An old Grandfather said to his grandson, who came to him with anger at a friend who had done him an injustice, “Let me tell you a story.

I too, at times, have felt a great hate for those that have taken so much, with no sorrow for what they do. But hate wears you down, and does not hurt your enemy. It is like taking poison and wishing your enemy would die.

I have struggled with these feelings many times.” He continued, “It is as if there are two wolves inside me. One is good and does no harm. He stands for joy, peace, love, hope, sharing, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, friendship, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion, and faith.

He lives in harmony with all around him, and does not take offense when no offense was intended. He will only fight when it is right to do so, and in the right way.

But the other wolf, ah! He is full of anger, fear, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego.

The littlest thing will set him into a fit of temper. He fights everyone, all the time, for no reason. He cannot think because his anger and hate are so great. It is helpless anger, for his anger will change nothing.

Sometimes, it is hard to live with these two wolves inside me, for both of them try to dominate my spirit.

This same fight is going on inside you, and inside every other person, too.”

The boy looked intently into his Grandfather’s eyes and asked: “Which wolf will win, Grandfather?”

The old Cherokee simply replied:” The one you feed.”

If it is important that you absorb information quickly or that you do a task efficiently and without mistakes you want to be able to concentrate, to focus your attention and your energy on one specific thing.

Step 1 – Improve The Basics

Stress of any kind is a major influence on our ability to concentrate, so the main aim when it comes to improving our concentration is to take away some of the stresses that prevent it.

Some easy to control factors are:

• Sleep – make sure you get enough (not too little, but neither too much)
• Breaks – allow yourself short breaks between tasks where you sit and think of nothing, at least not of the task you just finished or the one you are about to start
• Balance – in your leisure time, establish activities that are of different dynamics and energy than your main work. Balance a stressful work environment with activities that are calming and a quiet, very structured and repetitive workplace with playful and adventurous endeavours.
• Nourishment – Nutritious food, a healthy amount of  water at room temperature and exercise are essential to supply body and brain with the energy to concentrate, so are fresh air and natural light

Additionally you might consider, if possible, what time of the day you do the tasks that require your focus. Some people work best in the early morning, some prefer late nights and sometimes that may change too. Observe yourself, listen within and get familiar with your own needs and strengths.

Be careful with the consumption of coffein as a stimulant. It may give you a quick kick, but eventually causes dehydration, which your brain won’t like as it needs a healthy fluid balance in order to concentrate.

Step 2 – Have A Break

Some people have a tendency to push themselves hard and to go without a break until the job is finished. Sitting back and taking a nice deep breath is regarded as the reward that comes at the end of the task (if it comes at all).

However, having regular and refreshing breaks is essential in order to enable concentrated working. If you keep on pushing, the effect will be contrariwise: you will be too exhausted to keep going and over time your body and mind will develop unconscious strategies to avoid being under such stress again. Procrastination anyone?

So give yourself a regular break, where you intentionally and mindfully relax. This means that you are not filling it with an activity that again requires your attention, like reading or watching TV. Instead, literally smell the roses, sit down to listen to some music, do a breathing exercise or take a short walk in fresh air.

Take your breaks before you feel the signs of exhaustion. That way your break can provide more recovery quality and you will reload quicker than when you are already running on empty. Remind yourself with a timer that you set on 45-60 minutes and allow at least 5 minutes to reload your energy.

Step 3 – Create A Supportive Environment

The environment we live or work in has also a big impact on our ability to concentrate. Feng Shui is an ancient art and science that deals with the mutual effect of  Chi (energy) and environment and gives suggestions how to improve the flow of energy in internal and external spaces.

But you don’t have to be an expert in Feng Shui to create space that supports your concentration. Here are some simple to implement ideas:

Phone/Mobile – turn it off! It’s that simple

Sign -Let the people around you know that you don’t want to be interrupted with a ‘Do not disturb’ sign. And shut your door!

Declutter – put away everything from your desk that is not related to your work and that has the potential to take away your attention from your task. A clean desk leads to a focused mind.

Move -create some space for movement. Ideally, have a mat handy for a quick Yoga posture, a breathing exercise or some stretches.

Reduce – remove every picture or furniture that you don’t need in your room and keep it clean and tidy. As with your desk, the less there is to take your attention away, the easier it is to concentrate.

Music – turn it off if it distracts you or try whether some nice background music is supporting your concentration. If you prefer to have some background sounds, choose from a CD or put your own collection together.

If you work for a company, you might have to ask permission to change things around. However, if you explain to your employer that you would like to make a few (appropriate!) changes in order to increase your concentration – and therefore your performance -  it is very like that your boss will happily agree.

Step 4 – Find Your Stressors

After finding out what supports your concentration, have a look what may trouble you. There are some factors that you won’t be able to influence. You’ll simply have to find a way to live with them. However, there are a few measures you can take to deal with potential stress factors.

External Factors

There are quite a few factors that – once recognised – can be eliminated. They are again very individual. What bothers one, another may not even take notice of.

Noises -from traffic, people in the streets, loud music, voices, machinery or similar can easily distract us and disturb our concentration. Train yourself to get accustomed to external noises without losing focus. Alternatively, try earplugs. You may feel funny to do so in the beginning, but you will soon get over it.

Other People – Colleagues, children or other family members can become real concentration killers, for example if you don’t have your own office where you can shut the door. If possible try to have the house for yourself during the times when you really need to concentrate, find a bit of room in a part of the house that is not so much frequented, try to arrange something with a friend or simply go back to earplugs.

Odours – Even odours can derange us. These are hard to avoid and to make it worse they are very powerful. You can try to fight them with your own set of  fragrances from incense sticks or burning your favourite oils. Go for the woody essential oils, like Bergamotte, Cypress or Sandalwood. Their fragrance does not only more easily overpower annoying odours, they are also supportive for your concentration.

Other Stressors – If you start to focus on things that catch your attention, you might be surprised how little things can suddenly be annoying, like a shrill colour, the busy-ness of a picture, a pattern, a dripping appliance, a sound that can’t be located…Many of those can be eliminated, once we have finally become aware what the problem is.

Internal Factors

Internal factors, like a merry-go-round of thoughts in our head, worries, high expectations or critical self-talk can easily throw us off balance.

It is hard to concentrate if your thoughts easily wonder off or you constantly worry about things, even more so when you start to feel guilty about not being able to concentrate. A downward spiral into a place where concentration feels impossible seems inevitable.

A simple exercise may help to break the viscous cycle: Write your thoughts down.

1. When you find your thoughts spinning in your head and you just can´t turn them off, get yourself a piece of paper, a pen and a stop watch that you set on a 3-5 minute countdown.
2. Start to write down everything that comes into your mind without stopping until your set time is over or your paper is full.
3. Imagine that by writing your thoughts down, they actually get sucked out of your head onto the paper – a bit like Dumbledore does it with his wand in the Harry Potter books.
4. Put your paper aside and notice how your head feels lighter

This exercise has a few positive effects:

• You allow your thoughts to come up and be heard
• You pay attention to the things that bother you, which is part of becoming more aligned with yourself
• You can more easily let go of the thoughts, because you have written them down, hence your unconscious mind recognises that they won´t be forgotten and will therefore allow you to calm down

Step 5 – Train Yourself

Our ability to concentrate can decrease over time, if we are exposed to many or continuing stresses for a while. The good news is, it can also be improved if we train ourselves to do so.

If you choose to train yourself, remember to have fun with it. This will ensure that you’ll have better results than if you’d look at the exercises as another thing you don’t want to do. If you don’t want to do them, don’t do them!

However if you would like to train yourself to improve your concentration, here are a few ideas to get you going.

The Watch-Watcher

Level 1

1. Grab a watch with a second hand.
2. For two minutes, observe the second hand as if there was nothing else important in the world
3. If you loose track because your thoughts wandered off, start again for two minutes

Level 2

Once you have mastered level 1, lift the bar:

1. Put the watch on your TV or very close, while there is an interesting movie or program going on.
2. Only watch the second hand and don’t allow the TV to take your attention away

Level 3

Now we’re talking!

1. While watching the second hand for two minutes, continue to recite the following number pattern:

               2 4 6 8 10 8 6 4 2 4 6

As soon as you find yourself drifting off, start again. Keep going for at least two minutes.

Mandala

Colouring in Mandalas is a fun way to improve your concentration.

1. Find yourself one that you like and that has lots of little  different segments to colour in
2. Decide on a pattern how you are going to colour it in. Stick to that pattern
3. Start colouring in, using either one colour first until you coloured every pattern with that one colour before moving on to the next or complete one set of segments in different colours, then the next. Choose the option that is more challenging in terms of concentration

Word/Letter Puzzle

Option 1

1. Find yourself a puzzle where you have a number of given words that you are supposed to find in a field of letters (up, down, diagonal, forwards, backwards, upside down…)

Option 2

1. Create your own puzzle:
2. Make a few copies of a paragraph of text from a newsletter or magazine with around 1000 words. Hint: up to here you have around 1700 words in this article)
3. Choose a letter that usually appears quite often, like A or E or N
4. Circle each letter of your choice in the text of one of the copies and count them
5. Check again with another copy. Do you have the same number?

Memory

Memory is a great game that is also particularly good for children to help them improve their concentration.

Choose a memory game with pictures that are appealing to you or make your own.

1. Place all the cards face down either in an ordered structure of rows and lines or randomly all over the place
2. There is always a pair of the same picture that you have to find by turning two and remembering where they are
3. If you turn two that are the same, you may take them and have another go, otherwise it’s the next player’s turn
4. Keep going until all cards have been taken
5. Then go again.

You will find that once you have played the game three times in a row, it gets more and more challenging to remember where a card is placed.

Have a break after three games.

Step 6 – Monitor Your Progress

Like with every exercise that you do, it is a good idea to monitor your progress.

Get yourself a little notebook where you put down your main stress factors/concentration killers, what you did to eliminate or reduce them or how you chose to cope with them. After a while check in how your concentration has changed as a result of your efforts, what worked and what didn’t.

Remember to give yourself a little reward when you notice some improvement!

 Step  7 – Establish Cross References Through Anchoring

This is a technique from NLP – Neuro Linguistic Programming. With it you can program yourself to better concentration – literally by ‘pressing a button’.

1. Decide where you want to set your ‘anchor’, preferably at a place that is easy to access, but won’t be touched by others than yourself; knuckle valleys are ideal.
2. Remember a time when you were extremely focused and concentrated, when nothing could take away your attention. Let the image of this specific event become bright in colours, intensive with sounds and most importantly, connect to the feeling of being totally focused and concentrated.
3. When you find yourself at the peak of intensity for being concentrated, press your anchor for a few seconds, just as long as you are at the peak. Let go when the intensity drops.
4. Repeat with another event where you felt totally focused, absolutely concentrated.
5. Now think of something different, like what you had for lunch yesterday
6. Then test your anchor by pressing your knuckle or wherever you set your anchor. Do you feel how you suddenly start to recall the state of being totally concentrated?
7. ‘Stack’ your anchor. Whenever you are in a deep state of concentration, press your anchor to intensify it. That way your anchor is getting stronger over time.

How often have you heard it or even thought or said it yourself today?

We may use other words, but the statement is the same. We experience a lot of stress from the moment we get out of bed until we – often exhausted – fall back into it and even beyond.

Constant stress is one of the most serious causes for un-resourceful behaviour that initiates even more stress.

But is stress really our enemy?

In fact, stress is a very important factor when it comes to survival, because it helps the body to prepare for fight or flight.

The purpose of stress is to enable us to react to a stressor (stress factor), allowing us to quickly adapt to changing circumstances.

Stress also supports our development, because every effort and solution requires a certain amount of stress energy. It brings out the best in us. Top performances wouldn’t be possible without it, as they require a controlled amount of stress.

Like with many things it is the ‘too much’ that is harmful for body, mind and soul. Stress can only be useful, when it is controlled, managed, and dealt with resourcefully.

But how do we do that?

There are three starting points for stress management:

1. Stressors – changing your environment

Knowing what stresses you is a good place to start with. Once you know that, you can then work on ways to either eliminate, reduce or even avoid your stress factors.

For example you could

• turn off the phone or radio during a break, meeting or when you want to have some ‘me-time’ (eliminate)
• turn down the volume of phone, radio or other devices or shut the door to reduce noise when you need to work concentrated (reduce)or
• take another route to work, start earlier or later or even switch your way of transportation completely to public transport if you want to avoid the rush hour or road rage

2. ‘Self-Management’ – managing your stress response

Managing your stress response means learning how to create long-term health and wellbeing strategies and a resourceful attitude to

• cultivate or increase resistance (through active relaxation
• develop skills for an optimistic, positive mindset
• change the perception of the situation

3. ‘Agitation management’ – finding ways for an immediate response adjustment

In an acute stress situation it is useful to be able to refer back to more resourceful short-term techniques to influence your immediate response in order to avoid agitation peaks or the build-up of (negative) spiralling effects.

Short term health and wellbeing strategy options to reduce, cope with or prevent stress include

• Spontaneous relaxation
• Perception channelling
• Positive self-talk
• Venting -release from immediate pressure

Great natural and non-invasive alternatives to drugs, alcohol, medication, smoking or other health compromising choices are systematic muscle relaxation, autogenic training or breathing techniques, asking yourself power-questions or learning how to use self-suggestions or affirmations effectively.

In the long run, prevention is better than cure and dealing with the effects of stress is essential. Stress is always individual and usually home made, which means it is a learned behaviour or results from impractical habits.

The good thing is that every learned behaviour or behavioural pattern can also be unlearned, replaced or changed.

Stress can impact your body, mind and spirit on four levels:

1. Cognitive level – all mental processes – thoughts and senses
2. Emotional level – all feelings and sensitivities
3. Vegetal-hormonal level – all reactions of the autonomous nervous system and the connected organ processes that are normally not consciously controlled, like hormones
4. Muscular level – reactions of the muscular skeleton system, those that can be controlled consciously

This means that different stressors require different stress responses. How you experience stress mainly will give you a good indicator how to best deal with it.

For long-term health and wellbeing you may want to consider a strategy that involves relaxation (regular massages, meditation in motion…) or intentional exercises to calm the mind and strengthen the body, creating a supportive network or attending personal development workshops or seminars that teach self-management and life leadership skills.

With knowledge always comes responsibility,which is why some people choose to rather not pursue to find out what they are uniquely designed to do.

Many ask themselves “What will happen if I find out what my purpose is but fail to live/achieve it?” instead of embracing the opportunity to experience a life that is filled with meaning and  – well, purpose.

It sure takes courage, determination, commitment, most likely a lot of perseverance and sometimes support and guidance to perform such a task.

So here is a simple 5-step process, as explained in an easy-to-remember analogy on five fingers by Mat Boggs, that can help you to become aware of a destination that can spark an amazing journey called living on purpose:

1. Thumbs UP – Joy

The thumb stands for the things that you enjoy most.

What are the things that bring spark into you your life? What gives you natural joy?
If you have a day that you can spend as you like, what are the things that you would choose to do?

These are natural preferences that tie in beautifully with your purpose, even though it may not be very obvious how.

2. Index finger – Priority

Your Index finger points out your precedents.

What are your highest priorities in life? What do you value most in terms of your relationships, your work, social connections, life in general?

Your core virtues and what you value most are always aligned with your purpose

3. Middle finger (keep it down) – Fear

What is it that ignites fear in you? What tasks would make a huge difference in your life if you only were not so afraid of doing them?

Purpose is all about growth and expression. To keep you safe, your unconscious mind will look out for anything that it considers a thread to staying in your comfort zone and disguises it as “fear”.

When you start to investigate what is really holding you back you will be surprised to realise that more often than the fear of failure it is the fear of success that keeps you from achieving your goals.

4. Ring finger – Commitment

The fourth finger stands for your commitments.

What do you spend hours doing that feels like minutes? When are you loosing track of time? What do you do that others experience work but for you it’s play?

What could you talk about to people even if they aren’t really interested in what you have to say? What are you passionate about?

If you had a room that you could design specifically to suit your passion, what would it look like?

5. Little finger – Talent

Your little finger represents your talents.

What comes easy to you that others may find challenging? What do you have a natural talent for? When others come to you to ask for help, what is it they are expecting from you? What is it that do better than them? What´s the pattern?

Your talents will also always be aligned with your purpose.

Sometimes it is more difficult for us to see our talents than it is for those around us, because they are so natural and a matter of course for us, that we simply take them for granted and expect it to be that way for everyone.

If you experience these difficulties, simply ask your 5-10 best friends to independently write down what they think your 10 best talents are, then compare their answers. They may be very surprising!

So here you’ve got the 5-finger test that can give you some clues about your purpose.

Still without a clue?

If you are still absolute clueless because the test did not reveal anything to you, you might need support to dig even deeper than you dare to do on your own. You may very well be very close to uncovering your purpose, which might sound the alarm bell in your ego.

You always have the choice of opting out here and pretending that “others may have a purpose but I don’t and to be honest I don’t want to know!”, but there will always be the underlying question:

“What if….?”

What if you found your purpose and suddenly your life would make sense?

What if you finally knew how to best use your talents and live a life on your terms?

What if knowing your purpose would fill your life with meaning where there was none before?

What if finally knowing what you are designed to do would give you the peace and contentedness you have been searching, praying and hoping for so long?

What if not (daring  to) find you purpose will be the one thing that you will regret most at the end of your life?

There a many books out there that talk about finding your purpose. One I like to recommend is Tim Kelley`s True Purpose – 12 Strategies for Discovering the Difference You Are Meant to Make. It offers different strategies to choose from and gives explanations about the how, what, why, what-if question we face when we start pursuing our purpose.

Trying to discover your purpose can be challenging for many reasons. Having someone to hold you responsible for your commitments, to guide you when you are stuck, to explore with you why and challenge you when you get stuck or even just to acknowledge you when you have a breakthrough can make a huge difference.

Knowing that, Tim Kelley has trained a selected number of Purpose Coaches and I had the honour to work with one of them when I made the decision to take my life to another level.

Shiona Long, from Authentic Success, is one very talented and gifted Purpose Coach, who is walking the talk with passion and integrity. She patiently supported and challenged me on my journey of finding my purpose, which was the most important decision I ever made and the one that made me realise that there is a reason why I am who I am.

It was a wonderful, challenging, eye-opening, sometimes scary discovery.

I wish for you that discovering your purpose will be the key to unlock your potential, so that you can start or continue to even more purposefully let your unique light shine with courage, and as a result of that help to make this world a better place.

Tim Kelley promises 12 Strategies for Discovering the Difference You Are Meant to Make and he delivers.

I could not agree more with Helen Palmer, the author of The Enneagram who says:

“Tim Kelley’s work is of the highest caliber. His insight, precision and skill shine out from a field that is typically hazy. If you are called to explore the realm of purpose, I know of no better guide than Tim.”

What I really like about this work is that Tim starts where many others leave you lost:

He is not only talking about the importance or the impact that finding your purpose can have on your life, he shows you how to do it.

I appreciate that while showing how to discover your trusted source, the author does offer suggestions but leaves it up to the reader where to find it, which means that whether or not you belong to any kind of religion, you will be able to talk to an entity that you can refer to.

Although initially I found it very challenging to read the book chapter wise and work through each one before moving to the next as my coach had instructed, this seems to be the most valuable approach.

The guidance from my coach Shiona Long from Authentic Success, who is an accredited facilitator for Tim Kelley’s purpose work, has been absolutely incredible to make this a book that will always be close to my heart as the one that provides me with invaluable insights about myself, discovering who I truly am and the difference I am here to make.

If discipline is challenging you or you have never had any kind of coaching before, I recommend finding a facilitator to guide you through the book, so that you get the most out of it. However, if you are familiar with conversations (like prayer) to a higher entity (God, angels, Buddha…) or meditation, you will get a lot from this book by working through it yourself too.

A must for anyone who wants to take their life back in their hands, discover what their blessing and mission is and how to make a powerful statement about the difference you are meant to make.

If you are looking for a parenting handbook, look no further. The Family Virtues Guide written by Linda Kavelin Popov offers you a manual that delivers the best foundation possible of how to raise a child in any culture or society.

Her ‘Simple Ways to Bring Out the Best in Our Children and Ourselves’ contain valuable insights in who our children really are, parenting principles and practices and how to apply The Family Virtues Guide in your family.

A description of 52 ‘Gifts Within’  helps to understand each virtue, why to practice it, how to practice it, how to recognise when a virtue is practised and when it needs more attention as well as an affirmation and a drawing to visualise an example.

It is a book that should be given or at least recommended to each new parent – the earlier the better.

Have a look inside and find out why The Family Virtues Guide is one of those books that have the potential to make the world a better place – one person at a time!

A personalized 4-step guide to looking and feeling great from the inside out

If you want to make an informed decision how to eat healthy, move better and as a result increase your fitness and overall health, you may find this the book you have been waiting for.

The four steps in Paul Chek‘s guide cover

1. Questionnaire to self-assess the area of your health that needs most of the initial attention. The results help you to choose the chapter you want to read next:

2. Nutrition – Explained is the “No-diet” Diet, the scientific foundations the eating suggestions are built on and a graphic that helps you to choose the food that will nurture your body and deliver the energy it is asking for. For the one interested in facts and scientific backgrounds of food, this book offers may offer some interesting surprises.

There are no recipes on offer, which might be a bit disappointing for those who like to follow suggestions. This guide is not suitable for you if you prefer to be told what to do and what not, but offers enough information to make better choices when choosing what you eat (and when you eat).

The consideration of ‘Biochemical Individuality’ and ‘Metabolic Typing’ will give you reference and encouragement how to create a diet that suits your personal needs.

3. Exercise – Described the different types of movement, which is regarded as ‘the path to optimal health’.

Considered are exercises to increase flexibility and energy and conditioning your core, as well as ‘FUN-ctional exercises’, all beautifully documented with step-by-step explanations and visually supported with self-explaining pictures.

Chek mentions special considerations and how to put it all together to make it your personal exercise program that you can easily incorporate in your daily life and adjust to your level of fitness and commitment.

4. Relaxation – Explains how stress, lack of or too much sleep, cutting calories can affect your health and – in a really funny way – the causes and effects of poor digestion and what to do about it.

Overall a wonderful holistic look at living healthy, highly recommendable.

Rating: 4/5 stars

Simplification is a skill that needs commitment, practice and a plan.

Elaine St. James‘ book Simplify Your Life suggest ’100 Ways to Slow Down And Enjoy The Things That Really Matter’.  From household via lifestlye, finances, and job to special issues for women, Simplify Your Life covers the basic areas of life that are often particularly effected by stress.

It is a great ‘beginners guide’ for those who are just getting warm with the idea of making small changes in their lives and are looking for suggestions what to do and how to do it.

A great tool to start any physical or mental de-cluttering process.

My personal lessons almost always come in three. Yesterday my lesson was about Respect.

First I was reminded how important it is to Respect our body. Visiting a client in a nursing home brought memories back when my Grandmother had a stroke and needed care. Living in the same little village, my mother saw her three times a day to do the daily tasks like washing and feeding her, cleaning the house, giving her comfort and company.

We lived across the road from my Grandma’s place, but having three little children at that time and studying Architecture, I did not always find or take the time to visit her. However, when my mother needed a break, I took over her duties.

Grandma always loved gardening. Before she moved to the village where my Mum lived and I grew up, she had her own house with a garden that was huge (at least that’s what it seemed to me as a child). It was big enough to be almost self-sustainable, anyway with fruit and vegetables.

I owe my Grandma many wonderful memories of us together in the garden, eating fresh carrots, just simply wiping off the dirt or raspberries, blueberries, strawberries, gooseberries, apples, apricots, directly from bush or tree to mouth and standing in the kitchen cooking the world’s best vegetable soups.

She always had those rosy cheeks and the strong and healthy body that you would expect from a woman who has survived a war and managed an immaculate garden, which she loved keeping in perfect shape and knew everything about how to do it.

Seeing how my Grandma’s body changed made me appreciate even more that I was healthy and fit and that I could do the things I love to do like dance, work out, go for a walk…

My client and ‘Anna-Oma’ (that’s how I called Grandma) reminded me how important it is to

Respect Your BODY

Respect the signs your body is giving you. Typically, your body will tell you what you need to do.

If you are tired, rest and find out why you are tired.
Have you eaten too much food that does not deliver enough energy? Did you drink enough? Did you have enough sleep? Does your body get enough exercise to feel refreshed? Do you get enough fresh air? Do you breath deeply to get lots of oxygen in your system to sustain your brain and other organ to function at their best?

Respect your MIND

If you experience symptoms of discomfort or dis-ease, where do you feel them in your body?
Every body part is related to a topic in life. For example the throat, thyroids and shoulder area is related to truth and communication. A hoarse voice, a tenacious cough or a cold could be a sign that it is time to speak up, to speak your own truth or to find your truth, to learn how to communicate what bothers you or what would make you happy.

It also works the other way around: if your mind (conscious and unconscious) feels neglected, ignored or misunderstood, it will cause blockages in your body. If you are not congruent living your values, your mind will find ways to avoid those situations.

For example when someone highly values Health and works in a fast food restaurant (where they get paid to provide the customers with food they would not eat themselves), the value system would ‘go nuts’. Everything inside would be screaming “This is WRONG!” In order to avoid the situation the mind would cause blockages in the body that causes the person to feel sick, get heavy headaches, feel ill in the stomach – just about anything that will do the trick to avoid going back to work.

By knowing and respecting your values, you can take a lot of stress out of work. They will find ways to make you uncomfortable until you do anyway. For peace of mind it would be a great idea to get clear on your values (or virtues) and align them with work that is meaningful to you.

I am reading The Agony and the Ecstasy: A Biographical Novel of Michelangelo
again (the original from Irving Stone from 1963!), one of my favourite artists from the Renaissance. At the moment I am at the part where he is conducting dissections to explore and get an understanding how the body works, how muscles and bones are connected.

He respected the human body so much that he was even prepared to carry the burden and guilt of desecrating the dead in order to be able to honour the beauty of the ones alive.

Respect the Moment

The second reminder for Respect came through a documentary about a chef who explores the preparation of food and creation of dishes in the kitchens of Asia. On his journey he focuses rather on the ‘basic’ meals than the haute cuisine. Meals prepared from the people who prepare the food they grow locally or catch fresh.

In the sequel yesterday he was in Bali, where he spoke to a Swiss immigrant who explained why he would never ever leave the island again. He said what fascinates him most there is that the Bali people ‘live in the moment’.

“Look at them, they come from a fishing trip and may have caught five fish, but they are happy because it is enough for today. A young man had a bad car accident, broke his leg – but he is alive. That’s reason enough to be happy, because ‘it could have been worse’.”

He also said that the people are very respectful and very friendly towards visitors of their country. They look at other without judgment, take them as they come. They respect that you may have another religion, another skin colour or other interests.

A very typical scene in Bali is to see someone pray for guidance and protection and the sacrifice of food. Every feast will start with a ‘Thank You’ to the Gods in form of a plate of food that is brought to a shrine. The Respect for their Gods and their traditions is part of daily life in Bali.

From this respect for the moment, for others and for traditions comes a deep sense of calmness and peace.

Communities support each other, they fish together and share their catch, they live in big families while still respecting each other’s space (a family may share the same property and live close to each other, but each generation might have a separate ‘building’ and just share the amenities and the (outdoor) kitchen).

There would hardly be any reason for stress, because in Bali the elements that cause stress in a typical Western country are turned around into resources for a mind that is at peace with itself, with the community and with nature.

Respect your SPIRIT

And thirdly I shouldn’t have been surprised when I looked at my calendar and found this quote from Wayne Dyer:

Respect your oneness, and resist any pressure to be a conformist – be the being you came here to be.

You are unique and special and it is my personal belief that we are all here to serve a purpose. We come from one light and we are the light.

When we are out of alignment with ourselves, that’s when we feel overwhelmed or bored, but when we respect that we have a purpose and are willing to fulfill it, when we surrender to our purpose, that’s when true magic happens.

Respect your Purpose

Living on and with purpose and taking your life in your own hands can be challenging, because not everybody will be supportive if you step up to live to that standard. It may even be your own ego that is sabotaging you to find what you are meant to do and who you are meant to be in the first place.

From my own experience I would like to share that despite (or maybe even more because) of all the challenges, living an authentic life is extremely rewarding.

It is simple to change your life and sometimes it’s not easy. That’s why it is my aim to help you live the life you were born to live, to live on and with purpose, to show you how you can take your life back in your own hands and to offer you guidance during that transition.

Do you already live on and with purpose?

Please share your insights:

How did you find what you are meant to do? What did it take to become who you are meant to be? What is your mission to the world?

I’d love to hear your story. And if you think yours is nothing special, remember Amanda Marshall’s song: ‘Everybody’s Got A Story‘ and it may be yours that is inspiring another person who reads this.

Popular examples for an external universal trusted sources are God, Jesus, Mary, Allah, Buddha, Mohammed, Odin, Zeus, Grace, …
Their main characteristic is that they would know everybody’s purpose or answers to each person’s questions about life.

An external personal source could be a deceased loved one or a personal angel who is specifically assigned to you and only knows and cares about your purpose, no one else’s.

an internal source is something that you see as being a part of your self (but NOT your unconscious mind). It is an aspect of your psyche that can provide the answers you are looking for in terms of your purpose or other important aspects of your life.

There are three criteria that need to be fulfilled in order to define a trusted source:

You need to believe that

• it exists
• it already knows your purpose
• you can communicate with each other

You can learn more about trusted source and 12 Strategies for Discovering the Difference You Are Meant to Make in Tim Kelley’ book True Purpose.