(From Tim’s blog at www.touchingzero.com)

Last night I lost a friend and a mother. And the world lost another of its heroes, a beautiful, beautiful person that brought love and light wherever she went. Mum had been struggling to recover from a major stroke last Christmas that left her without speech, without the use of her right arm and unable to walk. Despite frustration and tears, despite her worry about how much memory she had lost, despite having to struggle to speak and to walk, despite various additional medical complications including being diagnosed as epileptic and diabetic, she never complained, and she never gave up. She carried on being worried about those around her, and about ‘being a bother’ to anyone. Her favourite word became ‘lovely’ as she was delighted by anything nice, from a vase of flowers to a lovely dinner. A second stroke last weekend left her immobile, and the end was really inevitable. My brother and I were at her side as she slipped away peacefully and slowly.

Mum was an infant school teacher, and her classes produced the highest numbers of people going off to university. I would attend her classes when I was off school myself, and help her hear reading. Her children and her staff adored her. I can remember the hours she spent marking books while listening to the TV – and still seemed to be able to spot ‘who did it’ before anyone else.

She had to draw her career to a close when in a bizarre accident she ran herself over days before her wedding to her second husband – my father having died the previous year. She was carried into the church and still looked beautiful. And I, bursting with pride, had the privilege of giving the bride away…

When she died, the hospital went quiet. The nurses had grown to love her dearly over the 8 months she had been at Daventry hospital, and they too felt the loss of an angel keenly, and wept with us.

She worried all the time about whether she had given us a good upbringing. I say take a look at me, take a look at my brother, take a look at my children and my brother’s children, and then decide whether she got it right. Her legacy lives on in the lives of all she touched – and especially in her children and grandchildren. She got it right.

For me she created a love of reading, of learning, and an ability to intuitively read people (and TV and movies… like her, I can usually spot whodunnit way before anyone else!). She taught me the secrets of how to make arithmetic easy, and how to remember my Russian alphabet. She taught me how do crosswords, and she shared her love for puzzles, and words, and the magic of exploring thought. She taught me how to love people. She taught me about relationships, about hope, about dreams.

We do sometimes wonder how she survived so long. She was a victim of the Austin Allegro steering fault, which meant she drove straight off the road into a field, totalling the car. She mistook the rev counter for the speedo and wonder why 30mph seemed so fast. She ran her self over (how?). She set fire to the kitchen (bigtime) while deep fat frying sausages (why?). She went blind at one point with cataracts. She made it through a major heart attack. My brother and I were pretty convinced that being near her would be the best way to survive nuclear war, simply because whatever happened, she would still be alive.

And so I am going to miss her, like I miss my Dad too. I’m going to miss her wisdom. I am going to miss her laughter, her joy, her indomitable spirit. I’m going to miss Boxing Day at hers, with sacks of carefully wrapped toothpaste, toilet rolls, soap, and surprises that she had collected over the year. I’m going to miss her smile, her hugs, her friendship.

But most of all, I will miss her love, her acceptance, and her support. Mum has stepped through onto the next step of her journey, another phase of her adventure. I can imagine St Peter tapping his watch impatiently, waiting for the guest of honour to attend her own homecoming party – but she was too busy looking after other people to turn up on time.

We will miss you, Mum… and we will treasure the memories – and what you have given us. The world has lost one of its great teachers. And now it’s time for me to step up now and share truth and promise, opportunity and possibility. In my way, for sure – but it’s time.

Mum, thankyou for everything. We all love you.

The world of Huna

For years I have been interested in the Hawai’ian shamanism of Huna, the traditional belief system of Hawai’i. Part of that has been the fact that many NLP trainers like me went on to look at Huna – largely because of its similarity to the NLP model of conscious – unconscious – superconscious minds. A more important part has been a calling to explore this tradition. I’ve been reading on the subject for a while, but also travelled to Austin, Texas, to hear Dr Joe Vitale speak about his experiences with Dr Iheakala Hew Len and the Hawai’ian practice of Ho’opono’pono – and then to spend a weekend in Cork with Dr Hew Len himself learning Ho’opono’pono first hand. And that in itself is a series of amazing stories!

So when I found out that Serge Kahili King, author of (amongst others) ‘Urban Shaman’ was in Tamworth (about 30 minutes down the road from me now!) I knew I had to go… partly because of a deep inner knowing.. and partly because if I hadn’t gone, my friend Jackie would have had something to say about it.

And it was like coming home. So much of Huna ‘made sense’ based on what I already knew – or could be integrated into my existing belief set. The idea that we are all one, the concepts surrounding energy, the importance of flow, all started to fit into place. I found I was automatically extending the concepts, building new processes and adapting others, coming to deeper understandings of my own model of life – and of power.

I discovered new models for workshops and courses appearing in front of me – new ways to teach what I had known for years but lacked a framework to explain. I found new healing pathways that made more sense, worked more effectively and were simpler than what I had been experiencing. I found gaps in what I understood being filled in. And I found myself connected to nature, to other people, to God and to the universe in a new way – without all the shamanistic trappings of other worlds, of drums, rattles, arcane belief systems and so on. (And if those things work for you, that’s great, really – it’s just that they never did work for me, somehow).

If you’re interested in Huna at all, then read ‘Urban Shaman’… but the best definition I found of shamanism was from that book:

“I define a shaman as a healer of relationships: between mind and body, between humans and nature, and between matter and spirit”. I also loved Serge’s distinction between the warrior shaman, based on development of power to deal with illness, fear and disharmony, and the adventurer shaman, including Huna, tends to deal with these things by creating love, co-operation and harmony. Those who know me well will understand exactly why Huna appeals so much as a pathway to healing.

So, expect more Huna stuff from me over the next few weeks as I integrate all this. I’m profoundly grateful to Serge and to Pete from Urban Huna who brought Serge over to the UK. For more, take a look at www.huna.org and www.urbanhuna.com.

From the wonderful poet Em Claire

Please do not regret
all those moments that have brought you
Here.
If you are reading this,
then your perseverance has been answered
and a Grace is coming.
So for now, hold on loosely to where you are.
And like knots on a rope that marks your reaching,
hand over hand
you will continue to climb
sometimes through ecstasy,
sometimes through white agony,
higher
into evermore light.
This same formula over
and over again
Until that day you find yourself
just a beacon
only flame.
In a place
where even Love Itself has come undone.

I’ve been working with personal transformative change for a number of years now – in fact, way back to when I was around 18 or 19, I suddently realised! I’ve worked as a Neuro-Linguistic Practitioner, as a Hypnotherapist, as a coach, as a trainer and speaker, as a Reiki practitioner, as well as working alongside people in conversational therapy and in a spiritual dimension as a spiritual guide and counsellor. I’ve also looked into many of the other energy psychologies such as Emotional Freedom Technique, as well as channelled guidance, programmes like Byron Katie’s “The Work” and a myriad of others.

And recently, I’ve been wondering what makes them work. Is there a common thread that runs through them all – something that links them? I’ve got some incredible results through using the tools such as NLP and hypnosis with some clients… and sometimes, it’s simply not happened, despite everything I have thrown into the pot, using every single technique I could think of.

And I was drawn back to my NLP Master practitioner course. On Master Practitioner events, everyone receives and then leads a personal breakthrough session lasting anything up to four hours, working intensively with one individual. My client had shared her story a couple of days earlier, and I knew I wanted to work with her… because I knew that if she could move through this, the transformation would be huge. And, I suspected, if I could lead her through this, I could lead anyone through anything!

Those four hours passed in a blur. I had to redesign processes while I was running them, as I spotted some of the weaknesses in what we’d been taught. I had to listen, to hold the space and the energy for this precious woman (who also happened to be pregnant at the time). After a while she just dissolved into tears, and I was left talking to a mane of hair, from which dripped a tear every now and again. And it worked. She made a significant breakthrough that day, which turned her life around. And at the end, I just slumped against the wall, completely drained. For four hours I had held a place of love and caring for her.

I’m not sure our trainer actually ‘got it’ at the end when I shared what had actually made it work for her.. which was, simply, that I had been prepared to step beyond the process, the learning, the technique, beyond any performance anxiety, beyond any desire to ‘get it right’ – and simply to love her. To care enough to be there with her.

And that’s what’s worked. As it always does. Loving someone enough to do something. Anything. It might be just to listen. It might be to work with universal energy through EFT. It might be some conversational therapy technique like NLP or hypnosis. It might be just to hold someone’s hand – like I did with my mother, suffering from a stroke, who found the pain in her arm receding as I simply loved her.

And I am pretty convinced that when I hold a space of love for someone, when I am prepared to weep with them – then things happen. And when I’m just going through the motions…. it doesn’t.

I’ve watched people like Neale Donald Walsch simply hold a conversation with someone.. and then gently, with love, allow that person to step outside of the story that had been holding them back – and simply through holding a space of love for them…. enable them to heal.

So for me, the techniques we use be it ‘weird shit’ like crystal therapy, meridian work, reflexology, reiki, good ol’ fashioned prayer and so on, or ’scientific’ methodologies like NLP, CBT, Clean Language, counselling, “The Work” are all predicated on one thing – Love. And where Love is present, then miracles happen. Change happens. Healing takes place. Lives are changed. And people learn more of Who They Truly Are.

And that, I guess, is what I do. That, I guess, is the magic.

A while back I got really interested in the idea of mytic archetypes – the thought that many of our behaviours, our beliefs, our truths, can be represented in the stories that we tell, the great heroes that we create. In fact, Marianne Williamson suggests that if we want to find out our core truth, we should look at the stories we loved when we were younger – because hidden in those stories are the deepest desires of our heart.

Carol Pearson in her book “Awakening The Heroes Within” lists 12 archetypes, or models, that we might find in our lives. This is a deepening of the work of Carl Jung. We tend to move through these as we grow in life, and find them at key points in our lives – for example the arrivial of the Seeker – Destroyer – Creator combination in our late 30s to early 40s. What’s more, we find that there may well be one or two recurring themes running through our lives – someone whose life is modelled on Caregiver or Warrior, for example.

Carol’s 12 are:

Preparation:
Innocent
Orphan
Warrior
Caregiver

Journey:
Seeker
Lover
Destroyer
Creator

Return:
Magician
Ruler
Sage
Fool

Having got to where I am in life, and having experienced what I have experienced – i find myself at the point of stepping into ‘The Return’ with the principal archetypes running in my life being the Magician, the Ruler, the Sage, and the Fool….

In particular I was struck by the stories associated with these archetypes:

Ruler: Is wounded and kingdom is a wasteland; takes responsibility for kingdom and own woundedness; kingdom is restored to fertility, harmony, and peace.

Magician: Overcomes debilitating illness; through healing and transforming self, learns to heal and transform others; experiences destructive effects of hubris or insecurity; learns to align will with that of universe.

Sage: Seeks truth through losing self; recognizes own subjectivity; affirms that subjectivity; experiences transcendent truth.

Fool: lives for pleasure but without rootedness in self, community, or cosmos; learns to commit and bond with people, nature, universe; is able to trust the process and live in harmony with universe; finds joy.

For those who are close to me, they will see those stories played out in my life, and as I find myself drawing on the inner power of those archetypes, I find myself taking responsibility, and as I align myself and my desires with those of the Universal power, I see myself transforming lives through wisdom – while never taking myself seriously enough to forget where I came from – and to step into love and joy.

In particular, I find myself drawn to the stories of the Magician and the Ruler – of Merlin and Arthur: combining the power of the ruler with the spark and surprise of the magician.

So, I find myself moving through life in a new way, a way of power, yet recognising some of those that have gone before me, and on whose truths I build my own. And I am humbled.. and excited to be on that journey.

For those of you interested, I have posted the rest of Ruler-Magician-Sage-Fool at www.heartstorm.org/docs/TheReturn.pdf. I often use the Mythic Archetypes in my work, and do a personality analysis based on much of this work with my private clients. This really helps them get in touch with their aspirations, their dreams, and their core truth.

I’m not a great fan of poetry… but something about Em Claire’s poetry touches my soul every time I read it. This is one of her contributions to Neale Donald Walsch’s book ‘When Everything Changes, Change Everything’. (Neale is her husband).

You can find more at www.emclairepoetry.com

Do not pretend that The Longing
has not also lived in You,
swinging, like a pendulum.
You have been lost,
and thieved like a criminal
Your Heart
into the darkness.
But life is tired, Deep Friend,
of going on
without You.
It is like the hand of the mother
who has lost the child.
And if You are anything like me, You have been afraid.
And if You are anything like me,
You have known your own courage.
There is room in this boat:
take Your seat.
Take up Your paddle, and all of us
- All of Us -
shall row our hearts
back

Home.

‘The Longing’ – Em Claire
©2005 – All Rights Reserved

One of my favourite books is ‘A Return to Love’ by Marianne Williamson. This is the book that contains the quote that is often attributed to Nelson Mandela:

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others”

Marianne is a student of ‘A Course In Miracles’ – which I have never managed to get into, but this is a real simplification of the key precepts from that work.

I love her book, and even if you don’t believe in God, it’s worth reading. What would the world be like if we actually dared to live like this. The chapter on relationships is amazing – and the one on work has been transformational as I consider who I am and why I am here. Here are some excerpts from that chapter….

Work – Marianne Williamson

Success means that we go to sleep at night knowing that our talents and abilities were used in a way that served others. We’re compensated by grateful looks in people’s eyes, whatever material abundance supports us in performing joyfully and at high energy, and the magnificent feeling that we did our bit today to save the world.

Put love first. You are in business to spread love. My real job is to love the world back to health.

When I do anything, how should I do it – “Kindly”

Avoid self initiated plans and instead surrender our plans to God

“Dear God, please give my life some sense of purpose. Use me as an instrument of your peace. Use my talents and abilities to spread love. I surrender my job to you. Help me to remember that my real job is to love the world. Amen”

“Where would you have me go? What would you have me do? What would you have me say, and to whom?”

Don’t ask God to send me a brilliant career, but rather ask him to show me the brilliance that is within me.

Once an internal stirring has occurred, external effects cannot fail to happen. We’re all capable of an internal stirring – we are coded for it. Achievement doesn’t come from what we do, but from who we are. Our worldly power results from our personal power. Miracles flow from the recognition that love is the purpose of our careers.

By touching my own depths, I touch the depths within others.

Instead of expanding my ability or willingness to go out and get anything, I expand my ability to receive what is already here for me.

Personal power emanates from someone who takes life seriously.

As I give my life to God, then things start coming together.

Even if I don’t yet consider myself successful, I can devote my work now to being used in the service of the healing of the world – and from that point of power, my career will take off.

When I fully live up to the opportunity to heal, then I achieve an energy that pushes me forward in worldly endeavours. Love makes me more attractive.

My power is a result of my decision to reveal it. I am powerful in whatever moment I choose to be.

It is guarding against our experience of who we really are, the brilliance of expressing it, and the joy that the expression brings to ourselves and others.

I don’t need to walk out on stage and make people feel I am special, because I am not. If the purpose of my career is to channel God’s love, then I’m only there to open my heart, open my brain and open my mouth. Don’t try to figure out my message, just ask God what he would have me say. Step back and let him lead the way.

If I wait for the world’s permission to shine, I will never receive it.

Do what I love – and never do it for the money. Do what makes my heart sing. Go to work to spread joy. Channel his love into the world.

We are poor because we do not work with love. God wants me to have whatever material support contributes to my greatest happiness.

Ask for a miracle. Miracles are everyone’s right but purification is necessary first. Purity of heart creates breakthroughs.

“Dear God, I surrender to you all my thoughts about money, I surrender to you my debts, I surrender to you my wealth. Open my mind to receive abundantly. Channel your abundance through me in a way that serves the world. Amen”

Our life is meant to be a story that mysteriously writes itself. Our purpose in this earth is to be happy.

“God, please use me” is the most powerful affirmation we can say for an abundant career.

When my energy is applied in the direction of co-creating with God, of a willingness to supply love where there was none before, new energy bursts forth from deep within.

Child of God, you were created to create the good, the beautiful and the holy. Do not forget this.

There’s only one work going on in God’s world, and that’s the preparation of his teachers, those who demonstrate love.

Don’t try and figure out your message, just ask God what He would have you say. Step back and let Him lead the way.

When we are motivated by the desire to serve, we are looking out for others. There is no more powerful motivation than to feel we’re being used in the creation of a world where love has healed all wounds. Be inspired by the vision of a healed world.

“I’ll do this because it serves, even if I’m not paid” is a very high beam. It says to the Universe that you must be very serious. And when you get serious about the Universe, the Universe gets serious about you.

Our willingness to give directs the universe to give to us.

Make peace your only goal. God is the only goal I have today.

Living out of my vision is more powerful than living out of my circumstances.

A friend of mine asked me the other day why I’d called my web site ‘HeartStorm’. It was a good question – and the short answer is ‘because I felt led to’. It seemed, somehow, that that’s what I was being asked to create – and that through that name, something would arise.

I’ve always loved the power of the storm- sometimes a storm is full of power, and passion, full of fury, and danger – and sometimes it is, as my wonderful friend Heather put it “It feels as if it’s kissing and caressing me with change, affection and warm good fortune. It’s invigorating and lovely as it strokes and touches. It protects and also challenges. It is an intelligent, suggestive and tempestuous wind that won’t suffer fools gladly and which loves a good challenge and fight. It can hurt but it also cares. It puts its heart into every gust and with its warmth it refreshes and reinvigorates.”

And yet for many of us we find ourselves in the midst of a turbulent storm. Everything seems to be changing around us. We seem to be at the mercy of the elements – of financial pressure, emotional pressure, of uncertainty over our jobs, our relationships, our homes, our livelihoods. Change is happening at an unprecedented rate. The things we held on to seem to be torn away – just like a tornado will tear a town to shreds.

What is our response to be in the midst of this turmoil? When our minds are occupied with what might happen, when all we can see is the potential for disaster?

The answer is inside us… in our hearts. You see, our hearts have a bigger connection. They see the world, and they see our lives, but they are also the gateway to infinity, connecting us to an infinite resource that is bigger than any earthbound challenge that may be thrown at us. Somewhere at the core of who we are we know this… somewhere we know the immensity of the connection that our hearts provide.

As I was thinking and meditating this morning I could actually see this – almost as if my heart opened up and revealed a connection into the totality of the Universe. And at that point I started to begin to see a little bit more of who I am.. not just this mind and this body, but this infinite being, connected to everything… and everyone.

So HeartStorm is about reminding us that there is a place of peace in the middle of the storm… right at the centre, in the middle of the maelstrom, there is a place of safety, where we can be certain, where we can know that we are bigger than anything that this world can throw at us. In the heart of the storm.. there is safety. And yet there is movement, vibrancy, life, transition, change…

I want to use HeartStorm to bring peace. Peace in people’s hearts, peace in their lives, peace in the world. Not because nothing changes, not because all is calm… but because the storm rages, we can know , absolutely, that we are loved, we are cared for, we are protected.

You can see more at www.heartstorm.org (but don’t try and buy anything yet.. the links don’t work!)

Today, I was supposed to be running a relationship event for people who wanted to look at taking back their personal power in their relationships.. Which, sadly, got cancelled. But it has given me chance to think about independence…and that may have been the real cosmic reason for organising the event in the first place.

On 1st July this year I started to look at some of the things that I wanted to achieve in the second half of the year, and what actions I would need to take towards them. And yet it seemed like more than that for me – it seemed like a new beginning – a chance to let go of what had been in order to step into something new.

I took some decisions – to decide to move into my own personal power – to reveal more of ‘who I am’ so that others will have the power to step into more of who they are. So that others can live the dream – so that others can marvel at the wonder of Who They Truly Are.

I sensed that I needed to start to make every moment count – to let every moment reflect my reason for being alive.

The United States of America chose to DECLARE their independence – in the face of history, in the face of world opposition, in the face of everything that HAD been, they chose to make a new future – to create a new beginning.

And in the end, this morning I realised that this was a day to declare my independence . . .

Freedom from fear
Freedom from the need to be right
Freedom to love others
Freedom from financial insecurity
Freedom to believe
Freedom to build my own truth
Freedom to live where I want
Freedom to choose to be in love
Freedom to be myself
Freedom to be happy and joyful
Freedom to follow God wherever God takes me
Freedom to let life unfurl me across the Universe
Freedom to lead people
Freedom to live an exciting life
Freedom from my own expectations
Freedom from the expectation of others
Freedom to allow God to reveal truth to me
Freedom to pick myself up and start again
Freedom to think for myself
Freedom to hold any dream I want
Freedom to do something – or not to do it
Freedom from the need to fit in

We do get to choose, you know. Not to decide is to decide – the very act of not deciding is, in itself, a decision. We are where we are because we have chosen to be there – in our hands lies the power to change what’s true for us.

So what will you declare today? What will YOUR statement of independence be? Where will YOU choose the freedom and liberation that is yours by right as a child of God? Where will you choose to step into possibility – and write your own future?

THE GENTLE ART OF BLESSING
by Pierre Pradervand

On awakening, bless this day, for it is already full of unseen good which your blessings will call forth; for to bless is to acknowledge the unlimited good that is embedded in the very texture of the universe and awaiting each and all.

On passing people in the street, on the bus, in places of work and play, bless them. The peace of your blessing will accompany them on their way and the aura of its gentle fragrance will be a light to their path.

On meeting and talking to people, bless them in their health, their work, their joy, their relationships to God, themselves, and others. Bless them in their abundance, their finances…bless them in every conceivable way, for such blessings not only sow seeds of healing but one day will spring forth as flowers of joy in the waste places of your own life.

As you walk, bless the city in which you live, its government and teachers, its nurses and streetsweepers, its children and bankers, its priests and prostitutes. The minute anyone expresses the least aggression or unkindness to you, respond with a blessing: bless them totally, sincerely, joyfully, for such blessings are a shield which protects them from the ignorance of their misdeed, and deflects the arrow that was aimed at you..

To bless means to wish, unconditionally, total, unrestricted good for others and events from the deepest wellspring in the innermost chamber of your heart: it means to hallow, to hold in reverence, to behold with utter awe that which is always a gift from the Creator. He who is hallowed by your blessing is set aside, consecrated, holy, whole. To bless is yet to invoke divine care upon, to think or speak gratefully for, to confer happiness upon – although we ourselves are never the bestower, but simply the joyfull witnesses of Life’s abundance.

To bless all without discrimination of any sort is the ultimate form of giving, because those you bless will never know from whence came the sudden ray of sun that burst through the clouds of their skies, and you will rarely be a witness to the sunlight in their lives.

When something goes completely askew in your day, some unexpected event knocks down your plans and you too also, burst into blessing: for life is teaching you a lesson, and the very event you believe to be unwanted, you yourself called forth, so as to learn the lesson you might balk against were you not to bless it. Trials are blessings in disguise, and hosts of angels follow in their path.

To bless is to acknowledge the omnipresent, universal beauty hidden to material eyes; it is to activate that law of attraction which, from the furthest reaches of the universe, will bring into your life exactly what you need to experience and enjoy.

When you pass a prison, mentally bless its inmates in their innocence and freedom, their gentleness, pure essence and unconditional forgiveness; for one can only be prisoner of one’s self-image, and a free man can walk unshackled in the courtyard of a jail, just as citizens of countries where freedom reigns can be prisoners when fear lurks in their thoughts.

When you pass a hospital, bless its patients in their present wholeness, for even in their suffering, this wholeness awaits in them to be discovered. When your eyes behold a man in tears, or seemingly broken by life, bless him in his vitality and joy: for the material senses present but the inverted image of the ultimate splendor and perfection which only the inner eye beholds.

It is impossible to bless and to judge at the same time. So hold constantly as a deep, hallowed, intoned thought that desire to bless, for truly then shall you become a peacemaker, and one day you shall, everywhere, behold the very face of God.

And of course, above all, don’t forget to bless the utterly beautiful person YOU are!