Over recent months the universe has brought me a new challenge to deal with – and it brought up an old wound for me – powerlessness, helplessness. At first I didn’t welcome it. It felt “horrible” - so I denied it. I was “ASHAMED” of this feeling. I didn’t want to feel it - so I tried harder. That didn’t work ! So in my mind I blamed other people. That didn’t work either – it simply made me feel even more powerless ! I went through some of the common avoidance techniques we all use when we connect with feelings that we are ashamed to feel. We either disperse the shame and the powerlessness by blaming others ( turning it inwards and feeling victimised ) or we get very very busy and try to deny it. We try to stop feeling it, we try to numb the pain somehow, we “eat it” down, we “drink it” down, we “medicate it” down and we even try to “meditate it” down !
We either stiffen our resolve and tense up or we deny it and hold our breath. Anything but FEEL it !
 The last thing we want to do is to BREATHE into it – so we tense up our muscles and shorten our breathing – usually unconsciously. This tension inhibits the experience of emotion and provides an illusion of invulnerability – and we feel a bit more powerful because we have “MANNED UP”! But actually what we are doing is – we are NUMBING OUT, feeling less and less - and thus stopping the flow of aliveness that is the true source of our power.
However ( eventually! ) I began to see it as a gift and I did “BREATHE into it. What I mean by that is that I welcomed it as a friend and began to explore what it had to offer me. Every time I felt powerless I welcomed it and used all the techniques at my disposal to explore it as deeply as I could.  It led me into self-doubt, into anger, into old wounds in the Irish psyche, into comparison, into belief in lack – and eventually into acceptance. Eventually I began to see that my self image was unimportant – what was really important was how I felt about myself. Nothing else mattered.
For most people I have worked with over the years, resisting emotional pain is deeply entrenched. Somehow we are ashamed to feel these emotions. And this is what robs us of our authentic power - SHAME. Deep down we just don’t feel good enough about ourselves. While many people may appear “powerful” to you, they may just be feeding an image of power that has to be nourished by others. This image is built up by doing more and more, by more accomplishments, by anything at all that will feed the illusion of power for them – because they don’t have any concept of personal power without the approval of others, or the opinion of what society terms as “successful”. Deep down, at their core, they are ashamed to be themselves “warts and all” . They believe that they are what they do, or that they are what they have. They become attached to illusions. People like this often have big personalities, dominating wills and entrenched opinions. They are very very busy and will possibly burn-out from adrenal fatigue or breakdown. The values of compassion, patience and self-



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As I write this article, the thermometer on the wall behind me is telling me that it is 33° in the shade and although there is quite a strong breeze blowing through the valley and I am under cover of a jasmine-laden pergola, it is HOT! By now you will have guessed that I am neither in Belfast or Dublin but in the paradise which we lovingly refer to as the ‘Funky Finca’ which is nestled in an olive lined valley high up in the mountains in Andalucía.

My partner, Eoin, and I are here enjoying a 10 day retreat. And when I say retreat, I mean retreat! Hardly any human contact, no internet, no television, no newspapers….just the odd phone chat with our daughters to get exam updates from them. Our days are filled with much needed practical tasks around the property (strimming, scrubbing, gardening, painting) liberally mixed with a great deal of reading, meditation, discussion, writing and swimming in the river which runs through the valley. This might seem like some people’s holiday from hell (no bars, night-clubs, shops etc) but we truly feel like we are in paradise when we are here. The peace, space and change of routine allow us to open up our minds to new possibilities and to do a little mental and spiritual spring cleaning – letting go of some old thinking, beliefs and patterns which can sneak up on us and keep us a bit ‘stuck’ in how we approach life. Being in such a beautiful, unspoilt setting really helps this process of weeding out the old deadwood (mentally, emotionally and spiritually) and making space and energy for new growth.

It is only 5 weeks since I was last here and yet when we arrived we literally could hardly get down the ‘driveway’ - a posh term for the dirt track that leads us down the valley and over the makeshift concrete bridge onto the farm! The track which had been strimmed back completely in April had all but disappeared amidst a forest of weeds, grasses, wild flowers and the odd self-planted sapling. The amount of growth in such a short space of time is just phenomenal .

The trees are heavily laden with a variety of flowers and loads of fruit which is starting to ripen under the hot summer sun. The swallows, cuckoos, woodpeckers, buzzards and a strange bright yellow bird nesting in the tree in beside the house are all very busy tending to their new young. When you walk along the river bank there is a constant ‘plop plop’ sound as frog after frog dive into the river for cover and yesterday I was fortunate enough to see two tortoises flowing down in search of the sanctuary of a shady bank. The place is literally heaving with life, beauty and is totally abundant and it has all happened with very little input from us. Nature has done it all, effortlessly and perfectly, just as it created you, effortlessly and perfectly.

As I have been wandering around the land here taking photographs and standing in awe of

LEARNING FROM THE HARD TIMES

by Jenny Grainger

In 2008 my mother died, my relationship of 10 years ended, I lost all the equity in my house, my only child decided she wanted to leave home to go to boarding school and I turned 40.  It was a hell of a year and one that challenged me in many ways but also one which taught me more than I ever believed it was possible to learn in just 12 months.

Since I had been focusing on my own personal and spiritual development for the 5 years or so prior to this, I tried to see the events of 2008 from a wider perspective and tried to understand what all these seemingly huge events were here to teach me about myself, life, the world and the universe.  As an avid believer in the Law of Attraction and someone who now spends much of her life teaching this spiritual philosophy to others, I understood in 2008 that, at some level, I was creating or attracting all these apparently unwanted events.  I started to ask myself more and more questions and gradually, as I meditated every day, I began to see how everything that was happening to me was actually perfect and exactly what I had been asking the Universe for over the course of several years.  I just hadn’t expected it to pan out quite the way it did.  And, herein lies one of the real teachings of that year for me…….the Law of Attraction is working all the time and we are all creating all the time whether we are doing so consciously or unconsciously.  Even though I believed that I had been living more and more consciously, most of what manifested in my life in 2008 had actually been created through my unconscious thoughts and desires from the past.  What you are living now is a direct result of your past thoughts and what you are thinking and focusing on NOW is creating your future.

Of course consciously I hadn’t wanted my mother to die but I had been asking to be mortgage-free and the inheritance which I received from her allowed that to happen. Read More

The Secrets to Manifestation

 by Eoin Scolard
 
WHICH WOULD YOU PREFER?
 
POSSESSIONS - OR TRUST ?
CONTROL - OR FREEDOM ?
FEAR - OR LOVE ?
  
Your ego tells you that you need things. It is this very energy -  of need, of grasping - that keeps us from the simple secrets of manifestation. You “need” money, possessions, the perfect relationship. You “need” the future to be assured. You “need” to know that everything is under control – your control ! Now I’m not saying that there’s anything wrong with these wonderful things, not at all. But if we create them with an underlying “needy” or “grasping” energy, then we are still suffering. And then the ego plays its biggest trick – it tells you that this is untrue, that you don't create your own suffering. (It’s the world’s fault, or someone else’s fault.) Why would the ego do that ?  Because in doing that, it also DENIES YOUR POWER to create your own experience.
 
The problems of the world, which of course are created by the people in it (me and you!),  is that it has been ruled by the ego. “The ego’s mantra is ‘What’s in it for me? How can I get more – whether its more power or more money or more love – because ultimately the ego believes that you are “not enough” . So you need more to “complete” yourself, and of course, you never have enough. The belief that you need more infects everyone in our society – even the most “powerful” and the most “wealthy”.  This is the lie that the ego, or the false self, spreads – that in some way “you are defective” and that the way to cure that

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by Jenny Grainger

It is Monday morning and I am writing this in the comfort of our peaceful, spacious and light-filled bedroom which is one of my favourite places in the world!  There is soft music playing in the background, I have a scented candle lit beside me and, from my beautiful writing desk, I am watching the trees blowing in the strong winds.  As I was sitting here a few moments ago waiting for inspiration to flow, I was experiencing deep gratitude for the amazing change in my personal circumstances compared to a few years ago.

Like many people reading this, I used to dread Monday mornings as I faced the rush of getting my daughter out to school and the busy-ness of the week ahead doing a job which stretched and stressed me.  I remember that I used to experience insomnia most Sunday nights as my mind started to run through the endless 'to do list' for the week ahead.

As I started to make the move from being an employee to being self-employed, I made a conscious decision to change my Monday mornings and to avoid making work commitments with other people so that I could ease my way into the week.  I started attending one of Julie Preston's superb