Tag Archives: visualisation

Isolation

09 Wednesday Aug 2017

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Wasn’t sure where I wanted to write this blog, but I felt I needed to add it to this site, as when we are trying to conquer our goals, the one thing that can stop us is isolation. We can often feel like we aren’t part of society and alone.

When I feel isolated the one thing I do is get out of the house and go for a walk. The worst thing you can do is to stay in doors, home alone. Getting out is important, as isolation usually means you need a new environment, and space.

Feeling isolated can lead us to feeling depressed, so getting out will help stop the cobwebs, which is what I call depressive thoughts, from emerging.

Care, Feeling, Female, Couple, Give

If you do get invited out, unless there is trouble getting to somewhere, take up the invite and go.

Isolation means you need to be with people, and you probably find that they too have felt isolated and alone, all they needed just like you, a friend.

If someone does talk to you, give them acknowledgement, instead of trying to ignore them.

It is so easy at times to isolate yourself especially if you are a new mum for example, but this is where meeting other mums for example, can really help. Knowing you aren’t alone in feeling like you a walking meal on tap, as from my own experience, as much as I love my son I did feel often like a walking cow.

Getting out is important for isolation and a new environment can really do the trick.

Many thanks for reading,

 

Carrie X

 

Creating a foundation and following the unplanned

03 Tuesday Jan 2017

Posted by in Boundaries, Personal Development

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The one thing I have learned from being a child, a teenager and an adult, is that the more of a foundation you create, the more you will be able to handle rejection, criticism and general negativity in your life.

You will never stop anyone from feeling negative towards you, there will always be people who will see things differently to you, but it doesn’t really mean they are wrong or you are, and there will always be, no matter what, people who do nothing more than bring you down. They want to bring you to their level to make them feel good, no matter what.

My advice,

Leave them in their misery”

“If they never have anything good to say, then let this be their problem, not yours. Never allow these people to stop you from what you believe in or what you want to do with your life as that is exactly what they want”*

 

What type of foundation should you want to create?

One that makes you smile when you feel down, and gives you fulfillment, gives you security and reassurance.

Those people around you, who know how to bring you back to earth, and let you know that if what you plan in your life doesn’t go to plan, they still have your back at the end of the day.

There is the negative and the positive foundation

Those who will instantly bring you up and those who will instantly bring you down, those who will purposely lead you down a bad road, and you end up hurting yourself and others.

How many stories do we read of famous people who end up with the people who dictate what they should wear, eat and who they should be in a relationship with, and ended up being with someone that changes their life forever, leading them into drugs and drink, and before they know it, their life is out of control.

Did they have a good or bad foundation?

I don’t believe people actually wake up in the morning to have a bad day.

If there was a pill to bring people happiness, I guarantee it would sell out within a day. I believe that people all want to feel good about themselves and feel fulfilled, because what is the point of being alive if not?

People who become famous for example, for singing, acting and creating worldwide businesses, obviously felt that this talent couldn’t got to waste and had a purpose to their life.

I never believe someone who becomes famous plans to fail or go down the wrong path, and purposely sets a bad foundation, but it can too often be because the people supporting them can often get lead by the fame too, and are forever saying “Yes” and not “No” and when people get used to people saying “Yes” to their needs, they can often go against those who say “No” when they are the ones who are trying to help them the most.

They get lost in the world of fame and find it hard to bring themselves up into the realworld again.

Then there are those who have started of with a poor foundation, or started of with a bad foundation, but through determination, strength and never letting any challenges pull them down, have thrived to create an amazing foundation, that can never be taken down, no matter what.

The one person who strings to my mind when I think of this, is famous people like Richard Branson, who started selling things out of the boot of his car and created one of the most famous brands in the world. Virgin.

However you don’t have to become a multi millionaire or even billionaire to create a good foundation, which can become unbreakable. Sometimes people who come from nothing to a millionaire can seem like they have a good foundation, but then get out of control and ended up bankrupt.

I remember reading one of Paul McKenna’s books and he described that even though he was in the prime of his career, how he felt empty and not completely fulfilled as he had hoped.

I remember the girl bad TLC, from the 90’s and they had a hit with “Don’t go chasing Waterfalls”, and looked like they were on the road to an amazing lifelong singing career, only for it to all come crashing down.

Now the bad no longer exist. Well I haven’t heard anything since watching VH-1 years ago, when they did a documentary on their career.

All the money they had made from their hits, had gone.

There will always be times when you will trip and fall, but creating a foundation around you will help support you.

I am also a great believer in that sometimes the unplanned is better than the plan, when something out of the blue occurs and it feels amazing and then you start to develop a foundation to maintain that unplanned event, that has changed your life.

An Example: I went to work down in Bognor Regis, as I wanted to work within a holiday camp and work within the entertainments department.

That never happened. Instead I met my now husband, and then within a year we were living together, and now 14 years later, we are married with a son, which was the greatest gift ever.

That has become my foundation.  

The roads we choose may vary, and it may take several routes for us to get where we really truly want to be, but with the correct people around us, to help us in our journey we are more than likely to succeed.

Be weary of who you choose. It is okay to be picky, just make sure that they suit you, and meet your expectations, are honest with you and you in turn respect them and treat them as part of a team, and give credit when it is due, there is nothing worse when you have helped someone, and they haven’t even said thank you.

My son and husband are my foundation. When I feel low, I just have to take one look at them and I feel good, I know I have something to succeed for.

I knew going to Bognor Regis I would gain my independence and find a life of my own, and I did just that. I did try getting into the entertainments side, but by then I was on the road to another path, and found my passion for fitness, taking on charity runs and did my first half marathon, I then found my passion again for writing and here I am.

Continuing with the foundation I already have, I have now started to create a another foundation, by having my own income again, for the next path, and I am no longer worried about following the initial plan, but setting myself goals and targets.

It isn’t about the plan, but what you learn and discover as you go about your life.

Related blog I recommend: http://balanceinme.com/blog/life-balance-foundation/

Many thanks for reading,

 

Carrie X

Building Relationships

22 Thursday Dec 2016

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Being married for 10 years has had its ups and downs like most, and we certainly don’t spend every minute of the day together, I believe in personal space even being in a relationship, but I do also like our together times too.

We aren’t all over each other like a rash and we don’t always cuddle up at night. I like being left alone for some of the night, as I feel that this is my time to try and switch off and be in my own thoughts.

What we do have is understanding. We know we want to have that time together and when we want that space. You just sense it by the body language and the fact that my husband has his face berried in his tablet like myself at times.

Building relationships whether it be romantic or not, is part of the human being. Learning how to be around other people, respecting the other persons boundaries, even though you do get those who try and break them. You learn how to compromise and how to pick up tips from other people, which can inspire us.

We look at someone who we idolise on the TV as an example and we see the life they have to what we have, and we think “Wow I would love to experience that” so even though you haven’t met the person, you have already formed a relationship with that image of that person. You build up this admiration for them, you love their voice, what they have to say, their talent and sometimes you can feel as if they are a part of you. You want to know how they are like that and how can I be like that too?

Above is a photo of the extreme, those who go to lengths to look like someone else, but is this a good relationship.

I always think it is dangerous route to take. Idolising someone is different to copying someone completely, and that can be a bad relationship.

You can never be like someone else. You don’t know their thoughts unless you are a mind reader, only the person themselves know what is going on in their head, and your chasing something you’ll never be.

However you can also learn from this too. Look at how they walk, talk and stand, why they have so many people admiring them, and you can use their body language to help you too.

Language can really help when building relationships, as a lot of the time when a relationship breaks down, what usually comes up is the communication. The lack of it. When they talk to you it feels like an attack or a criticism. We can often feel that they don’t love us anymore because they are talking to us differently.

We can often put up a barrier in our communication, because of our tone of voice. We can sound like we are too busy with something else other than that person who loves us, but we don’t mean to, we get caught up in the everyday and we forget “Oh this person loves us”.

Or when we try to talk to our partners we can often feel they no longer want to talk to us, when if we waited for them to finish what they were doing, and be patient then that person will talk to us, once they are ready too.

We can be demanding “Why aren’t you talking to me” “Why are you not responding the way I want you too”. We often complain because we expect at times for our love ones to read our minds, but they are human too, and no man or woman is really a mind reader.

I am no relationship or marriage counsellor but I am a married woman, whose parents divorced when I was reaching the end of my teen years, and it was tough seeing the break up and being in it.

Once we take the pressure off from a relationship then both parties can feel relief. I know when I have piled too much pressure on mine and my husbands, because I have had too much of an unrealistic expectation. Like on days out and he hasn’t wanted to walk on further along the river, he can’t see what I had planned, he didn’t play out my head to see “Oh she wanted to go and walk along the River Thames to have a drink by Tower Bridge” no it was all in my head, but as soon as he didn’t want to walk that far, I felt hurt that I had spent all that time planning in my mind of the day. I felt he didn’t care because I had this ideal image of the day, that I never mentioned until he didn’t want to go there.

How was he supposed to know?

I kind of expected him to know. How?

If I had said from the beginning I would like to go and have a drink near tower bridge, I had planned it since planning this day, then I am sure he would have said “Okay” but I didn’t.

This again, was down to me not communicating correctly, which once I realised that I quickly learnt from. My job in customer service, one thing it teaches is how to form good relations with customers by using certain words and effective communication, but when it comes to using these lessons at home, there is often a communication break down.

So from looking outside of my relationship and from others I have witnessed, the important parts of building a relationship is quite simple.

Understanding, communicate effectively, pressure off and compromise when required.

Many thanks for reading,

 

Carrie X

Chasing Dreams

19 Monday Jan 2015

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Lets begin with a question.

If there is one thing you have always dreamed of doing and you knew you couldn’t fail at getting to achieve that dream what would it be?

I would like you to just think about that question for a second before you read on.

To get to achieve the things you would like you have to first of all think about your priorities.

What are your main priorities that you need to maintain in your life?

For me my priorities are:

– Being a mum and looking after my son.

– To provide for my family and support my husband

– To look after our home, and create a foundation to help us save towards a new home our dream home.

– To continue to look after myself and help those who need help and support more

What do I want to do that will help keep those things together, but will help me to focus on the things I want?

My dreams,

– To work from home so I can spend time with my son through his most important time of his life.

– Work Part-time to help support my husband, to go towards the things our son needs,  and things we need to keep our home in order, clean and tidy; whilst I work towards and fund my dreams to having a successful career and be a successful housewife.

– To have a career as a writer, create projects using my coaching skills to help further to build people’s confidence and helping communities who are in more need than me.

– A better financial situation for myself.

So far I have achieved 4 things. I now am working from home voluntarily as a blog writer and published my first book last year, and since first writing this blog, I have written my first ever novel “A Lonely Walk to Happiness” available at http://www.amazon.co.uk 

And I am now writing my third book and this year got my first freelance writing job. Writing for someone else.

I coached a local youth football team, 2 in fact and now want to use that to eventually help people in communities to build better life skills and use sport and fitness like it did for me to form better relationships with people through learning about team work and to help support families in need and help to build their confidence about themselves.

I then began making Vlogs to help people who have self confidence issues on YouTube and I already do fundraising through doing charity runs and walks. My Youtube channel has grown since first writing this blog, and now share part of my world in videos too. Sharing my life as a working parent and my many interests, and loves.

My Youtube channel is: https://www.youtube.com/user/cazzacheers1

I have been working part time for 2 years now.

There is still a lot I need to put into achieving the rest, but I know with my persistence, strength and beliefs I will do all the things on my current dreams list.

What helps me to achieve the things I want is by visualising. I imagine that I have already achieved the goal, what I felt, my appearance, the colour of the image, how I am dressed, standing and what I can smell, to make me feel as is it has actually happened. Visualising dreams can help you see clearly what it is you want. There is no point getting into a car without knowing where you want to go. You should always have a destination.

Visualising your dreams will help to train the brain to send those positive signals, that produce endorphin’s that give you excitement, happiness, peace and belief. When you see the image of the dream you want to create for real, write it down into your dreams book (or whatever notebook you use).

In the picture what is it you see?

How did you get there?

When a castle was built it would have taken many men, but it would have been from one persons visualisation that helped create it into reality. It would have been from an image in someone’s mind to create the picture of the castles you see on our lands today. It would have taken weeks and months, probably several years to build, but it took ones persons image to produce that dream for real. They may have had to tweak or change the original image as it was being built, due to the land, the materials used and any laws they had back then to when they were built but it would have been from one persons imagination to begin with to create that structure. They would have had to draw it out, describe it to their fellow men, and they may not have agreed or even may have had to convince people of building these magnificent attractions which still sit on our lands today. However these magnificent creations did become a reality, and were built and completed no matter what challenges were faced.

Castles are made up of pieces put together to create a frame and structure so it stands correctly so it doesn’t fall down. I bet there were days when they first started, where they began to have doubts when creating such huge landmarks.

Doubts are normal they are what helps us to weigh up the pros and cons, but what you need to do is not allow the doubts to hold you back. Address the doubts, what is that is saying are you sure? Ask yourself what if someone else takes that dream you want away from you, how would that make you feel?

  • Do you want to be the best at what your already currently good at now?
  • Or do you want to do something completely different?
  • How would you feel if someone else tried to take your ideas you have worked on to build their life?
  • If you want to do something completely different would you be willing to start from the beginning again, at the bottom to work your way back up to the other path you wish to take on, in your life?
  • Going back to the question I asked at the beginning, if you knew you couldn’t fail at achieving the dreams you want what would it be? What steps would you take?
  • What are your main priorities?

The people or things in your life that you would put your neck on the line for and you are not willing to give up, those are the priorities to help you give yourself and them the life you want and to make your life and theirs even better.

Why do I want to do the dreams I have chosen?

The most important people in my life are my son and husband. I want to support my husband emotionally, to help bring up our son and financially.

The important thing in my life is my home where I live with my husband and son.

I want to help build a better life and future for myself, but also for my son and husband. I want to give my son the best start in life, but also invest in his future, should he want to take up a sport, or other interest and when he is a lot older if he wants to go onto college and university. Those choices that my son will make in his life I want him to be able to make without worrying about money. I am not saying that we will give our son everything he wants as I do think it is important that we still teach him the value of money and if there is something he wants he has to earn it and getting somewhere and being success includes putting in hard work. If he is naughty then we won’t be giving him what he wants. However I want to invest money that will help my son should the worst thing happen and I am no longer able to be there for my little boy.

I know that there is more out there for me but I have got to put the time, focus and commitment in for me to get to see what else I can have in my life. The same for yourself you can have the things you want in life but you have got to earn, commit, keep focus and not allow any challenges stand in your way.

Think about these words Earn it, keep it and invest it.

Set out your dreams, visualise and plan. Know your priorities and take on any challenges and doubts, address your doubts use these to push you on. Know where you want to go think about being in a car and as your driving you are  watching your life play out from your current life to your future, where do you want to be, what do you want to be doing, who do you want to be there?

You may on your way have to turn off as like life there may be a closed road or something may have occurred and so you are now needing to choose a different direction, but there will always be another route, and if you really want to get to that dream and the thing you have always wanted then you will get there.

I wish you good luck and never stop believing in yourself.

Many thanks for reading,

 

Carrie X

Feeling good about yourself

14 Wednesday Jan 2015

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Low self esteem isn’t something you are born with but is something that is triggered by someone or something, it can lead to other psychological problems. In terms of myself it was,

  • Comparing myself to others
  • Bullying
  • Not feeling comfortable when my body began to change as I became a teenager

It took me a while for me to accept myself, and even struggled when I got married and wouldn’t watch my wedding video or pictures of myself at my mums wedding because of the way I felt about myself. I knew I couldn’t continue to feel this way, and so I began to make changes in my life, as I didn’t want to look back in my 70’s should I reach that age, knowing that all I did is feel bad about myself. The changes had to come from me. To do that I began learning from others using tools and exercises to get in touch with my positive feelings and side of the brain. Instead of wanting to do something I started to do it, such as exercise and taking up walking long distances and running.

I got back into writing and blogging, where I did another blog about building self confidence which was called Building self confidence- Feeling like the ugly duckling. I began to educate myself about food, as I needed to change the way I saw food and my relationship with it. I had to take myself out of my comfort zone, and do things that I have always thought “I would love to do that one day” to “I am going to do that”. I remember one May in 2006 watching the London Marathon and thinking instead of saying I will do this one day I am going to do it, and I applied for the 2007 London Marathon, however didn’t manage to get a place, but I have been trying ever since. I had to stop running for a while when I became pregnant, however I have not stopped wanting to do this and I hope to finally get to do the Virgin London Marathon in the next couple of years.

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I have since done other events, and still do them even after having my son and completed a Personal Best last in July 2015, when I did the British London 10K which I also did the year after, and completed another Personal Best. In the same year of completing the London 10K the second time, I then in September of 2016, took on the Royal Parks Half Marathon.

Exercise has become my therapy and my love for walking has grown even stronger, it is so good for the mind and clearing out your thoughts and have done walks for charity and each year, doing the London Bridges walk for Garden House Hospice.   

This year 2016 on the 10th September I completed a 25KM walk, to take on the Thames Path Challenge. 

I started off when I had a day off from work in the week because I was working at the weekend I would go for walks around London and walked one day from Wimbledon to Tower Bridge, and I used to when I worked in Kingston, walk from Kingston to Wimbledon and then Kingston to Epsom.

The walks weren’t always easy, there were hurdles sometimes in the way, diversions, or under passes which I am dubious about walking through and toilet breaks, fatigue can set in so you have to boost up your hydration and energy levels, but when I saw the finishing line, example when walking to Tower Bridge it gave me such a boost and looking back now it was like travelling through life.

Life has many paths and tunnels, and it is the paths and tunnels we choose to take that will help us to take the next stage in our lives. There will be challenges, and hurdles. However if you focus on the goal you want and take on the challenges, but continue to be determined and committed you can achieve the things you want in your life that will help you feel good about yourself and will help bring you happiness.

  • It is OK to say I want to change the way I look, but ask yourself why?
  • What is the real reason why you want to make this change?
  • Is it because of someone else or for yourself?

Asking the right questions will give you the right answers.

I knew the reason why I wanted to get fit was because I wanted to change the image I saw in the mirror by changing my lifestyle, getting in touch with my thoughts and produce the endorphin’s I needed. It did help me smile and realise what I could accomplish and what I do like about myself.

I have legs that can help me achieve goals that I never thought I could, a mind that can create ideas, hands that can help me to be creative and write and can use to exercise too, such as weight lifting. I have learned too cook new meals, met new people, I have been told I have a wonderful smile and people get a buzz from me when I am fully enjoying myself and happy

Another key thing in building yourself self confidence about yourself is learning to see why you have the family you do and what they see, and your friends’ Why you bring happiness to them?

When you feel negative that is all you see, you don’t see the positive. You will always focus on the negative “I don’t feel good about myself” so you need to change the view you are seeing. See what people see in you, take yourself out of you to see the good within you.

Watching This Morning yesterday they had The Speakmans on who specialise in Schema Conditioning Psychotherapy they were helping people who were lacking low self-esteem and they did an exercise where by they asked a couple of women who were suffering from low self-esteem to look at themselves in the mirror and tell them what (The Speakmans) they saw and thought about themselves. As these women were talking, Eva Speakman wrote down and got a stranger to read back to these ladies of what they thought about themselves.

Then they asked the ladies to think about the person who they loved and who loved them back what they would say about them and again Eva Speakman wrote this down and got them to read these comments back to themselves and then look at themselves again. Doing this exercise made them refocus their thoughts and get in touch with their positive side of the brain.

That is what you need to do is change your focus by doing these types of exercises and making lifestyle changes, writing down how you feel, looking at a time when you did feel happy about yourself or of a memory that makes you smile, expand that image and play it in your head as if it is a movie.

What was it back then that made you feel good about yourself or makes you smile? Write about this down.

Also as talked about in my first blog put all these in your dreams book or whatever you choose but in something you know you will keep and look back on, so when the negative thoughts creep back in, you can look at the positive images that you wrote about and remind yourself, you are beautiful and are special.

Creating a better image of yourself and thinking about what makes you happy, will help you to change the way you see yourself, and plan to get the life you want, and to look the way you want. You can feel good about yourself without making drastic changes, and if you want to make a change then you have the power to do so.

You just have to believe in yourself and go through what you do love at the moment about yourself and your life. Making a lifestyle change, learning to get in touch with your brain that sends you positive signals will help you to begin your journey into feeling good about yourself.

Please see ITV.com of the exercise The Speakmans did to help build self-esteem and I will be in my next blog writing about other tools, other changes and materials I have used to help feel good about myself.

I do not expect that the exercises and materials will work for everyone, however I know that they have helped me and can help others too.

Many thanks for reading,

 

Carrie Challoner

What is this all about?

14 Wednesday Jan 2015

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This blog is to help those to thrive and build better confidence in their lives, who may have experienced bullying or have body confidence issues, mind issues, such as anxiety, have been scammed and now feel unprotected, and trying to give tips and advice on what I have learned dealing with these demons too.

I give help and advice on how to fight back on all issues, not allowing passed experiences, mind issues or body confidence issues, to hold you back from living your life. I provide blogs on how to rebuild yourself after being bullied as the after math of being bullied can be hard after your confidence being knocked by the people or group responsible.

I called it Everyone Can Build A Castle, because it is basically a symbolism that everyone can be have a fulfilling life, be successful in life and have their dreams come true. Making changes and altering their thought processes.

The first castles built were in the Norman times, and remember back then they wouldn’t have had the resources we had today, and so would have taken a team of people, who worked day and night to create these historic buildings on our lands.

You can have your own castle too, by creating what is meaningful around you, that brings you wellness, happiness, and what gives you strength.

Think about the walls of a castle and within those walls is your symbolism of what you want from each of those walls in your life, do you want a family of your own? a career? an expensive car? travel around the world?

WELL YOU CAN, ANYONE CAN. So imagine those things, imagine that the family you want is standing right in front of you, the career you would like, the expensive car you want and an image of you travelling around the world.

Write about that image you see, what are the colours, who is there with you, how are you feeling in this picture, or when you see the car you want or you doing the career you want, put the image in an envelope and leave it beside your bed or on a shelf in a draw so you can look back at it. Or put it in a photo frame as a pretty display so it reminds you of your goal.

Create a mind inspiration board of all the things you would like.

The next step is TAKE ACTION. Take control of what you choose to do next to help you towards your goal.

A = allow your imagination run and again have a special notebook, call it the dreams book or whatever title you want. Every time you think about what you like in your life to be like write about it, and see if it matches or has changed since the one you wrote before.

C = come up with a plan of how you will achieve the things you want in your life.

T = Time. give yourself a deadline of when you want the things on your plan to be done by.

I = Imagine yourself in a years time, what would you want to achieve? 2 years, 3 years, etc again write it down in your dreams book.

O = Once you have come up with your plan, deal with the things that keep holding you back and write them down.

N = Never say never, as anything is possible, just keep believing and lets start making that goal or dream come true.

I found making just one lifestyle change such as exercising, learning all the time, changing my appearance has helped to accept myself and have better wellness. I love the people and things I have in my life now. I have had my struggles but the one thing I have told myself I will not allow myself to feel, is low, but be more fulfilled and to be determined.

In order to win the fight against what life hands out you, you have to fight the fight, and look at the good things that are already around you and build each day to make it even better.

Many thanks for reading,

Carrie X