Vote for Sarah On Britains Next Top Coach

I have always found it a bit difficult to promote myself. Its kind of interesting since most of my coaching work is about negative core beliefs and one of mine is "no one listens to me". Its interesting as nearly ALL negative core beliefs that we have about ourselves aren't true. They are ingrained into us since childhood. Thoughts such as "i am not good enough" "I am worthless" and so on and so forth.

So now is my chance to disprove my negative core belief or at least balance it. I have been shortlisted for a competition call Britains Next Top Coach which is all about inspiring a nation to become the best they can be.

So on that note I am going to ask all of you that read my blog to vote for me by listening to my coaching tip and Search for Sarah Strudwick. So hopefully I made myself clear in this blog post and I am beginning to prove that negative core beliefs are a load of old rubbish LOL and that we really can balance them when we put our mind to it.

And just to show I really am not talking rubbish heres a picture of me balancing all my negative core beliefs in mid air in Thailand during an enlightened meditative moment LOL. Or maybe it was just the camera shaking!!!!

Emotional Spring Cleaning



Many people make news years resolutions and we have a list as long as our arm of endless possibilities and goals we want to set ourselves.

Sometimes many of these goals are unachievable and can actually hold us back and bring more challenges. So before you set out on your new years resolutions for 2009 or at any point in your life. Before you can move forwards its worth considering how you ended up in the place where you are at this moment.

By taking the time to reflect on where you are right now it will give you the opportunity to face another year and leave behind all those things you do not wish to take with you. Sometimes you may have feelings or resentment that is holding you back and its good to have an emotional spring clean.

Emotional spring cleaning is all about cutting those energetic chords with those people and situations that have bound us in unhealthy ways so that we can find freedom. The act of emotional spring cleaning is all about coming to terms with any difficult experiences.

While a new year is a wonderful opportunity to start fresh, consider new possibilities and set goals, before turning your thoughts to a list of resolutions, you also need to look closely at the year that's just come to a close. Before you can move forward, you must consider what brought you here to this moment. By looking at where you are now, you can decide what you want to carry with you as you face another year and more importantly, you can decide what you want to leave behind.

Finding closure and coming to terms with difficult experiences, perhaps losing a loved on, losing a job or coming out of a difficult relationship can be challenging at the best of times. But its often after the event the energy of the situations keeps us stuck.

An exercise I find very rewarding is to write a letter. Either write it in person to the person who you feel has hurt you or if more appropriate write in and keep it in your diary or if it makes you feel better burn it especially if there is a lot of anger and pent up feelings you could not express towards that person.

Imagine you life as a story or a book or novel. That this letter you are writing is a chapter in your life that is over and finished. If you have been for example in a particularly unhappy relationship where you partner has cheated on you you might want to write something like the following: An example could be an ending paragraph such as : I will never ever look ever back again. I will never look over my shoulder. I walk forward now and walk my talk one step at a time. I will live my life with dignity and grace.”

Always end the letter on a positive note. “I know is that my past is past and over, and it includes you but it has provided me with a blueprint for my dreams and aspirations and I take all the lessons learned with me, Thank you”

Carrying bitterness and resentment with you in a very bad situation is not going to help you move forward at all. It will keep you energetically stuck.

Every time you have a mental conversation in your head with the person involved or you feel that an old limiting pattern is reappearing in your life say:
"This is the past for me, (or the past is over). My present reality is a wonderful, this chapter is over. I am writing myself a new book, film” or whatever. Be creative. Do what feels best and makes you feel inspired. The more positive emotion behind the mental conversation you have in your head the more likely it is to change your thought processes.

If you decide to see the person face to face, make sure you are in a secure place where you can have emotional closure. Do not meet them if you are angry or feel resentment use the writing method instead.

Remember that time heals all wounds and forgiveness is the key to healing.
If you have had major life challenges over the last year. If you are coming out of a very difficult relationship, perhaps you have been made redundant and there isn't much hope of a job in the immediate future, perhaps you have lost a family member through illness and bereavement. For the coming year. Take baby steps.

Final closure and emotional spring cleaning for 2008 can really help by reminding yourself that you are only human. Acknowledge yourself by giving yourself an affirmation. Not an over the top, out of reach affirmation that is totally unachievable but a realistic goal that you know you can achieve. Some examples could be:

I have not been good at relationships in the past, but I am learning how to do them better.

I am grieving over the loss of my mum/dad but I know that in time I will heal

I might not have a job right now but I will have a job soon. Things always turn around for me for the better.


In time you will find yourself moving towards more adventurous goals.

And while your at it start cleaning up the space around you. We all carry energy. Our bodies are not just made of purely physical matter they also vibrate with invisible energy and carry energic debris around that collects or hangs onto us.

Sage is a wonderful, although I tend to use a mixture of iranian herbs that was passed down from my ex mother in law. There many ways you can do energetic clearing and you can find lots of articles about space clearing or smudging on google. It helps to clear away and emotional and psychic energies that tend to hang around onto us and is a great way of spiritual spring cleaning too.

Find what feels comfortable for you.

and HAPPY 2009 to all my blog readers.

May you leave all your energetic and emotional past behind you and have a prosperous and spiritually fulfilling, healthy, happy new year.

Karma

I have been pondering all this week on this whole question of Karma. I recently got my computer hacked into.

I had been going a most horrible relationship which I finished quite some time ago and all the fingers were pointing at that person. All my work had been wiped off. Six months of writing. An album I had created and more. My initial reactions were anger and then of course the tears followed. I think the innter child in me was so upset that I hadn't been sensible enough to look after myself and back my work up.

Anyway a couple of visits to the local pc shop and many changing passwords etc, and recovering all my websites etc. I did some real soul searching. I started thinking to myself, If there is a universal force out there there is it our job to take our revenge on people for hurting us or can we trust that karmic debt be repaid one way or another.

I am not a buddhist but I am spiritual and believe there is a force far more powerful than ourselves that decides what is right and wrong.

Many religions believe in Karma. The thing is we have no control over when our karmic debts are likely to be called in.

Do they get called in immediately or do they come back later when we least expect them.

One of my friends was walking down the street the other day and nearly got run over by a woman driving up a one way street in the wrong direction. He was very angry and the verbal abuse he gave her caused a stir and invited the local traffic warden who wouldn't have normally noticed her to issue you with a ticket for hazardous driving. That is a perfect example of instant karma.

Having worked my way through a very difficult week and kept myself in a place of light and love I have trusted my intution and believe that sometimes we just have to trust. Know that is it is not our place to judge and that good things turn out . Its a bit like the whole yin yang thing whereby dark becomes light.

I went to see a healer friend right after it happened and saw a pheasant run across the road. The pheasant is a sign of the pheonix. Its about good coming out of bad. I realised this was a sign from the universe that my week was going to turn around for the better. Not the mention the whole of the coming new year.

Life as An Empath

Life as an Empath

I have always been empathic since I was a child.

It has only been in recent years that I have learnt to master the skills of being an empath.

As an acupuncturist I always found it very helpful when treating clients especially if they came with all kinds of emotional problems. Yet on the surface they were coming in with only physical ailments on the surface.

When I first trained as an acupuncturist 8 years ago. I had my first real empathic experience with a client. She came in with a number of ailments. She had cystitis, headaches, insomnia, tiredness, bad periods. She hardly ever spoke when she came into the clinic. I picked feelings of deep self hate and loathing and feelings of sexual abuse. I didn't confront her I just carried on treating her. Over a period of months she started to get better and better. Then one day she finally came in after all her symptoms had cleared up. She said that she had been sexually abused by her mother and that her whole life had changed as a result of the treatment. She said she no longer wanted to kill herself.

Recently I had another interesting empathic experience. I wrote a book about infidelity and had a women emailing me because someone had signed up for a newsletter with her email address. Each time they signed up and it was unconfirmed I would receive angry emails from her accusing me of signing her up without her permission. I picked up a lot of negative feelings and anger and gave her some helpful suggestions that would help her find the culprit. I even suggested a people make up false email addresses and the first name that came into my head was fred***@hotmail.com. When I emailed her she got angrier still saying perhaps there was something I knew that she didn't. It turned out her fiance was called fred and that the anger was coming from his ex girlfriend playing silly games trying to make out he was cheating on her.

I had another interesting experience that is just too spot on to write on here but it was about picking up on peoples subconscious fantasies and it proved to be right so I wont put any details because it would put the other person in a very embarrassing situation LOL.

The worst empathic experience I have had is with an ex partner. If you know anything about Narcissists then they draw energy from people to fill up the emptiness they feel inside. It was 3 years before I finally realised what was happening to me!. Although I did spend two years trying to break off from the relationship. I felt like the life force has been sucked out of me.

When I did finally wake up to the reality that all the unconscious feelings I had been feeling were a projection of their own feelings on me. I took steps to ensure that I never did not pick up such negative feelings again.

Relationships - Fantasy or Fiction

Relationships can be very taxing at the best of times. I am not just talking about romantic relationships they can be relationships with your family and friends to.

However romantic relationships are usually the most difficult based on our assumptions of what we "think" a relationship should be.

Having been in and out of difficult relationships in the past I realised very early on that its the law of attraction that gives us what we what. Our desires are based on our beliefs. An example would be that if we were bought up in a family where say our father was always cheating on our mother we may end up believing that all men are cheats. On the flip side of that we may also end up believing that that's how relationships should be done and that's all we deserve because that's what our parents did. The same goes for verbal and physical abuse. Often families repeat the same old patterns again and again based on our belief systems.

If we focus on what we don't want so much that is usually what we end up getting. Rather than focusing on what we would like in a relationship, we tend to focus on what we don't want. Relationships should be easy but when they become difficult its usually because they are "mirroring" whats going on with ourselves. When we start looking in the mirror we are either able to walk away from the relationship or change our behaviour accordingly.



So today was a prime example of how "mirroring" works and how you can manifest anything if you try hard enough with a little imagination and an even better storyline running through your head.





I have been single and happy for a couple of months now however I have been finding it difficult to start up a new relationship. In fact I am not even sure I want to be in a relationship with anyone right now. I still have some issues with past relationships I need to deal with. We have these stories that are played out in our heads that we should be be with a partner when in fact we are whole and complete on our own; but our mind tells us we should be we someone. I had come to the terms of being single for a few months when coincidence, or no such thing as coincidence LOL, bought the opportunity of a "possible" relationship onto my doorstep.

I had been talking to someone online that seemed to be really nice and they were supposed to call me to see whether we actually got on on the phone. Chatting online is a very common way to meet people I am reliably informed but it has its pitfalls since many people are attached or chatting on line for the wrong reasons, because of their egos or because they have nothing better to do.

I had been on a site where they do online tests and you had to sign up for an account to get your results and somehow this person and I just started up a conversation online. We had agreed to speak on the phone, however they did not trust me enough to give me their phone number so I ended up giving them mine instead. During the whole time while I was waiting for the call in the back of my mind based on past experience I was thinking to myself "I am not sure they are going to call me; my ex never used to phone when he promised; relationships are such hard work; I cant even be bothered and so the story continue" and at the end of the evening they did not call. I realised that no only had I manifested it perfectly with my thoughts I that I was not bothered in the least by them not calling me. More importantly I realised that it was not just their issue of not trusting me enough to give our their number, which was kind of weird anyway, but that I also had issues about trust myself. So I used the Sedona Method to release on issues of trust.

With regards to whether I actually wanted to be in a relationship or not I always try as best I can to follow my intuition using my IGS it was telling me that I didn't really trust this man anyway, plus my intuition has been telling me that I didn't want a relationship right now anyway. But my mind was telling me a whole different story.

As it turned out because of the work I do, the whole thing worked out perfectly, exactly as it should have done, and I am back to being in a place of being single and happy.

Relationships should flow. If you are "efforting" or trying to figure things out then there is a good chance you need to fix something in your own life before that person can change. Its far easier to blame someone else for not doing something and make it all their fault rather than look inside and make changes. Depending on the person its also far scarier to look inside.

I once read a quote which said:

"those that do not look within, go without"

However, I can assure you experientially that looking within, however scary it feels, realising your innate knowingness helps you move through life in a whole different way with ease and grace and will benefit you in all aspects of your life. By practicing being in tune with our own emotions and just being "present" and aware; and letting go of any unwanted baggage or "story" that pops up; You will find that everything starts to flow perfectly.

You also learn that you are whole and complete without the story or the baggage and you don't need a relationship to complete you or make you whole because you are already that. But to look at relationships as a gift. It takes courage for us to acknowledge that what we see in our relationship mirror is actually ourselves; that how we are feeling in that moment is being reflected not just by our partner, but in our world. Until we can change our attitude about anger, begin to trust in the loving compassion within our relationship and stop projecting our own insecurities and blame onto another person, we will ignore the mirror of relationship and not uncover the pain or hurt that we hold deep within.

If you would like more details about the Sedona Method of the IGS then please visit my website.

Depression

With so much news on the Internet, TV and Press about Anti Depressants being ineffective I thought I would add my own thoughts here. In addition I have pasted a couple of interesting links

Anti Depressants - little Effect


I come from a background of "depression" or whatever you want to call it. Being bought up with a mother that was depressed for most of her life. I went onto adulthood to become "depressed" as a teenager myself. I started taking medication at around 17 years old and spend most of my adult years on anti-depressants. Most of them either zonked me out or made me feel even worse than I did when I was not on them. The worst type of anti-depressant I tried was the new wonder drug called Prozac. I had had a bad time for a couple of weeks and friends and family had persuaded me to go and see the doctor. Three days after taking them I was having terrible panic attacks and feeling like I wanted to commit suicide. It was not the best week of my life and I decided to come off them immediately. Within days I was feel much better!

I started to research anti-depressants and their effectiveness partly as a result of lack of information given to my by my doctor and partly because I didn't actually believe they did much anyway. Its like they took the edge off what was happening but never really fixed it.

Shortly before the birth of my daughter, I made a decision to "change my mind" and never to take an anti depressant again. I also made a commitment to start looking at myself and find the cause of my depression rather than suppressing it. That was 18 years ago and I have never taken a tablet since.

When people talk about feelings then refer to themselves ad being the feeling for example when they are angry they say I AM angry. The same goes for depression. They say I AM depressed when in fact they just feel down, apathetic, unhappy, sad. Its just an emotional state like anything else.

Emotions are a part of who we are. They are constantly in our awareness. We feel happy, we feel sad, we feel angry, we feel lonely. By suppressing our emotions with the use of pills we never get to the route cause of our feelings.

Throughout my work as a therapist I have found that acupuncture helps immensely with both anxiety and depression by shifting ones energy and allowing the body to heal naturally. Meditation also helps to relax the body and switch off the mental chatter that goes on in the fore brain. Allowing us to think more clearly and positively.

In addition to this One of the best methods I have found to help with dealing with emotions is the Sedona Method. If you would like more details then please click on the link where you can pick up your free CD without obligation.

Free CD

You see the problem is that we suppress everything too much. We are so wrapped up in a society where we distract ourselves from our true essence. "Vegging" out watching the TV, Finding anything we can to distract yourself from feeling. Feeling is a natural state. There is always a reason why we feel something. If we are feeling depressed and sad its probably because there is something that has happened in our life that had triggered it off. Depression should not be suppressed it should either be dealt with not suppressed and treated as a gift because its the bodies way of telling you that there is something that needs dealing with.

The following article is very interesting and gives a whole different perspective.

Depression is good for you ?

If you would like more details about how I deal with depression with my clients then please visit my website www.noordinarylife.biz

My Trip to Thailand

I have just returned from a seven week trip to Thailand and India I am all excited about starting work again. Normally when I go away I have the post holiday blues but this time it was different. Today I thought I would set myself up a blog page to share some of my thoughts with old and new clients.

So here goes - My first blog

I had three wonderful weeks away with my family in Kao Lak before they had to return home to UK to school. I was a bit sad to see them go back with the usual worries of having a teenage daughter and a 12 year old that would be missing his mum while I was away. My trip away had been planned for a very long time . I am so grateful to my family for having the luxury of extending my visit longer. I was planning to do a foot massage course in Chang Mai and ended up doing learning it in Kao Lak instead. As always the universe always puts something better in your way if you only just look! So when the opportunity arose for me to spend a week in India clearing out some old “baggage” that needed dumping rather than going off to Laos to solve my visa problems, who was I to turn it down. So no sooner had my family flown back home there I was in Dehli staying with my new friend Victor Lyons who runs a project in India call Tara Akshar that provides literacy programmes for Indians.

Victor is a most unique person who is also a gifted photography and counsellor. Besides it has been many years since I visited Dehli and it is one of my favourite places. Despite all the poverty I always love visiting there and feel very humbled by my experiences. I have been there many times.

I had a wonderful week there albeit an emotional one clearing out bucket loads of junk and feeling about 3 stone lighter although I might add that it was not physical since I was eating like a horse LOL. Then I returned to Thailand on my own for a two more weeks of pure heaven where I stayed in a beach hut on the island of Koh Phangan. I met some wonderful new faces and did some work processing with the Sedona method with which I will write up a blog another time and then came home refreshed and relaxed.

When I returned home I had a whole lot of really BIG challenges to deal with that would have taxed even the most grounded person. When you see things in a different light its all about changing your perception. You see many years ago when I faced challenges I would see them as huge great big boulders that got in the way that I would use all my force and might to push, climb over, crack open. You name it I tried to do it! However life is not meant to be like that its like a river we are meant to flow upstream. There are always going to be rocks and boulders along the way but if you make yourself fluid and don’t fight them, then just like water things have a natural way of going around and finding their way again. So needless to say with a bit of calmness and “fluidity” all these so called big challenges have just seemed to disappear and resolve perfectly.

Talking of water it just reminded me of a story that Zen Debrucke told me about a man called Dr Emoto who was in What the Bleep and had done some experiments on water. As you can see from the pictures they are pretty interesting!. Whether or not you believe it got me thinking about how our thoughts affect us and since we are made up mostly of energy and water I started to sidetrack a little. I was looking at the heavy metal image which is certainly not my favourite music, and wondered what the picture look like if it was subjected to the kind of music I listen to a lot which is dance music or a nice meditation. Perhaps along with all the other things I do in my life thats one of the reasons I am so much calmer and happier these days because I have more beautiful images floating around my body. Visualisation is a great thing! Which then led me onto thinking about a very well known acupuncturist and healer called Barefoot doctor that I have the pleasure of meeting in a couple of weeks. He has diversified his talents somewhat over the years but you might want to check out his website www.barefootdoctorworld.com

And on that note and having checked that this blog actually works LOL which is short for (laughing out loud) feel free to subscribe to my blog and I will be posting again very shortly!

Sarah