Month: July 2014

Contemplating Lack Of Sleep – Is It A State Of Mind?

/ George Halfin / Leave a comment

Lack of sleepIf you go to any classes about the 3 Principles you will often hear people talk a lot about ‘State of Mind’ and ‘Levels of Consciousness’. What they mean is that we are all going in out of moods all the time and this effects how we see the world and our lives, and this is completely natural. So to explain ‘Levels of Consciousness’:  if you imagine a lift on the outside of a high storey building  and  on the bottom level all you can see is what’s directly in front of you, for example the grass and the trees surrounding the building. As the lift rises to different floors you begin to see more and more, so the tops of the buildings, the surrounding area etc, etc. This is similar to our state of mind. – At the bottom the lift you just see the crowded thoughts in front of you and they seem very real and very compelling. As you rise in the lift you see more and more of the bigger picture and thus gain more and more perspective, so that the thoughts from the bottom of the lift don’t seem so compelling any more. The lift can stay on a floor or move up and down.  Sometimes you can be on the bottom floor for a while maybe a few days or longer. Sometimes you can be up and down the lift at different points in the day, depending on how much you are taking your thinking seriously at any given moment.

Someone once said to me ‘lack of sleep’ is a state of mind and I really didn’t get it because to me it seemed so real that it must be an exception to the rule. Now I’m not so sure… Continue reading →

Learning To Go With The Feeling In Other Words Learning To Trust Yourself

/ George Halfin / 4 Comments

Doubt - Questioning oneselfIn the 3 Principles world there is a lot of talk about going with the feeling rather than your intellect.  In other words you could say going with your gut instinct, or intuition rather than your rational weighing up of situations.

As a professed Overthinker I have spent many years overthinking everything and going with the feeling is something I still struggle with as I’m so used to relying on my rational mind. People would often say to me ‘ George you need to learn to trust yourself’ and I guess what they mean is trust your feeling (or intuition) rather than asking everyone else’s opinion all the time. Continue reading →

Expectations Are Your Enemy And Not Your Friend

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Picnic in the kitchenJust over a week ago we were planning a family day trip to the countryside for the first time since the baby was born. We were very excited about the trip and despite the rain got up early to make our picnic. As we were about to leave the baby woke up for another feed, the weather took a turn for the worse and when my husband checked the traffic report it was dire. Despite our desperation to go we realised it wasn’t going to be a good idea.

We were both very disappointed and half-heartedly scrabbled around on the internet for an alternative plan, but none really appealed to us. We started to feel very downhearted and fed up. In the past this would have led my husband and I on a downward spiral resulting at us snapping at each other all day. But that day we decided not to let it get the better of us.

In the spirit of having our day trip my husband set up the picnic on the kitchen floor and insisted on having the door open to make it more real even though I was  freezing! He kept saying ‘Well at least we are not at the Glastonbury Festival in the mud’ – which I very much appreciated. – Since the year we went it was mudtastic and hence bickertastic (but that’s another story).

I in the meantime managed to arrange for us to go to friends nearby and we ended up having a lovely afternoon. We even had a glass of wine which may not be much to you but to us felt very grown up and indulgent! I’m not saying we didn’t have a few thoughts about still feeling we wanted to escape but we managed to put these aside for the most part and have a good time. We even joked about how we had travelled to another London borough even though it was only a 5 minute drive away.

When I reflect on this experience it wasn’t the fact that we weren’t able to go on our planned day trip that was the problem it was our expectations about the day that caused us to have to unhappy thoughts. In the past these could have led us to having disgruntled thoughts about our lives and worse! -Instead of appreciating what we have.

Because we both deeply know about the power of thought we just didn’t want to go there so were able to quickly jump out of our upset. It made me think about all the other times in our lives where we get excited and build things up, whether they be holidays, day trips or even other people -expecting them to behave in certain ways, only for the reality to fall short of our expectations. How much do these failed expectations affect us in our lives and how much do we really take responsibility for the fact that they are our thoughts and expectations and therefore problems of our own making and not reality?

Adults Have Tantrums Too – Learnings From A Low Mood

/ George Halfin / Leave a comment

Low Mood WordsIt’s now over 10 weeks after the birth of my second son and even though I’m in an amazingly good space compared to when I had my first baby, I can’t deny that exhaustion is setting in. – Recently this resulted in me dropping my phone down the toilet. I think that is proof enough!

A few weeks ago we were due to go to dinner at my parents which me and my elder 3 year old son were really looking forward to. But then my husband got home and said he was too tired to drive. After much emotional tooing and froing we made an attempt to go, but the traffic was bad and my husband decided to turn back.

I was very upset and thought that my 3 year old would be so disappointed he would throw a massive tantrum that would last until bed time. How wrong I was! – In fact it wasn’t him that had a complete meltdown it was me! I felt very emotional and upset and my thinking started running wild! Continue reading →

When The Unconscious Becomes Conscious – When What Is Staring You In The Face Becomes Visible To You.

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Blinkers

For the last few months our 3 year old son has been constantly saying to us ‘ What are you doing mum?’ ‘What are you doing dad?’ several times over even when we’ve explained what we are doing from the mundane ie putting washing in the machine to the overly obvious ‘getting you dressed’. Since at times it occurs to us that this question is asked incessantly we find it fun to ask him jokingly back ‘What are you doing ‘S’?’ or to when we want to test if he understands ‘What do you think I am doing ‘S’?’.

We like his curiosity – I was a curious child myself – driving everyone I knew to distraction with my constant asking ‘Why?’ as a young child. When people despaired of me I would say ‘But mummy says it’s good to ask questions – why?’ so they had no escape.

Yet we wondered where he got this phrase from…Then yesterday as I was looking after him and I feeding the baby in the other room I noticed I kept asking him ‘What are you dong ‘S’?’ and it was so subconscious to me that I hadn’t realised that it is me who asks him this question all day long as a way of trying to him out of mischief/or to put more generously – as a way of keeping his curiosity from getting him into dangerous/ undesirable situations!

How funny that I hadn’t noticed that these words came from me all day long and yet they have literally been staring me in the face for months, and it made me think how many other things do we think, say or do regularly out of habit that we don’t even notice and what effects does this have on ourselves and those around us?