Day 148
Are you seeing your best friend today?
I am seeing my best friend toda
In fact I see them EVERY day
And I see them at the same time each day
They are such a priority to me that I see them before anyone else
So who is this best friend I hear you ask?
My best friend is my meditation practice.
When I sit on my cushion each day and close my eyes, I come home to myself
I connect with something that is present throughout my life
No matter what is going on
No matter where I am
No matter what mood I’m in
No matter the weather
No excuses
No lies
Some call it soul
Others spirit
Or you could describe it as essence, source, collective-consciousness, Buddha nature or God;
It doesn’t matter WHAT you CALL it, all that matters is that you CONNECT with it; get to know it; understand the very nature of yourself.
That is why we are here I believe;
To recognise in ourselves what is present in all of us
How we are connected
And how we ALL have the opportunity for liberation
For liberation is this understanding of self
Once we have peeled away the layers of conditioning and societal expectation
Enlightenment is a coming home to self; when all resistance has dropped and you see everyone for the God that they are.
There is no separation
No you and me
Simply us
Connected on the quantum always
I feel your energy
Can send you love
Am with you always
And it is this that I feel when I close my eyes
YOU are my best friend, for you are me
This is what my meditation over the years has led me to
And it is beautiful
Sacred
Pure
And my only wish in life is that YOU can feel it too
It is this intention that I take into everything that I do
For my life has changed beyond recognition since I made the decision to sit on my cushion everyday, close my eyes, join my index fingers and thumbs together, and feel myself coming home.
From this place of connection decisions are easy
From this place of divinity there can be no self-harm
From this place of love my hand is held out for you to join me
And if you need some company then I livestream my own personal practice each day at 8am GMT, so please do ‘sit’ me (join the FREE Facebook group here). And if you want the added support of a non-judgemental community who understand where you are at then please do join us….
Day 149
Wow, just wow, we are celebrating.
Yesterday we celebrated a lot in QS. We had:
- the first QS anniversary party
- an end to the January residential retreat
- our first AGM
- Chinese New Year
- the January New Moon
As you can see it was a high energy day and we had a lot of fun.
Firstly I’d like to share with you a post from one of this months residential retreat participants which was put on the private forum yesterday:
“Good morning everyone – this is my first day home after my wonderful five day retreat accompanied by ******* on our amazing soul journey to freedom.
I arrived there pretty broken after decades of self abuse and having tried sooooo many times to free myself of alcohol addiction, including a stay at the Priory last year. To be honest I didnt have much hope but luckily just enough to be open to all that the retreat had to offer.
I didn’t realise that there is so much ‘stuff’ that has to be dealt with and released before we can fully find freedom and that is why nothing has worked in the past as I ‘just’ tried to stop drinking not realising that my drinking was the symptom and not the cause of my unhappiness.
Early days I know but I really do feel reborn, with a whole new perspective on life – a forgiving of self and a surrendering and not struggling anymore trying to make make my ideas fit – literally letting go and letting God (or spirit/universe/quantum).
Cant thank you enough Jo for all you’ve done – the whole experience was just wonderful. And Dom of course for his amazing food and the rest of the team who were just lovely.
Ive just done my meditation and I was back in the studio – so real !
I hope that anyone who is thinking about going on retreat but has any reservations does it – you will never look back. I’m realistic enough to know that it might not be all be plain sailing but Jo gives us the tools to really understand whats going on and get back on track if we do falter.
So sorry I won’t be at the party today….but I’ll be with you all in spirit. Have a great time. xxx“
There is much planned so watch this space!
And here is a hello from some of the group that met yesterday….
Day 150
I’m taking a break.
This mornings blog is late, very very late
And I’m writing it from my bed where I am having a ‘duvet morning’
No alarm
No pressure
No expectations
No plans
No drama
We all need to slow down and give ourselves a break now and again
If we don’t we will struggle and life can become difficult (more on this tomorrow).
So my own perfect ‘input’ morning is tea in bed while I surf social media rather than pounce out of bed as normal by 6am. Now my early mornings were a revelation to me but sometimes ARE a struggle, so giving myself a ‘day off’ from them once in a while creates the most intense desire the following day to get back into my routine.
Once I’ve written this I will meditate (sitting up) in my bed, then get up and resume my day feeling refreshed and rested. Admittedly I only get to do this two or three times per month, but it is enough for me and I know when I need take care of myself.
Self-care is vital
I will have a long hot bath today
I had a massage on Friday
I eat only nourishing foods (apart from the very occasional blow-out)
Meditation is key
Getting enough good quality sleep is essential
I know what to do to take care of me
So sorry, not sorry, for being late today,
But I was busy looking after myself;
Were you?
Day 151
The Biggest lie of all.
Today I’d like to ask you a question around your substance of choice:
Are you ‘rewarding’ yourself?
Or are you killing yourself?
I know when I used to commute into London everyday in my 20’s back in the 90’s that life was so boring doing the same old same old (12 years in the same building), and come the weekend I felt like I needed a ‘reward’ for surviving it. That reward back then was as much cocaine as I could literally get up my nose over a 12-20 hour period, served with joint after joint of skunk and accompanied with around 40 cigarettes to boot. Food was an annoyance as the drugs hijacked my hunger and I ate back then only because I had to, so no wonder I was painfully thin.
I could never sleep after a cocaine binge and found myself ‘climbing the walls’ for either more drugs in or for the drugs that were already in to begin to wear off. It was a nasty in-limbo period as I became more distressed from lack of sleep and all the things I needed to do the following day; work mainly but even the thought of speaking to people frightened me.
Looking back now I can see that I was killing myself, yet called this behaviour ‘fun’.
The ‘reward’ behaviour continued throughout my 30’s although I replaced drugs for wine. The prize for getting through the day now was ‘wine o’clock’. I could feel my body and mind shutting down from the stresses of the day and associated this with relaxation. However, alcohol (and drugs) did not relax me and I always believed up until my sobriety date in 2012 that I was an insomniac.
The truth couldn’t be further away from that fact.
Shortly after taking my last drink I began to sleep deeply and lengthily.
It was a revelation.
Finally I understood how the alcohol had been playing havoc with my mind and body, and once it was free of it sleep came effortlessly.
- We are told that alcohol relaxes us, but the truth is it is a depressant
- We are told that alcohol makes us the life and soul of the party, but the truth of it is that it is a depressant
- We are told that alcohol will soothe our troubles away, but the truth of it is that it is a depressant
We know this but yet are still drawn into the web of lies.
Is it that we so desperately want to find a magic pill to make all the bad stuff go away that we ignore the above facts and buy into the lies ‘just in case’?
- Why are we not finding a better way to relax?
- Why are we not finding energy from life to be the life and soul of the party?
- Why are we not dealing with our troubles rather than numbing out from them?
With hindsight I can look back to my coke and booze days and see that I was not willing to sit in the fire of truth and deal with what was wrong in my life. Instead I covered it all over and put on a face of having ‘fun’, but behind closed doors I was dying inside.
I was killing my soul as well as my physical body
It was happening on all levels
The longer I believed the lies I was telling myself the darker my days got.
And then I woke up from this nightmare and I’ll talk tomorrow about the process I went through as my eyes began to truly open for the first time….
But for today please ask yourself this around your substance of choice:
Are you ‘rewarding’ yourself?
Or are you killing yourself?
Day 152
Reaching the tipping point.
Unfortunately we are not told we are enough
Instead we get bombarded with messages that we are not enough;
TV
Magazines
Movies
Posters
Adverts
All telling us we should be happier, slimmer, healthier, have more muscles and be more beautiful/handsome.
We get this message over and over again
And then usually something terrible happens; at the hands of another or life in general.
That is when we crumble
That is when it becomes too much
All of these expectations
Being surrounded with perfection
So we turn to something for comfort
And food, alcohol or drugs ease the struggle
Of course we know that these in themselves then become their own fight, and if we have never dealt with the underlying cause we are left now with TWO problems.
It often has to become critical before we take a leap of faith into a different way of living. Reaching ‘rock bottom’ has been the classic wake up call for most.
But what about reaching the tipping point was simply down to having PERMISSION to get better?
To finally believe that it is possible because another has given you the green light to do so.
What could that look like globally?
It makes me very excited because I am already watching it happen in the QS community; children are watching parents get better and will ALWAYS mimic their behaviour. Can you see what potential there is?
Yoga and meditation took me to the tipping point
Finally I believed in me
Finally I realised that I did deserve more
I was enough
I had reached the tipping point
And I knew in that moment that my life was never going to be the same.
And it wasn’t
I began to listen to ME
What was right for ME
Not the masses
Not the next person
But ME
We don’t all fit into the same mould
We don’t all get better the same way
But we do all need to begin to believe that WE ARE ENOUGH
This month we are working in great detail on this subject in the QS community, and if that is something that you would like to also explore then please do join us…..
Day 153
One degree out could mean everything.
We all know the saying,
“I got out of bed the wrong side this morning”
Meaning that because of that ONE fact our whole day went tits up.
On those days it seems as if the whole world is against us; that everything goes wrong and life is totally out of our control.
I DO believe that this is true
But
I believe that it works the other way around also
For it’s all about the vibration you get yourself into and the belief that you set.
Think about travelling by boat around a lake
You are starting at A and travelling to B
So, you get on the boat and ask to be taken to location B
However, if the driver veers off by just ONE degree you are not going to reach location B but another place entirely (C). And if this is a very remote lake then it is going to be a nightmare for you to walk overland through the dense jungle and mountains to get to your requested location.
So you can see that in this scenario you would indeed be having a total nightmare; your day would have been ruined and will take a long time to get back on track. Just from ONE small wrong turn.
This is when it is important to be clear about which direction we want to be travelling in.
When we get on the train we make sure we know it’s destination
When we sit in our car and turn the engine on we know exactly where we are going, and if we don’t then we’ll have programmed our satnav to direct us.
If I ask you right now where do you want to be by the end of 2017, would you be able to answer me?
And I am not talking about the car, the house or the job!
I mean: HOW DO YOU WANT TO BE FEELING?
That is the destination that we are interested in, because that is what drives your existence;
Living inside out is how you put living from truth into practice
Use Your Snoozes Wisely!
A morning routine where we consciously create the vibration of the day is essential
For how can we expect to have a smooth ride if we have no idea where we are going?!
Think about two people waking up in the morning:
- The first consciously gets into the vibration of love, peace and truth
- The other falls into their day with no direction given
Can you see the difference?
Can you see that we are failing before we even BEGIN to get started?
That we are setting up a whole day of disasters and struggles because we are not communicating to the quantum/universe/God the wishes of our heart?
And we are totally missing a trick because the quantum/universe/God is WAITING for our request and is there to serve our heart and bring us all that we desire.
TIP:
I put my alarm on twenty minutes earlier than I want to get up and use the first ten minute snooze to wake up and the second to consciously create the vibration of the day. I lie with my eyes closed or looking up at the ceiling and connect with my heart. I think about my plans for the day and take that truth energy forwards on the quantum; then all my day has to do is catch up with those intentions 😊
So do you have a morning routine?
What can you do to get your trajectory more in a connected direction?
And how can you prevent yourself from swerving one degree off an otherwise easeful and enjoyable day?
Day 154
Rapunzel, Rapunzel, Let Down Your Golden Hair
A client recently had a vision in a meditation about being in a tower like Rapunzel and falling out the window and onto the ground, then climbing back up to the top of the tower only for the whole situation to happen again and again and again.
And it got me to thinking that the addictive cycle is doing just this
Over and over again
We climb up and feel resolute in our decision to stop
And there we go again, we’ve fallen out the window and are laying in a heap on the floor.
I get emails and messages all of the time from people caught up in the cycle and not able to take that first step outside the circle of feed and demand, feed and demand, feed and demand.
So what to do?
Want to know the best advice of all?
Well you’ve got to do something DIFFERENT
Seems obvious but not so when entrenched deep within the cycle
Join a group
Get counselling
Go to a meeting
Meet like-minded souls
Do some sun salutations
Go outside and take a walk
– You’ve got to shift the energy –
Then once shifted MEDITATE
Sit on your cushion
And see what is there
Become quiet and sit with your heart and listen to its language
Watch what comes up for this is where the answers lie
Be brave and sit with your ‘demons’
For only once you are willing to face them can you see that you no longer need to be scared. In fact when you look them square in the face you realise perhaps that you ARE ready to release the past so that you can stop falling off the tower and instead let down your golden hair and let life climb up….
Member Quote’s Of The Week.
In this section you will read something that has been said by one of the Quantum Sobriety Online Programme members over on the very lively private forum:
“It’s really nice when the physical benefits of stopping drinking start showing and people compliment you on well you look. Newbies this will happen to you after a few weeks . People can’t seem to define what is different, yet they are intrigued to what it is. I have heard things like “have you lost weight” “your skin looks amazing” “you’re looking leaner” “what have you been doing, you look great”. They can’t quite work out what it is, but something changes in vibration and people see it. Funnily enough I have been having this again all week from many people and I haven’t done anything different and am 8 months of no alcohol. 
“
This is testimony to what all of us know and understand in the deepest, quietest part of ourselves; that we are perfection. It may take us a long time to realise that, or it maybe that you wake up one day, as I did, and the realisation caresses you and bids you, “stay awake, there is work to be done.”
So often we think that we’ll be perfect once we get this out of the way, or we sort that out, and once we are no longer addicted. But all we really have is now. The perfection of now. I kept asking myself, “Are you addicted now? And now? And now?” And the answer is no. So when was I addicted?
Our perception of ourselves is already old news. What we think we are is formed out of thoughts we had yesterday, a year ago, when we were a child.
But are we children now? Are we still in yesterday? We don’t have to continue the pattern.
Thank you Jo for introducing me to the path, thank you everyone for continuing to hold each of us up.
You are all perfect. Love and freedom. xxx“
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