We are now 3 weeks into 2012 and it is a great time to check in with yourself about whether or not you are sticking to any of the resolutions you made on 1^st January.  In my experience, there are 3 main reasons why people do not follow through with their New Year’s Resolutions (or anytime resolutions).

One of the most common reasons is that you set the resolution (or decided to make the lifestyle change) because you thought you SHOULD rather than because you really wanted to.  When I am coaching clients to create positive change in their life the main question I ask them about why they want to make the change is WHY?  It is essential that your motivation comes from inspiration not rationalisation or desperation.

The second most common reason for people ‘failing’ to follow through on positive change is because they have set unrealistic goals.  For instance, if you have never gone to the gym before but signed up for gym membership on 1^st January with the idea that you were going to go 5 times a week, it is worth questioning whether that is really an achievable and realistic decision.

However, THE most common reason for why we sabotage our own wellbeing and happiness by not making all the changes which we KNOW will benefit us is quite simply because at some level we do not value, appreciate or love ourselves enough.

“Appreciation and love of yourself are the closest vibrational matches to Source Energy of anything we have witnessed anywhere in this Universe.”

Abraham-Hicks

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SLOW DOWN AND ENJOY CHRISTMAS

By Jenny Grainger

“SLOW DOWN AND ENJOY CHRISTMAS” say the traffic alert signs over the main motorways around Dublin at the moment.  Obviously the traffic authorities are using this as a road safety warning but, when I saw it, I was immediately struck by the other implications behind it.

With only 10 days until Christmas, the shops are full of frantic consumers bustling and stressing themselves out and spending trying to make everything perfect for the festive period, I just want to shout at them –

“SLOW DOWN AND ENJOY CHRISTMAS”.

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WHAT DO YOU WANT TO CREATE IN YOUR LIFE IN 2012?

by Jenny Grainger 

I write this on a mid-November day and I am sitting in my swimsuit enjoying the warmth of the Andalucian sun on my skin.  The sky is clear blue, the temperature is in the mid 20s, we have just had a delicious lunch on the patio and I am very, very happy.  What a contrast today is to yesterday when Co Down remained dark and the driving rain kept us indoors with the heating on at Chantry Hill all day.  And yet it was exactly this type of contrast which helped me to create today's experience of warmth and bliss.  

 How so?

For many, many years, as a dedicated sun-worshipper, I moaned and groaned about the weather on our little island and how wet and unpredictable it is.  Then, when I started to study and 'live' the Law of Attraction, I realised that this unhappiness or disatisfaction was telling me that what I really desired was to spend lots of time in a warm, reliable, bright climate.  I also recognised that I feel more energised, relaxed and full of well-being when I am in the sun.  I just

THE POWER OF NOW

by Eoin Scolard

Before I began to write this, I was looking at a blank page.  I like to look at life like that – as a blank page waiting for my input into it.  What will I write on this blank page?

Every moment of your life is effectively a blank page.  You get to choose what to write as you script your own life and your experiences of life.  The difficulty most of us have is that we’re not conscious enough to know this all the time.  And so we stumble through life as it brings us all kinds of experiences, some of which we have great difficulty with.  It appears as if someone else is writing on our blank page.  However, we can at least write up a heading on the page, can’t we?  Right now, your consciousness is focused on that heading, so right now you’re accessing the Power of Now.

Now gives you choice.  Being aware of the Now means you have infinite possibilities available to you.  You can at least begin to script the heading on the blank page that is in front of you.  Let’s imagine the page as the next 5 minutes.  What will you put down as the heading?  Make sure it is something that you can begin to sense with your inner body – that awareness that we being to touch when we drop deep within the Now.  So something like PEACE or TRUST or SURRENDER would be appropriate.  Notice your reaction, if any, to those words.  This is the beauty of the Power of Now – we can use it anytime to bring attention to the resistance or the defences of the entrenched opinions of the ego mind.  The ego mind cannot understand SURRENDER, it does not want PEACE and has no capacity to

SUCCESS and FAILURE

by Eoin Scolard

“If you can meet with success and failure,
And treat those two impostors just the same” 

Rudyard Kipling

When we think about success we also think about failure. That’s the way we operate sometimes – we tend to think in absolutes, in black and white. Yet in between black and white is a whole range of beautiful colours – oranges, greens, reds and blues just to start with. Add in pink, magenta, turquoise, indigo, yellow and we begin to see that life isn’t just black and white. Success and failure are like two ends of a beautiful rainbow too. Our lives are a rich

LESSONS FROM THE VEGETABLE PATCH

by Jenny Grainger

Yesterday I found myself enjoying the late Autumn sunshine as I joined Eoin to do some work in the large vegetable garden which we have here at Chantry Hill.  We have never grown our own vegetables before but the idea of doing so is one of the things which really attracted us to this house and we have great plans for all the lovely, nutritious things we are going to harvest next year.

But, before the winter sets in, our 'how to' book tells us that we must prepare the soil by digging it over and nourishing it then cover it over the winter.  So Eoin has been getting a great physical workout with all this preparation over recent days and yesterday I joined him to plant a few rows of garlic, shallots and onions which can go in now.

As I was planting I became aware that this process is very similar to the one which I take clients through with Life Coaching and with all the Law of Attraction coaching I do....

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We have just published this month's Irish School of Life Newsletter with articles on "Feel the Fear and Do It Anyway" and "Sabotage & War" as well as news of upcoming events and other inspirational stuff.  If you are not on our mailing list, you can click here to read it.  Enjoy!

FEEL THE FEAR AND DO IT ANYWAY!

by Jenny Grainger

What a month it has been!  I feel as if I am in the centre of a whirlwind at the moment and that my life has been sucked up by the storm and is whirling around at high speed around me.  One of my favourite phrases is that "The Universe loves speed" and, WOW, has that been proven to be right in the last 1o days or so.  I am in the middle of another period of huge change and upheaval and it is all happening really fast.  More information will follow when everything is finalised but, believe me, none of this was part of my preconceived idea of how my life 'should' be unfolding this year! 

However, my Vision Statement for the last few months has been very straightforward.....

"I am creating a simple, joyful, healthy life doing the work I love doing!"  

So I have been repeating this statement, following inspired action and surrendering more and more deeply to the organising intelligence that causes the sun to rise, the stars to come out, the seasons to change and me to evolve and grow.  And, trusting, trusting, trusting! 

A few years ago I was deeply impacted when I read a line from "A Course in Miracles" which says

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