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Lose what? My cool!

Within days of each other: 1. My computer went down and I thought I had lost all of my documents/pictures etc.. 2. My automated e-mail service provider stopped sending out my broadcast e-mails. 3. My daughter and her family arrived from out of town for an overnight visit even though my wife and I were self-isolating.

But I kept calm and carried on.

Here’s the whole story.

The Premier of Ontario announced that some family members could physically reconnect with others not living in the same household during the COVID-19 outbreak. Now, my oldest daughter, her husband, and their little boy live out of town. My wife and I had not spent time with them since mid-February. We had been self-isolating since mid-March and had self-quarantined after our return from a Mexico resort in early March. My daughter, on hearing the public announcement called us, told us about it, and asked if they could come for an overnight visit. We were thrilled with that!

Later that day, after they had arrived and were greeted with hugs and kisses, the Public Health authority in Ontario announced that the Premier was wrong and that families not living in the same household should continue physically distancing. The Premier publicly apologized. Too late for us. Please note that both my wife and I, not being spring chickens anymore, are in the most vulnerable group in the event of a Coronavirus infection!

They stayed for 3 nights and I was cool with that.

Towards the end of their stay my computer [it’s a tower with a big desk-top screen in my home office] stopped working. All of my documents and everything else simply disappeared. I thought it may have been caused by my little grandson playing with the keyboard or my cat walking across it. Nope!
The PowerPoint presentation and the text for the 20 minute message that I was to present the next Sunday on Zoom was totally gone! No back-up. Luckily my wife has a laptop and I was able to re-develop, to some degree, the original information for my message. It took a fair bit of time, but I was cool with that.

As I was with the fact that I had to drive some 45 minutes to the computer repair service to try and get my tower fixed. And the fact that the computer crash happened on a Friday, and I was unable to take it in for repairs until the next Tuesday because it was a long holiday weekend in Canada. I did not get my computer back until almost 2 weeks later [I was cool with that], but most of the lost information was recovered. Apparently things had gone south during a scheduled update of my operating system, but all was well again. I also upgraded my hard drive and committed to more frequent back-ups.

Part way through all that I noticed that my daily e-mails that I had previously prepared for broadcast to the AbundanceTogether community were not being sent out. I would have normally been on top of it sooner, but with the family visit and the computer issue I had not been paying attention. So, I contacted my automated e-mail service provider who advised me that I had been ignoring their messages and that they were denying all of the e-mail campaigns that I had developed. In other words, my subscribers, the AbundanceTogether community, were not receiving my daily newsletters.

Now, the warning messages they had been sending me were on Skype, but I rarely ever use that program and had no idea there were outstanding messages in my in-box. Apparently the open rate on my daily e-mails had been declining and was below their threshold. They had therefore advised me to unsubscribe any contacts who had not opened their e-mails from me for the past few months. Since I had not responded to their messages and had not done the subscriber cleanup they had requested, they had shut me down.

As soon as I realized what the situation was, [after various e-mails back and forth over a few days due to “longer than usual wait times”] I immediately unsubscribed my non-opening contacts and was back in the provider’s system. 9 days’ worth of broadcast e-mails were never sent out and not one of my subscribers [including my wife] had told me that they were not getting their daily fix of AbundanceTogether. But I was cool with that.

Now, you may be wondering why I was cool with all of the things that happened, as noted above. Would I not normally have lost my temper, gotten angry at the situations, felt frustrated and acted rudely with the perpetrators? Yes – in the past. But I had been reading spiritual and self-improvement books and watching self-help videos and had come to the realization that what was happening in my life was as it should be; that I had manifested all of the events and circumstances through the Law of Attraction; and that there was absolutely no point in getting out of shape over it. I had learned to just let go, to accept, to forgive, and let it be. To live in the moment – in the NOW!

Will I be able to maintain my calm and cool in the event other things go “wrong” in my life in the future, as I know they will inevitably happen? Well, I intend it to be so! And I expect my wife will hold me to it!

Hope you enjoyed my blog. Let me know what you think of my story.

Keep manifesting only good things 🙂
Tony

If interested in getting a free copy of my mini e-book and subscribing to my e-mail list click here.

I’m addicted! How about you?
You see- we are all addicts of one form or another.
Maybe not addicted to alcohol or drugs, but any number of other substances, material things, belief systems. Even other people!
That certainly covers a lot of ground doesn’t it? While I don’t see myself as addicted to booze, let’s focus on alcohol for now.

I regularly enjoyed a glass of single malt scotch or some red wine.
But felt that I was maybe enjoying it too much, too often.
So, when I found out that one of my daughters had done a Dry January challenge a year ago, I decided to try it myself this year.
I got started late, so it ended up being part dry January, part dry February, including the day of a big birthday party for me, celebrating a milestone year.

I took on two 30 day Alcohol-Free Challenges at the same time.
The first was “The 30 Day Sobriety Solution” by Dave Andrews and Jack Canfield [bestselling co-creator of the “Chicken Soup for the Soul” series]
The second was “The Alcohol Experiment – A 30-day Alcohol- Free Challenge” by Annie Grace, author of “This Naked Mind”.
Both of these programs would appeal to those who may have tried a 12 step program [Alcoholics Anonymous for example] and did not find it to be a good fit for them.

Here’s a bit more information about each of them.
First, The Alcohol Experiment: A 30-day, Alcohol-Free Challenge to Interrupt Your Habits and Help You Take Control. “Annie’s advice offers judgement- free empowerment…”. It’s an “…action plan for anyone who’s ever wondered what life without alcohol is like.”
You can do the Alcohol Experiment without getting the book. It’s all on-line and it’s free [there is also an inexpensive advanced live version that Annie offers from time to time and includes additional features]. I bought the paperback version of the book out of curiosity and for future reference. The website has great content and you are walked through the challenge day by day. It also has an excellent social support network.
I found the Alcohol Experiment to be well research based. It discussed the specific ways habits are formed and shared strategies for reducing or removing alcohol from your life. I really liked the fact that it was promoted as an experiment to “…abstain from drinking for 30 days and just see how you feel”.

Now about The 30-Day Sobriety Solution: How to Cut Back or Quit Drinking in the Privacy of Your Own Home. “It will lead you step by step through the process of overcoming excessive drinking, and give you the tools to stop for good, even if you have tried before and failed.”
The 30 Day Sobriety Solution requires the purchase of the book, but it’s inexpensive if you buy a used copy. Once you have the book you can go online and get free access to the website which has neat multimedia content. Regretfully, a number of the resources are out of date and the site has not been refreshed in quite a while. While the 30 solutions covered in this book are primarily for alcohol consumption reduction, they can easily be applied to other “addictions”. I really liked the “celebrate your thriving in sobriety” focus of the program.

I found that Annie’s program was more gut based while Jack and Dave’s book was more cerebral. Dare I suggest that hers was more feminine while the other was more masculine? Doing both programs at the same time worked very well for me, since one supported the other and ultimately appealed to dual aspects of myself. Yin/yang. Male and female. I recommend them both if you are looking at cutting back or curtailing your alcohol consumption.

The results of this experiment? – I lost a few pounds even though I ate more. [It wasn’t really a big deal for me since I tend to run on the lean side anyway]. I slept better, had no hangovers or sluggish mornings, and saved a nice bit of money. The negative side? – It took  self discipline and willpower! Did I miss out on any fun by not drinking? – Nope.

Shortly after completing the programs my wife and I went on a vacation to an all-inclusive Mexican resort. I certainly enjoyed the all-inclusive alcohol aspect of the holiday but then significantly cut back on alcohol consumption on my return home. While I am by no means a teetotaller, you could say that alcohol is now a take it or leave it thing for me, and I am thriving. Check these programs out if you want to know more about alcohol or are interested in going alcohol free for a bit.

That’s all for now. Feel free to share this blog with a friend or relative who might find it beneficial.

Keep manifesting only good things 🙂 
Tony

If interested in getting a free copy of my mini e-book and subscribing to my e-mailing list click here. 

This is a special guest blog by Alexander Wilson, from Manifestation Magic. Enjoy.

Understanding your inner child is an essential part of the inner work you will do in your lifetime. We all have an inner child, a part of ourselves that is truly us. In some ways I think of the inner child as the essence of a person, who they were before the world imposed beliefs and experiences on them telling them otherwise. It is not that the inner child is the best or fully realized version of yourself, but it is more like the point from which you began. The seed that you grew from and the flower that you continue growing and blossoming into.

The first ten years of our lives are incredibly influential on our souls. We are soaking up and absorbing experiences like little sponges until we begin to form our own opinions and ideas about the world.

These formative years are about laying the foundation for the way we think and view the world and creating a kind of framework for our character.
Any kind of trauma that is experienced during these years, no matter how huge or how seemingly small has an affect on us mentally and emotionally. They could be anything from experiencing death or loss, emotional or physical abuse, divorce, bullying, changing homes or schools or losing a special toy.
Whatever your childhood experiences were, how you reacted and dealt with them at the time and how others reacted to you is all stored in your subconscious.

However you dealt with it and the level of support you received is what really matters here. Your inner child is formed from these experiences and how you were able to cope and whether you received support and nurturing through it.

Most young kids are not able to use full cognitive awareness to understand and cope with trauma. That’s why sensitive children often feel they are to blame for abuse, divorce and so on. Their inability to understand complex situations and emotions means they internalize the situation as somehow being related to something they did or didn’t do.
This can become programmed into the belief that I am bad or something is wrong with me. That gets internalized into the subconscious mind and stays, despite growing up and realizing the truth of a situation. That programming can remain buried within the inner child, in our minds, and can affect other areas of life in adulthood.

Inner child work helps us to reconnect with this wounded element of ourselves. We can connect to the root cause of our fears, insecurities and negative patterns and heal them by looking at how they originated.

It’s so common for people to resist doing this work, dragging up your past can be painful and tedious. Many people feel their traumatic experiences were not serious enough, or were just a normal part of growing up. But your feelings at the time were very real and should not be ignored. They are a big part of your emotional and psychological baggage in life.

It’s also important to note that doing inner child work is not about blaming others, especially your parents. When you do this work, have in the back of your mind that everyone at all times is doing the best they can with what they know in the moment.

I want to share some healing techniques with you today to help you learn to soothe and reconnect with your own inner child. These will help you to resolve deeply held self-sabotaging life patterns so that you can release that emotional weight and resolve your past.

1. Think about something that happened in your past, a life-changing event or traumatic memory you hold from those first 10 years. Try to recall how it made you feel. Go deeply into those emotions and feelings. See if you can relate how you felt then to the way you sometimes deal with things in the present. Journal about all of this as a way to record your memories.

2. Imagine yourself as the age you were during these traumatic/ life-changing events. See yourself standing before you now. Think about how that child version of yourself would have wanted to be supported, nurtured and comforted. Write a letter to your younger self with everything that you would have wanted to know and hear.

3. Meditate quietly and use the following visualization technique to speak with your inner child. Close your eyes and bring your breathing to a regular, calm rhythm. Let your thinking mind be still and just concentrate on listening to the silence within. When you feel you are in a calm state of mind, visualize a beautiful garden or place that makes you feel safe, happy and empowered. Once you have created this place in your mind, allow yourself to invite your child into this space. There you can meditate quietly and ask your child to speak to you, let them tell you whatever they want to. Just listen and be there to hear them. You can get better at this the more you do it.

4. Speak to your inner child in the following ways to heal and nurture them:
I love you
I hear you
You didn’t deserve this
You did your best
I forgive you
I’m sorry
Thank you
Say these words as often as you need to, while thinking of the past or during the day as you catch yourself falling into regular patterns or negative thinking.
Treating your inner child with love, compassion, kindness and understanding is a way to re-parent them today. It is possible to heal and change the past by the way you act in the present.

5. Remind yourself of who you were as a child. Look at photos and find the ones that resonate and bring you joy. Pin them up around your home in places where you can regularly be reminded of the spontaneity, adventure and innocence of childhood in a positive way. This can help you to connect with a sense of playfulness that you once had and to bring the presence of your inner child back into your life today.

6. Remember some of the activities or games you enjoyed as a child. From coloring to climbing trees or playing make-believe. Without judgement, try to recreate these activities in your life today. It may sound silly but it’s truly a powerful way to let your inner child know they are important, and that they contribute to your life. It’s an amazing way to heal and empower yourself as an adult.

7. Finally, set an intention to be more aware of the way you behave and act moving forward. When you become conscious of your patterns and what informs the decisions you make, you can make sure that you act from love and not fear or insecurity.

Thanks,
Manifestation Magic Team

Hope you enjoyed this guest blog. I’ve tried all of these methods, and trust me [and my inner child] – they work!

Keep manifesting only good things 🙂 
Tony

If interested in getting a free copy of my mini e-book and subscribing to my e-mailing list click here.