Why Does Life Begin at the End of Your Comfort Zone?

You may have heard the phrase “Life begins at the end of your comfort zone” from Neale Donald Walsch but what exactly does it mean? Most of us like being safe and secure, taking the actions where we know what to expect. But this can lead to your life becoming stagnant, doing the “same old, same old” all the time. 

If you want to experience more of life and push yourself to accomplish goals which might seem hard to reach, then this phrase comes into its own. It means that our life becomes richer and fuller as we decide to aim for things which make us get out of our safety zone. 

For example, you may want to start a new business, but that involves networking which can be daunting – meeting new people, introducing yourself, selling your business. These can seem scary initially.

You might want to go travelling and learn another language but you think you’re too old to do that or will your language skills be good enough? This again means that your life experience won’t be as vivid because it’s difficult to go beyond your comfort zone. 

But as with everything, once we take the plunge and do something a few times, the fear goes. We learn what to expect when we take new actions, and our life experience grows as a result. 

For every goal we have which stretches us, fears and worries may arise because we wonder do we have what it takes to achieve it? We like being safe and secure because we know what to expect.

But are you letting life slip by without experiencing the aims you had when you were younger? Research shows that your brain is always learning. Neuroplasticity means you’re never too old to take up playing an instrument, painting, learning a new language and so on.

Going out of your comfort zone allows you to grow as a person. Your identity changes as you take actions you normally wouldn’t. You survive, you come out the other side and your confidence in yourself increases. You know you have what it takes to do the unknown and enjoy a more fulfilled life as a result. 

If there’s something you’ve always wanted to do, or a goal you want to pursue but it means having to stretch yourself, remember this phrase “Life begins at the end of your comfort zone”.

Don’t let your fears or concerns about the unknown diminish what you can achieve. Instead, go for it and experience the wonderful new things which lead to a richer life. 

Do you want to know how to manifest your heart’s desires? Then read my latest book Manifesting From the Soul – How to Raise Your Vibration & Unleash the Power Within 

If you enjoy these blogs, get a copy of my ebook “Ascending Into The Light: Messages From The Angels“ or listen to my podcast EnlightOne. 

I have 3 guided meditations on YouTube you can listen to become more focused and present in the moment.   

Relaxation Meditation 

Peace Meditation 

Gratitude Meditation 

Why Your Thoughts Are So Powerful

You may think that your thoughts and emotions have no effect on the world around you, but there is a growing body of evidence which says just the opposite. It shows that your thoughts and feelings have an effect on everything around you. 

Dr Masaru Emoto did much work on the effect of intentional thoughts towards water. He believed that water had a consciousness and that our thoughts towards it would affect it.

To this end, he put water into different bottles and labelled the bottles with various words such as “love”, “hate” and so on.  He then froze the water and took photos of the crystals which formed. 

The astonishing thing was that the water exposed to “good” thoughts showed beautiful, harmonious crystals whereas the ones exposed to negative thoughts had disharmonious, irregular forms. And the same thing happened to water before it was blessed and after it was blessed, the crystals were completely different

It showed that water really had a connection to the energy of the thoughts around it and reacted to them. Read his book “The Miracle of Water” to find out more about this amazing phenomenon. 

Another example of this interconnectedness is by Lynne McTaggert who has a project called The Power of Eight where groups of 8 people hold intentions for each other and meditate as a group for a few minutes every week.

For example, one person may ask the group to meditate with the intention that their backache goes away. Again, there are amazing stories of people being healed and other intentions being fulfilled.  

Another experiment in the 90s had a group of people meditating on reducing the crime rate in Washington D.C. This was a closely monitored scientific experiment which found that after 2 months, the crime rate had dropped by 23%. 

It does seem as if there is some power in a group of people meditating on the same thing as opposed to just one person. Listen to Lynne McTaggart speak about the fascinating concept of The Power of Eight.

The HeartMath institute has a Global Coherence Initiative whose aim is to explore how our minds and consciousness are interconnected. There is much to discover considering that our thoughts can affect water and group interactions can heal situations.  

These examples show that our thoughts and feelings are extremely powerful. This is why if you dwell on negativity too much your health can suffer and you may attract unwanted situations into your life.  

Aim to move your thinking to be positive, heading towards gratitude as much as possible. Catch yourself if you’re in a downward spiral and start to move up. This is like a mental gym for the mind.

Just like physical exercise, it can be hard at first and motivation can be difficult at times, but stick with it. It’s something which has to be done everyday. Just like exercising, it has to be done regularly. 

Treat your mind like your body, look after it by focusing on the positive as much as possible. As shown by the examples above, the power of your thoughts are very real. See and feel your mental health and overall wellbeing improve as you harness your thoughts and emotions towards positivity and gratitude. 

Do you want to know how to manifest your heart’s desires? Then read my latest book Manifesting From the Soul – How to Raise Your Vibration & Unleash the Power Within 

If you enjoy these blogs, get a copy of my ebook “Ascending Into The Light: Messages From The Angels“ or listen to my podcast EnlightOne. 

I have 3 guided meditations on YouTube you can listen to become more focused and present in the moment.   

Relaxation Meditation 

Peace Meditation 

Gratitude Meditation 

Advantages of Thinking With the Heart

As you walk along the spiritual path you realise that “thinking” from the heart is the best way to gain deeper insights into life as well as deepen your intuition to make the best decisions for your life. There is much research now that says that the heart is like a “mini-brain” and that heart coherence leads to an overall sense of wellbeing and calmness.

To connect to the heart regularly and see what feels right in terms of decisions to make takes practice. We’re so used to using our logical mind and thinking of the results of our actions that trusting the heart can be difficult – how can something that only “feels” right be the best action or decision to take? Where’s the sense in that! You know it feels right but you have no idea what the result of that action will mean, and so your logical brain seduces you into making a rational decision where you know what will transpire.  

But as I’ve said before, that feeling in your heart is connected to your intuition, your spiritual self which knows what will happen in the far future, unlike your logical mind. So that feeling you have to go a certain way, which may be in opposition to your mind, is your spiritual self guiding you because it knows that down this path you will achieve the best result. And yes, right now you may think it crazy but maybe in a few weeks or months you might know why you were led down that path.  

Say you’re buying a property and you get this niggly feeling something isn’t right even though it looks great and your mind says go for it. Follow that feeling that the property isn’t for you. You may discover after you’ve bought the property that it has dampness creeping in which the survey didn’t pick up, or the roof leaks badly. Our physical senses can only tell us so much, but our heart is connected to our intuition/our gut instinct which will always serve us for our highest good. 

Focusing on your heart also leads to heart coherence. The HeartMath institute has done much research on this. They say that heart coherence occurs when our breathing, heart rhythms, brain rhythms and the body’s processes are in sync with each other. It also affects our physical, mental and emotional health and wellbeing, bringing us greater clarity and calmness. 

Use this link to listen to a brief example from HeartMath of attaining heart coherence. It involves focusing on breathing in and out of the heart and feeling emotions such as gratitude or appreciation for someone or something in your life. With just a couple of minutes you can start to bring more wellbeing and peace into your life. 

It does take commitment and practice to focus on your heart and trust that it will lead you in the right direction. Start by focusing on breathing into your heart and out a few times every day. Feel that connection to your heart growing. As you do this regularly, begin to trust those nudges and feelings from the heart when you have a decision to make, even if they’re in opposition to your logical mind. Make a note of what happens when you don’t follow your heart and when you do. 

I learnt over time that following the logical mind as opposed to the heart invariably didn’t lead to the best results. I used to occasionally override what my heart was saying and listen to my mind and ended up regretting it! Practice has made me realise that your heart really does know what’s best for you. So begin to focus more on your heart, becoming familiar with what it’s telling you and you’ll realise that the best decisions really do come from the heart. 

Do you want to know how to manifest your heart’s desires? Then get a copy of my latest book Manifesting From the Soul – How to Raise Your Vibration & Unleash the Power Within 

If you enjoy these blogs, then take a look at my E-book “Ascending Into The Light: Messages From The Angels” or listen to my podcast EnlightOne. 

I have 3 guided meditations on YouTube you can listen to become more focused and present in the moment.   

Relaxation Meditation 

Peace Meditation 

Gratitude Meditation 

How To Work With Your Future Self

One of the tools you can use to manifest your goals is to hook into your future self, i.e. the identity of the person you’ll be when your goal is achieved. If you’re aiming to lose weight, you may be focused on how much easier it will be to do certain exercises, what outfits you can wear when you’ve reached your ideal weight and so on. You’re already imagining your future self. You can use this for any goal you want to accomplish. A wonderful book which discusses this is “Be Your Future Self Now” by Dr Benjamin Hardy. 

As I’ve said in previous blogs, everything is energy; your Future Self is a very real energy which you can focus on to take the steps to bring it into reality and as you do so, your goal will also be created. 

You can use the concept of your Future Self to design your ideal life – how do you want your life to look in 5 years? Write down what you want to achieve in every area of your life. Who will you be as that future self? Will you dress differently, walk with more confidence, will you make different decisions than you would now because you’re more confident? You can do this for your life or any major goals you want to accomplish. 

We are always changing – you’re probably not the same person you were 5 years ago. Certain aspects of your outlook, mindset and beliefs may have changed. Life’s experiences change us and so we are always evolving. But that’s good because it means we can evolve into the person we’d like to become. 

It takes commitment and confidence to become your Future Self. You’re actually changing your identity to become the person in the future. Old habits can get us stuck in patterns which hinder our growth. Your goal may require steps which take you out of your comfort zone – are you ready for this? Make the end goal compelling to keep you motivated to take action. 

Using creative visualisation meditation can really help you move you along the path to embody your Future Self. You can use this technique to go into vivid detail of how your life will be once your goal is complete and how your future self will act and be. That energy can then start to come into your present to move you forward. It may give you insights on what steps to take, things you may not have thought of. You may realise it might be good to get a certain qualification and so on. 

To accomplish a goal that is dear to your heart, you need to take on the identity right now of the person you’ll be when the goal is completed in your life. Your Future Self already exists now in the higher dimensional realms, so start to wear the energy of it as you take action. That is, act like your Future Self now – be more confident, walk taller and so on.  As you magnetize the energy of your Future Self to you, so manifesting your goal becomes easier. 

Do you want to know how to manifest your heart’s desires? Then read my latest book Manifesting From the Soul – How to Raise Your Vibration & Unleash the Power Within 

If you enjoy these blogs, then take a look at my E-book “Ascending Into The Light: Messages From The Angels” or listen to my podcast EnlightOne. 

I have 3 guided meditations on YouTube you can listen to become more focused and present in the moment.   

Relaxation Meditation 

Peace Meditation 

Gratitude Meditation 

Align Your Subconscious and Conscious Minds to Achieve Your Goals

Many of us have goals and aims in life whether that be to train for a 10K race, to be fitter or be successful in our career. But do you know that your conscious and subconscious minds have to be aligned and in resonance and coherence with each other before you can achieve your aims? In addition, do you have that inner self-belief that you can do it? 

Beliefs play a big part in our lives and limiting beliefs can have a very detrimental effect. Say you want to train for a race but you were laughed at for your running style at school, or you want to train for a bike race but had a bad fall from a bicycle in the past, these can create beliefs in the subconscious which will make it difficult to find the enthusiasm to do the training.  

Your beliefs are in your subconscious mind and buried so deep that you’ve forgotten they’re there. That remark about your running style is hidden way down in your subconscious and you’ve probably forgotten it consciously. Same with the fear of hurting yourself by falling off a bike. Your conscious mind is already to go but there’s a misalignment between what it wants to achieve and what your subconscious believes. Your subconscious is just trying to protect you and your beliefs will always win out.  

If you find yourself procrastinating about something you want to achieve, then look into the alignment between your conscious and subconscious. Find time to think about and write down what’s stopping you moving ahead. What fears, worries, concerns or doubts do you have? Look at your beliefs around the areas of your life. You want to earn that high salary, but you were brought up to believe wealthy people are selfish and greedy, so being rich is bad. So you go for those high paying jobs but you fail because of that belief, i.e. I’ll become selfish. If you want to accomplish your goal, it’s worth working on these aspects. 

We may sometimes achieve goals and still feel that something is missing. Are you working towards something because your parents, family or community expect you to? Some children feel compelled to go into the professions of their parents but is that what they really want or was it just expected? Do you feel some underlying pressure to do this?

If that is the case, then we need to work on being in alignment with our spiritual self, our Soul. This is where you focus on your heart and seek resonance between your conscious, subconscious minds and your spiritual self. So if you find yourself going down a successful path but it feels wrong, take time to think about this. Is your heart really in this? If not, you may not find it fulfilling as you thought you would. 

Consciously we may think achieving a goal is easy – surely with enough time I can train for a 5K race? But for anything you’re trying to accomplish, if it feels like hard work getting there, if it feels like an uphill struggle, remember to look at your subconscious mind. When we are in complete alignment and resonance between all aspects of ourself, then it’s much easier to take the actions to achieve our goals and aims.  

If you enjoy these blogs, then take a look at my E-book “Ascending Into The Light: Messages From The Angels” or listen to my podcast EnlightOne.

I have 3 guided meditations on YouTube you can listen to become more focused and present in the moment.   

Relaxation Meditation 

Peace Meditation 

Gratitude Meditation 

How To See It When You Believe It

There is a spiritual law that says that the Universe will always answer your questions.  Christie Marie Sheldon, an expert on manifesting abundance and Vishen Lakhiani, the founder of mindvalley.com, speak about Lofty Questions and how you can use them to hone your intuition/your gut instinct to get answers on how to create the life you desire. 

Instead of saying affirmations such as “I’m fit and healthy” ask “Why am I so fit and healthy all the time?” or “Why do I only eat foods which are good for my body?”. You ask as if it’s already true. Other examples of lofty questions are “Why am I in such an amazing, loving relationship?”, “Why am I so successful at my job?”, “Why does so much money keep flowing into my life?“.

It seems that shaping it as a question activates your subconscious mind which is designed to help you accomplish your goals. The best time to put these questions into your subconscious mind is when you wake up in the morning because at that point your brain is in an alpha state of frequency. This is the frequency your brain goes into during meditation.  

As you repeat these questions frequently, your subconscious becomes an antenna connecting to the Universe to help you answer them. You may get nudges and insights on what actions to take to manifest your goal. It keeps you in a positive frame of mind because the questions assume you already have it so you’re not throwing the energy of doubt or worry on your goal which can prevent it from being accomplished. 

Write down your lofty question(s) in areas of your life where you have goals – more money, better health, career or relationship, etc. When you wake up, read the questions and let them sink into your subconscious mind. Maybe set the alarm 5-10 minutes earlier and let your mind dwell on the questions. Do this every day, and your subconscious mind will go to work, bringing you ideas and insights into your conscious mind.  

Remember that your beliefs are held in the subconscious mind and as you ask yourself these lofty questions regularly, in a way you’re creating the belief and the mindset of the person who has answered the question.  You’re forming the energy of knowing that what you desire is already here.

As I’ve mentioned previously in other blogs, the Universe works backwards. You first of all act like your goal has manifested or your lofty question has been answered and from that, your mind, your intuition starts to identify what actions to take to create it in this 3D reality, i.e. in your life. 

Remove the need to have your conscious mind answer the question, to be honest, it can’t! You might have some ideas but not the full picture. Instead let these questions sink into your subconscious mind and give the intent to allow the actions you need to take seep into your conscious mind.  

By asking the questions, you’re creating the knowing that they’ve been answered. That helps you to embed the belief that it has, which leads to you taking the actions to create it.

Again, play with this, commit to do this for a few weeks every time you wake up and notice how your attitude and mindset changes as you tell yourself regularly that you’ve already accomplished what you set out to do. 

If you enjoy these blogs, then take a look at my E-book “Ascending Into The Light: Messages From The Angels” or listen to my podcast EnlightOne.

I have 3 guided meditations on YouTube you can listen to become more focused and present in the moment.   

Relaxation Meditation 

Peace Meditation 

Gratitude Meditation 

Let Your Angelic Entourage Ease Your Life

Did you know that every one of us has our own entourage of angels and guides, assigned to help us through life and watch over us. What you may not know is that they’re only allowed to help you if you ask them. In some ways, our free will allows us to go through life having painful situations and events occur which we deal with on our own because we didn’t ask our angels for assistance. It’s not that they don’t want to help, but that they can’t unless explicitly asked.  

They also constantly love you unconditionally. No matter if you’ve hurt others, or you’ve been angry right now and shouted at someone, they still love you. And that can have a very healing and beneficial effect once you start to tap into that knowledge.  

If it appeals to you to get to know your angels and work with them, then imagine beautiful, loving beings of light around you. Nothing is too small or big when it comes to help. You can ask them to help you find your car keys, that you cook a great dinner or that you get the best job. Get into the habit of asking them and always thank them for their help. 

If things get too much, find a quiet space, close your eyes, focus on your heart and imagine feeling your angels’ unconditional love for you flowing through you – breath it in through the heart, and out around you and through you. The more you do this, the more you’ll sense their loving presence at all times. And after a while, it’s like you become a team, working together to create a wonderful life. You’ll know that you always have help and love at all times, and you’ll feel more peaceful and calmer about situations because of this. 

Remember your guides and angels are here to assist you. You have your own personal heavenly PA team! 😊 Whenever you need help or guidance, ask them, for example “Dear angels, please help me stay calm during my presentation and ensure that it goes well.”, “Dear angels, please keep us safe on this journey.” Get into the habit of asking them for help in whatever way you want and always thanking them. Try it for fun and see how life changes for the better when your heavenly PA team can really start to help you. 

If you enjoy these blogs, then please take a look at my E-book “Ascending Into The Light: Messages From The Angels” or listen to my podcast EnlightOne.

I have 3 guided meditations on YouTube you can listen to become more focused and present in the moment.   

Relaxation Meditation 

Peace Meditation 

Gratitude Meditation 

Why Surrendering Is Not Giving Up

There are times when we’re busy taking actions to achieve our goal, throwing everything at it, but nothing seems to stick. That goal can appear as far away as ever, even if we spend hours every day rushing around taking action towards it.

On a spiritual level, this may be the time when you surrender your goal to the Universe. Now surrender doesn’t mean you wave the white flag and give up, rather it’s about letting go of the total control you have over your goal and asking the Universe to help you. That help can take the form of listening to your intuition to sense what actions to take. Or being in the space of allowing synchronicities to occur which can move you further towards your goal (because in essence you’ve asked the Universe for help).  

I sometimes see it as when we’re desperate for a goal to manifest and throw as much as we can at it, we keep the door to the Universe firmly closed so that it can’t help us. But surrender is opening that door so that we start to co-create our goal with our spiritual self. 

Dr Michaal Beckwith explains it this way: 

“To surrender is to yield to the next stage of our evolution. It is saying, ‘I’m available to what wants to evolve and emerge through me and I’m willing to practice and embody what it takes for it to do so.’ “

What he’s saying is that you’re open to the Universe working with you to accomplish your goal or dream. It becomes your partner, giving you advice and guidance you may not have thought of. 

It can be scary when you’re in complete control of your goal, giving it over to the Universe. What if help doesn’t come? How can I be sure anything will happen? At this stage, you have to take a deep breath and step back and let the process unfold. You can affirm “I have faith and trust that I will be helped to achieve this goal” and then see what happens.  

Nowadays, we want everything to happen immediately and having to wait a few weeks or months can seem like an eternity. But isn’t it better for your goal to be achieved eventually through surrender and co-creation than never?

You may feel being busy taking continual action will get you there but sometimes that only leads to stress and burnout. But surrender is like “work smarter not harder”. So let your spiritual self help you and surrender your goal, having faith and trust that somehow it will be manifested. 

Listen to this on my podcast EnlightOne.

How To Energise Your New Year Resolutions

Did you set any New Year resolutions and if so, how are they going? You may still have enthusiasm at the moment but is there a part of you that’s wondering if you can keep going? So many people join a gym in January but by the end of January, most of them have stopped coming regularly!  

There’s something about the beginning of a new year where we feel as if we can achieve anything – it’s a new start, a blank page etc. and this time we are going to do it! But as the weeks go by, that burst of enthusiasm is harder to sustain. So what can we do about maintaining that “can do” attitude for the goals we want to achieve? 

There is an alternative way to view your goals. Instead of deciding what your ideal weight is, why not focus on the things you can do when you’re that ideal weight? For example, will it enable you to do more outdoor activities which you love, will you be able to hike longer distances, go to events looking fabulous in new outfits? If you’re aiming to further your career, think about what things you want to do in your job – travel, meet lots of people, be the head of a large team. Don’t just focus on the salary but also what you want to experience in that role. Vishen Lakihani speaks more about this in his book “The Code of the Extraordinary Mind”.  

Goals are great but sometimes it’s difficult to sustain the energy needed to achieve them. Ask yourself as well, is this something you really want or are you only doing it because your family, friends, society think you should. Place your awareness on your heart and ask yourself if this goal is something you really want to achieve, or are you only doing it to please someone else. 

If it’s something you really want, then write down the experiences that goal will allow you to have. Try to add in a creative visualization meditation where you imagine and feel having achieved the goal and how brilliant it is living those experiences. This can give you the extra fuel to keep going with your New Year resolution.

To find out what creative visualization involves and why it helps, listen to my podcast “EnlightOne” and to the entry for April 15th 2023 – “Why Visualization Helps to Manifest Your Goals”.

Don’t give up on your goals and dreams but maybe reframe the way you look at them by focussing on what beautiful experiences they will give you, rather like a bucket list of life. Write down what your ideal job or fitness or relationship etc. will allow to experience. Focus on this and you may just find that extra impetus from within to carry on and achieve what you desire. And so it is. 

Why Forgiveness of Yourself and Others Frees You

Forgiveness is a big thing, when we hear of people forgiving someone who has hurt them, we may be amazed that they could do that. What we forget is that it’s detrimental to us to hold on to the hurt, betrayal, anger, resentment etc. caused by the actions of this person/people.  

Many times, that person may have forgotten what they did to you and be merrily leading their life without a second thought for you. Meanwhile you spend your days/months thinking of what they did and saying you’ll never forgive them – so who is the worse off? 

You may say, well hold one, doesn’t forgiveness mean I condone what they did to me? How can I say that’s it’s OK they broke my heart, betrayed my trust, etc?! Forgiveness isn’t about saying what someone did to you is acceptable, it’s more about you letting go of that pain and anger and how it affects you every day. You don’t condone the action, you release and let go of the impact it has on you. 

Another thing we don’t really think about is self-forgiveness which is just as important.  You’ve hurt someone, emotionally or physically, you feel bad but you live with it. Or you made a decision which caused your life to turn upside down – you’ve managed to come out the other end, but you deeply regret that decision.  With hindsight everything is easier but at the time it seemed the right thing to do.  What situations cause you to feel guilt or shame?   

These emotions are very real energy stuck to our energy fields. Carrying the energy of guilt or revenge will only bring you down and not help you mentally or emotionally. They have a negative impact on us at some level.

As with having a shower and physically cleaning our body, we need to clean our energy fields regularly of debilitating feelings and thoughts. See forgiveness as a way of eliminating that negative energy so that your mind and body can be filled with more light. 

You can view forgiveness as saying “yes this happened, but I’m going to release the negative feelings which don’t help me by forgiving you/myself and this situation that happened”. You can visualise a sword cutting through energy cords between you and the person/people/situation involved and breath it out. Send love and compassion to the aspect of you that wants to cling on to the anger, resentment, shame, etc. 

Do a meditation where you see these energies flying away and replaced by the energy and light of peace or whatever feels right to you. Repeat to yourself “I now forgive {person’s name}/myself for….” and see the energy of the situation, the feelings caused dissolving away. Replace that energy with sparkling, silver light, or ask for it to be replaced by Divine love and light. As ever, do what feels right for you. 

It’s like when the sun is out, we feel more joyous, people smile more. See forgiveness in all its forms as letting the sun into your body, mind and energy fields. See it clearing out all negativity, allowing you to heal and spend your life in a more calm and positive way.