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30/10/2017 0 Comments

How Our Mind Works

Until about 10 years ago I was unaware that our thoughts could create our reality or that we could change our reality by changing our belief systems (programming). My fascination is with personal power by this I mean the power that you can harness that allows you to achieve truly amazing things. For example the power that Nelson Mandela used to peacefully guide a divided country (South Africa) that had so much hatred in it to unity. The same power Gandhi used to defeat the British Empire without ever using violence. I have dedicated my life towards the study of this power and to share it in a way that others can use it should they wish.
In the first few blogs that I write we will be focused on exploring how we operate as human beings. I feel that it is important to first create awareness in this so that you are then more able to utilise the solutions I will give later. Would you agree that to become a master at something you need to first understand how it works? Let us take computer operating for example. Some of us are better at operating computers than others (Yes or no?) and some are so exceptional that they can programme computers to do whatever they require. The same is true of our minds. The majority of you know how to operate your mind (I bet that is a relief). Then there are those that have mastered their minds and can program their mind to achieve whatever they want in their lives. This is the art of awareness/consciousness how conscious a person is, comes down to how well they are able to operate their hardware (mind). Let us explore these three states of mind further.
How our mind works
For the most part of your life you are being used by your biological survival system which means that you are not actually directing your life. Below I will explain how this all works and create awareness of how you can start to move past these programs to truly empowering your life.
You have 3 layers to your mind:

Your unconscious mind – (you are unaware of this part of your mind except occasionally when a smell, sight or feeling triggers it or under hypnosis) It stores all the information that you have absorbed throughout your life from the time of your birth and even beyond, old memories, experiences, and things you saw, sensations, emotions. The unconscious mind then uses this information in conjunction with pain and pleasure sensations to develop programs which form your beliefs, values, and influences your emotions and feelings. Once these programs are formed your subconscious mind slots new information into these programs.
Your subconscious mind – (you are not aware of this all of the time however you can access it at will) it is your short term memory; it stores things that you need to retrieve quickly and regularly, like your pin code for your debit card and your schedule for your day. It also runs the current programs that you use daily, such as habits, feelings, thought patterns and habitual behaviour. The subconscious mind receives so much information that it is impossible to retain all of it so it filters and sorts all this information using the methods of deleting, distorting and generalising it to fit the programs uploaded by the unconscious mind.
Your conscious mind – (what you are aware of in the now) responsible for logic, reasoning and the actions that you intentionally take like choosing to eat or drive. You use your conscious mind to make choices; it might seem like a small thing however your ability to make choices is what can set you free. Unfortunately you are not taught about these different aspects of your mind and so you are often unaware that the choices you are making are not based on reality but on your programming. This is one of the reasons I am writing this as the more aware you are of how you work the more able you will be to choose to act outside of your programs.

Your unconscious mind works to ensure your physical survival, it does this by creating programs for the experiences that you have, so that the next time you have a similar experience it will have hardwired a method of responding to ensure you survive. For instance as a child you might have put your hand on something hot and burnt it. Your unconscious mind registers that heat equal’s pain (threat to survival) and develops a program so that next time you feel excess heat you pull away very quickly. If you didn’t create these programs the human race would have died out before it even started.

The subconscious then uses these programs to sort the information that comes in (from your senses) if something worked in the past it is hardwired into your emotions, behaviour and reactions as a way to ensure your survival.

Our conscious mind then uses this information (feelings, emotions etc.) to base decisions on. Can you see that we can only decide what to do from the programming that we have acquired?
The problem is that these programs are created unconsciously in response to pain (or pleasure) and we don’t consciously design the reactions so many of these programs actually work against where you want your life to be going.
For instance let us imagine that as a child you were incredibly clever and as a result you were teased and bullied. You felt unacceptable, like there was something wrong with you, misunderstood and that standing out equalled great pain (threat to survival). To protect yourself from further pain your unconscious mind develops a program using the information relating to this incident and it links it to your fight flight and freeze mechanisms, which get triggered at any time you sense you are standing out from the crowd. The next time you do stand out information comes in through your subconscious mind and the program is triggered. Your fight flight and freeze mechanisms are activated. You start to feel anxious, you feel short of breath, your heart starts to race and your higher thinking mind gets shut down (you don’t need this to make a quick escape). You will have a number of ways to react and once you choose one this will become your escape of choice. It might be by keeping quiet, not sharing your ideas, leaving the room or saying something stupid just to fit in. Whilst these actions do keep you physically safe they will not be supporting you to achieve success in life as you will have hidden your intelligence so well that no one will be able to see it! You might even start to believe that you are stupid! Reasons like this are why so many people want success in some area or another and yet never seem to get there.

And here is the good news! The more conscious you become the more able you are to notice these limiting programs and the more choices you have to rewrite them, which I will come to later. There is one more thing that it is important for you to be aware of.

Fear of Change
Your programming is also one of the reasons that change is so scary for most people. If you base all of your actions on programs that are already built into your system what do you think will happen when you set off to do something that there is no program for? You have got it, huge red flags will be raised and your fight flight and freeze mechanisms will be activated. If there is no information and programming for your unconscious and subconscious minds to access relating to what you are about to do it does not know if you are going to be “safe” this is why feelings of anxiety, fear, doubt and panic can be felt at any point you choose to create a big change in your life, and why people who are clearly not in a situation that is good for them stay rather than moving on. Now that you are aware of this you will recognise these feelings in yourself when do decide to make changes in your life and you can then choose to act despite what you are feeling.

The key to overcoming your programming is your conscious mind and your ability to make choices. The more conscious you become the more you will be able to recognise a program that is not supporting you, you can then choose to act in a different manner and change your destiny. And yes this is easier said than done as quite often you are not supported in these changes by your thoughts or feelings. In the next blog I will be looking at these and showing you how you can act in spite of them.
Lots of love Britt

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30/10/2017 0 Comments

From Fear to Freedom

Fear…… the feeling of panic and nausea, your heart racing out of control, hot sweaty hands and formless words.
Fear can overtake you at the most inconvenient of times, and it is something that you most likely avoid if at all possible. Yet when was the last time you felt truly alive, the sensation of your body tingling with a sense of new found power and accomplishment? Just think and find it before continuing.
I would imagine that it was right after you did something that you found frightening something that was outside your comfort zone!?
Life just would not be worth living if it wasn’t for a good dose of fear. Think about any novel you have read or movie that you have watched. If it doesn’t have some sort of fear inducing scene one where you want to know what happens would you read or watch it? Of course it is a lot easier to experience the fear of lost love, rejection, failure, death, etc. through a book or movie than it is to live through it and if it gets too much there is always the option to switch off or close the book, yet it is in conquering the feeling of fear that we get to feel truly alive and free. Would you not agree that fear traps you and limits your life?
Now for the science: Fear is actually just another emotion. It is linked to the reptilian part of the brain which triggered activates your flight fight and freeze mechanisms. This means that fear feels incredibly real due to the physical sensations that accompany it. Fear is a very important mechanism to ensure we don’t kill ourselves. If we didn’t fear big scary animals our species would have died out a very long time ago. The challenge is that in our modern society we have learnt so many new fears that we can find ourselves trapped in a life that is blocked by fears we have created. As I mentioned in my first blog our unconscious mind develops programs to keep us physically safe and it uses emotion to write these programs. So if you once got a fright when someone screamed because there was a spider (or you saw a scary spider movie) you would be telling your unconscious mind that spiders are scary it had better quickly write a program to protect you from spiders. After this each time you see a spider your unconscious mind would trigger your reptilian brain and your fight flight and freeze mechanisms will be activated, and when you respond in a fearful way you are strengthening the program and confirming it and so it goes on. I mentioned that we learn most of our fears.
When we are born we only have 2 fears:

Fear of falling
Fear of loud noises

The rest we create. Picture a baby learning to walk can you imagine what would happen if it was scared of failure? It would crawl around forever fearing that if it tried to walk it might fail so never trying. Well thankfully babies don’t know the fear of failure so they don’t mind falling down a few times!! If you weren’t so afraid of failure what would you try and fail at a few times just to you could enjoy doing it for the rest of your life?
It is important for us to realise what fears are real and which ones are in our way. A fear of snakes serves you if you live where there are poisonous snakes yet a fear of rejection will most likely stand in the way of you having fulfilling relationships.
Our top fears are sometimes things we are not even aware we are afraid of. These are ones that have come out again and again with people I have worked with and they can translate into a fear of heights, public speaking etc. In no particular order:

Failure
Being alone or lonely
Rejected
Worthless/useless
Being vulnerable
Death
Pain
Loss
Humiliated
Disempowered

The scary part of this is that we create what we fear. Let me give you an example. One of my greatest fears is of being worthless. So when I first started using Face Book or even writing these blogs I was almost paralysed by the thoughts of what have I got to say that is important. Why would anyone want to read what I have to say? Who am I to be saying anything? Now here is the freaky part. If I had listened to my fears and not ever written or spoken about any of these things that I know then wouldn’t I have been being worthless?? The same is true of failure. You are so scared that you might fail so you never try and guess what you have just experienced the greatest failure of all, as you have failed before you even started. I have done this with numerous clients and every time they are creating the very thing that they fear the most.
The way to get past this is by following these steps and using courage.

Acknowledge what it is that you are afraid of. I would like to do _______________ but _____________. That but is a very good indication that you have a fear.
Ask yourself what would your life be like if you listened to your fear? For me that would have meant that I would not have been able to grow my business and share what I love with others. How would this have affected my life? I would have had to give up my company and ended up working in a job that I had no interest in, earning just enough to get by and no more, I would have had to give up on all of my dreams of traveling with my kids in fact I would have had to give up on life. (The more dramatic you can make it the better, and it does have to be realistic to you)
What would your life be like if you conquered this fear? So for me again what would my life be like if I conquered the fear of being worthless, I would be free to share what I have learnt, I would be able to trust what I know and my beliefs, people might value what I have to offer. My life would be open to all sorts of opportunities and to me this looks very exciting!!
What actions would you take if you did not have this fear? And then list them
1. ________________________________________________________
2. ________________________________________________________
3. _______________________________________________________
4. _______________________________________________________
To commit to taking these actions and give yourself a time line.

You cannot be courageous if you do not feel fearful. So it is your choice to remain trapped or to be courageous and face your fears.
I have also realised that freedom is on the other side of fear. So it is only by passing through your greatest fears that you will finally find your greatest freedom. My greatest fear is of falling yet my greatest dream is to be able to fly. To achieve my dream I need to conquer my fear. Incidentally flying symbolises freedom for me. I recently made my first step in this direction by doing a gorge jump at Victoria Falls with Tristen my eldest son. I don’t know how I managed to get my feet to move to the end of the very gang plank looking jumping platform yet I was determined. Luckily for me the rope had quite a bit of tension so once I was on the end I didn’t really have much choice but to go. My whole body ceased up as I fell and when the rope caught I was so incredibly glad we had done it. It also formed an amazing bond between Tristen and me as well and giving me huge confidence in other areas of my life. I mean what are a few phone calls when you have jumped off a cliff???? Apparently Tristen wants to do a parachute jump for his birthday and he wants me to do it with him so I guess that will be the next step!!!
What I haven’t mentioned and what we will look at another day is that what frightens us more than the negative things are the positive things like success, true love, being truly powerful or being great.
Good luck and just remember to challenge yourself otherwise you might as well curl up and give up.

Love you lots

BrittTanya

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11/10/2017 0 Comments

Turn Your Life Around With One Simple Understanding

I have written about this before and I am most likely going to write about it again and that is Integrity! If there is one thing I wish for my clients it is that if they walk away with nothing else from my sessions that they really understand the importance of integrity in their lives.

If you want one hack that can change your life this is it.

Once you understand this then you will start to take back your own power and the sky becomes the limit. It is the very goo that cements you to your most wondrous potential. People might know what they want in their lives but all too often they do not know how to get there. Integrity is the how!

To have integrity means you keep your word to others, but even more importantly you keep your word to yourself. All to often we worry about what others think of us but we are blind to the importance of what we think of ourselves. And it is what we think of ourselves that others really see.

For instance if you have been cheating on your diet and exercise and consequently not getting the results you want you will find that no one will really believe that you have been trying your hardest. The results are there for all to see. I realise that this example is fairly unsubtle but the theory is the same for everything. If you tell someone that you respect them but are always late they will start to doubt your word. And this is soooo important!

Your word is an extension of yourself. Ah duh! If people cannot trust your word then they cannot trust you. Also if you do not trust your word you will not trust yourself and consequently your self-belief will also go down. If you have ever had a low self-belief you will know that it is very hard to move forward without addressing this first. But… there is good news all of this can be remedied and it is through developing your integrity.

People who have high integrity are known to have high morals. Because once they commit to something they stand by it no matter what. The most wondrous thing about integrity is that once you develop it, it is as if life recognises this and starts to bring little synchronicities into your life.

This happened for me earlier this week. My intention for this year is to look for ways I can give back to society. So far since moving here I have struggled to connect with any charities. Then on Tuesday I had booked the front room at the Coworking Hub in Bath for a ConsciousCafe event only to arrive and it was already full. On talking to the event coordinator I found out that he runs Local Giving and knows all of the charities in Bath. He has offered to send my details to them and from this I hope to find some that would like to work with me. All very exciting :)

Having experienced first hand the effects of having integrity it is the one understanding that I always priorities. This is not to say that I don’t slip from time to time, but if life is going against me it is the first thing I check to get myself back on track.

Integrity is the key to your door for success. Use it or lose it :)

How integrity relates to success is simple. Everything we create in life from chairs to babies starts with a thought, then a feeling and then action.

Thought - Feeling - Action = result

If you want success in anything you have to follow your thoughts and feelings with action. It is developing integrity to do what you say you are going to do that will determine your success in anything in life.

So how do you develop it? It is actually quite simple. You become more aware of what you commit to and you ensure that you keep your commitments both to yourself and to others. If you really want to improve you can set yourself commitments and be in action of them just make sure that they do not streatch yourself too far as you will be challenged in equal proportions.

Good luck with this if you are unsure just remember that your subconscious is programmed to doubt things it does not have data for. So promise yourself to do this for a month and then if you see a change you can decide if it is as wondrous as I have made it out to be.

Wishing you a fabulous month

With love

Britt

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Britt MacFarlane is a transformation specialist and has a holistic approach supporting her clients at all levels both in their professional and personal lives. She helps them acheive the seemingly impossible and find what is missing in their lives.

She is credentialed with the International Coach Federation to the level of PCC and has a decade of coaching experience as well as being a Ho’oponopono practitioner.

Her clients range form individuals to entrepreneurs and to senior employees of international organisations such as De Beers and Puma Energy.

She has an infectious passion for what she does and her non judgemental, compassionate love for people as well as her playful attitude makes working through the most challenging of issues easy and pleasurable. This allows her clients to recognise the power within themselves, to change their perspectives so that they can live fulfilling lives which are in alignment with their souls.

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