Blog Archives

20/10/2020 0 Comments

Making Aligned Decisions

I am going to give you a couple of tools to help you make better and clearer and more aligned decisions in your life and it's really simple.

When making aligned decisions you will need to introspect just a little bit as the purpose of the decision will be to ensure you are living in alignment with your truth.

To start make a list of all the things that you want and all the things that you don't want from the outcome of the decision you are making. It is really important to remember that YOU get to choose. There is no right thing to want or wrong thing. Try not to listen to the internal echoes of your parents voices or your peers, society or teachers. Connect with yourself and see what you really want from the situation. We all have different values and this will direct our choices. Your values are not more right than my values they are just different. If you ask someone else to give you their opinion they will share what is important to them according to their set of values and they might no match yours so do not take other peoples input as the right answer. By all means listen to other people but then make your choices in alignment with what is important to you and only you (or your immediate family).

Example - I have chosen to share how I used this method when I moved to the UK as we all want different things from where we live. I will share what I was looking for and as I do look within yourself to see if you would choose similar things or it you have different values and priorities. There is no wrong or right just different preferences. When I moved to the UK I had a very clear list of what I wanted and what I didn’t want.

To live somewhere that was beautiful, hilly and with lots of trees. Before I moved I had been living in Botswana which for those that have not been there is very flat, dry and has mainly thorny shrubs rather than trees. I wanted to have contrast. I wanted to try something completely different and that's not to say that Bath is better than Botswana. For those people in Botswana who I love very dearly that is not what I am saying. I love Botswana, I love the bush, I love the flatness and the massive open skies, but I wanted something different.
I wanted to be within easy reach of London. I wanted to be able to jump on a train and go to London for the day and come back in the evening. If I fancied going to an exhibition or show or needed to go there for work I wanted it to be relatively easy.
One thing that I didn’t think about before I left but realised when I arrived was the density of the population in paces in the UK. I visited Ascot briefly one day and went for a walk in one of their parks. It was a Tuesday just after lunch and it was absolutely heaving. I thought to myself if this is a Tuesday afternoon I can't imagine what this park would be like on the weekend! Botswana is a country the size of France with a population of around 2 million. One of the most fabulous things about Botswana is that there are very few people and there is lots of space. So I quickly added to my list of what I wanted that I needed to live somewhere that there was enough space that I didn't feel like I was being overwhelmed by lots of people.
I wanted to be somewhere fairly near a city that was busy and thriving so that I could build my business.
I wanted the place we moved to, to be cosmopolitan because my children were born and had grown up in Botswana and I wanted them to fit into the community and not be too different.

Knowing what I did want and what I didn’t made finding the perfect place fairly easy. And when I found it I knew it was right. Bath is very cosmopolitan and although it is not the most dynamic of places it is close to Bristol which is full of entrepreneurs and has a very dynamic energy. We actually live just outside Bath in a beautiful place at the top of a hill with lots of trees and not too many people. I can step out of my door and go for the most amazing walks and also be in the city of Bath within a few minuets. It takes us about 1.5 hours to get to London so an easy day trip. As a family we have been incredibly happy here and would not want to live anywhere else in the UK at the moment. Remember that your list is not finite. Just as I added the population density to mine you can add or take things away as you find things that work or do not work for you.

I have also used this technique in relationships and later I will share tweak to this technique that is even more specific. You might not realise this but we all want different things out of our relationships. I have recently started online dating and it is fascinating. Firstly there are so many people that say “I like … but then doesn’t everyone?” And not everyone does. We see life through our own lenses and we assume everyone else is seeing the same as us but they aren’t. What you want out of a relationship will be different to what I want out of one. For some people it might be status and money, or connection and authenticity, or for some people it's about sharing passions and activities. We all want different things from a relationship so it is important to know what you want and don’t want and in what priority. I have done this 3 times with relationships and each time the lists evolve until now it is quite basic but specific. Below are examples of how my lists have changed over time.

1st list

He was to be taller than me
Be a handy man around the house (neither my dad or my brother were)
not smoke

I actually can’t even remember what else I had on my list it was quite long. Anyway the relationship did not last as he was not able to take care of himself and needed me to support him. He was also very awkward socially and so meeting up with friends was very uncomfortable. I felt like I had another child to look after rather than a partner. And he was not emotionally intelligent so when I was stressed he thought it was about him and would act up even when I told him that I was stressed because of work.

2nd list

He needs to find socialising easy
Enjoy dancing
Be interested in some of the things I am
Get on with my family
Have his own money and be financially secure

This man again met all of my criteria and yet the relationship still didn’t work. Although when I started the relationship I think I already knew this but just didn’t listen to myself. He was also very persuasive and would not accept my no. This turned out to be a common thread throughout our relationship and was actually why it ended.

So not my list is different again what I am looking for is

A man who really sees me. And wants to know me.
A man who I feel safe with
A man who wants to be a partner and create things together
A man who respects the relationship I have with my sons and wants to connect with them too.
Oh and finally a man who I find very sexy :)

I am sharing this with you because we don’t always know what we want or don’t want until we have tired it. Life is full of contrast to help us experience different things so that we can know what we truly want and what we don’t.

One thing that I learnt through my relationship process is about non-negotiable’s and they do not only need to apply to relationships they can apply to any decision you are making. They are the things that you are not willing to compromise on. It is great to have a list of what you want and what you do not want but some of the things on your list will be more important to you than others and then there will be your non-negotiable’s. When I first learnt about non-negotiable’s I was in a relationship and was rather taken aback. I used to be a people pleaser so having such firm boundaries was not something I was used to. However after I got used to the idea I found it quite liberating. It meant that I was allowed to decide on what I would not accept in my life and I had not done this up until then. It makes decision making much easier because if any of my non-negotiable’s are not met I don’t even have to think about it. I have found that 2-3 non-negotiable’s is about the right number. Any more than this and you might become quite rigid or limited. If you are too prescriptive there is no space to discover things that you didn’t know you would love.

To sum up, when you're making big decisions in life
   - be very clear about what you want and what you don't want.
   - Don’t let other people's opinions and limitations sway what you want and what you don't want.
   - Notice if your limitations of what you believe is possible are also hindering your decision making. When you include things that you don't think could be a possibility your options can open up and you might realise you can have more than you ever thought you could.
   - Finally - non-negotiable’s, make sure that you know what it is that you will not compromise on in your life. The example I gave was in regard to relationships but you can have non-negotiable’s about where you live, the work that you do, or your ethics and your morals and anything else.

So much love from me to you

0 Comments

15/10/2020 0 Comments

1 Trick To Overcome Ego

I am going to share a trick with you to overcome your ego / identity, but before I do I want to share a little bit about ego and identity so I know we are on the same page.

In my understanding your ego and identity are one and the same thing. It is a construct that we create to protect us from life, to ensure that we survive, and to get our human needs met.

In case you don’t know what your human needs are let me quickly run through them (these were developed by Tony Robbins)

Basic needs

The need for certainty - to know that tomorrow you're going to wake up and you're going to be able to survive in the world. That you are going to have food, shelter, clothes, a job, or whatever you need to survive.
The need for Variety - this is in complete contrast for the need for certainty. Variety is the need for excitement for things to surprise us in life and to help us grow. It is my belief that the people that have midlife crisis are people that have had too much consistency in their life and become so bored that they can't take it anymore. We need variety to stimulate us and make us feel alive.
The need for Connection - to be loved and have a deep connection with others. A need to feel part of a community to feel like you belong in society or your industry. Ways people might go about getting their need for connection met are; being sick (people fuss over sick people), loving people (if someone is loving then others like them), being in nature, through prayer, looking at a peace of art, through a pet.
The need for significance - to feel special, unique, valuable and to be different. Ways that you might go about getting this need met; posting selfies on social media, violence (meets lots of needs), education (being a Dr is more significant than not being one), religion (believing that your beliefs are more important than someone else's), or giving more than anyone else can also make you feel significant.

Spiritual needs (not religious but needs that our soul/sprit has) you will not be truly fulfilled and happy unless you meet these two needs and not everyone has balanced the first 4 so does not have the ability to give attention the these last 2.

5. Growth - If you do not feel like you are growing you will feel like you are dying inside.
6. Contribution - Have a life that has meaning and an ability to give back to know that you have value.

I believe that your identity / ego is constructed to get those first four needs met. How you go about that will be vary from person to person and will mostly be learnt from the people around you. Your parents, your siblings, your grandparents, your key caregivers growing up. You will have watched and learnt how they got those needs met and you will most likely do the same. Do they use manipulation? Are they people pleasers? Do they get angry and use force? They will have developed personality traits to ensure that they get those needs met.

You created your personality to get your needs met and to ensure that you survive in the physical world. There for your identity the thing that you think of as who you are is not really the truth of who we are. It is an adaptation that you have learned and created to ensure that you survive in the world.

One of the other things about the identity which is really quite interesting is that if this idea of who you are is threatened, challenged, or if something is learnt that contradicts it’s view of itself or the world you become very defensive, hurt or aggressive. All sorts of things get evoked in you to protect your identity/personality/ego that you have created that you believe is who you are.

However there is a part of you, something much, much deeper which I call your truth (also called the soul). It is a spark of source of god whatever it is you want to call it that resides within you. When I look back over my life I have changed and adapted my personality to get more of my needs met in a way that uplifts me more and brings me more happiness. I can’t even associate the me I am now with who I was in my 20’s, but there is a part of me that as far back as I can remember has always been and still is the truth of me. It was there when I was a very small child, it was there when I was in my early teens, it was there in my late teens and in my 20s and 30s and is still here now that I am into my 40s. It is the truth of who I really am. And when you connect with that part of you, you realise that it is eternal. It can never be destroyed. It can never be rejected and it cannot be hurt, damaged or broken in any way shape or form. Even though we think it can be. Part of the identity/personality/ego that we've developed is there to protect this truth deep within us. The strange thing is that when you truly connect to your truth you realise that it doesn't need protecting at all.

I am aware that at the beginning of this blog I promised you a trick. And I have been sharing all of this because I am building up to giving it to you. It is a very simple trick and it is

learning to laugh at yourself

The less seriously you take your identity/ego/personality that you have created the less it has a hold over you and the freer you become to be the truth of who you really are. Allowing your self to judge and feel ashamed about who you are and what you have done will keep you trapped in a prison of ego compounding the problems to try to get out of them. Developing the ability to laugh at yourself to laugh, at the mistakes you make, the things you have done that you consider embarrassing and to realise you are only human and that, that is not who you truly are gives you the freedom to live more fully. To live more expansively and to live more joyfully.

I hope that in time you will get to know the real truth of who you are and if you want to do that with me it's something I do with my clients you are welcome to connect with me.

So much love from me to you

0 Comments

8/10/2020 0 Comments

Overcome Your Limitations

I am going to share a concept with you that has fascinated me for a long time - we don't know what we don't know. I know this seem’s obvious, but we can't experience something that we don't have knowledge of in our minds or language to make sense of it. Our brain filters things out that don't make sense so sometimes something might be in our reality but we just don't see it. Which is a very tricky thing to try and share with people because how do you explain something that they will never have noticed? But I am going to try because once you know this you might be able to overcome your limitations even the ones you didn’t know you had. And to start I am going to share a few examples;

A gentleman by the name of Rudolf Steiner (He is very famous and started a philosophical education system) went to Australia many years ago, around the time that the camera was invented. He traveled deep into the Australian outback and met with a tribe of aboriginals. He took a picture of the chief and showed it to him. The question is - what did the chief see? I want you to think about that for a moment before I give you the answer…………… he saw nothing. He had never seen a picture let alone a photograph so did not have the language or the understanding of what one was. Due to this his brain could not make sense of what he was being shown so he thought he was not being shown anything. However once the process and what it was had been explained to him he was then able to see the picture.
A lady from china traveled to America. I think she must have come from a fairly rural place in China and had never seen anybody with red hair. Apparently for months after she arrived in America she did not realise some people had red hair. It was not something that was even a possibility where she had come from so her brain did not compute it. It was again only after it was pointed out to her that she could see it.
There is also the well-documented story (I don't know how true it is) of the first ships arriving of the coast of America and how the indigenous people thought that they were clouds because they again did not have any language for these massive ships and could not make sense of what they were seeing.

These are all stories of other people who had experienced this and while I found it fascinating I still couldn’t really believe that this was what happened. And then I had my own experience;

A friend of mine called me while I was in my office. He told me about an integrated bumper and how he wanted to get one put on his car. I said I didn’t think I had ever seen an integrated bumper so he sent me through a picture. Again I said I didn’t think I had ever seen one and thought that these must be very rare. At the time I was living in Botswana where every 3rd of 4th car was a 4x4 with bull bars on. We finished our conversation and I then drove into town. As I drove into town I suddenly saw these integrated bumpers everywhere it was as if they had been added to cars by magic.

I am sharing this with you because the opposite is also true. We can't experience something that we don't have the language or knowledge for in our mind and we also experience everything that we do have language and knowledge for. Whatever information you have absorbed from your infancy, through your childhood, your teenage years and into adulthood be it from your society, caregivers, parents, schooling, culture, from what you've read, watched, or experienced all of that goes to build this database in your mind that gives you constructs for what you think reality is. These are the stories that you've told yourself to make sense of your world and to be able to survive and live in it. It also forms the basis of what you think is possible in life and what you think is not. Now I hope you can see or are starting to see that just because you think it is possible or or not does not actually make it so. I hope I have demonstrated with the previous examples that just because you believe something is possible does not make it so.

So where in your life are you limiting yourself and limiting the possibilities that you could possibly have in life?

In case you are still not convinced I have one more example to share;

In 1953 no one had ever run a mile in less than 4 minuets. Until a gentleman by the name of Sir Roger Bannister decided that he was going to do it. On the 6th of May 1954 he achieved he goal but whilst this is amazing it was what happened afterwards that was even more fascinating. Only two months later someone else did it as well. It was as if it took Sir Roger Bannister to make the impossible possible to make it a possibility for other people too. Nowadays for any self-respecting professional middle distance runner doing the mile in under four minutes is something that is common practice. It has gone from something that was impossible to being something that is considered to be normal, or normal for people who do it as a profession. Not for me!

The reason I am sharing all of this is because I want to ask you where in your life have you decided that something is not possible? That something cannot be done? That there is a reason you cannot achieve something or experience something or have something in your life? What I would really love you to do as an exercise following on from this blog is to go and find people that have done what ever you think is impossible. I am dyslexic so if I was to do this I might think it isn’t possible for me to write a book or be taken seriously in literary circles. If this was the case I would then purposefully find people who were dyslexic and had done the things I thought I couldn’t. I would then use these examples to convince myself that actually these things I thought were impossible are possible. There are so many areas that you can use this to overcome your limitations and to start living a life of possibility

So much love from me to you.

0 Comments

1/10/2020 0 Comments

Taking Your Power Back

This topic (taking your power back) is something I wish I had known more about earlier in my life. I have always been a people pleaser and didn’t realise that I was either giving my power away to others or was taking their power from them by taking responsibility for aspects of their life. Let me explain…

… in life we tend to give our power away and we do this when we make other people responsible for things in our lives. One way to notice when you do this is to be aware of when you blame people for things in your life or when you let people make decisions for you. You can give your power away in many areas of your life. If could be that you think your parter is responsible for making you happy or making you feel loved. I could be financially, or your success at work, or your ability to do what you love. In fact it could be in any area of your life. Let me give you some examples of where I have gone wrong and given my power away in the past. I can not say I am very proud of what I am going to share with you in fact I feel decidedly uncomfortable sharing it but I hope that you will gain something from what I am going to share that might help you in your life.

I learned this the hard way, a really hard way. When we were planning to move to the UK it was quite time sensitive because I needed to get my boys into school as quickly as possible as my eldest was going in to his GCSE year. It was unlikely that our house was going to sell that quickly and my father very kindly offered to support us until the house did sell so that we could move straight away. I would then repay him when my house sold. It was an incredibly generous offer of his and I'm very grateful to him for doing that. I also relied on the maintenance I received from my ex which contributed to providing for my children. And finally I thought that I would be bale to get my business going fairly quickly. In all three cases I had given my financial power away to other parties. My father, my ex and to some as yet unknown clients. In hindsight this was a little foolish but I was under pressure to get my kids into school so I thought I was doing the right thing. What then happened was a perfect storm. The Botswana economy crashed and I was unable to sell my house for a reasonable price. My ex lost his job and just stopped paying any maintenance at all and it took me a lot longer to get set up than I thought it would. My poor father had to support us for much longer than either of us had thought he would. As you might be able to imagine this was quite a stressful time. Whilst I was in the middle of it I was focusing on doing all the things I knew were good for me and would support me thought it but because I relied on my father and my ex I was also at the mercy of their thoughts, expectations and fears. The time was stressful enough as it was but it was even more stressful as I was also dealing with their fears. In fact I think I found this the hardest part. There came a crunch point where my father rightly said he could no longer continue to support us as he had been doing and I certainly did not want to take any more money from him. We had to leave the house we were living in which we loved, sell the car and seriously downsize. We ended living above an empty shop. It was not a very nice place but we had a roof over our heads and we were together so all was well. It was from here that I started to take back my power over the finances in my life. I find this hard to write as I feel ashamed of what I let happen and I am aware that I let it happen. Neither my father or my ex were to blame. If I had not relied on them they would not have been in a position of power over my finances. The changes were not ideal but it was the right thing to do at the time because I took back my control over my life.

Tied in with all that was going on at this time was also the struggle I was facing in setting up my own business. I didn’t have a network, or contacts and was starting very much from scratch. I remember my father at one point telling me that I should just get a proper job. I did contemplate this but for me this felt like a part of me would have to die I love my work, I love it so much, I love my coaching, I love working with people, I love seeing their lives transform, and magic come into them. Not to mention I had spent years learning and then building up my business in Botswana where I was very successful and to give all of that up was not something I was willing to let happen. What I realised was that I was giving away my power again. I was allowing my circumstances to dictate whether or not I was doing what I loved. It was then that I decided to do what I loved regardless of the network I had or the demand for it and that was when I started creating my podcast, courses and YouTube videos in earnest. It did not matter if anyone listened, watched or read and of them I got immense amount of joy from the creating of them and from the process of allowing inspiration. Since I started to do this my business has been growing and continues to grow.

Funnily now that I write this I am very aware that nearly every part of my life was trying to push me to step into and understand what it meant to be in my power. from this journey I have learnt that I am 100% responsible for my own happiness, for my financial security, and for every area of my life and that there is always a solution to help me move forwards.

I am not able to show up and be me and you can do the same you might have to overcome the fear of what people will think of you of of whether or not you're good enough and all of those things but those things that you think about those limiting beliefs they crush your soul they hold you small and when you drop them down just think about this beautiful flower that opens up and is able to shine and blossom in the world and being able to thrive and that's about stepping back into your power

To recap on this because it is so important - See where in your life you blame other people. Where you blame other people for your circumstances is a key indicator that you've given your power away. Remember that nobody is responsible for how you feel in life. My father and my ex weren't responsible for what I went through. I chose to let them have more power over the financial side of my life. And it was my choice to take back my power as well.

To take your power back you need to start by taking responsibility for your life. If you are feeling like your finances are out of our control what do you need to do to get back in control? If you feel unloved and that your partner is not loving enough what do you need to do to feel loved? It is not about what they need to do for you but what do you need to do for yourself. If you are not fulfilled don’t blame life find out what makes you come alive and do that.

What I want to share with you is that you are not reliant on other people for things in your life even if you think you are. I tend to take giant leaps but this can be quite stressful and you don’t need to be so drastic you could start to make little steps and slowly build on them.

Have a fabulous week and so much love form me to you.

BrittTanya

0 Comments

RSS Feed

Author

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.

YOUR CART

Pondering's & Rumination's

Making Aligned Decisions

1 Trick To Overcome Ego

Overcome Your Limitations

Taking Your Power Back

Author

Archives

Categories