I have been in the coaching business since the mid-eighties and I generally felt happy after I did a good job imparting some insights and practical applications for a client’s take away. However there was this occasion when I felt I was being counselled by Someone else (but I pocketed the money just the same for myself); a Source of Intelligence much smarter than myself. This knowledge was clear because I had to decipher the given message for my own understanding. So here it is:

More than two decades ago, I received a phone call from overseas while I was working at my Wellness Centre. This person said I came highly recommended and she would like to travel to Australia to have several sessions with me. She arrived and shared how she had attempted to kill herself several times as she felt she had committed a sin so great that to die would be the only solution to repaying a life for a life. Many professional people had failed to help her up to that point.

I recognised that any advice I could provide would seem meaningless as she had heard them all before - so I silently (and desperately) called out for “Divine Help”. Why “divine” you might ask; because experiences have told me that pockets of pain exist so deep in our human psyche that only the Divine has the ability to touch and heal. As a coach, I often feel that I am just being “used” as an instrument - a piece of plumbing/piping if you like, to allow the energy of love, wisdom and compassion to flow through but I am not the embodiment of Love itself.

It came to me as a surprise when I felt the impulse to ask her to show me her children’s photos (she had four beautiful children)....good move, I uttered to myself, I really needed to buy some time here, but whatever is coming out next would be anyone’s guess.

Now these words would “appear” without me quite knowing what would follow next, can you imagine how embarrassing it would be to stop half way through a sentence and have no idea how to attach more words to it, but I needed not to worry so much:

….. and I heard myself saying

“Can you forward your life to say eight years from now but you are dead as you killed yourself but now living in Heaven. You can see that your eldest daughter has just given birth to a baby boy but she is not coping due to lack of sleep. How she wishes her mother is here to help her as at a time like this only a mother can fill the gap.

You hear her plea so you go straight to God/Divine Source begging Him/Her to allow you to go back to earth for JUST ONE NIGHT so you can calm and feed the baby allowing your daughter to catch up with some sleep. You are not greedy as you realise that you can offer so much love and support even within so short a time”.

Dead silence we were facing and you could have heard a pin drop. The coach was now in trouble; “what does that mean?” I asked of myself and hoping that the client did not notice my eyes rolling heavenward for the answer.

She kept on repeating these three words “JUST ONE NIGHT” like a mantra and started to weep. She shared that this new insight seems to be the truest Truth she has ever known (but now can remember) and commented that I must be the best therapist on earth. Little did she know I had nothing much to do with this. She said that she had never looked at life in this perspective before (nor did I) and assured me that with these three words, she felt HEALED. She cancelled all the following sessions and took a plane home that evening pining for her four little kids waiting at home for her.

I was relieved about the cancellations as this powerful message of Love could only be felt and needed no further words. She did become a grandmother of a baby boy many years after that as she informed me in a postcard.

So what is this message trying to show us? I think it has to do with how we can find our motivation to live even though the burden of guilt (as in this case) has become unbearable. It is about choices, choosing to forgive ourselves and focus our life energy to help others. It is also about “living in the moment”, doing our best and being contented with that. I felt at that “sacred” instant, this young mum understood that her unique gifts meant something and that her “giving” mattered.

What has this story has to do with “stress” then? A lot really because my past unwillingness to acknowledge my unique gifts (due to false humility, laziness and fear) so to utter a “YES” to contributing my part to the whole have caused me stress. I often attempted to cover the hole within by engaging in things that were going against the grain. We are capable to consciously and deliberately creating opportunities and possibilities to extend that “something” only we alone can give.  When we resonate with our heart’s yearning, the “doing” becomes almost effortless as we are placing ourselves in the “zone”. Have you ever tried to push a square peg into a round hole?

Someone once shared:

Happiness is not so much in having as sharing.

We make a living by what we get,

But we make a life by what we give.

Hope you like this story. I will share more stories next time, remember to keep on telling  yourself positive and uplifting stories every day of your life. You deserve them. Thanks for reading my blog.

One guess guys, what do you think is life’s best kept secret or the least popular subject to talk about? It can be found in this phase “Gratitude is the best Attitude.” Our reactions can stem from a knowing nod while uttering “yes, I know I should feel grateful” but often it is expressed more along the lines of “only if you know, tell me, what have I got to be grateful about?”

This word did not exist in my vocabulary for a long time as I had perfected my half cup empty theory. I had no clue what people were talking about when being “happy for no reason” (OOPS.. sorry to Marci Shimoff who wrote this lovely book and for whom I had the pleasure of learning from for a whole year). What Marci described on the front of her book actually started to make sense to me (i.e. “7 steps to being happy from the inside out.”) I get it now. Finding happiness is an inside job and the fastest way to get us there is by practising gratitude.

But! How do we learn that, reality is reality, right? Come and look at my pile of “?” (choose your own word here please) and I can give you a long list of events (and people) that contribute to making me so miserable.

You may have heard of creating Gratitude Journals or counting things we are grateful about at the end of a day. They worked as having these repetitive thoughts and given enough time would mould into a belief - as beliefs are just thoughts gathering momentum (like an iceberg is made out of the same H2O, if they tried long and hard enough then could “harden” themselves up). Beliefs in turn bring forth the equivalent emotions.

Allow me to explain. For example if I choose to believe [chosen already] that I am a bloody good blogger and that all of you would love to read my blogs, once convinced I would feel so excited screaming “I am so happy,  I can’t stand it!”…and of course you heard me loud and clear, thus you turned up.. Now I have managed to combine my positive intention (thought) with my elevated emotion and you found yourself reading this blog. Would you read it if I first sent out a signal to the Universe that it is not very good, not worth your time and energy? If I did then I might as well close up shop.

So….be careful how we align our thoughts (highest dosage being given out in concentrated intention form) if we want to continue to see goodies arriving at our front doors. If we can apply gratitude to every single thing by deliberately “seeing” the best outcome/learning opportunity, then the Universe would MATCH our vibration/energy/frequency. Thoughts are Energy and likes attract likes, that’s all.  

I had an opportunity to practise how this law of gratitude works. Many years ago as I was lying on a hospital bed after being told “You have Cancer” with no warnings which turned out to be a false diagnosis. I was in such a state of shock that a shut-eye would be out of the question. So I played a “gratitude game” with myself. I looked around my surroundings, noting every item I could afford to feel grateful about. This ranged from appreciating all these young Doctors and Nurses (they all looked so young these days and I wanted to feed them and make them sit down to rest), then followed by touching the soft blankets, the clean linens, plastic wrapped pillows.. (sorry, maybe give that last one a miss). I broadened my vision further, now thanking the Architects, builders, and interior designers who created such a nice healing place for me. When I reached item 26 (oh, incidentally that was the typical hospital tomato soup), I was fast asleep. I think the reason rested upon the fact that fear is the most disturbing power in our life to our survival - but at that moment, when I realised that so much had already been given to me, fear took a backseat. In other words, my acknowledgment of my half full cup restored my sanity, which in turn became my rescue remedy.

Now I understand that our Universe eavesdrops on us 24/7, so the more grateful I am, it will match my beliefs and shower me with more like-items to be grateful about. Please do not hold onto any “lack” of thoughts and entertaining “down and out” emotions while expecting abundance to arrive, it doesn’t manifest that way. The Universe works on the Laws of Attractions, it follows our “direction”, not the other way round. It is pure common sense, sadly sometimes common sense is not that common.

I am asking you to experiment on yourself if you can in fact entertain two opposite emotions simultaneously, and that is “can you feel grateful and be miserable at the same time???”

...and how I dig Dr Joe Dispenza’s statement that:  

Gratitude is the ULTIMATE STATE of receivership.  

Go and enjoy a matching play/game with your Universe, and do stress less in knowing your Universe has you well covered already.

Thank God for hot showers, they don’t only clean my body but they are great for my writer’s block. As the water from the shower rose was cascading down upon me, I sensed the emergence of a tiny inspiration. In order not to lose the train of thoughts, I quickly “wrote” them down on the shower screen with my finger before I could get hold of a pen and paper. I wrote my proses in the 80s in this manner and if my nephew Adrian (our webmaster) is generous enough, he will post some of them one day. With these kinds of this “water birth” situations, I always smell nice but my it’s no wonder my water bills are huge.

By the time I “heard” the subject that I had no intention of sharing yet (unless I want to lose all of you blog readers), I knew my muse wouldn’t budge. My inner mentor insisted that if we can get passed this greatest fear we humans have out of the way first, then all the baby ducks would line up in a neat row in the future. I doubt that but never argue with your muse, beggars can’t be choosers, you understand. She proposed that we should take a look at this underlying fear and what she means by that is our “demise”. I told her that our ego/personality self would not be able to deal with this tragic word as the ego is high with survival instinct. My muse continued, suggesting that life and death are merely the two faces to the same coin and by accepting death, we can live a much deeper and purposeful life. Our life would also be less stressed if we can somehow overcome this biggest denial.

Once I got over the initial reaction with this “D” word, it was quite fun to write about it. During the last few years I have had many opportunities to become friends with the infamous “Grim Reaper”. He is not scary at all, it is just difficult to take a good photo of him as he is camera shy. There have been many nights I laid in bed terrified of the prospect of treatments and of the final “lift-off”, but I eventually made the first contact by eyeballing him and doing some little chit chats. I won him over and he showed me his friendly face. I started to live life more fearlessly and to engage with anything (e.g. creating this website with my webmaster aka my beloved nephew) that would allow my heart to sing and my Soul to soar - and to love myself and others as if there are no divides.

I taught myself to live in the present, trying not to obsess over the past and the future. Consequently I was able to save the much needed energy that would have otherwise been used to finance the memories of my “dead” past and anticipations of my “not yet to be born” future. This diminished my fear of death and my level of stress, my health then improved and my sense of inner peace returned.

I do not want to be discharged yet but I must admit I nurse some curiosity over my future adventure into this mysterious “life after Life” realm when my boarding card number would be called, but not over a loudspeaker like the airport’s departure lounge. This will be done more intimately, or classy, I promise. I have always been intrigued by all the NDE (near-death experiences) accounts since the mid-seventies, the term coined by Dr Raymond Moody, fascinating to say the least about this Celestial Real Estate, hoping I can afford to put down a deposit. Personally I don’t think there is death in the way we envisage it as our consciousness extends beyond our physical body.  As a rather intuitive person I have experienced some sort of communications from beyond… (nope... I did not purchase an iPhone enabling me to dial “cross dimensional”), nonetheless, they happened...to me.

My “Grim Reaper” turned out to be my “Angel of Mercy” with such a kind and pretty face that you would die for (pardon the pun). I think it is more positive and fun to use the prospect of death as our motivation to live life purposefully, without experiencing constant fears of loss, shame, guilt and blame. Then on a perfect sunny day when our names would be called, we too would utter the same beautiful words as our amazing fellow travellers shared:

“Don’t cry for me, for I go where the music is born” - Johannes S. Bach’s last words.

“Oh wow. Oh wow. Oh wow.” - Steve Jobs’ last words.

We have been conned, how come we all entered this world as beautiful innocent babies and now some of us are feeling either “not good enough” or worse “something is wrong with me”.  It seems that there were no shortages of opportunities in our growing up years to earn this “less than perfect” label, but we bought it just the same, encouraged along by the two thieves named “competition” and “comparison”.  This daylight robbery took away the truth of who we are, essence of beauty and innocence as we dived willingly into this soup of collective amnesia.

But somewhere along the way, I sensed that something just didn’t add up as my life was playing out an identical version to the movie “Groundhog Day” with many patterns repeating in a trustworthy manner, meaning they always surfaced, just be patient and wait.  I shifted furniture around and changed everything externally but status quo remained. Finally I gave up controlling the outcomes and had a good look at my internal landscape instead. Oh boy, was I shocked!!!!...there I connected the dots, my inner condition consisting thoughts (of lack, limitation, scarcity and unworthiness) was being projected onto this screen I called my reality and my life experiences were the expressions of that projection.  Don’t believe me? Just visit a projection room in a cinema and you would understand there are no “real” people moving about on the screen.

Once I realised I could participate in this “thoughts become things” creative process, my life improved. One tip though, do not expect much good would arrive if we are not accepting of the goodness dwelled within us, we all have it, dig deeper and own it.  I have lived life expressing that part of me (I called the “who I am not” part), completely unaware that it is impossible not to be stressed playing someone I am not.  This lack of self awareness almost destroyed my gift of creativity, sense of fun and humour as I was too busy feeling comfortably numb and quietly desperate.

I want to invite you to cut through the layers of false self identifications that we have so lovingly built up for ourselves in the same way a plane would slide through the layers of clouds. I am getting better at ignoring my ego’s critical and judgmental voice, it is not my mate who has my best interest in mind.

Once we start living from the “who I am” aspect, we would see ourselves differently and the feeling of inner peace would arrive, sooner or later. So, to be painfully honest, I can’t think of anything more STRESSFUL than to live life 24/7 coming from the energy of “who we are not”, can you?

P.S. My very first book I got in the area of self growth was called “Would the Real me please stand up?”....Now I am standing before you and I am so very glad.

Talk more next month, sending you love, light and laughter.

A keen storyteller would always attract more material to write about. I was recently getting ready to host my birthday party at home and I found myself stepping onto an uneven part of the ground as I entered the bedroom, and I almost tripped over on the buckled up carpet.

The cause of this incident was due to a huge downpour we had a couple of nights before and the old rusted gutter on the roof was not adequate enough to take the huge volume of rain - resulting in water seeping through the bottom of the wall into the room.

I looked at the time and realised that the guests would be arriving soon, I needed to think on the spot. I asked myself if I was willing to give up such a precious opportunity to be immersed in love and celebration or I wanted to dwell on this piece of carpet that I would not even be able to locate its whereabouts in say in twenty years. Umm…noting the impermanence of all things gave me a good slap on the face.

Thank God for my sense of humour, it seems to go even weirder if the severity of the situation calls for it.  I knew that I needed to find an immediate solution/action as each minute slipping by, was losing out that minute I could otherwise be added to my happiness bank. I CHOSE greediness as I wanted to be a Joy Freak at least on my birthday and there was no way I would sacrifice my party mood and eager anticipation just because the gutter could not stomach too much rain.

Taking an action is like doing an affirmation, confirming to myself that I have the power to choose how I would look at each given situation; my perception and interpretation would frame my state of mind evoking certain reactions and emotions and dare I add….also creating the appropriate outcome. What I did next would amuse you, as it certainly tickled me and diminished my need to stress.  I found an index card and on it I wrote these words:

“LIFT YOUR BLOODY FEET UP!” (I placed the card near the buckled up part of the carpet so to warn myself not to trip over)

…and that was it.

Yup. That was about the amount of time, energy and attention I was willing to give to this incident. After all, I did not cause it.  Imagine if I had chosen words such as “Why now?” and “Why me?”, I would have rained on my own birthday party.

It is EMPOWERING and STRESS-LESS to live life this way, try it sometimes, all you need is a pack of index cards and be the only thinker in your own mind.

Thank you so much for reading my blog, I like sharing moments with you.

Are you one of those people who find yourself nodding your head up and down automatically when someone asks something of you? Are you conditioned from early childhood to feel that your job is to be so helpful that you need to put others first, which in turn ends up neglecting your own needs (really, do I have needs!)? Do you know that I even experienced some sort of “high” by being such an amazing people pleaser and a self trained sacrificer but unknowingly my resentment was piling up while my sense of “self” had diminished to a point that I could not find “her” anymore....anywhere!

So Christmas came and went but this year I shared it with over thirty of my tribe members at my daughter and son-in-law’s home. It was was great but I made it perfect by going against THE “tradition” this year..and boy, do I feel greater than great! You see once I reached the grand young age of seventy and being of the Chinese origin (where the older you get, the more respect and demands you can make [but I do go light on the demands department as no one would know what I am yapping about...like remembering back to the Ming Dynasty?]), I refused to have my name included on the “bring a plate” group invite, I just turned up for turkey, ham, pudding and presents. However, I did indulge on buying a huge box of chocolate for the hosting party but secretly instructed them not to open it till everyone had left. Okay not exactly the Christmas spirit, but if Turkish Delights are your only favourite, some fingers might just move faster than yours on that particular day.

Due to the many celebrations happening all around this time of the year, I now feel comfortable to turn down invites when I am feeling depleted of energy... as in truth I really have nothing much to give. It makes more sense to nourish and nurture ourselves first and to accept our limits and not be afraid to set up healthy boundaries.

Yes, people might not like it at first especially if you have always been a “YES” person, but they would grow to respect you more as you demonstrate loud and clear about the “oxygen mask” theory. Build up our own reserves first, then tend to others as the quality of our giving and helpfulness would be of a higher grade. I guess I am just a bit tired of “doing noise”....

P.S. MY LIGHT BULB MOMENT: Perhaps with me daring to utter a few little NOs, I am in fact accumulating a huge YES to be gifted to others at more needed and appropriate times. So don’t be afraid to take a few minutes to gauge your energy level and your state of mind. Your NO can be a loving “sign” that you care about your wellbeing and that is a beautiful act of Self Care and Self Responsibility.

HAVE A GREAT NEW YEAR 2019 and I am looking forward to seeing our stress levels go down. Thanks for reading my blog, see you next month, promise to tickle your laughing muscles.

I don’t recall many times asking myself that question as to what I need to do now because it is the most important…as everything parading in front of me seemed to share the same level of importance. Now because I am older, I am also wiser, not that showing off wisdom is a prerequisite for old age! ..but you see, I have just spent many weeks preparing a book proposal and now I am feeling exhausted and my brain had no creative juice left. Needless to say, going to bed at three last night did nothing for my ageing process but my literary “muse” missed the train again and arrived at odd hours.

…but, I am feeling pretty cool about myself as no one at my age would bother to write a book simply for brain exercise as I am hopeless with doing crosswords. And as they say, penning a book can be therapeutic as the process would reveal a lot of stuff about myself that I did not ask for. Nonetheless, it was a freeing experience being introduced to “myself” by “me” for the first time, sort of like self-introduction or speed dating!

And I think it is working (the getting to know oneself stuff), as now I can see clearly what is the most important thing for me to do right now. It is about ‘do nothing”, it is about “vegetating” which my dictionary describes as spending a period of time in a dull, inactive and unchallenging way. And how I love my Thesaurus contributing words such as laze, lounge, loll, loaf and slouch. I totally get it. Taking care of my body and soul deserve to rank No. 1 regardless of anything happening around me, forget about unpacking dishes or grocery, they can unpack themselves if they like. I can even feel my stress level going down as I allow myself to feel “worthy” for my own refill.

P.S. I just had a light bulb moment,: it seems that my inability to put myself first in the areas of self care and self love actually placed more stress in my life, perhaps intuitively I knew it was the right thing to do but it was my habit to talk myself out of it.