5 Tips for a Happier 2012

Today I would like to blog about New Year. To be more precise, about the all so famous New Year’s resolutions we all set for ourselves as goals for the year to come. We want to be slimmer, stop smoking or join the gym just to mention a few of the most popular goals.

More often than not we try and look for external things which we believe will make us happy or at least happier. If I’m slimmer, Mark from Finance will surely notice me more or surely if I join the gym and work out 24/7 I will be back to my size 36 in no time and will be able to wow everyone with my bikini body next summer.

While it is important to set goals in life and try and get rid of unhealthy life styles, I wonder why we don’t start looking within ourselves and start clearing some of those old limiting believe systems we are holding on to, old traumatic emotional and mental ballasts, or unforgiving attitudes towards the ex who cheated, the best friend who never called us when we needed her etc.

These old believe systems and emotional or mental ballasts we hold on to are limiting us much more than we think as the following story now will demonstrate:

The elephant rope

As a man was passing the elephants, he suddenly stopped, confused by the fact that these huge creatures were being held by only a small rope tied to their front leg. No chains, no cages. It was obvious that the elephants could, at anytime, break away from their bonds but for some reason, they did not.

He saw a trainer nearby and asked why these animals just stood there and made no attempt to get away. “Well,” trainer said, “when they are very young and much smaller we use the same size rope to tie them and, at that age, it’s enough to hold them. As they grow up, they are conditioned to believe they cannot break away. They believe the rope can still hold them, so they never try to break free.”
The man was amazed. These animals could at any time break free from their bonds but because they believed they couldn’t, they were stuck right where they were.

Like the elephants, how many of us go through life hanging onto a belief that we cannot do something, simply because we trained ourselves to believe our own limiting thoughts?
How many of us hold on to these invisible but self-limiting bonds and chords? As a Reiki therapist a large part of my daily work consists in showing people their limiting believe systems: Women who don’t love themselves enough, because they taught themselves to believe that they are not beautiful. Men who have low self-esteem because they taught themselves that they can only be happy and proud of themselves once they reached that promotion and make x amount of money. Patients who had bad experiences with their ex partners and are holding on to those people by wasting their precious energy thinking in a bad or unforgiving way about them. Patients who can’t forgive themselves for whatever big mistakes they committed in their past. Patients who are so angry at themselves and the world for whatever reasons.

All these people are holding themselves back from experiencing true happiness by holding on to these invisible chords or self-sabotaging believe patterns.
Now, the good news is that we can release all these old emotions, all fears and all limiting believe patterns. And why not make this a priority for 2012? Why not clear our own emotional and mental households? Why not start off fresh into the New Year?

Here are a few tips how to do this:

1) “The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong.
If we practice and eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth, soon the whole world will be blind and toothless”.
Mahatma Gandhi

Write a list of all people you think you haven’t fully forgiven yet. Old friends, family members, colleagues, ex partners etc. For each of those make a list of 5 positive attributes that each of them has. Remember the good things about these people and the good times you had. Be grateful. Then write down the bad or problematic things that happened and choose to forgive. Burn this list and say out loud: “I choose to forgive you now”. Feel how much lighter you start feeling now.

2) “You, yourself, as much as anybody in the entire universe, deserve your love and affection”. Buddha

For the women lacking self-confidence: stay in front of the mirror and every morning smile into the mirror and say out loud: “I am beautiful”. You will notice how difficult it might seem in the beginning to say this, but don’t let that hold you back. Keep practicing and notice how your self-confidence will start building up!

3) "When one door closes another door opens; but we so often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door, that we do not see the ones which open for us." Alexander Graham Bell

Can’t forget that ex you have been with even though you broke up long time ago? Visualise some invisible chords that hold you two together and then visualise you cutting these chords. Repeat daily and notice how you will spend less and less time thinking about that person and finding it easier to let that person go.

4) “Love yourself—accept yourself—forgive yourself—and be good to yourself, because without you the rest of us are without a source of many wonderful things.” Leo F. Buscaglia

You made some big mistakes in your past and feel you can’t forgive yourself? Forgiving ourselves sometimes seems much harder than forgiving other people. Understand that failure is part of learning, we should never give up the struggle in life and see all mistakes as nothing but great lessons we needed to learn. Make a list of your past mistakes. Think about what you learned from them. Burn the list and say our loud: “I fully forgive myself for these mistakes”.

5) “Reflect upon your present blessings, of which every man has plenty; not on your past misfortunes of which all men have some.” — Charles Dickens

Giving thanks is a great way to cleanse and clear your emotional cobwebs away - and unblock years of repressed emotions. Every day take time to to write what you have been grateful for, don’t forget to mention even the simple and small things. Gratitude links the emotional body to the heart and soul, and raises the vibration of your emotional body.

In case you have too many traumas from the past or find it too hard to work on these past events by yourself, why not book an appointment with a Reiki or EFT practitioner who can clear these old and blocked energies away for you and help you feel more balanced again?

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