Personal Development – Feelings

I have an uneasy relationship with my feelings. Traumatic events in my childhood and then years of pretending I didn't have any feelings in order to not be vulnerable was exhausting.

Even after years of personal development courses, counselling, therapy etc. it's a daily effort to remember that I'm not responsible for everything;

I am allowed to express my happiness, sadness, anger, fear, pain, joy, and many other feelings. I believe it's important for my mental and physical health to be able to do so!

That's probably why I originally became an actress, I found a way to explore feelings without having to own them.

As I learned to reconnect with 'feeling' I opened a door once again to my psyche and became aware of 'spirit', something I'd not expected or planned for but it felt real, comfortable and normal to continue and become a Clairvoyant and Medium.

But there was still something missing.

I was so used to being self contained and relying only on myself that I was unable to ask for help even when I really needed it! Then I was offered some sessions with a Life coach in training which blew my mind and opened my heart. Thanks to that amazing person (they know who they are and thanks once again), I decided to train as a Life coach myself and oh boy what an exciting roller coaster ride that was!

Deciding to become a Life Coach seemed like the next natural step that would allow me to work with clients who wanted practical tools to help them move out of grief and loss and look at what they wanted next for themselves.

Do you think that once you know your true purpose it becomes easier to reconcile all the past mistakes and decisions you made? Maybe not but during the Life Coach training I had to have counselling and took the opportunity to reconnect with my inner child, teenager and young adult. I was able to observe them with kindness and understanding and to embrace them as parts of myself that never gave up on me, that helped me to survive and live, and that nudged me towards reconnecting with myself and others.

So my true purpose is to help those who are searching to find themselves again, or the parts of themselves they put away for safe keeping and who now feel ready to bring them out into the light again, to see how they fit now, and if they do, (or not), what to do with them.

Deciding to use a Life Coach is not a one size fits all journey, it's as individual as each human being. With the right coach by your side it's good to know you have someone to travel safely with while you move towards your goals.

NB I am a qualified Life Coach not a Counsellor. A Counsellor addresses a completely different need.

Imposter Syndrome, Perfectionism and Timing

This morning I was looking out of my window thinking the weather forecast was wrong, there was no snow. Then the sky was full of huge white flakes swirling in the wind. Instant change.

In life we often want the expected or planned things to happen according to our timeline and they don't, or not in quite the way we were expecting them to. Sometimes, no matter how much planning or preparation you do, if you struggle constantly with imposter syndrome then you need help to work on your mindset.

It's hard to do this alone!

I've been getting help with this and I'm still working on it, personally and professionally. 

I picked up some particularly useful tools on an ACT-based training, (Acceptance and Commitment Therapy), taught by Dr Paul Flaxman of City, University of London.

ACT is a huge subject and I'm no expert, only a beginner, but I've added one strategy to my toolkit that I like and that works for me: The 'Passengers on the Bus' exercise.

If my thoughts or feelings are passengers on my bus 😊😠😑😴😶😕 they may stay on the bus for just a few stops or they may be there for the whole journey, they may even be annoying, but wishing my passengers away or not wanting to acknowledge them only makes them shout louder for my attention.

If I can acknowledge them and accept them, whether they feel helpful or unhelpful, I can get on with my day. My passengers are still there but they've quietened down because they've been heard.

Did I mention that I'm also a writer? No? Well that's probably why I like to use that tool. I love a good story. 

Hang on, how did I manage to leave out mentioning a part of me that is essential to my well being as well as my work? Sneaky imposter syndrome, one of my regular passengers, snuck in again:

'How can you call yourself a writer if your poetry has only been published

in a couple of membership magazines?'

Ouch!

I am a writer because I write. I write a journal most days, (another useful tool), just to get sticky emotions or feelings out of my body or head, down onto paper, so I can look at them more objectively.

 Quite often that will give me an idea for a blog post, a short story or poem. I choose the medium through which I want to share my thoughts and then....

My 'perfectionist' passenger gets on the bus, sits right behind me and whispers in my ear:

'You can't let people see that! They'll assume you're depressed/needy /pathetic/weird/ stupid.You put that comma in the wrong place, that picture looks like a child did it. People will criticise you! It'll feel just like that dream where you walked out of the house with no clothes on!'

What now? 

I say 'Hi there, welcome, take a seat,' 

Perfectionist Passenger saunters to the back of the bus.

I preview what I've written, edit, once more only, and press POST BLOG.

 

Personal Development

When I think about personal development and what it means for me I realise I'm a personal development junky!

Throughout my life I've always done courses or classes to improve myself or my skills,

never feeling as if I'd got all the tools I needed to be 'ready'.

But ready for what?

Ready to prove to myself and the world that I know what I'm talking about, that I'm a

bonafide actress, life coach, tutor, clairvoyant.

Because I never believed that I could be all of those things without being a dilettante, a dabbler. I thoughtthat in order to be taken seriously I had to choose one career and focus on it or fail.

I've gradually realised that all of these careers complement each other and that they give me a distinct advantage I can have it all but I don't have to try to do them all at once. 

I'm lucky, I can be flexible, I have choice!

Which in these strange times is a definite bonus.

Quite often (usually when I've convinced myself I'll never act again), an audition will

come completely out of the blue. My agent will email me, giving me the details of what to

do for the audition (usually to do a self tape due to social distancing), and the dates of

when I'd be needed if I get the job. I choose whether to do it or not depending on other

work I may have already committed to.

Sounds straight forward eh?

Except I usually want to do the acting job despite the other commitments and the stress, anxiety and fear of reorganising other work, because I LOVE ACTING and I know I'm good at it, I'm in my comfort zone playing other people!

It's taken me years to develop enough self belief to understand that it's ok to have fun and enjoy my work. Coming from a northern, working class, protestant work ethic, I got the message from childhood that only hard work was rewarded and anything that was fun was suspect and frivolous. And NEVER to blow my own trumpet or to be big headed enough to want to stand out from the crowd.

Since then I've become more self aware, I can honour myself and my multiple skills, experience and talents and with help from wonderful mentors I'm learning how to promote myself and my service to people who need my help and knowledge.

It's time for me to shine so I can help them shine too!

WELCOME BACK!

 Welcome back to my blog!

It’s a long while since I posted anything on here and I want to apologise for that. For the past five years I thought I had nothing to say and no one would be interested anyway. Wrong! 

I am a master of procrastination. I can find any excuse not to make public what I write if I think my words will be judged and found wanting. To procrastinate means to put off until tomorrow or a later date and oh boy that’s what I did.

So no more ‘putting off’

Life as I knew it has changed and ‘later’ is one word I won’t be using quite so much this year.

As well as coaching  clients I’ve been writing short stories and flash fiction with a writing group and posting comments on Facebook and LinkedIn in reply to other people’s thoughts.

This first blog of 2021 is my pledge to do a regular blog on my own website and to ‘own’ it. 

2020 was the strangest year I’ve lived through in all my 63 years. It felt like a survival course without knowing the rules. Well, three rules - 

1) Wash your hands 

2) Stay inside or stay 2 metres away from other people 

3) Wear a mask on public transport and in shops and stores

These rules have felt dehumanising, lonely and demoralising for me but I’ve followed them to protect myself and others from this vile, invisible virus, Covid 19. 

I hope that by this summer some of us will be able to see and hug our loved ones. I look forward to having my first hug from someone else for nearly a year. Hugging myself works sometimes but it’s not the same as the exchange of healing energy between two people or more - a group hug can change my world and my mindset in an instant!

I love coaching and I’d love to coach you. I love being there to hear someone say, ‘I did it!’ when they’ve set a goal. It’s an honour to be a part of someone else’s coaching journey and to see their increased confidence in themselves. Have you thought about changes you want to or need to make?

I have. I recently did a free 5 day Supercharge Your Website Challenge with the amazing Vicki Jakes, heyvickijakes.com and thanks to her and her team I’ve set myself some tasks in order to update my website. Nothing will happen overnight but I’ll be setting some goals and during the update work I’ll be blogging. 

Your comments are welcome and if you relate to anything I blog about please share your thoughts.

I’d love to add your email address to my list so I can tell you about courses and offers. Please contact me at hello@carolrobinson.co.uk if you would like to join - I won’t sell on your email address and won’t share it with anyone without your permission.

See you soon

Carol 

Teaching and Training

Teaching is an important part of being a Medium especially educating people when they have preconceived ideas about what a Medium is and what Mediums do:

A Medium is exactly that - he or she 'tunes in' and becomes a mid point in a 3 way connection between their client and those in spirit - using their senses, the Medium acts as an open channel or link.

There are different ways of being a Medium and developing the ability to consciously tune in to each of your senses is an important part of your training.
As you develop your ability to tune in you may find that you are receiving information via one sense more regularly, or using two senses or more.

I didn't set out to be a Medium or consciously to train as one. It happened as a result of me trying to make sense of my life. I tried a class called Personal Development and as soon as we started the first session it just felt like I was in the right place and I belonged. After this introductory course I seemed to be guided to the next course and and then a class called Mediumship for Beginners.

When I started to develop my senses I would 'see' spirit as blobs of light and then started to  'hear' single words or a phrase and became quite comfortable in working this way and started to give information to my fellow classmates and invited guests.
I thought that these would be the only senses I would work with but spirit had another plan!

I continued to go to class and one day I could no longer 'see' or 'hear' spirit and was quite distressed until I realised I was 'sensing' or 'feeling' them instead.
This was interesting - it was not me who was choosing which sense to use; spirit choose the sense by which the medium receives the message!

Further on in my development I was able to 'see' and 'hear' spirit again but this time the images and sounds I received were much clearer. I continued to develop my other senses and practised asking for information to be given to me as clearly and concisely as possible.

When I work I use whichever sense feels strongest at the time and  sometimes find I'm using two or three senses or more.

When I talk about seeing, hearing, sensing, smelling, etc. it's all from an inner perspective, so I'm using my inner ear, my inner eye and my inner sense but the feeling, scent, image etc. feels, looks or sounds real at the time I receive it.

The names that have been given to the different ways a medium receives information are:

Clairvoyance - inner seeing
Clairsentience - inner feeling, emotion or physical sensation
Clairaudience - inner hearing
Claircognisance - inner knowing

Claire means clear and there are names for the other senses that are less commonly used by a Medium:
Clairgustance is clear tasting
Clairalience is clear smelling

A Psychic is not the same as a Medium but a Medium can work psychically as well as with direct spirit contact.

Spiritualism is a registered and legal religion with churches or meeting places and is based on the belief that our spirit lives on after the death of the physical body but you don't have to be a Spiritualist to practise as a Medium unless working in Spiritualist churches.

I'll be writing more soon about the imortance of education in Mediumship and
I've also invited other Mediums to write a guest post. Watch this space!

The wonder of your breath

Take life one step at a time
Take time to breathe, to pause and experience life at ground level, seeing with calmer eyes and breathing with a stranger's comforting breath.
Look forwards, not backwards.
Look around you as you stand in the peace of nature.
See life as a continuous cycle of birth, life, death and rebirth.
Take time to just be - to struggle is counter-productive - energy comes from stillness and balance.
To breathe is to live and to live is to breathe; we do not decide to breathe, it is a part of our being
Breath was breathed into us before birth - in our mother's womb we breathe in water (in symbiotic fluid), and in birth we learn to breathe again the air.
When life expires the breath we breath in our bodies does not stop; it carries on in the air, the earth breathes, the animals breathe, the flowers and the trees breathe and we are part of that continuous cycle of life and energy

So when you have time to pause take note of the wonder of your breath and the miracle of your connection.

The Power of Thought

The power of thought put man on the moon
Ideas and inventions are possibilities that start as thoughts.
Mankind and womankind has achieved great things and overcome great obsacles with the power of thought;
Nelson Mandela was a great example of this when he trained his mind not to accept that he was a prisoner just because he was in a prison cell. They imprisoned his body but they could not hold his thoughts.

Athletes use the power of their thoughts to believe that they can achieve.
People who are seriously injured and told they will never walk/talk/move again, use the power of thought to overcome impossible odds and prove that they can overcome physical limitations.

In every day life we use the power of thought to overcome other obstacles such as depression, anxiety, stress, family troubles, physical and mental health issues.

From the power of thought comes inspiration, intuition and hope, sometimes not from within but from our guides - either a quiet whisper or a more insistent voice to get our attention.

The power of thought can turn your life around; you can decide to change your life, your circumstances and your future by deciding that it will change; the thought comes first and the thought initiates an action which causes change.

At the end of 2015, if there are aspects of your life that you would like to change, use the power of your thoughts to create your future.

Towards Midwinter Solstice

Midwinter Solstice comes at the darkest time of the year and in ancient times people were uncertain that the light would return. Lighting candles and fires, gathering food and drink and gathering together to prepare for winter and for Yule was part of the yearly cycle of propitiating the gods to be kind and for them to allow the sun to return to the earth.
I celebrate Solstice as a time to collect my thoughts and to consider the year that is almost ending and the year to come. On 21st or 22nd of December I will light candles and do a silent meditation as I look back and consider how to use what I've learned this year and then ask for guidance, healing and energy to move forwards into the new year with optimism and an open heart.

Over the last few days I've also been thinking of things I'd like to do differently next year - my version of new years resolutions:

I'm bringing back the Carol who doesn't take herself too seriously; who dresses up for a laugh, does what she wants to do and when she wants to do it, who joins in with the karaoke, the silly games and the laughter, who has fun and giggles and flirts outrageously.
 I'm allowing back into my life the me who loves long walks in the country or on the beach (shorter now than I would like but better than none at all), the me who can sit in bed with a sandwich, a cup of tea and a pile of newspapers on a Sunday morning and not feel guilty that I'm 'wasting time'.
Welcome back Carol the Cat who walks by herself when she needs to but also shares with others the ups and downs of everyday life.
Welcome to Carol the Psychic and Medium, who's no longer afraid of her gifts,
to Carol the Comic, who makes people laugh at the absurdities she sees in life and in the world.
There are many more aspects of myself that I am welcoming back at the end of  a difficult 2015. I've learned a lot, and surprised myself and others a couple of times this year, by accepting that I don't always know the answers and can't always help. I'm learning to accept that I'm human and I have physical  limitations because I have a physical body that I have to take care of.

 That said, my inner spirit burns bright and my connection with my spirit guides grows stonger as I am shown every day that miracles are happening.
My belief that we are all part of the same cosmic family, connected by our energy and our love, allows me to hope that one day there will be no more war, that nations and individuals will be able to listen to each other and that we can work together for a world that is caring, loving and kind.

Inner Calm Through Silence
Occasionally, when I am seeking peace, head space or answers, I attend a Quaker meeting, where for an hour everyone sits in silence unless they feel a strong compulsion speak. I find, in the shared silence, a calmer yet more powerful energy.

 Waiting for God, Goddess, Spirit, your Higher Self, (whatever you believe in), to inspire you in the silence, is both harder and easier than you might think.
To sit quietly for an hour and get in touch, and in tune with yourself, to set aside your worries, is hard in today's fast-paced, do everything now world.

Yet sometimes, when faced with problem after problem and the disappointments, tears and traumas of life, the easiest way to 'sort it all out' is to sit quietly and think or, even harder, not think. To calm your mind and your heart in order to ask for spiritual wisdom and guidance and let your inner spirit have its say and show you the way to resolve your cares.
The spirit that we keep under wraps in everyday life until we are in trouble,or troubled, and then we call on it for help.

Oh what joy and peace we could have if we could call on this spiritual wisdom every day! The answer is that we can!
You don't have to go to a church or a meeting house in order to sit in the silence but if that gives you solace and peace then use what works for you.
If you're not 'religious' you can still share the silence in a group meditation.
The regular practice of letting go of your worries, asking for inner wisdom, can lead to a mind and heart that is calmer, clearer, and able to see past the obvious answers to find guided wisdom from your higher/inner self.
You can use the techniques that you learn in a group meditation and apply them, when you need them, on a daily basis, to create your own inner silence.

I hope you value yourself enough to take time, each day, to seek this inner wisdom, and that you find peace and clarity within the silence.

Setting Achievable Goals
Life has a way of making you take notice of things and situations you've been trying to ignore or hope they'd go away.
 I spent many years taking my physical health for granted but as I got older I could no longer ignore the messages my physical body was sending me that it needed some attention, particularly my knees which had started to protest at the extra weight they were carrying (i.e. me!).
 I'm finally listening to my body and doing something about the aches and pains. I saw my GP and a Homeopathic Practitioner and have started to eat more healthily in a bid to  lose some weight and feel fitter and less creaky. In the last 4 weeks I've been exercising as well and have lost 8lbs (or whatever that is in metric).
I feel good because I set myself a goal of losing 2lbs a week for 3 months and one month in I'm on target!
Small rewards are an excellent way of celebrating your achievements.
I've rewarded myself for this 4 week achievement with a trip to the cinema and I'm already planning my reward for my 3 month achievement (not food related but doing something I love to do)

Setting goals is important when you want to make changes in life and it can be used in any area of your life.
If you have a big goal, for example a complete career or lifestyle change, then breaking it down into a series of smaller goals is more manageable and achievable. Small steps.
Also prioritising is useful-deciding what you need to do first, something small to get things moving and that is achievable. 
A client of mine was bored with his lifestyle and his career-he felt it was dull and repetetive and it was!
When he did an audit of his lifestyle he realised that he was in a rut: going to the same restaurants on the same days every week, ordering the same meal every time and eating it without noticing the flavours and textures of his food.
That's just one example from his routine and rather than try to change his whole life at once his first step was to set himself the small goal of choosing something different from the menu.
His larger goal was to try different restaurants and his main goal was to learn to cook!
So, where there's a change you want to make in your life, whether big or small, what small steps can you take towards an achievable goal?