work. Yes, sometimes others are to blame, but, remember, we cannot change other people’s actions, only our own and, with practice, we can definitely control how we react to things. You can choose to feel sorry for yourself and let the things that happened define you or you can rise from the darkest of situations like many people who have gone before you. Nobody said, by the way, that making changes, evolving and becoming your best most awesome self was going to happen overnight or be a walk in the park but it’s your life, your journey and wouldn’t it be a shame not to know what loving yourself fully feels and looks like and what it means to blossom fully into your awesome self? I would say it would probably be the most important emotional investment you will ever make.
As we looked at on page 31, our self-talk can be very limiting. I often hear comments such as “I can’t change”, “That’s just the way I am”, “I was born like this”, “I have always been like this”. However, fascinating scientific research is providing more and more evidence about neuroplasticity – the brain’s ability to adapt and change. The research proves that the brain can change and that it’s not static as once believed. Every time we repeat an emotion or a thought we reinforce a neural pathway, which means that with every new thought we start to create a new way of being.
One thing I stress to my clients is the importance of having a disciplined mind; if they want to change something, that means repeating positive thoughts and affirmations again and again. The hard part is that as we are trying to make changes we find the brain wanting to go back to the old way because that’s what it finds familiar. As Rick Hanson, Ph.D. and author of the wonderful book Buddha’s Brain, explains, the brain is bad at learning from good experiences and good at learning from the bad. The brain has a negativity bias, which was what helped to keep our ancestors safe from threat in the past, but now it’s more of a bug that blocks good and positive experiences. He also explains that we learn faster from pain than from pleasure and that negative interactions have more impact on relationships than positive ones.
So what we can take from this is that retraining your brain isn’t quick or easy. You have to be tenacious when making changes and be aware that they won’t happen overnight. But with perseverance, like anything you train to do, it becomes easier and eventually automatic the more you repeat it and rehearse it.
“A disciplined mind brings happiness.”
Buddha
“The people we are in relationships with are always a mirror, reflecting our own beliefs, and simultaneously we are mirrors, reflecting their beliefs.”
Shakti Gawain
Being aligned
When our values and beliefs don’t match our behaviour, we feel off or like things aren’t flowing for us. However, when we live in alignment with our values and beliefs, we feel good about ourselves and that things are fully synchronized. The same goes for any relationship; if we don’t share the same core values and beliefs, it’s difficult to really flow together and those relationships take more work, effort and energy. If, for example, one of your beliefs is that family is the most important thing and you are faced with someone who believes you should choose work above everything, or you want to have a child and your partner doesn’t, you are never really going to agree on that part. The same goes for the workplace – you may be expected to work 24/7 when all you want to do is work part-time. And you will have to come to terms with what you are willing to compromise on and what you are not. When you are at home with your family and it’s late and your boss calls you about work, do you ignore the call or take it? Start to really notice and become aware of how your actions make you feel when these issues arise, in the same way I asked you to become aware of your words. The feelings will reveal if you are living in alignment with your values and beliefs.
In the relationship you are working on – whether that’s with your partner, a colleague, or a friend – what do you believe are your strengths, limitations and qualities? You can extend this to consider the other person’s strengths and limitations, which will help you gain clarity on the relationship.
Manifesting what you want
Becoming self-aware and aligning yourself emotionally is vital to manifest successfully, which also means having the courage to walk away when you know deep down this is not your equal emotional match, or even a relationship you want to be involved in professionally or privately. As you’ve raised your self-awareness throughout this chapter, it has probably become more apparent to you what you really want to manifest into your life. However, if you let fears, including a fear of ending up alone guide you, I can pretty much guarantee you will not make the decisions that are aligned with your heart and soul.
What I live by and see every day in my practice with my clients is that you become a magnet when your actions are aligned with your heart’s truths. Your manifesting strategy doesn’t work when you feel one thing and do another. This is why so often people who are playing games at the beginning of a relationship end up completely miscommunicating and it ends up in tears. And when you want to manifest a great relationship, whether in love or your career, listen to your intuition. Sometimes we confuse our fear with the intuition so notice how your intuition is talking to you through your gut feeling and through your heart.
Self-reflection
Spending time on self-reflection every day is a super-important self-awareness tool to help you better understand your emotions and learn about yourself and your strength and weaknesses. It doesn’t matter how long you dedicate to it, even 5 minutes makes a difference. What matters is that you do it, especially if there are certain issues and relationships you have been trying to work out recently. At the end of each chapter, I will ask you to take some time to reflect on what each part of the book has stirred up and brought forward within you in the hope that it will inspire you to create a similar practice for yourself to continue after you finish the book. And of course know that you can revisit the book and its exercises like a trusted friend and go through it whenever you have a relationship issue that’s bothering you, to gain clarity and deeper awareness of what that relationship is representing.
Self-reflection is not only a great way to honour our feelings, it’s a great tool to use to make sure we don’t just suppress them. As David R. Hawkins, M.D., Ph.D. explains in his book Letting Go, if we brush our feelings aside we still function but the pressure of burying those feelings can lead to irritability, mood swings, insomnia and many other conditions. He is not alone in writing about the effect that suppressed emotions can have on our health let alone our behaviour. Louise Hay and Deepak Chopra have shared their knowledge of this subject in their books and have hugely inspired me to listen to the messages my body is sending me. I’m passionate about the importance of the mind–body connection as I will talk about further in the self-love and self-care sections. As well as self-reflection, later on we will look at ways to become better at observing and accepting what arises using mindfulness tools.
Mind Maintenance
To help you stay with this feeling of self-awareness, I’d like you to do the following every day for a week:
Meditate: Take a few minutes to connect to your breath by simply saying “calm” on the in-breath and “relaxing” on the out-breath.
Reflect: Start to reflect on the following sentence: I am ready to perceive this relationship differently and heal what is here to be healed within me.
Journal: Write down what came to mind, without judging it. Doing this exercise every day is interesting because you will slowly, over a few weeks, start to become more aware of your own behaviour and notice things you were unaware of doing.
“Knowing others is wisdom, knowing yourself is Enlightenment.”
Lao Tzu
Now that you have raised your awareness, are you ready to dive deeper? Let’s go. See you in Self-Acceptance.
