Making a Difference

I have wanted to write this “story” for nearly a year now but what held me back was the fear that by writing it I would be deemed to blow my own trumpet! That feeling is still here to a certain extent and as I am writing this I am still undecided as to whether or not I should post it.

the point of the story  has nothing to do with blowing my own trumpet but instead one of the most important lessons in my life.  A lesson about helping another human being during a time where I could have so easily dismissed her as wasting my time.

In my job I generally have 2 – 5 clients coming to see me every day. Most of them I have never met before, some of them I know and some have become wonderful friends. This particular lady came to me hoping to reduce her payments on her mortgage as 18 months previously she had contracted cancer and as a result had no other option than to take some time off work while going through treatment. My first instinct was that I could probably reduce her payments by a meager £30 per month and I wanted to do better than that because I felt she deserved it (not sure at what point I appointed myself the judge of who deserves what!!)

It may be worth mentioning that my job unfortunately involves having a “sales target” (those 2 words put together always makes me cringe) and that the time spent with her would not get me any closer to it. However, a lesson I learned a long time ago, is that honesty and no bullshit is the only way to develop good relationships and since I learned that lesson I have lived by it.

Another factor (I think) was that I had just finished “Fish Philosophy” (See the post Choose You Attitude) which is why I chose to just “Be There”

Our first meeting lasted no more than 30 minutes or so and throughout I remained focused on finding some way of improving her situation. I decided   to go through all her regular expenses. I felt that if I could only save her such a small amount each month on her mortgage there had to be another way of reducing her outgoings further. During this exercise we discovered that she had an insurance payment going out of her account, which had been active for a long time. She had no idea what it was for and had no paperwork with her. I told her to go home and dig out any kind of paperwork that could shed some light on it and then come back.

She did exactly that! She came back with the biggest carrier back full of all kinds of letters, contracts, financial statements etc and her comment was; “you’ll regret asking me to come back”. We spent (mostly me) a long time sorting through it all and actually ended up getting rid of the majority of it. However, amongst all of this the insurance policy emerged and it became apparent that it covered her for the cancer she had been diagnosed with. The only problem at that point was the fact that you  generally have to claim within the first 12 months of diagnosis and at this point 18 moths had passed. Between us we decided that she had everything to gain and nothing to lose, although she straight away felt it would be a waste of time and I think she did not want to get her hopes up only to feel disappointed when (in her mind) they’d tell her she’d missed the deadline. I phoned the insurance company and explained what she’d been through.

In retrospect it appears that the Universe or God had arranged for people to be extremely helpful that day because the guy I spoke to was (and I am sure still is) wonderful. He kept it simple and arranged for a claim form to be sent out. We arranged to meet a week later as she felt it would be too overwhelming for her to fill it in on her own.

When we met the 3rd time it didn’t feel like a client visiting anymore but more like a friend visiting for a coffee and a chat. We filled in the claim form, sent it off with fingers crossed. She still did not believe it would happen and in all honesty I had my doubts too, but at this point something had happened in me. I was filled with a desire to fight for her to make sure it came through and this time it wasn’t to gain any kind of approval or a pat on the back for a job well done. All I wanted was for this to come through for her.

About a week after we sent of the claim form I went on holiday in Scotland for a week. When I came back to work and checked my diary I noticed she was scheduled to come in to see me. I figured that she’d had some more paperwork through that she wanted help with and didn’t give it another thought.

I was in for a little surprise when she came in. She looked at me and then gave me the biggest hug. Not only did they pay out enough to pay of her mortgage, she was left with £7,500 to spare. While I had been away she been out buying a computer, which she had always wanted but could never afford and was so excited telling me about going on google earth etc. It’s impossible to describe how I felt. I was so incredibly grateful that the Universe or whatever you want to call i came through for us.

She wrote the most wonderful letter to my boss and I did get a lot of recognition as a result. However the recognition was very short lived and it actually did not mean a lot to me.

My real reward was the day she came back and told me that it had paid out. My reward was the look on her face, the face of a person who I had only met 4 times in my life. Most of all, the reward was how I felt in myself for taking the time to give another person my full and undivided attention and knowing that I made a difference in her life!

I will never forget that part of my journey. It was one of the most fulfilling days of my life and to this day I think I helped myself more than I helped her!

The Problem Drawer

I am struggling to remember how I first got introduced to this technique, and also trying to work out why I stoppd using it since it has really worked very well for me in the past! I guess no one is perfect and that it is easy to get caught up in everyday life and work. Then today the thought popped into my head. I don’t even know where the thought came from but I am glad I acted on it because it would be beneficial for me to start using it again.

Now, this may not be the exact way it was meant to be used, I have no idea who designed it or came up with the idea! I don’t even know if it is called “The Problem Drawer” or if I just chose to call it that!

My way of using it (when I remember to) is this;  whenever I am faced with a problem that I am struggling to find a solution to, the first question I ask myself is: “What can I do right now to solve it?” If I don’t get an answer I write the nature of the problem down on a piece of paper and put it in a drawer. I then refuse to think about it anymore (which is easier said than done) and if I catch myself thinking or worrying about it, I remind myself that it’s in the drawer.

Then once a week I look through the drawer one problem at a time and ask myself: “Is this still a problem?” and the interesting thing is that, most of what i perceived to be a problem at the time turns out not to be a problem anymore.

This leads me to believe that I created the problem in my head with silly questions like “what if….” which is then not really a problem at this point but a potential future problem!

The benefit of ” The problem Drawer” for these “future” type problems is that I spend a lot less time worrying about them. You know when you play all these different scenarios out in your head? “What will I do if I lose my job”? “What will I do if….”? I suspect I am not the only person on this planet that goes through this process!! The reality, however, is that when this goes on in my head, it is not actually a problem!! The events hasn’t happened yet and that is exactly how the “Problem Drawer” has helped. It reduces the “films/scenarios” in my head whenever I remember to do it!!

It may be wise to remind, at least myself” that this is not some magic box that solves all problems without any action on my part! There will be situations, challenges, problems – whatever you want to call it, that requires action on my part. Some of these may require action instantly, where “The Problem Drawer” is not the best vehicle for it.

Like if you have to pay your mortgage and haven’t got the funds to do it – putting it in the drawer will not result in the mortgage being paid. (unless of course you have a magic drawer, in which case I want to know how to get one!!)  The question “What can I do right now to resolve this” can help.

You may still not be able to pay the mortgage or bill or whatever the problem is , but you could contact the bank and tell them that you are having a problem, which could then change the problem slightly as they may be able to offer you some kind of plan to resolve it over time, which could be a solution in the short term.

I am sure there are many variations of the “Drawer” but the main thing for me is to have a way of getting the future worries out of me head and this does it for me.

If you happen to read this and have a different way of doing this, please let me know. I believe that we can all learn a lot from eachother as long as we are willing to share.

If you want to let me know about your way, please email me or write a comment.

I will leave you with a beautiful poem I found on another blog – Click HERE

Best wishes

J

Reflection

Sometimes I spend time reflecting on where I am in life and try to establish if I have actually accomplished anything at all.

Mostly I do this just to get an idea of whether or not I am actually going in the right direction. Sometimes I do it when I feel the need for approval and sometimes when I feel proud of something I have achieved.

It makes me feel better to, I guess in a way, I compare my state of being now to how it used to be, and pretty much every time I do this I end up feeling better and proud of how far I have actually come. More importantly it shows me that what I am doing is working and it proves to me that my emotional guidance system is working.

Even the way I accomplish tasks at work has completely transformed in the past 12 months and my confidence is at a higher level that I have ever experienced, which proves that I am doing something right. Does it mean that I can lean back and relax now? No I don’t think so, because I believe I have only just scratched the surface. I have only just started to get some understanding and clarity into what I am doing and why I am doing it.

My naive understanding of “The Law of Attraction” or whatever you choose to call it was along the lines of; well, just decide what you want and then the Universe will make sure that you get it, you don’t even have to work out how it’s gonna come about. I quite liked that! It sounded easy to me and I read a book about “Cosmic Ordering” which confirmed to me that you, just in your mind phone up the universal mail order catalogue and order whatever you want and it will be delivered.

Is it really as simple as this? There’s a part of me that think it is but at the same time there are doubts around that, and I guess because out of all the books I have read and all the audio programs I have followed, approximately half of them tell you to simply tell the universe what you want and then forget about it until it arrives and the other half tell you to take daily action. That confused me terribly for a long time and still does sometimes because there is truth in both concepts and I think that ultimately there really is one concept but because of the vast amount of information available around this subject it is sometimes hard to decipher what is of real value.

Let’s look at “The Secret” as an example. I am not sure exactly what Rhonda Byrne’s aim or objective was with that project. If it was to get people to want to learn more about the “Law of Attraction” then she accomplished that really well. If she wanted people to fully understand how it works and how it is applied then I think it left some to be desired, at least form my perspective. I am not trying to discourage anyone from buying or reading the book or watching the DVD because it did have a very positive impact on me. I have not yet seen the Movie, but I read the book 3 times and the one thing that really made sense to me was the pages about gratitude and how to be grateful for all the good things in your life and that alone has changed my life tremendously. What it also did was open other doors for me, in other words it made me search for more information and led me down the path of Jerry & Esther Hicks and the teachings of Abraham, which I will get ino in more detail at another time. It also made me find Klaus Joehle & His Living on Love books which has had a bigger impact on my life than “The Secret”, However, what I really want from all of these self improvement books/courses etc is a simple step by step uide on how to actually do it

Even when you read all these things I guess there are different ways of going about it in the sense that I used to just read and not actually go through the exercises thinking that I would just read through it and then revisit it, but usually the revisiting part never happened.

I was happy to be the observer of people accomplishing wonderful things and I could easily feel happy for them and at the same time wish I could accomplish the things I wanted, but now I realise I was seeing it from a point where I did not believe I could do it.
It is not until I think back on where I was that I realise that I have moved forward and thinking back and reflecting on my life has become a very important thing to do simply because it confirms that what I am doing is right and when I somehow get off the path reflction gently steers me back to path.

Keep going

J

You Can Heal Your Life

Every now and again a little ray of sunshine comes your way when you least expect it.

This particular ray of sunshine came my way in the form of a gift from my dear brother.

As with any new book, one has sense of excitement of what little gems this new adventure may hold. At the same time you hear the little voice in the back of your head saying; “Are you going to follow through this time?”

Having read the first few pages I felt a sense of warmth all around me as if there was love actually flowing right out of the book itself. (I realise I have lost most of you at this point, but bear with me!)

If you are at the point of despair and struggle to see the light at the end of the tunnel, please give yourself this gift of love.

This is the most heart warming book ever written and I can guarantee that regardless of the challenges you are facing, the light at the end of the tunnel will suddenly appear before you.

Louise offers you the most simple and straight forward instructions and creates a journey for you that is filled with love, magic and joy.

Let despair, fear and worry be a thing of the past and feel this ray of sunshine in your own life.