Meet the inspirational Sandy C. Newbigging: no.1 bestselling author of six books and the creator of modern-day meditation and coaching techniques that have helped thousands of people worldwide.
Sandy is renowned for his ability to get to the hidden causes of people’s issues. It started with the Mind Detox – a method which helps you make peace with your past and change the parts of your mind that are negatively impacting your body and emotional wellbeing. Then with Mind Calm – a modern-day meditation technique which helps you to still your busy mind and move from stress to success. And then, more recently, with Body Calm, in which you learn how to heal your body by resolving the mind-based causes of physical conditions. At the heart of it all is Sandy’s principle that you can heal and achieve anything by replacing conflict with calm. We hope Sandy’s interview encourages you to think about how you can become more consciously aware in your every day life. ~ Rachel
1. How are you doing what you love?
I write books and travel the world showing people how to experience peace, help their body heal and live free from problems. Having discovered that the inner peace and freedom that I was looking for is accessible much more quickly and easily than I ever imagined possible, I couldn’t stand by while people suffer. It brings me immense joy when others discover the ‘calm of their own consciousness’ and recognise that they can live liberated.
2. Tell us about your journey to this point…
I always wanted to make a difference in this world and live a life that matters. With a desire to feel better and make the most of my life, I set off on my own personal development journey. I read countless books and attended every seminar I could afford.
My passion turned into a career in my early twenties when I qualified as a life coach and went on to train in modalities like Neuro Linguistic Programming (NLP), Emotional freedom technique (EFT), etc. Then, in 2006, I accidentally invented a form of therapy called Mind Detox, which went on to be used globally. Despite everything going great, I noticed that all the work I’d done to ‘change my mind’ hadn’t brought me to a permanent state of peace, unconditional love and happiness.
After a recommendation from a friend, in 2008 I met an Ishaya monk and learnt to meditate. I went on to complete a six-month ‘Mastery of the Self’ meditation retreat and became a teacher of the Ishaya techniques. It was through meditation that I learnt how to be present, experience inner stillness, change my relationship with my mind and reconnect with my real Self (the ‘me’ that’s beyond the temporary thoughts, emotions, physical stuff and life circumstances).
Then in 2012 I started writing for Hay House and shared my own Mind Calm and Body Calm modern-day meditation techniques to reach a wider audience. Over the years I’ve written six bestsellers, taught practitioners in my methods from over 15 countries and appeared on television in more than 30 countries. These days I spend most of my time writing, running the Calm Academy and a membership website called Calm Clan – as I saw a need not only to teach the theory but to offer a platform where people keen to experience the benefits of calm can have on-going support and a community.
3. How can dealing with judgment, resistance and attachment help relieve the stress we often feel in today’s modern-tech deadline-driven world?
The average person’s mind isn’t busy because of what’s happening in the external world, but because of the relationship they have with their inner mind. We feel compelled to think about life because the mind makes sense of reality by playing what I call the ‘judgement game’. It constantly judges whether life is good or bad, right or wrong, better or worse or positive or negative. If it judges negatively (which inevitably it will do at times), then you end up with a problem, which is simply something you do not think you want. The habit then is to resist by trying to push away what is unwanted due to an attachment to something better happening instead. The negative judgement combined with resistance and attachment creates inner conflict, tension, stress and negative emotions that then feed more thinking and the inner conflict with life continues. By being more consciously aware and seeing the judgements instead of being the judge, you can stop this cycle of inner conflict and experience a much more consistent inner state of calm during daily life. Overtime, you can develop what I call ‘peace with life’, which is being at peace irrespective of what’s happening in your mind, emotions, body and/or life. It’s very liberating indeed!
4. Can we really heal our bodies, emotions and life circumstances just by changing the way we think?
Not just by changing the way we think, but also by learning how to stop thinking so much and resting in the inner calm of your own conscious awareness. When you become Self-Aware, which is to be aware of the aspect of your Self that is Aware, you stop feeling your thinking and feel your Awareness instead. You can quickly discover that your Awareness is a still, silence, peace-filled presence within you – always.
When you get less caught up in stressful thinking and instead experience the calm of your own consciousness, your body is better able to heal due to the increased inner harmony. You experience true emotional freedom and calmness if you are willing to experience all emotions. You also find that by no longer being in conflict with life, circumstances are given space to change. You discover that what you are in conflict with, you are connected to. So the best way to transform your life for the better is to stop resisting the life you’ve got by calming the inner conflict with ‘what is’. When you have peace with life, exactly as it is, you find that things have a magical way of changing for the better: very quickly and with very little effort or stress.
Speaking at an event
5. Tell us about your 5 Step Mind Detox Method: how can it help us to discover and heal the root-cause of our hidden limiting beliefs and create lasting changes?
The 5-Step Mind Detox Method is one of the techniques I use to discover and heal the hidden conflicts causing physical, emotional and life problems. I use it alongside my 3-Step Calm Cure technique, which is focused on reducing the resistance a person has to fully experiencing all that life brings. We have been conditioned to allow some of life and resist the rest. This leads to a limited experience of life and loads of inner conflict when life doesn’t go to ‘your’ plan. Like I’ve mentioned already, what you are in conflict with you are connected to. When you bring calm to the inner conflicts you have with life, you are finally free from the old patterns and habits and live with better health, emotional freedom and willingness to go with the natural flow of life.
6. Can you give us an example of shift that happened in your life as soon as you cleared your limiting belief/s and explain how you changed your mindset?
I used to believe that ‘people I love leave me’. This belief caused me to act in many destructive ways that made it a self-fulfilling prophecy. It ruined relationship after relationship and I was reluctant to meet anyone new because I believed they would probably end up leaving and hurting me again. Once I cleared this limiting belief, I met someone within a couple days and I didn’t behave in my old destructive ways.
I also used to believe that I could only make £1,000 per month (I only noticed this belief when my accountant highlighted the phenomena to me one year). When I cleared this belief, using the Mind Detox Method, my business made over £30,000 the following calendar month. The universe is a reflection of our inner world, so when you make an inner shift, it is inevitable that the external circumstances change too.
7. What do you mean when you say that time is a trap? Can you share your top tips for getting present?
In my Mind Calm book, I talk about the ‘Time Trap’. This is not just thinking about the past and future, but the belief that the past and future are relevant to your current levels of peace, love and happiness. As long as you believe you need to heal the past or create the future in a certain way so you can be well, then you will feel compelled to think lots about the past and future. However, when you discover that the present moment is the only time you can experience peace, love and happiness, then your compulsion to think about the past and future naturally starts to fall away. You discover that there is no such thing as a present moment thought: that all thoughts are about the past or future. So to be present, you need to let go of thinking by being aware of the Awareness that’s conscious of your thoughts. When you become consciously aware, you naturally become present because you align with the aspect of your Self that is aware of now occurring. I have a tutorial video giving the instructions for a technique I called GAAWO for engaging present moment awareness within my Calm Clan so check it out – www.calmclan.com (your first month membership of the clan is free).
8. What is MIND CALM meditation, and how do we do it?
Mind Calm is a modern-day meditation technique that gives you peace with your mind and enables you to move from stress to serenity. It consists of three steps, including engaging the above GAAWO technique and then thinking recommended Calm Thoughts, which help you to reconnect with inner states of being like peace, love, joy and oneness. The Mind Calm technique can be used with your eyes closed and open, allowing for a swift return to the present moment awareness and quick cultivation of the inner states of being.
9. Who have been your greatest teachers in life and what are the biggest lessons you’ve learnt from them?
My greatest teacher is my Spiritual Teacher, who is known as MKI. He taught me how to be present, experience inner stillness, know thy Self and live free from limitations, separation and problems. All of the above has given me more peace, love and joy than I ever believed possible. Perhaps the biggest lesson that I’ve learnt from my Spiritual Teacher is that separation is an illusion and that ultimately there is only God (not a man in the sky but a divine presence within everything). When you know that you are not separate from divinity, life takes on an entire new meaning and experience. Loneliness – something I suffered from for most of my life – falls away, along with fear and the need to control every orifice of existence. You get to live each day witnessing the perfection and magic of the present moment.
Writing my next book, Calm Cure, in Italy this summer
10. What are you working on right now?
I’m currently writing my next Hay House book called Calm Cure. It’s about healing the hidden conflicts causing physical conditions and persistent life problems. I share the 3-Step Calm Cure technique and how to apply it to all areas of life, including the physical body, emotions, relationships, career, money, past events and the wider world. The books comes out in May 2017 and in the meantime, I’m also re-structuring my Calm Academy courses to bring the Mind Calm, Body Calm and Calm Cure principles and techniques together into one kick-ass certification training called Calmology. I believe Calmologists will offer the new paradigm of personal coaching and therapy, which goes beyond the traditional ‘fix it, change it, improve it’ strategy to instead cultivate peace with life through the study and engagement of conscious awareness. I will be teaching the first Calmology certification course in the autumn of 2016.
11. What does freedom mean to you?
Freedom is the willingness and excitement to experience anything that life brings. Instead of having to manage, manipulate and control life so it is only how you’ve been conditioned to believe it should be, you are willing to fully experience the full spectrum of life. This is possible without suffering when you are Self-Aware because the Awareness within you is always still, silent and calm and already free.
12. Finally, what advice would you give someone who continues to ignore their soul’s calling to start doing what they love? How might surprising passions/talents/ dreams affect their health and wellbeing in the long term?
You are here on planet earth to wake up from mind-based separation to experience oneness with divinity. As long as you don’t make this purpose a priority, stress, suffering and emotional turmoil will most likely continue (as you will spend your days feeling your judgmental thinking instead of the inner stillness of Awareness). When you discover your Self by being present and aware, you naturally align with your life purpose. It stops being your individual ego-based will driving things, as you become one with the will of life (God, natural, the universe, or whatever you prefer to call it). I believe everything is happening to help you to wake up and know who you really are. Health conditions, relationship problems, career difficulties etc. are all wake up calls. When you accept and act upon the invitations, naturally you end up healthier and are free to use your in-born talents to serve the greater good.
For more information about Sandy visit his website. You can also connect on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
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Sometimes life gets so hectic we hardly have time to think, let alone dream and plan the road towards doing what you love. As we search for meaning in our busy lives it can be hard to tune out the noise and listen to what we really want to offer the world.
You are invited to join us for ‘Zen for Ten’ – a simple ten day programme to help you slow down, tune in and light up.
This is based on our free resource ‘Zen and the art of doing what you love’ and it is free to participate. It will help you be more present, get quiet and focus. It will help you see more beauty. It will let you travel lighter. And it will get you on the road to doing what you love, for life.
We cannot wait to breathe more deeply, live more slowly and appreciate life more during this special ten days. See you there.
