It can be very difficult to accept the loss of someone we love. Take parents for example. When one parent dies it can be difficult to accept and come to terms with. However when the second parent dies we can be left feeling like an orphan. No matter how difficult our relationship with our parents, somewhere in our sub-conscious we know that they are there, and that in a way is security for us, for the little child inside us who still wants to be loved and accepted by their parents.  However when our parents are gone we have to face up to the fact that we no longer have them to turn to. Also if we have had a bad relationship with our parents, while they were still alive, we still had some semblance of hope that the relationship could improve at some time. When they are gone we are then faced with the fact that this can never happen. The little child inside of us feels abandoned and rejected.  Cheated of the chance of ever be able to make the relationship work and get the love and acceptance that we have always wanted.

We need to allow ourselves time to grieve. The person who we have lost can have played a large part in our lives over a long period of time. We need time to mourn for them and also to adjust to how our life will be without them. This can all take time and the first year is usually the worst i.e. first birthday, first Easter, first holiday, first Christmas without them.

Elizabeth Kubler Ross says about the different stages we go through when we are grieving. i.e. denial, bargaining, anger, depression and acceptance. Lots of people go through all of these stages but others only go through a few. We are all different and deal with grief in different ways.

We can go through these stages when we are faced with the news that someone we love has only a short time to live. First we go into denial and try and tell ourselves that it can’t be true, they must have made a mistake, that can’t happen to our loved one.

Denial comes into bereavement in a strange way. Because on the one hand we know the person has died and there is no denying of that. Yet on the other hand some part of us goes into denial, such as we say we can’t believe that it has happened. We expect to see that person where we would normally see them. We can even find ourselves looking for them. We go out shopping and find ourselves buying food for them and it is not until we arrive home and while unpacking that it suddenly hits us what we have done. We hear some news or a funny story and we say “Oh I must remember to tell them that when they come home” and it can be some hours later when it suddenly hits us that they won’t be coming home.

When my father died I didn’t want to accept the fact. When I was a child he was away for a lot of the time each year, so I was used to him not being around. On a sub-conscious level I told myself that he was just away and would be back again. On one level I knew he was dead , however another part of me needed to deny the fact to enable me to carry on with my life. 14 years later I had to go through the grieving process. I had just buried the feelings, although I had grieved a certain amount, I just got on with things and didn’t allow myself to grieve fully.

Some people are so distressed at the lost of a loved one that they can’t bring themselves to attend the funeral. I believe attending the funeral is a very important part of the grieving process.It is putting a closure to it by saying goodbye.

I lost several close friends between the ages of 14 and 23 and I didn’t get the opportunity of attending their funerals. It was easier to carry on with life and stop myself from feeling the grief. When I was 40 and started working on myself then I found I needed to grieve for those friends and say goodbye. I did this by allowing myself to feel those buried feelings and I wrote a letter to each of them saying goodbye. Then I disposed of the letters in what I felt was an appropriate way.

 When we are told that someone we love only has a short time to live we can start to bargain with God or whoever we see as the Creator.  Saying if you let them live and get better we will devote ourselves to helping others, or other such agreement.  We can bargain with God that we will do anything He wants us to do if He will just let this person live.

Sometimes during  bereavement we can bargain as well.  Even though we know the person has died, we can bargain with God and say we will do anything He wants us to do if He will just let the person come back to us. That we can just wake up in the morning and find that the person is still alive, it was all just a bad nightmare.

Quite often the bereaved person is angry with the deceased. Why did they leave them? If they had taking better care of themselves and their health, things could have been different. They are angry because this person has gone away and left them. However not everyone  will allow themselves to  express this anger as they feel it is not appropriate.  They think that they should not be angry as this person did not choose to die and so it is a terrible thing to have anger towards them. Then they can end up feeling guilty. Anger can be an important part of the grieving process as mentioned by Elizabeth Kubler Ross.

Feeling guilty plays a large part in bereavement for a lot of people. We can feel guilt about a lot of things to do with how we acted towards the deceased. We can feel that we didn’t look after them enough. We remember all the ‘nasty’ things that we may have said to them. Why didn’t we spend more time with them? Why didn’t we go away on holiday with them when they asked us? Why didn’t we do more for them? Why didn’t we save them?  The feelings of guilt can be one of the hardest things to overcome in bereavement.

The loss of a child I feel is the most difficult loss to come to terms with.. After all, what parent ever thinks that they will outlive their own child.. In such cases the parents can be very angry about the loss of their child.. Why has this happened? Why did God do this? Is there really a God? Lots of people at this stage will really believe that there can’t be a God because if there was He wouldn’t allow this to happen.

Denied anger can cause depression. However depression is a normal part of the bereavement process. We get to the point where we feel that we don’t want to carry on life without this person. We can go down into that deep dark hole. It is an ordeal to get through each day. It is all too much for us and sometime we feel as if we would be better off if we were dead. It is very important to sit with the depression and work through it. It is a really important part of the healing process in bereavement. This stage is so important  as it eventually leads us onto acceptance. Of course for some people they can’t seem to work through depression by themselves and they may need professional or medical help.

We come to a point where we start to accept that our love one has gone and won’t be coming back. We start to come to terms with reality and slowly start to build a new life without them. This can take some people longer than others. We have to do it in our own time.

We can pass through the grieving stage a lot quicker if we allow ourselves to feel the feelings. A lot of people don’t want to accept the fact that someone has gone from their life and will do anything to bury their feelings. This only prolongs the grieving process.

When my mother died, many  years after my father had died and  then when my brother died a few years after my mother  I was at a point in my life where I had worked on myself and I was able to allow myself to feel my emotions and the grieving process passed a lot quicker.

I have found that when we are in a co-dependent relationship with the person who has passed away, it can be a much longer and harder time for the bereaved person to come to terms with the loss.  We had a relationship with this person and we depended on them to fulfil our needs. We emotionally depended on them and now they have left us. We don’t want to let go of them. It is as if we can’t survive without them, we feel anger at them for leaving us and we can’t accept that they have gone. How can life go on without this person. Where are we going to get our needs met now? We can go into a deep depression, into a deep dark hole and can stay there for a very long time. Sometimes people never come out of that hole as this was the only person that they depended on to meet their needs, the only person they trusted and felt at ease with. It feels to them as if their whole life has ended. They can lose the will to live. They don’t want to let go of that person. However as Richard Wilkins says in one of his poems, “grieving is not about dying, it is about not letting go”.

Some people want to talk about their loss and those around them don’t want to talk because they feel they don’t know what to say to the bereaved person and feel awkward in their company. People can avoid the bereaved person for this reason. They see them coming down the road and they quickly cross over the other side.  This can sometimes be a sign they have not dealt with loss in their own lives and they don’t want to stir it up, so they avoid anything that could do that.

Another factor in how well we deal with bereavement can be our beliefs. Do we believe in life after death or do we believe death is the end. It can certainly help when we do believe that death is not the end. It can be like a light at the end of the tunnel, the hope to hang on to, to help get us through the grief.  However some people think that if you believe in life after death that you will not, or should not feel any grief. They say “well you don’t believe that death is the end so why are you grieving”? No matter what our beliefs we still feel the loss of the physical presence of that person and still go through the grieving process.

Bereavement is a subject that to cover all aspects of it would take a whole book or two or three.  If you are having difficulty in dealing with all the different emotions of a bereavement I would suggest you get professional help.

©Daphne Whitehouse 2009

–

My aim is to give you an understanding of what depression is and give you the tools and ways to cope with and deal with it. First of all I would like to give you my understanding of what depression is and the dynamics it creates in people.

Depression is a process and a way that human beings cope with trauma and not being able to adjust to the outside world. It stems from some aspect of feeling or perceiving that we are out of control and being depressed is a way that we can take control. This may be a strange way to look at it, but when we are depressed we want only to be responsible for ourselves, we move away from others, sometimes people close to us that really care for us.

We cannot be responsible for other people’s feelings or life expectancies so we isolate ourselves and start to detach from the world as we know it and build our own little bubble, pit or safe place. We call this place, depression, lots of different names, but in essence it is a safe place which we and only we are able to be in.

We feel safe and protected being in our own little space as it gets smaller and smaller, tighter and tighter, pushing others away. We will withdraw from society, work and responsibilities. In fact anything which we feel wants something from us. We are not able to give anymore and this can lead to us hiding in our homes and sometimes even in our own rooms, not even being able to get out of bed, is a common thing. When I work with people with depression the first thing is to get them to understand that this a normal aspect of being a human being, removing the stigma that society places on the depressed state of mind.

Medicine can help people to cope with this state but it will, in my opinion, only ever allow them to function not to move back from the depressed state and will normally never find the route back from being depressed without other outside help from people like myself a Counsellor. People who have people they love always ask me how can I help them to pull themselves together, they never can because they are part of the problem, in a round a bout way. People who are depressed will only see friend’s family’s interventions as more pressure so will withdraw even more, if others who are part of their world try to help.

Counsellors can help because they are not part of the client’s world they are not involved or have any part to play in there every day life. There is no responsibility on the client’s part with the Counsellor. The first rule of any help is we can only help if the person suffering believes A) they need help and B) they take responsibility for their position and want to come back from this place they are in. If they have no understanding of this place they are in then they will not see it as a problem and thus not need to be or do anything else. Sometimes people can live with being depressed for a long period of time before they breakdown, they will never see themselves as depressed, but the drip, drip, effect will slowly build up and then it will be just one more thing that puts them over the edge, which is usually a shock for the people around them, as they will normally see that person as always coping, taking huge responsibility for others, being the one that always want everything just so or has high standards that can’t be achieved, is usually a common trait of people more prone to depression.

In order to understand the process of coming back from this place I will use an example of a person who cannot get out of the house, they have had a long period of depression and that has made them unable to interact with the outside world, because the outside world is so scary, as anything can happen if they step outside the door, they would be out of control in that environment.

The first rule as I said is to help them understand that this is a natural thing to happen, which it is. The next step is to understand why they are here in the first place, what brought them down this path, it will usually stem from an out of control or a perceived out of control situation, loss or rejection, whether perceived or real it doesn’t matter, can be an influencing factor.

When this has been explored then we have to find something they would like to change in their life, something they would want to take control of, this should initially be a small thing, as if you try to change big things straight away they will always fail, and failure supports there view they are not worthy or can change anything. It might be for example, someone who is confined to the house just opening the post, anything that comes through the door will normally be scary, it’s interacting or coming into their safe world, disrupting there routine etc. If this was the case then I would set up a plan, a structure to achieve this task. I would break it down into even smaller steps, say watching the post come through the door maybe first, touching one letter the second, holding it for a small amount of time the third, keeping hold of it fourth, taking it into their room could be fifth, opening it could be sixth, dealing with it could be seventh etc. etc., you get the idea. I would then break those steps down into even smaller ones.

Watching the post is broken down into thinking about it first, not even seeing it just thinking about seeing it, when we think about it we would then record in a book what our stress or anxiety level is on a scale of 1 to 10, we do this in order to see our reactions external to our minds, as the mind or thought cannot be trusted initially, most people who are depressed find it very hard to contain or hold a thought, as even thoughts have responsibility. When we have thought about it and the anxious level has reduced to under 5, this may take a few days in itself and be a very tiring process, but we reward the effort as a step forward, which it is, then when this step has been scored under 5 we would move on to the next step touching the letter recording our anxiety level until it reduces to under 5 and so on.

If we reach a state of over anxious feelings once we have achieved a step, if say we have been ok touching the post and we are at a level of four and then for some reason our anxiety level just increases dramatically we can retreat one step only, no more, as we have already achieved that step and not been anxious about it. If you retreat more than 1 step you increase the failure feeling and this will take you back to the start, it’s a bit like climbing a hill and losing your footing then starting to slide down the hill, if you don’t dig your heels in then the momentum will carry you down the hill faster and faster, ending up in a heap at the bottom.

Moving from one step to another and recording it as you go, so you can look back on your achievements, shows you can change, you can move forward, taking responsibility of your world and bringing you back down that route from the path of depression. You may then look at taking control of getting dressed, again breaking it down into smaller steps thinking about it first recording it then doing it and recording it. Then to moving forward constructing a programme of being able to go out of the door, and so on, till you take full control of your life again. Becoming depressed is a process so it make’s sense that coming back is a process also.

Another tool is to record a Mood Diary, this helps us to look back again on what has happened in reality not in our head. A Mood Diary is a book which records our mood during the day. You enter your mood first thing in a morning again on a scale of one to ten and at then also at the end of the day before you go to bed. During the day if you mood significantly changes you also record that and what is going on for your mood to change, this can give you an awareness of the triggers to your individual depression factors, what changes your mood and why.

Again this process records your progress, bearing in mind Rome was not built in a day so it will take some time to change your mood significantly.

Also the three things we need to help change our mood is.

1. Exercise first thing in a morning a short walk will be suffice of maybe 10 minutes or 5 to start with, if 10 is too much, again increasing and recording it day to day.
2. Have a healthy diet, don’t snack or eat processed foods and eat regularly.
3. Try to socialise even if you don’t talk to people nod to them, but mix with people.

If you plan your strategy and do all these things then you will change your mood and your depressive state and live a healthier life and a more interactive life also.

Take control and have the life you want not the one you think you deserve.

Ian Wallace

I waited expectantly for people to begin talking to one another. It had been ten days without the luxury, and as the silence continued outside a meditation hall, an hour north of Auckland, I began to wonder whether somewhere in the last ten days, we had all lost the ability to initiate conversation. After a few minutes, small groups of people formed and the silence came to an end. Feeling slightly left out, I approached two guys I had spoken to at dinner the night before ‘Day One’ and uttered just three words; ‘ Talk to me’.

After nine months of travelling up the east coast of Australia, I was ready for a well earned rest. After a couple of recommendations from fellow travellers, I filled out the online application form to take part in a ten day silence retreat. As I arrived at the centre I realised that apart from the vow of silence that was to last the duration, my understanding of the course was limited. I knew that ten days without talking may be challenging, but knew with my background of living alone, it was a challenge I would be able to rise to. At the induction we were told that to commit to the course fully we were to adhere to certain rules, the vow of silence being one of them. We were also asked to abstain from killing, stealing, telling lies, drinking alcohol and taking part in any sexual activity. Some of the rules would prove easier to follow than others.

According to the daily schedule, the majority of the day would be spent meditating. Only once the course had finished, did I allow myself to calculate how many hours each day I had spent in meditation. I was shocked when I counted twelve and did a recount in case I had made a mistake. Mathematics had never been my strong point.

Throughout the course, rarely was I physically alone. However at times I experienced an overwhelming feeling of separation from the rest of humanity. With nearly all input taken away, there was nothing external to fill the time, nothing to distract myself from my thoughts. I could no longer ignore them with the help of a film or a book. I began searching for input. I read the fire procedure sign and the introduction leaflet, front to back, countless times. After exhausting the small amount of literature available to me, I realised I had a choice. I could either think or meditate. I crossed my legs, wrapped myself up in a blanket, closed my eyes and followed the instructions given by the teacher every evening at seven ‘o clock.

On the fourth day, I walked out of the communal meditation hall feeling like I was walking on air. I had found a state of being I thought was only reachable with the aid of substances that the code of conduct had prohibited. I was high. Everything was brighter, cleaner and sharper than before. After a few minutes of indulging in my fantasy of like always being this way, I remembered the advice of the teacher, “the pain is in the craving and aversion, everything in life is impermanent, stop reacting to that which will leave you”. I realised that this happy high would soon leave me. I wanted this feeling to go away as soon as possible, because the longer it was with me the more I would miss it when it was gone. I started purposefully thinking of sad things to trigger its departure. I sat in my room and realised that in the past I had been more comfortable with sadness than joy, because with sadness I knew where I stood. Joy was an inconsistent stranger who I would rather not know. I now understood on an experiential level that my pain was not in my emotions but in my reaction to them.

On the way back to Auckland a new friend and I stopped off at a beautiful seaside town filled with shell shops and a farmers market. We both agreed that it felt strange to be talking again. As we marvelled at how similar our experience with Vipassana had been, we ate cupcakes, drank chai latte and watched the butterflies.

Contact Matthew on www.iamlimitless.co.uk

Though we may hate to admit it, it is usually simply a matter of our own laziness and lack of determination that sees us running in circles for most of our lives. When we live like this, I’ve always felt our lives become so small, so closed off from anything new, anything… better. We become a smaller version of ourselves, we lose our potential… possibilities narrowed because we do not make the effort to break free from these habits, to learn from these mistakes and grow and make our worlds a little bigger each time we do so. Instead we choose to live in a fishbowl, trapped inside the comfortable routines we’ve made for ourselves, looking through the glass at the wider world, seeing everything we could be and yet resigning ourselves to our current lot.

It’s not always easy – sometimes I’m tired, I’m depressed, I can’t see where my life is going… but often as not, these are just excuses I make to myself when I’m feeling too lazy, when I simply can’t be bothered to do what I should be doing. We are all, each and every one of us, making excuses to ourselves such as these… justifying our lives spent in the fishbowl.

But because I want more than that, I deserve more than that, am capable of more than that (and aren’t we all?), I will strive to break free from these habits. If I make a mistake, I will learn from it and move on – I won’t continue making the same mistake one hundred times over, banging my head against a brick wall. If I can see that a habit, or some other aspect of my life, needs to change – I will change it.

No excuses. Even if it involves forcing myself in the beginning (and it usually does), I will soldier on, knowing that in time things will get easier. An old habit will be replaced by a new one, one that I will consciously choose and control rather than allowing my habits to control me. It may be a two-step-forward, one-step-back process – I’m not saying I’ll get it right straight off the bat and I’m not saying I will punish myself, beat myself up over it if I don’t. I know I’ll slip up. I’ll struggle. I’ll falter. That’s an inevitable part of being human. When that happens, I’ll have enough self-love and self-discipline to get back up and carry on… for though I am human, I am not “only”. I hate when people give the excuse – “I’m only human.”

Another justification for their life in the fishbowl, for the choices they make but are too ashamed to admit responsibility for. Yes, you are human, but “only”? Why not be a magnificent, beautiful, exceptional example of humanity?

It’ll be a learning curve, and each step of the way there will be new mistakes to be made and lessons to be learned. Envisage it like this: the fishbowl is the centre of a spiral. Whenever I break my bad habits, learn from my mistakes and strive to do my best… I start to spiral outwards, my world getting bigger and bigger. In each layer of the spiral, new mistakes will be made and as I learn from each one, I continue spiralling outwards, expanding my life. This is a never-ending process – if anything, the bigger the spiral, the more mistakes I’ll make, the more I’ll learn…

“Making mistakes simply means you are learning faster”
Weston H. Agor

“The man who makes no mistakes does not usually make anything”
William Connor Magee

I will look within (and above) to find the courage, determination and will-power I need…

I’m not saying this is the right way to live for everyone. I can only speak for myself. But this is my philosophy, how I choose to view and live my life, what I believe is best for me.   Besides, whoever heard of a Cat living in a fishbowl anyway?

You see, I used to see Law of Attraction a bit like a cool sports car.   I would use it when I wanted to and parked it back in the garage when I wasn’t in the mood. In ‘muggle’ terms, I would sing the praises of L.O.A

when things were going great and then brushed it under the carpet when things were going less great. I tried to ‘use’ it to attract more money, a fella or even new career.  Wondering why things weren’t working

out just the way I wanted.  I used the excuses of “Well, I am thinking more positive…?” when I questioned the where abouts of all the stuff that I had asked for. Then it hit me like a ton of bricks,

L.O.A is working ALL the time! It didn’t turn on and off like a light switch.  It was consistent like gravity, I didn’t walk out my house thinking, “I’m going to use gravity today to make sure

I don’t float off into space”.  But yet I assumed I could do the same with L.O.A?  How wrong could I be? It didn’t just turn a blind eye when I moaned about someone at work or when I worried about my credit card bill.

It was 100% reliable, responding to my every thought, no exception. This was BIG and it really made me assess my whole way of thinking, acting and behaving.  I really started to watch my thoughts and where they were at, and if I’m honest my thoughts we not as holy as I thought them to be.   I was all ‘spiritual’ at home or when things were going good. But put me in other situations and I wasn’t as pure in my thoughts,

I let myself off, like I was playing a trump card, “well I’m allowed to moan at work”, I would tell myself on some level.  But this had to change, so I made the conscious decision to try and stop. In doing so taking full responsibility for my thoughts. At first it wasn’t easy, trying not to join in with the camaraderie that included the slagging off of the Government, the nasty customers in our shop, or even a person in work etc was hard.

As we just do what we normally do, most times without actually noticing it, but our good friend Mr Attraction sure is, he is listening to everything we do.

It made me really assess my life and what I wanted from it, partners, money, a new house etc. But then I realised, what was at the core of all those things I want?

Happiness – I just wanted to be happy. That’s why I wanted the new car, the new 42 inch 3D telly or the Boyfriend. What I was aiming for I could really achieve TODAY.

I was always looking ahead thinking: “When I meet my boyfriend, I will be happy” or, “When I get £10,000 I will be happy”.  In some ways I was chasing the elusive dream,

but at the same time keeping the elusive dream just at bay. Like a rainbow that seems to move away as you move towards it,  my acknowledgement of being unhappy now

without this ‘thing’ is keeping me in that loop. Law of Attraction in Action. So I had to feel happy before I could attract my ‘happy’ things in, how come I didn’t see this before?

Why? Because on some level I chose to be unhappy.  I chose not to see how great my life was but the things that were missing or that could be changed.

Compared to most people I think I was outwardly quite positive. I did always try and look at the best in everything but inside was a different matter. I am a people pleaser and always

put other peoples wants before mine, playing the Good Samaritan, always trying to help people out.  Worrying what other people may think of me, which of course attracted more evidence

to make me worry about what people thought of me. Clever little law isn’t it? I had to change on the inside before my outside world would change, so I made a conscious decision to do that very thing.

Spotting my self-sabotaging thoughts which, mostly stemmed from what others may think of me. I also started to see and appreciate what I had right this very second, in this very NOW.

I started to savour situations, gathering and events and appreciate them as much as I could. As I use to be always looking to the future, for example, on a day off from work, instead of enjoying

the day off I would be thinking, “I have work tomorrow”.  Not great is it?  I was wishing my life away, instead of actually enjoying the moment right now. If anything came into my experience

I didn’t like, I would acknowledge that I had attracted it. Then ask myself if it was really worth me getting my knickers in a twist about? Normally the answer would be a big fat no.

One of the ‘biggies’ I realised is that I can’t control everyone else, or that I could make everyone happy.  It is impossible to achieve those feats, so I learnt (and am still learning) to drop them also.

I felt such a release in letting everyone off the hook, not that I’m condoning anything they are doing or have done, but is my attention on the matter really helping the situation? Law of Attraction says no!

In fact, it’s just giving me more of it. Learning to ‘Drop it’ can be a life saver. By dropping my reactions to other people’s reactions I came to realise that no one ever has any power over me, apart from the power

that I gave to them through my invitation. The invitation I send them through my thoughts and my actions.  Great to know eh? Since then my life is changing, all the things that I have wanted have

started to manifest into my life. People are arriving into my life at the right time with the right information.  Opportunities are also showing up for me to grasp and to enjoy.

I had to just allow them in, my appreciating what I have got now, by appreciating ME, by seeing the world how I wanted it to be. By actually choosing to be Happy.

Growing up, people would tell me how talented I was because I am musical and could play several instruments. I don’t but I can. Also artistic, which in some ways I have kept up. Being “arty crafty” as my Mother would call it meant I was hugely visual and I believe this is at the core of my past life work.

I must pay homage here to Judy Hall for it was her book, “Deja Who?” which piqued my interest in past lives and started me reading as much as I could find around the subject, which back then, wasn’t much. I started in a tentative way, learning a regression technique which was part of an ongoing series or Holistic Retuning courses. Having learnt the basics, I discovered that I could go in and out of past lives almost at will. A lot of the time it was like living in a parallel reality except that it was always different. I took every chance I could to be regressed and to regress my friends and family, learning all the time.

It is one of my most deeply seated beliefs that to have got to this point in this life and to be questioning in the way that so many of us are, that we have to have experienced a lot of what this great school of life has to offer us. So we have had the good life but also the not so good. We have been victim. We have also been perpetrator. In everything. So over all these lives we have been lied to and cheated, for example but we have also been the liar and the cheat. And worse of course. So all the good stuff but also all the bad. How else could we learn all our life lessons? Sometimes we have come in and missed out on the lesson, after all we live in a free choice, free will world. And then we repeat, not a life but a learning experience. We have lived a whole gamut of things, of emotions, of wounds, disabilities, both mental and physical and we have come to this point. Here and now.

So how can these past experiences help us this time around? Perhaps what you are shown has some bearing on what is going on. Perhaps you received a wound that is impacting on this life. Sometimes we are just shown that there is a different, maybe better way to be. Possibly it’s just interesting. But what is amazing is the eternal journey of the eternal soul. For whatever happens to the mind, body and spirit, we are certain that the soul does go on.

For me, and again this is my personal belief, I think that I have lived hundreds of lives, often in multiples and in other dimensions. I’ve looked at lives going back to Lemuria, before Atlantis and throughout the ages and seen some wonderful things. I’ve also seen some pretty awful things. The trick is to remember that although these things happened you were someone else at the time and they have no power to harm you now. They might make you think but that’s a good thing.

Another of my abiding beliefs is that all of time is happening in this instant, now. After all time is a man made concept. So all our past lives are happening at the same time as this one. And so are our parallel and future lives in whatever dimension they are. So really all our lives are parallel, it’s just easier to think and talk about them as past or future, it makes things much less confusing.

I find that now when I give a reiki session, well that I don’t really do a reiki session as such any more, instead I work on the lives that present themselves to me or to my client. Often the lives we see in this situation are violent and bloody; after all in a healing situation it is an excellent time to heal the wound that has been carried through to this life or that is impacting on this life. This is where psychic surgery comes into its own with quite remarkable results making this a really brilliant way of using past life knowledge and giving my client a real informative healing session.

Using a regression technique can also have good results although sometimes people are disappointed that they weren’t Napoleon or Cleopatra, and that at first the regression can seem very mundane and the life viewed very pedestrian. Maybe somewhere along the way, we miss the point, or misread the life lesson. And then later, a few days or even a few months, the penny drops and something slots into place.

Another way of using past lives is in investigation, the beauty of this being that the work can be done remotely. Using Phoenix Cards as a starting point can be a help but is not always necessary. This way allows the client to send a list of questions to ask, for example “is my Mum in this life in any of my past lives”. It is always exciting when family members bobs up in a different body and it can be revealing about their character and life path. This in and of itself can answer a lot of unasked questions.

Past lives can be an emotive and interesting concept and one that is often pooh poohed by many, even those who walk a spiritual path. That’s not to say that they are wrong and the believers are right, it just means we’re different. For me and others like me, I know that this present life is richer and more fulfilling for me knowing about my past lives. I believe I give a better treatment because of it; the knowledge and experience of those lives can come to the fore at any time if you let them. Try it and see if you get the chance, it could rock your world!

Love is like a butterfly, it goes where it pleases and pleases where it goes    Anon

Anna-Louise Haigh, Soul Empowerment Mentor, known as The Soul Whisperer, explores that which we most pursue. Your individual experiences may be wide and varied, yet is it possible to find the real love in your ‘story’? Discover how this may be possible now.

I was recently asked to write a few lines to be included in a wedding speech. The topic was, ‘What is Love?’ A request that seemed easy enough and within minutes various words were tumbling though my mind.  It wasn’t until, a few days later, when I sat quietly to put fingers to my keyboard that I stumbled.

My curious surprise gave way to mild frustration and then bewilderment as I quizzed myself about this most basic of questions and failed to get a satisfactory answer. I jotted down a few inadequate words such as, ‘Love is when your heart swells and the world seems perfect’, ‘Love is finding that special someone to share your journey with’, ‘Love is in your heart and you feel it come alive’. They  all sounded like such naive clichés.

I realised, that no matter what I wrote to describe what love is, featured an external comparison or validation to prove it existed. Yet none of my jottings satisfied my desire to produce something meaningful and significant. Something so unmistakably true that no one could deny it, even if they recognised that they had yet to experience what love is.

The challenge was set. I considered the timing of this request and smiled gently as I realise that, as ever, it was perfect timing for me to be asked to consider this most essential of soul expressions. So, for you to be reading this now, I have no doubt that the timing is also not coincidental.

Love has been the underlying motive, quest and focus of virtually every human expression and experience since time began. Yet, in our rapidly awakening world, we are at a point where connecting and reconnecting with this most transformative force is essential to our future. Love is the prime motivator of most actions, whether personally or globally.

As a personal experience, you have no doubt made numerous decisions, taken a variety of actions and experienced the highs and lows due to this gossamer yet transformative energy called Love. Perhaps you have allied yourself to another to ensure that you feel loved and so you can express your love regularly and in doing so satisfy that part of yourself that brims over with the feelings you have in your heart.

My question is this, ‘How can one find, recognise and live in a continually love filled life, if the program within them for true love remains even partially unwritten?’

To begin to address this, it is a good idea to recognise that whatever we ‘love’ intrinsically harbours a piece of us and becomes an extension of ourselves. Therefore, if we ‘love’ a certain piece of clothing, jewellery, a movie or another material item, we are instilling part of ourselves in that inanimate object. It cannot love us back, so we subconsciously quest further for the next item that compels the words, ‘I love this’ to flow from you in the hope that the love you seek may be reciprocated in some unfathomable way.  The shelf-life of material items expires all too frequently.

In considering the question, ‘What is Love?’ we could say that what you choose to surround yourself with is a reflection of the quality and quantity or beauty, peace, harmony and love you hold within you. You can only recognise outside yourself that which you how within you, thus your outer world is a reflection of your inner world.  But this is still not answering the question fully.

Ideally, as you grew up, you enjoyed and learned how unconditional love was expressed. Unconditional love says, ‘I love and accept you for who you are, rather than what you do, achieve, think, or believe.’ It may also say at times, ‘I don’t like what you have just done, however I still love you for who you are.’ From that basis, we mature and become more independent, confident, adults seeking to reproduce that same environment. As we grow, relationships may nurture or challenge our ideals.

We may all say we know what love is, however if this is the case, why are there so many people attending  sessions with trained professionals aimed at recovering from past events, healing deep emotional scars, low self-esteem, lack of confidence and depression?

For many, there is one vital missing ingredient. Have you ever been taught to love yourself? You have experienced being loved and in love, you have seen it in the relationships around you, heard about it in songs, movies and the media, yet can you honestly say you have experienced and celebrated being in love with yourself?

My jottings intended to honour my friends’ request took me round in circles, so I sat quietly and simply asked, ‘What is Love?’ This stillness and peace that prevailed were tangible. A feeling of warmth, comfort, wellbeing and serenity engulfed me and I felt as though I was radiating. It was then that I understood that THIS is Love.

Yes it is a feeling, however it is more than that. It is a place within you that yields only self-honouring. Love is a confident stillness that relies on itself to be enough. Love nurtures the soul and through that energy guides every act, decision and experience. Love starts from a seed within your heart that requires you to tend it with your inner radiance and emotional waters in order to allow it to grow and fully blossom. It is at that point when others can truly appreciate what they see before them.

Love can only share itself if it is fully whole and complete within you. Like attracts like and it is time to raise the vibration of love within you by starting with knowing how to love yourself fully, accepting and loving yourself because of your uniqueness’s rather than in spite of them.  Otherwise there is a void, seeking fulfilment.

Love is a knowing that provides clarity, reassurance, vision and guidance. On the journey from being parented in your younger days to seeking a love partner, remember that true love can only find a reflection of itself. To ensure this, explore what it feels like to genuinely love yourself. Examine your thoughts, actions, self-talk, beliefs and past actions. Identify how your self-love is/was evident. Recognise that every experience is a learning opportunity and therefore, be willing to forgive yourself for those moments when you bypassed your own love. Learn from everything how to love yourself more creatively, genuinely and honestly and you will find that your ‘baggage’ melts away. In its place you will make new decisions that honour that which you truly are, you are Love.

What is Love? Go to your mirror and have a look. This reflective oracle believes and delivers whatever you tell it, so start by saying, ‘I am love’ and let the future write itself.

What did I contribute to the wedding speech? It was this…’Love is the seed at the bottom of your heart, may your journey bring forth a beautiful flower.’

Anna-Louise Haigh is the Author of The Soul Whisperer, and How to be your own Breast Friend (A simple guide to breast health that could make all the difference), Her latest book, Light-filled, Loving and Wise has met with high praise  which echo’s her previous works. Anna-Louise is a Soul empowerment Mentor specialising in transformation and empowerment for your life enrichment. She offers private consultations at her Wellbeing Centre, in Harrogate, North Yorkshire and by phone. She also runs talks, workshops, course and retreats throughout England and Ireland. Check out her web site www.anna-louisehaigh.com for latest venues and dates.

You may think it odd that I take this stance in an esoteric publication, but if we are to really take our own ‘growth’ seriously then the first place we should be looking is within. No human on this planet can change that fact. There are no special prayer mats that allow you exclusive access to angels or guides, no single building, institution or belief that has a monopoly on the great energy from which we are all created. If people truly believed they were super human, divine, or have special gifts to find places that all the other mere mortals could never hope to reach, then they wouldn’t be here in the first place!
Are people becoming blinded by their own desire for ‘illumination’ to the point of being lead to believe they can only ‘buy’ their way into bliss? Simple acts of courage, compassion, kindness and generosity of time are just as powerful as a reiki attunement, a crystal healing or dowsing ourselves in a waterfall of essences and sprays. Already this industry is feeling the ‘pinch’ but I would go as far to say as it is more a case of weeding out the less authentic people from the real light workers, than a case of feeling the effects of the current economic downturn. Life is about quality not quantity, and it is no different for those who profess to teach and facilitate enlightenment. Perhaps as many as 80 in every 100 mind, body and spirit professionals will not honestly be able to rise up when the real beacons of light are called upon.
People need to earn money, have their palms crossed with silver as it were, I don’t begrudge anyone making an honest living, but I ask, please make it honestly, don’t pretend to know more than you do, or worse still make it up as you go along. You can only fool some of the people some of the time…  We are all ‘angel experts’, for we can, when looking with our hearts, recognise the purity of humanity in others when it shines through. When someone pays you a compliment, a child smiles, when fireman rush into a burning building, when you are told you are loved… the energy of ‘angels’ or what ever you want to call it, works through us and will use vessels that mean something to each and everyone of us to get the point across. Now you may be an avid fan of the angelic realm, own a few books, have attended a few courses, and that’s fine if it has given you what you have sought. But if after all this investment, both financial and energetic, you still feel you need more, then stop and ask yourself why.
For some time it has been a case of ‘he who shouts loudest’ getting heard or drawing some of the most vulnerable people to them. They may not be the best teacher, though. To anyone walking their path, please continue to seek help, advice and understanding, but exercise discernment, ask questions of your prospective guide. And remember your guides will come in many different forms; a friend, a neighbour, a stranger in the park, a shopkeeper, the dustbin man, a nurse, you son, your daughter, your grandmother, your partner, an elder, a therapist, a musician, anyone we come in to contact with has the potential to share with us something amazing.

And if your questions are met with resistance, consider why. A good teacher will gladly share what they know and say just as easily if they don’t. As a pupil you have the opportunity to teach those who wish to guide you. If your questions are met with, ‘because my guides say so’, or ‘I know better’, make a gracious exit. And never  be afraid to ask how someone came to teach or share what they now know, why  they choose to do it in the way they do and so on… A good teacher will delight in being able to express this to you, a good teacher only wishes for you to grow to get to a point where you no longer need them, not the other way around… be aware that true enlightenment is our destiny not an addiction to be groomed and fed.
And I say all this in defence of the simple, yet incredible wisdoms that are now coming more and more to the fore, and in defence of the authentic, passionate and generous souls who facilitate this, in whatever guise they choose to get the message out there. Some years ago I came into the mind, body, spirit ‘business’ naively thinking,’ love and light’ from all to all, but was reminded quite quickly that as emotional beings, we all have our failings, and so I uncovered just as many ‘big egos’, power and control misers as I had seen in the advertising, pharmaceutical and political realms that I had previously frequented. But this has made me even more determined to keep walking the path, which now crosses all areas of understanding be it spiritual, religious, political, environmental, scientific and emotional and it has given my amazing opportunities to speak with some wonderful and knowledgeable people. They are out there and they are approachable.
I know we are all different, there are some better placed to teach, and some better ready to learn. But if you are reading this publication you have already set out your stall to want to understand more, and it is specifically to you I would advise that you rejoice in your hunger for experience, your love of life, your desire for greater understanding. Soak it all in, but just be aware of the pools of water in which you dip your sponge… see beyond the fancy literature, the flowing gowns, the intoxicating accents and take a good, long look into the heart and soul of the person and you will know if they are ready for you!
There will always be those who are happy to ‘follow’, to live their lives according to others, but I’m not speaking to those people today. I hope that if you are curious enough to question your life; why you are here and what is out there for you, in order for you to experience all you can, then to you I say, ’Stand up and be counted as one who wishes to know, not as one who needs to be told.’  Where ever you are in your life, whether you are giving out information or receiving it, I wish you all that you need and may you find your truth, getting the answers and the inner peace that we all seek from the very moment we are ‘conceived’.
Kate Osborne is a self-proclaimed ’mother, wife and lover of life’. Two years ago she gave up her editorship of one of the oldest MBS publications to work with individual teachers and practitioners, following her passion for greater understanding, by helping others to spread theirs. To find out more visit www.solarusfoundation.com or call 01626 362343.

By becoming compassionate, we understand that when we come into this world as a small baby all we want to do is love and be loved.  However, because we don’t feel we are getting the love we are looking for – which is unconditional love, being loved just the way we are, warts and all – we learn to develop ways of getting love.

We notice that if we get bad results at school we get told off, and when we get good marks we are praised.  We see that praise as a form of love, so we consciously or sub- consciously start trying to achieve higher grades.  Just to try and get that love.  If we don’t make the mark we may beat ourselves up, because we feel not good enough.  Many of us can carry these feelings of inadequacy right through our adulthood.  We try to achieve more and more, always looking for that acceptance, that unconditional love.

Maybe we aren’t very good in a particular subject and this need to achieve makes us cheat.  The teacher catches us copying from someone else and tells us off in front of the whole class.  Then we feel ashamed and that shame becomes even greater when our parents find out and they shout at us and  call us a terrible person for cheating. They never thought a son or daughter of theirs would do such a terrible thing, that their child would never lower themselves to cheat.  We are then left feeling like an outcast, a terrible person; there must be something wrong with us.  We then buy into shame.

Shame can come in many ways.  The child who has been abused in some way, can feel shame because they blame themselves for what has happened to them.  They think they did something to deserve this to happen to them.  So they feel ashamed.   If we don’t fit into what society sees as ‘normal’ we can learn to feel ashamed.

How many of us have slept around just looking for love?  We mistakenly think that sex is love.  Many of us have made that mistake.  Underneath it all we are just looking for love.  We all desperately need love to survive.  If we don’t get love we wither and die inside.

Bullies feel bad about themselves and are usually in a lot of emotional pain.  They try to escape their feelings by causing someone else pain.  Underneath it all, they simply want to be accepted and loved exactly as they are.  It is amazing how people, including bullies, can change, when they receive unconditional love.

I would ask you to look back at the things you did in your life that you may feel guilty about or ashamed of.  Can you see that you did these things in search of unconditional love?

Guilt and shame are two of the emotions that can lead to low self-esteem.   Do you recognise this in yourself?

When you reach the stage where you realise that you were searching for unconditional love, you will start to have compassion for yourself, and in time, forgive yourself.  Then you can learn to give yourself the love you have been searching for.  You will realise when you have that love inside yourself, you then start to receive it from those around you.  Your outer world reflects your inner world.

With this compassion and understanding of yourself, comes understanding and compassion for others, which in turn helps you to have better relationships.

Copyright Daphne Whitehouse 2007

www.daphnewhitehouse.com

Read more of Daphnes articles

The Inner Child

Anger

How many look into the mirror, stare into their own eyes and wonder what it is that we hope to see as we look back at ourselves? Is it the way of the truth, or is it the way of the other person’s truth?

It is said that the eyes are the mirror of the soul, so as you look into your own soul’s mirror, take a good look and ask yourself what you see. Is the light in your eyes diminished because your soul lies dormant and un-awakened to the truth of your life? Is your life force ebbing away? Many people often find it easier not to ask questions, but to continue with a ‘half-life’ because they believe that if they start to ask these big questions, they will possibly find out that the life they have chosen to continue with will have to change. Change, to most people, is the scariest thing imaginable. Most people would rather live a life of misery, darkness and abuse (that could include self-abuse) than contemplate change. They usually think that if they change then that lets everyone else off the hook, and they themselves are in some way defective for having chosen to continue to live a half-life.

Once it dawns on them that something isn’t working, they would have the potential to feel alive, loving, contented, happy and prosperous. However, if they decide the only way to live is to manipulate circumstances to compensate, they merely paper over the cracks – unconsciously of course, telling themselves lies so they don’t feel vulnerable, and then go about setting up coping strategies such as over-eating, under-eating, alcohol, drugs, excessive shopping sprees, running up debts and credit, and entering into bad relationships, including family and work relationships and so-called romantic relationships. Turning to obsessive behaviour and controlling and policing themselves as a way of feeling less vulnerable, they become their own abusers rather than getting to know themselves. So we come back to the original questions: Who am I; how can I get to know myself; how can I get to know this unique person, and how can I be all that I can be and achieve personal happiness?

When you actually bear in mind that the only person you will have the longest relationship with is yourself, you will need to consider how you can accommodate this very special relationship and how can you meet this person’s needs. A good way forward is to nurture a loving relationship with yourself. Once achieved, you then begin to come alive, because you are coming alive to the reality of your life, so you  can create your truth, not someone else’s truth passed down to you by proxy.

When you begin to seek out defective beliefs such as not being good enough, or being unlovable or whatever it may be that set you off on the road to the dark side, you can then go about seeking out who told you this garbage that you have held onto like a precious gift for so many wasted years, and once you have exposed the culprit or culprits, you can go about challenging those beliefs. Such defective beliefs given to you so long ago that it became part of who you are, stay trapped in the unconscious mind and become part of your magnificent computer – your brain, hard-wired so that you are never allowed to feel good about yourself or any aspect of your life.

Negative internal voices, negative feelings and harrowing, negative visions, become your partners in crime, allowing your life to become a drama inviting other people to join you in your drama to ensure that the defective programming remains hard-wired until the day you die.

How sad is that? All of us, walking around programmed to believe we are not good enough, unlovable, thick, useless or disposable, yet with some of us clinging to the hope that someone on a white charger would one day make life better or take us away from it all, only to invite more abuse to verify the programming.

In order for us to successfully overcome such set-backs in life, our unconscious mind holds the key: Our formative years are so important, for we are ‘learning machines’. We learn about love and our place in the world from our parents and significant others, and retracing our early life and uncovering the lessons we were taught by significant others in our life, is all-important. If you were rejected in some way by a parent, or abused, then your self-worth will be affected and your likely belief will be that “I am unlovable”. You will be programmed to bring about that reality by making sure that during the course of your life, you enter into relationships that will cause you rejection and pain.

All is not lost! Just ask: “What do I believe about myself?” Help is available to change the way you think and feel about yourself. Help for you to learn how you can live a good life; a life filled with self-love, self-respect and a healthy respect for those around you. Remember that you are powerful beyond imagination, and you are capable of creating your own heaven or hell, so make your life a life worth living, and regain the power over your life in the best possible way. It’s never too late to make the changes, because you are worth it!

By: Violet Norman

The “Know Yourself” workshop, together with a range of self-help and other courses are held throughout the year by Violet Norman at her therapy centre at Eden House in Pembrokeshire, West Wales. Full details can be found by visiting Violet’s website at www.eden-house.net and you can get in touch by telephoning the Centre on 01239 841499, or by e-mail to: -violet.light@yahoo.co.uk

The Law of Attraction is not something new it has always been available to everyone and it was the magicians and seers in earlier times who would conjur up their master’s wishes by using their INTENTION of THOUGHT to ask the universe for its help in gaining their master’s desires which came in many forms such as finding their one true love or being rich – very much the same as many of us think we want to manifest for ourselves today.

These days we are being told we can all do it for ourselves, that we do not have to have any magical powers, but is this so!    In the book “The Secret” by Rhonda Byrne she writes that many people have manifested their heart’s desire with great jobs, more money, life partners by working with the universal energies that surround us in our everyday lives.  Barbel Mohr writes “ that she requested a man to come into her life” – remembering to write down everything even putting whether he is tall or short and the date that she wants him to come into her life not too far into the future.  By setting the date this is making an appointment with the universe to manifest what you wish most for in your life – “be careful what you wish for”.  Barbel was astounded when this man came into her life and she tried it again with an apartment and again the right apartment came along as requested.

This gives us some idea of how we can manifest for ourselves what we would like in our lives.  Three years ago I was having problems selling our house as the housing market was not looking good.  I decided  to ask the universe for a three bedroomed house within easy reach of the station and my daughters school and with a nice garden and in good decorative order and something I could easily afford and for it to be an easy move.

Within a month a couple came to look at my property and they put in an offer on the house which was lower than I had anticipated and we left it at that.  Later that week I saw a For Sale board outside a house on the way to the station and I asked the estate agent if I could view the property, he was astounded as I had my house on the market with this agent and he knew we had had an offer on our property.  It was then he told me that the people who owned this house where the same people that had made the offer.  I went along and viewed the property and was amazed to find that it had all the requirements that I had written down in my “cosmic order” to the universe and when it came to purchasing it was very easy as there were not other purchasers involved.

An exercise for manifesting:

1.  Write down what you want to achieve with all the details.

2. Think of an image that will create what you wish to achieve.

3. Change your surroundings to reflect what you have envisioned for yourself you, what you have now achieved (put up pictures, rearrange your home, go to places where you can experience what you want.)

4. Pay attention to what you say and your thoughts as these will be manifesting towards want you want to achieve.

5.  Meditate for 5-10 minutes a day and imagine what it feels like to have achieved your goal, how you would behave, what would you wear, what are your surroundings, how do you feel when you have achieved what you want.

6.  Make a manifestation board and cut out pictures and words that reflect what you want to achieve and put it somewhere where you can see it every day.

7.  Always stay positive with thoughts and have positive people around you and your dreams will be achieved.

8.  Remember to set a date to achieve it by something realistic i.e. 2-3 months

I have always believed in the power of manifestation as my mother had always told me since I was a young girl that anything that I wanted “the universe would provide” I should just go and get it.  Little did I realise then that my mother was already using the “Law of Attraction” and manifesting abundantly all the time!!!! She did spread the manifesting and whatever she manifested for our family she also gave a lot to others with her time, energy, wisdom and helpfulness.

The “Law of Attraction” is not only about creating abundance in our lives but also helping others to achieve their dreams too and manifesting what is good for people that come into our lives.  Its about being “grateful” for what we already have.  If we “can’t see the wood for the trees” and be grateful for what is in our lives already we cannot manifest good things to come into our lives if we do not appreciate what we already have with nice homes, good health and children and just being able to get up in the morning and eat breakfast.   Whereas many people around the world do not have that luxury and its when we are grateful for our everyday lives its then we can manifest something better. Always remember to help others, give to charity, be kind and considerate and give compliments.  Giving a compliment is one of the nicest things to do to say to someone “your hair looks nice today” “you look happy” and it costs nothing.

I needed a venue in London to hold my courses and I was holding a “Dowsing workshop” in London and one of the participants offered me a place to hold my courses when he knew I was looking for a venue.  This was such a generous offer and when things like this happen I am very grateful and it is like the film “Pass it Forward” where a little boy started a process of doing a favour but he did not want anything in return and he said for that person to “Pass it Forward” and do a favour for someone else and this carried on where no-one expected anything in return as it was being grateful for what you have received but be generous and help others to manifest their dreams to and remember to say “Thank You” for what you have received in any form you can AND BE GRATEFUL.

by Vicky Sweetlove

Vicky Sweetlove www.fengshuilife.co.uk tel: 01277203180

On that particular show Iyanla compared our spiritual progress with the levels in a building.

The people who live in the Basement blame everybody else for what is wrong with their lives. If only they had been born with more money, had a better education, were raised by more loving parents, etc, etc. These poor people believe they are powerless to change their lives, and like the survivors of a shipwreck, huddled in a tiny boat, they spend their days waiting to be rescued whilst enduring all the storms and deprivations which come their way.

In order to move onto the First Floor of the building, all you have to do is accept some responsibility for where you are in your life. Only when you can acknowledge the part you played, whether passive or active, can you hope to progress. First Floor people understand that life is full of choices, and they know that they have the final decision on how they live their lives. But unfortunately, they always choose what seems like the easiest course of action and do nothing at all.

To graduate onto the Second Floor requires action. On this level, you dare to dream, set goals and prepare to take the necessary steps to improve your life. Second Floor dwellers remind me of those students who spend hours and hours sharpening their pencils and preparing study schedules, but never seem to knuckle down and do their work. If you have reached this point, then you can be proud of your achievements, as most people never get this far. I lived on the Second Floor for three years.

To get to the Third Floor takes courage and determination. You have to stop dreaming and start doing. I don’t deny it’s difficult and it’s scary. You are exposed and vulnerable, and you have no-one to blame or hide behind. You will still make mistakes, and things may not always be rosy, but I guarantee you will jump out of bed in the mornings and embrace life. Every obstacle you overcome will make you stronger and you will find yourself getting closer and closer to achieving your goals. I wish I could share with you the sense of liberation and the sheer joy of being alive which I have gained since moving onto the Third Floor.

Then there is the final level – the Attic. This is where people like Mother Theresa and Ghandi would have lived. It is where we should all strive to live our lives, and each one of us has the potential to reach this level. People who live in the Attic have the power to change the world and the ability to experience mankind’s greatest joy. I’ll let you know what it’s like if I ever get there!

By reading this article you have at least visited the Second Floor and I hope you will have the courage to take a step nearer your dream. You are unique, you are amazing and you deserve the very best!

By: Suzanne Green