GRATITUDE + CONSCIOUS LIVING Page 9 of 26

How to start living a fear-free life

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Today’s post is from our Senior Editor, Rachel Kempton

“I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it.” ~ Nelson Mandela

If we could wave a magic wand and remove all your fears – every single one of them – how different would your life be? What would you do?

I’ve been thinking about this a lot since my grandpa got ill. At the ripe old age of 88 he might be frail and suffering with a brain tumour, but as he looks back on his life, he’s as positive as ever about the amazing experiences he’s had and the valuable lessons he’s learnt along the way. He talks with so much passion and pride about his adventures, for example: how he rose through the ranks to become Captain in the army and took big risks for high rewards in business; how he travelled the world and bought a 27ft yacht which he sailed around Holland, and how he taught himself to play the piano and he even wrote a book about his experiences so our family have a record of the life and times enjoyed by his generation. “I’ve had the most wonderful life,” he always says, “I’ve no regrets. None whatsoever.”

FullSizeRender-3Self published: my grandpa’s book. He always says ‘life’s not bad’  – it’s his way of saying ‘life is wonderful’

It must feel amazing to be able to look back at your life and know that you have achieved everything you wanted to. You must feel immense satisfaction and inner peace knowing that regardless of how scared you might have felt, or how worried you were about the impact of your choices, you were brave enough to follow your dreams and live the life you imagined.

As John Lennon puts it: “There are two basic motivating forces: fear and love. When we are afraid, we pull back from life. When we are in love, we open to all that life has to offer with passion, excitement, and acceptance. We need to learn to love ourselves first, in all our glory and our imperfections. If we cannot love ourselves, we cannot fully open to our ability to love others or our potential to create. Evolution and all hopes for a better world rest in the fearlessness and open-hearted vision of people who embrace life.”

Fear can be a good thing – if we choose to see it that way

It doesn’t matter whether you are a first-time parent, an aspiring traveller or a seasoned athlete, every single one of us is afraid of something. Fear is a tricky emotion. It can paralyze you. It can keep you from your dreams. It can keep you small, safe and comfortable. At yet, in just the right doses, it can also be your friend.

Or fears can be our greatest source of power, our biggest motivation and our best teachers. What they need is love. Fear only grows when you let it consume you and that usually happens when we forget how helpful it is trying to be. Ultimately, fear really does want the best for us, no matter how irrational it may seem.

Embrace the four Cs

  1. Clarity: Of course it’s only natural that we want to deny, run from and ignore the things that scare us, but the first step in dealing with fear is to recognize that it is inevitable. Keep a clear and objective mind and it is possible to move through fear and overcome it. Just stay focused on what you want to achieve, and what you’re doing to get there.
  2. Choice: when you choose to make friends with fear you open yourself up to a whole new world of possibility. Think about all the fantastic opportunities that could come your way if you can find the courage to expand your horizons.
  3. Confidence: it may take a huge amount of strength, but when it comes to facing your fears it helps to be in the know. Preparing in advance – whether it be with information, physical training, psychological help and support, or by improving your skills or level of experience – will help you keep your cool and maintain a sense of control when the going gets tough.
  4. Character building: remember that we can only grow if we have the courage to challenge ourselves. When we face our fears we become better versions of ourselves.

As you face your fears and increase your freedom and happiness by allowing your dreams to become a reality, the good life is inevitable. So ask yourself this: what would I do today, if I were brave?

Need more inspiration? We love these books about bravery…

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Do What You Love interview – Alexandra Frey & Autumn Totton

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Hollywood stars swear by it, companies like Google, Target and General Mills train staff in it, and schools are developing ways to teach it. Mindfulness is a hot topic these days and with studies showing that the benefits can enhance just about every aspect of your life, it’s no wonder everyone wants to give it a go.

Two people who are on a mission to make mindfulness mainstream are Alexa Frey and Autumn Totton. The pair met while studying and they went on to form The Mindfulness Project, a social enterprise which combines Totton’s business expertise and Frey’s experience in mindfulness, some years later.

Now, at their beautiful centre for mindfulness in Central London, the duo offer regular 8-week mindfulness based stress reduction courses, plus drop-in meditation classes, workshops, and seminars on mindful-living topics to help support everyone from new parents, to stressed out business people to those who are dealing with illness or bereavement. We hope you enjoy the interview. ~ Rachel

Mindful-176Autumn Totton (L) and Alexa Frey (R), Co-founders of The Mindfulness Project, believe that mindfulness has the capacity to change the world from the inside out

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Almost fearless

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This is a guest post by adventurer, author and motivational speaker Alastair Humphreys. Find out more about Alastair here.

Alastair Humphreys

“O wonder! How many goodly creatures are there here! How beauteous mankind is! O brave new world, that has such people in’t!” ~ William Shakespeare

It’s good to be almost fearless.

Many of the things that used to really frighten me don’t bother me at all anymore.

Most of us have been brought up, very sensibly, to worry a lot. Here are some of the issues that we like to have a good worry about:

  • Career progression
  • Earning as much money as our friends
  • Getting a decent Christmas bonus (a mixture of the two points above)
  • What people think about us
  • Wearing stylish clothes

In recent years I have not worried about any of these. (Those who know me will say I never paid much heed to the last one!). And the funny thing is that the less I care, the more I just concentrate on following my own path, doing what I care about and am passionate about, the more money I earn and the curve of my “career” progression steepens.

I’m aware that my “career” is an odd one, hence the quote marks. But the point is that by consciously choosing not to worry about all the things I was supposed to be worrying about, a lot of them simply slipped away. They didn’t really matter to me.

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Christmas for free! Join our experiment in giving and receiving

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Image credit BHS

Image credit: BHS

It’s Beth here, easing my way back into things after four months of maternity leave. I have so much to share with you from that time, which has seen us welcome a new baby into the world, move house and work on some exciting plans, but I’ll save all that for the coming weeks (once I have caught up on some sleep…)

For now I want to say a huge thank you for all your kind words when Maia arrived. She is an angel baby who has melted our hearts.

I also want to invite you to be part of an experiment.

To Mr K’s dismay, the Christmas carols went on today. I know it’s only November, but I love Christmas, and in my eyes the longer I can eat mince pies, listen to ‘Silent night’ and dream of snow the better. I have been talking to members of my family about this Christmas, trying to find ways to make it special without spending a fortune. Besides the seasonal celebrations we have four birthdays and two wedding anniversaries in our immediate family, and December becomes a never-ending stream of gift exchanges. My sister-in-law suggested we give each other ‘free presents’, and I loved the idea at once.

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Do What You Love interview – Johanna Basford + a FREE page from her new colouring book!

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Feeling stressed? It’s time to grab your Crayolas!

The craze for colouring in is taking the world by storm with adults everywhere using it as a way to relax, unwind and switch off from today’s digital-based world.

One of the leaders on the colouring book scene is Johanna Basford, a Scottish artist and illustrator who currently has three books in the the Top 100 best sellers list on Amazon.com.

Johanna’s first two books, Secret Garden – An Inky Treasure Hunt and Coloring Book and Enchanted Forest – An Inky Quest and Colouring Book, have now sold more than 10 million copies worldwide, and her latest offering, Lost Ocean – An Inky Adventure and Coloring Book, which launched on Tuesday, had an initial print run of 1.2 million for the US and UK alone.

We are delighted to catch up with Johanna to find out how she’s designed a successful career doing what she loves and how we could all benefit from a little art therapy. ~ Rachel

Johanna in studio for websiteJohanna in her studio

1. What gave you the idea to start creating colouring book for adults?

A few years ago I created a series of illustrations which I put on my website for people to download as desktop wallpapers for free. I was working as a commercial illustrator at the time and always looking for interesting ways to increase my profile and connect with potential new clients.

One of the people who downloaded my ‘Owls in a Tree’ illustration was an editor at a publishing house. She got in touch and asked if I would like to create a children’s colouring book. I pitched the idea of an adult colouring in book – my signature style of illustration was super intricate, hand drawn, black and white work and for years my clients have been telling me that they wanted to colour in my drawings. This was four years ago, before the worldwide trend for adult colouring kicked off, so you can imagine how quiet my editor went. They weren’t sure if colouring in for grown ups was silly and if there would be any demand for books like this.

I sat in my studio and drew the first five pages, then emailed them to my editor. They got back to me that day and said to go for it! And with that, the inky adventure began!

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Why meditation can help you do more of what you love

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Meditation is an ancient practice that encourages us to take responsibility for our own state of mind, and change it for the better, in order in order to transform ourselves and experience inner peace in the midst of worldly chaos.

Meditation brings many benefits. As well as helping us to relax and de-stress, it can boost concentration, increase self-awareness, improve health and wellbeing, slow the ageing process, and make us feel happier. It can also help us figure out answers to questions or decide which path to take whenever we find ourselves at a crossroads in life; something that happens, as if by magic, when when we open ourselves up to the universe and allow ourselves to be guided by intuition – the quiet voice within.

When we go enter deep meditation we find ourselves in a space of infinite possibilities, infinite correlation, infinite creativity, infinite imagination, and infinite power of intention. It’s from this space of freedom, clarity and inner wisdom that we gain valuable insights and discover solutions to the issues bubbling to the surface of our consciousness.

Just sit for a few minutes each day with yourself, with no distractions. See what comes up in your mind, try to quiet your mind, and then see what comes up again.

What is your inner voice saying? 

Stressed? Try slowing down

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This is a guest post by one of the UK’s leading experts in digital distraction and digital detox and author of The Distraction Trap: How to Focus in a Digital World, Frances Booth. Find out more about Frances here.

Frances Booth profile

It’s easy to get into the cycle of thinking we need to go faster, faster, faster all the time.

“It’s so slow …”, we complain, if a web page takes an extra half-second to load. “I haven’t got time for this …”, we think, tensing up, if we’re forced to wait in a queue.

We’re busy, we’re stressed, and we’ve got too much to do.

But what happens, if, instead of always trying to go faster, we consciously and deliberately slow everything down?

I’m not talking about huge changes. I’m talking about slowing things down just a fraction.

So you might take a second longer to put on your shoes before you rush out of the door, spend a moment more looking at the scenery as you walk, or consider for a few seconds the task you’re about to launch in to.

One technique that can help you slow down in this way is consciously naming (in your head) each object as you come across it. So “bowl, milk, cereal, spoon” as you have your breakfast, for example.

Of course you don’t have to carry on like this all day long. But it can be a useful technique if you need a reminder or a way to shift down a gear from rush, rush, rush mode.

By slowing things down just a tiny bit, and doing things deliberately, we can shift our awareness. We become focused in the present moment, rather than our thoughts racing ahead or repeating past events on a loop. This can calm us down.

5603681683_845729d4b2_bImage credit: Andrés Nieto Porras

Sometimes we try and go faster, faster, faster just because everyone else is.

Often it’s because we want to cram more in to each day. I’m all for productivity. But there’s such a thing as going too fast, trying to fit in too much. This can leave us overwhelmed and overloaded. We need to know how to keep a balance, and slowing down a fraction is one way to do this.

It’s when we’re most stressed and busiest that we need to step back the most. Yet the challenge arises because it’s precisely at this point that we feel like we have no time at all to stop. We feel like we literally don’t have five minutes to spare, and the smallest task added to our workload can utterly overwhelm us. In this state of mind, it can be hard to catch ourselves long enough to even realise that slowing down would help. We’re on automatic …

Sometimes we operate at top speed for too long just because we’ve become stuck in that mode.

So when we’re stressed, a few seconds here and a few seconds there of slowing down, can shift our awareness and bring us into the present moment.

It can make us wonder; why were we in such a rush?

Taking time out

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Psychologists have proven that regular ‘me time’ can do wonders when it comes to creating space for self-discovery, helping us find clarity and focus, and inspiring us to prioritise what’s most important.

As well as this, making time to relax and do more of what you love is important because it enables us to recharge mentally, physically and emotionally. It’s the key to the key to living a richer, happier life and being your best self that will enable you to take even better care of the people you love.

So, whether it’s reading a book in the park, taking photographs, working out, meditating, taking a course, joining a club, writing a book, embarking on a new project, or training for a physical challenge, now’s the time to start taking intentional steps to un-busy your life and create little pockets of ‘me time’ to enjoy each day.

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Here’s how to do it:

  1. Go to bed earlier & get up earlier. Studies show that people who sleep for at least eight or nine hours and get up early are more productive and work at a higher quality than those who get less than seven hours sleep a night. As Ben Franklin famously said: “Early to bed and early to rise makes a man healthy, wealthy and wise”.
  2. Embrace forward planning. It sounds like common sense but knowing exactly where you’re going and what you’re doing every day can help you make the most of your time. And when you’re filling in your diary be sure to schedule some daily ‘me time’ and guard it at all costs!
  3. Tackle one thing at a time. Forget multitasking. Research shows it shortens your attention span and affects your quality of work. You’ll do a far better job, and get it done quicker, if you focus on one task at a time, get into the flow then move onto the next.
  4. Don’t feel bad for taking a 20-minute power nap. Studies have found that a short nap, one that falls within the first stage of sleep and avoids REM, can ‘refresh’ the brain, helping you get things done faster and more efficiently afterwards.
  5. Figure out where you waste most time. Could you cut your commute time or use this time to better effect, such as listening to audio books or learning a language? Could you do your evening run in your lunch break? What little changes or improvements could you make to give yourself more free time at home, doing what you love?
  6. Make good use of ‘dead time’. Take on board the concept suggested in Be Excellent At Anything by Tony Schwartz and use time you spend queuing or waiting to take small steps towards big goals or a passion project you’re working on.
  7. Learn when and how to say no. If you find your diary is full, or full of things you don’t want to do, then it’s time to start saying no – nicely. In saying no, in effect we’re also saying yes to something that matters to us.
  8. Do a digital detox: According to our good friend Frances Booth, author of The Distraction Trap: “Often, when we check our messages or phone, we get caught up answering other people’s demands, rather than filling our time with things that please us,” she says. “We need to decide how we want to spend our free time, and then fit technology around it.”

“Everything changed the day she figured out there was enough time for all the important things in her life” ~ Brian Andreas

Taking charge of your time makes it easier to do everything you need to do and want to do in your day and that’s key to spending more time doing what you love.

Remember each choice is a step in a certain direction. Just like doing nothing is also a choice. Procrastinating is a choice. Making excuses is a choice. Wasting time on regrets is a choice. Telling yourself you aren’t good enough, or, ‘It’ll never happen for me,’ is also a choice. Start making choices that serve you. Start making choices that take you in the right direction. Start making choices that will add up to the life you want to live.

Taking time out AcuteDesigns029

Image credit: aemartinphoto.com

FREE goodness to help you slow down, tune in and light up!

 We have had a crazy few months at DWYL HQ, so we are dedicating October to quiet, reflective time. As we search for meaning in our busy lives it can be hard to relax, tune out the noise and listen to what we really want to offer the world.

If you feel like this, or you find yourself saying: “I don’t have time” more often than you’d like, we have three amazing FREE resources just for you:

  • Making Time is a 31-day experiment in carving out more time for the things you love! You’ll learn how to look up and rediscover the small wonders out there that make you happy, 1 day at a time, 1 minute at a time. Sign up here and receive one email per day for 31 days, each one providing a specific prompt to encourage you to create, connect or just have fun.
  • Zen for Ten is a simple ten-day programme of daily emails, packed with beautiful imagery, short exercises and inspiring prompts, designed to help you:
    • be more present, get quiet and focus
    • see beauty in everything
    • travel lighter
    • get on the road to doing what you love, for life.

Sign up here for Zen for Ten and receive your first email today.

We’d love to hear how you get on. Connect with us on Facebook or Twitter and let us know what you do when you take time out!

The Do What You Love team

Are you facing a big decision?

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If you are facing a big decision these articles might help:

And if you’re wondering how you can do more of what you love, or if you fancy a new adventure, why not join us for the Do What You Love e-course? Shake things up, expand your comfort zone, nurture your playful spirit and feed your creative soul. Identify your passion and make it a greater part of your every day life! Find out more and register here.

A little inspiration to help you relax

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Download a high res version to print here.

ZEN FOR TEN

Are you always rushing from one thing to the next, trying to get through your neverending to-do list, trying to outwardly multitask with confidence, whilst inside you’re wondering when the spinning plates are all going to come crashing down? Do you find yourself so busy that there doesn’t seem to be any time for the simple things these days – for laughter, and joy and conversation?

Well, I can assure you that you are not alone. Sometimes life gets so hectic we hardly have time to think, let alone dream and plan the road towards doing what you love.

As founder of Do What You Love and author of ‘Freedom Seeker: Live more. Worry less. Do what you love.’, I know as well as anyone that it can be hard to tune out the noise and listen to what we really want to offer the world.

So that’s why I’ve created ‘Zen for Ten’ – a ten day challenge to help you slow down, tune in and light up.

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.

Join me to breathe more deeply, live more slowly and appreciate life more during this special ten days. Sign up HERE, then check your inbox for all the details and get ready to begin.

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