They say gratitude is the best attitude. If you’re not feeling happy or positive, sometimes it can be difficult to feel grateful yet gratitude is the way out of a funk. It’s helpful to understand the neuroscience behind it.

According to UCLA’s Mindfulness Awareness Research Centre, regularly expressing gratitude literally changes the molecular structure of the brain, keeps the grey matter functioning and makes us healthier and happier. When you feel happiness, the central nervous system is affected. You are more peaceful, less reactive, and less resistant. And gratitude is the most effective practice for stimulating feelings of happiness.

Thich Nhat Hanh is a global spiritual leader, Vietnamese Buddhist monk, poet and peace activist who has a Mindfulness Practice Centre in France called Plum Village. Some of his wisdom:

“It is possible to live happily in the here and now. So many conditions of happiness are available – more than enough for you to be happy right now. You don’t have to run into the future to get more.”

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I see many people unhappy because they are out of touch with their own values. We live confidently when we live our values because they are our inner guidance system.

Knowing the difference between your beliefs and values can be a little confusing. People use both to guide their actions & behaviours and to form their attitudes towards things, but they are essentially different.

Beliefs are convictions that we generally hold to be true. usually without actual proof or evidence – they are a matter of faith.

We tend to be more aware of our beliefs then we are of our values. Values on the other hand are our moral code, our standards and from my point of view, so much more important than beliefs because our values are our beacon on the road of life. Whereas beliefs will change.

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I took a long walk this morning on a popular track here on my home island of Jersey. It was a beautiful sunny day at just the right temperature for walking so I wasn’t the only one who decided to do this lovely walk. There were a number of people, old and young, and lots and lots of dogs.

There was an eclectic mix of trees and flowers along the way. One man commented to me on the bamboo – he was surprised that it hadn’t become predominant as bamboo has a tendency to takeover. In addition to the beauty of nature, curiously, I noticed that many people could not look me in the eye as they passed by. I said hello to virtually everyone I passed except those who looked too frightened to entertain such an exchange with their eyes swiftly darting to the ground as I approached.

It’s nothing new that some lack the confidence to look another in the eye, yet I find the extent of this action as somewhat of a cultural thing. And the culture we grow up in has a lot to do with how we think and behave.

Consider the tradition in India of Namaskar or Namaste.

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A very common limiting belief is being concerned about what other people think of us.   And, it’s completely understandable if one considers the work of Mr. Michael Solomon. His PHD work at the Business School of New York University suggested that when we meet someone else we make 11 decisions about a person in 7 seconds.

Here is what we guesstimate:

• How rich or poor we are
• How intelligent we are
• How honest and/or credible we are
• How much we can be trusted
• Level of sophistication
• Gender, sexual orientation, desirability and availability
• Level of success
• Political background
• Value orientation
• Ethnic origin
• Social desirability

As soon as we meet a person, we rush to judgement based on what we see. And that is why we so often get it wrong. I have found this to be true because I know I’ve initially met people in the past that I didn’t think I liked and later we became fast friends.

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I have noticed that most people who I attract as clients are going through a life transition. Life is ever evolving and full of change yet some changes are much more impactful – graduation, moving country, divorce, changing jobs/redundancy, health issues, retirement, death of a loved one, etc. These times our stress level tends to rise and doubt can creep into our minds.

When we are at a major crossroads, we typically want to ensure we choose the right path. When we are in doubt, we find ourselves uncertain as to the ‘best’ road to take. We may even find ourselves uncertain as to what we want. And what we want will change over time. We may doubt our choices. Having been so caught up in a way of being we often don’t question our thoughts or choices but when the world that we knew is no longer there, these can be times of high anxiety as we grapple with the new.

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Are you a perfectionist? If so, chances are you’re making your life harder than it has to be. Perfectionism is not the same as striving to be your best. It’s not healthy because we push ourselves beyond sensible limits resulting in anxiety.

According to Wikipedia: “Perfectionism, in psychology, is a personality trait characterized by a person’s striving for flawlessness and setting high performance standards, accompanied by critical self- evaluations and concerns regarding others’ evaluations.”

People with self-critical perfectionist tendencies are intimated by their own high standards and may feel they can’t reach their own goals. And that’s when negative self-talk creeps in and we hear the voice in our head saying things like, “I’m not good enough” – which is a very common thought, unfortunately.

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The subject of this month’s blog is phobias.   As I write, I am presently on my annual ski pilgrimage in Whistler, Canada enjoying a lovely ski holiday and remain grateful that I no longer suffer from the debilitating phobia I used to have with ski gondolas.

Yes, I said ski gondolas! What?!

I have been skiing since I was a teenager. I never gave being transported up the mountain in a gondola a second thought and then, BAM, one day in my late 30’s, I found myself terrified inside the gondola. I felt as though I was trapped. I began to have heart palpitations, my palms began to sweat and I had butterflies in my stomach, I was engrossed in panic.

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I forgot my eyebrow tweezers and there isn’t a lick of make-up in sight on my face. The roots of my hair are in full view for the world to see and who cares? Certainly not me. I find the vacation spa experience liberating.

I am writing my blog from a gorgeous wellness sanctuary in Koh Samui, Thailand. It’s humid as hell here because it has rained hard off and on, in that magical sort of way rain falls in the tropics. A deluge rather than a downpour. I have never minded rain in the tropics because I love to swim in the warm rain and so I have. I’ve been swimming a lot, every day in fact, sometimes twice a day.

And for those of you who read my last blog, you know I have come here to restore my body because I’ve been suffering from adrenal fatigue. From my perspective one of the best things to do to restore one’s mind and body is to do the things that we love and leave all of the ‘should’s’ to the side.   Happily in this wellness sanctuary there is nothing that I should be doing.

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Following on from  February’s blog I received a lovely comment from Gary, a lawyer in San Francisco.

“Wow, Pam, powerful and interesting.  Still ‘striving to achieve’ and have to learn to give myself permission to break that pattern.  Thank you for sharing.” – Gary

I spent the Christmas holidays touring the pyramids in Cairo and temples of the Nile Valley in Egypt. It was a jam-packed schedule and one I wouldn’t want to repeat any time soon. As a result, I didn’t write a blog in January. I haven’t missed a month since I started blogging so I had a twinge of guilt and then decided that it’s okay to miss a blog now and then. After all, who’s counting other than me?

After a lifetime of pushing myself to do more, be more, I have decided to relax about it all. I have nothing left to prove. I’m in the enviable spot of not having to answer to anyone other than me, myself and I and she’s given up being a taskmaster. :>) I’ve known this is something I have needed to do for some time but it’s one thing to know something intellectually and quite another to KNOW it deep down in one’s heart.

Now in my heart of hearts, I’m choosing to break yet another pattern, as it’s no longer serving me. The pattern is ‘striving to achieve’. And I’m embracing the pattern of loving myself unconditionally, quirks and all.

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