How to use Failure as a Springboard to Success

What are your New Year Resolutions?

Mindfulness, Conscious Breathing and A Gratitude-Attitude.

A New Year has begun. Lots of people are talking about New Year’s Resolutions. The opportunity to make a fresh start is important – but it is not just restricted to New Year’s Day. Each day offers us the opportunity for a new beginning.

Stress

My work is all about reducing stress, building resilience and increasing happiness. I have developed a unique programme I call ‘The Seven Steps to Happiness’ which was in face to face workshops before 2020 but is now online. Most people know that a lot of stress is related to the thoughts we hold in our mind. Conscious Breathing is a strategy which gives our mind something positive and powerful to focus on. Breath is with us all the time. The outside situation may still be stressful. We may not be able to reduce the causes of our stress, but with this simple exercise, our mind can become our friend and ally instead of our chief tormentor. It’s like having an umbrella on a rainy day. The rain is still falling but we are not getting wet. In this case it is the mental exercise of consciously taking our mind away from our fears or negative mental chatter and directing it instead to our breath, then choosing to make our breath gentle, slow and deep. When we do that, our brain does not perceive the situation we are in as so alarming or dangerous anymore so stresses reduced and happiness increases.

When we are in danger, our brain releases cortisol and adrenaline to prepare us for fight and flight. This is called the Stress response. If we are in physical danger, it prepares us for immediate action. But if the source of stress is not physical – and keeps recurring, these hormones build up and can cause both physical and mental illness. That is called Chronic Stress and is one of the biggest causes of ill-health in the world today. But by using conscious breathing, because we have calmed our mind, our brain stays quiet. No stress response. Risk of Chronic Stress – eliminated.

Feelings come and go
Like clouds in a windy sky.
Conscious breathing is my anchor.

Thich Nhat Hanh

The power of conscious breathing is well-known. You probably know much about this strategy. But do you use it? Can you, like Thich Nhat Hanh, make it your anchor? If we become more self-aware, aware of our thoughts and emotions, aware of stress as soon as it starts to appear, then we can immediately take steps to counter the stress. Conscious breathing is at the very top of my list of strategies. The more we can practise this the better we can handle all the many difficult situations and challenges that life so often delivers to our door. I have been working on this for years. Now I can usually ‘surf the stress’ instead of being swamped and overwhelmed by it. My teaching is rooted in practical experience. Let me give you a nice recent example.

New Year Resolutions
When it comes to making personal progress and self-improvement, New Year is a good place to start. It is a great time for making new resolutions and bringing in some of the changes which we know will improve our lives. I take personal progress quite seriously We can’t expect to see progress in the wider world unless we work on our own lives – and both of these are important to me, so on 31 December 2020, I took part in a 90 minute zoom-review exercise, with questions to help us to begin the new year with new insight and power; (see details at the end of this article.)

What Roles do you play in life?
In one exercise, we were asked to reflect on the different roles we play in life. I listed mother, teacher, artist, musician, author, director of my company, friend, mentor, forest-bathing-facilitator, coach and honorary Grandmother to many. I had never realised I play so many roles or that these can change so dramatically. (Sadly, I can no longer include ‘daughter’ as my beloved mother died in 2018, at the grand old age of 99. I miss her a lot but I am so glad she escaped the anxiety of last year’s coronavirus drama.) In the human world I guess I am now an orphan, but I have a spiritual Teacher, so I am a disciple-daughter. I found this reflective activity very interesting. At the top of my list of my roles in life is ‘child of God.’  I believe that the first responsibility that any of us have is to our own spiritual progress – and to our relationship with The Source (God) – whatever ‘name’ we may – or may not use.

Since retiring from teaching, I have been working in Health and Wellbeing. Now is the time for me to do something that I believe to be of the utmost importance – and which chimes with my own inner journey: to reduce stress, build resilience and increase happiness, serving the divine in the hearts of all my participants. In my Seven Steps to Happiness Programme, Step One is when we reflect on our own unique identity and the importance of self-love. Our first action is to reflect on how well we care for ourselves. Part of the uniqueness of my Programme is that it recognises not just three but four important aspects to our human nature – physical, mental, emotional and spiritual. If any one of these is neglected, then we will be out of balance, we will have less capacity to handle the stress which comes from outside – and that is stressful in itself.

‘You can’t pour from an empty cup.’
Take time to nurture and replenish
Your body, mind and soul!’

Beth Terrence’s Blog

In the little zoom-review I took part in on New Year’s Eve, we were asked to reflect on and then to prioritise our roles and choose some SMART goals for the most important ones. (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic, and Timely.) At the top of my list was my 6am meditation. For many years this has been the foundation of my days and I am normally quite regular and punctual. (If I need to make up on sleep, I find a way to fit that in later in the day.) But 2020 was not a normal year. Covid19 reminded me that I am over 60 years old and I will not live forever. Whatever I want to achieve needs to be done sooner rather than later – and if I did not learn how to move my Seven Steps to Happiness Programme (which until then was all through face to face workshops) online, then I would not have a business anymore. I have not worked so hard since completing my finals at uni, more than 30 years ago!

Over the past year I have often worked into the early hours of the morning. As a result I am sometimes not in the mood to get up early and I let my mind use the excuse of tiredness, not to get up on time. I use the clever argument that my work itself is a form of meditation. This is true, but the importance of regularity and punctuality in our spiritual discipline is also true. So my resolution for this year was to get my spiritual discipline back in shape – the prayer and meditation punctual, the spiritual singing and reading regular – and the discipline of daily physical activity – especially to get out for a walk in time to watch the sunset. These disciplines all need to be in place if I want to make good progress in my physical and spiritual wellbeing. Self-giving action is also important and I resolved to be more mindful of this spiritual aspect of my business and keep it central in my plans, as this really is a way in which I can serve and empower others in a strong and positive way. At the very top of my SMART list and my top New Year Resolution was to meditate punctually at 6am each morning.

I begin my Programme with a focus on the self because we come into the world on our own and we leave it on our own. The only thing that we take with us is what we have learned and progress we have made on our Life Journey. All the religions teach that love and compassion are of paramount importance. If we don’t appreciate the gift of life which is by far our most precious possession, if we don’t value ourselves, if we don’t love ourselves, how can we learn how to practise love and compassion towards others? So I begin with self-love, to recognise and not to neglect our own needs. By the same token, once we really do appreciate and value ourselves, when we learn to accept and love ourselves unconditionally, then we do have the capacity to share this with others – and when we get it right we can feel the Love of the Universe spontaneously flowing in and through us. We don’t have to try to help others, our very presence feeds their heart and soul. I have felt this from time to time, and my own goal is to become an even better ‘instrument’ of God.

I’ve learned that people will forget what you said,
People will forget what you did,
But people will never forget how you made them feel.

Maya Angelou

New Year’s Eve
On New Year’s Eve I went for a walk before midnight. I love fireworks and for me, New Year is an auspicious occasion. I guess it is what we make it. I stood on a bridge over a canal where I had a good view of the city on all sides. As midnight approached and the new year broke, rockets and fireworks went wild all around me. I was like a kid in a candy-store. I didn’t know where to look. An observer, seeing me standing there, looking from left to right and back again, at times turning in full circles, head in the air, might have smiled to see how excited I was. That was nothing. Inside I was jumping up and down  and clapping my hands, shrieking with delight. Needless to say, it was after 1am before I went to bed – and I overslept. I didn’t even keep my top resolution for one day.

Disappointment.
Did that discourage me? Yes, I have to admit, I woke with a sad feeling as I realised that I didn’t even keep my top resolution for one day. But I have been practising the spiritual life for long enough to know that each new day is a new beginning. Indeed we can make a fresh start at every second. We can’t expect to achieve anything difficult overnight and building new habits is difficult (especially as I had forgotten to plug in my phone and had run the power down sending all my friends Happy New Year messages! My phone ran out of battery in the night and that is the source of my alarm calls.) But many years of serious meditation does bring some benefits. Over the years my mind has become my best cheerfulness and positivity-companion. I don’t have to remind my mind to be positive. It spontaneously challenges me if I am not in a cheerful mood. Perhaps that is why I find it quite easy to live in the heart and play like a child.

We don’t stop playing because we grow old: we grow old because we stop playing.

George Bernard Shaw

Be like a child – clear, loving, spontaneous, infinitely flexible and ready each moment to wonder and accept a miracle

Mother Meera

Childhood means simplicity.
Look at the world with a child’s eye – it is very beautiful.

Kailash Satyarthi

I have fun like a child in the street.
When the day comes when I’m mot enjoying it, I will leave football.

Lionel Messi

Mindfulness –
I have been practising mindfulness (awareness of what is going on in one’s mind) for most of my life, and my mind is now a good friend. I rarely notice any negative thoughts, and if my mood approaches gloom, my mind tends to be quick to jump up with a positive suggestions. On New Year’s Morning, even as I noticed the sad feelings of failure and disappointment welling up in my emotions, instead of my mind joining in and beating me up for oversleeping, it scolded me gently for being gloomy and came up with an alternative suggestion. The solution it offered that morning was this: ‘Any day that you miss your 6am meditation, you can meditate seven times for at least seven minutes that day, instead.’

I sometimes think that the mind is like a monkey – which is how The Buddha described it, since it is always chattering and jumping about. But at other times I think it is more like a horse we are riding. Much of the time this horse is very disobedient. It races away, carrying us into all kinds of trouble. We have to learn how to use the reins of awareness to gradually bring our mind-horse under our control. But once our mind is well-trained, it can become our best friend and ally.

Life the Battlefield, Life the Game
One way to view negative thoughts or unhelpful mental chatter is to think of life as a game. It can be a very difficult game. At times it feels more like a battlefield. Imagine each thought is a member of our team in the game – or a soldier in our army. From time to time in the day, just stop and ask yourself, ‘Is my mind playing with me or against me in this Game of Life? Is it fighting for my victory or sabotaging my progress in the Battlefield of Life?’ Another good question to ask yourself is, ‘Is what I am doing, saying or thinking right now, helping or harming me or anyone else?’ 

When you realise what power your own mind holds, you can see how important it is to bring our mind and our thoughts under our control. I love the saying, ‘Where focus goes, energy flows and results show.’ When you think about it, everything is energy. Each thought is either energy helping us move forward in life – or dragging us in the wrong direction. Yes, it is difficult to train our mind. It can be a real struggle. But with practise we can train our mind until it will instinctively join in the Progress-Game and add its strength to our forward journey, helping to carry us safely wherever we want to go. I have been working on this for years, but it is something that everyone  can do. The more we practise self-observation and mindfulness exercises, in which we consciously redirect our attention to something helpful, such as our breath in conscious breathing or our positive thoughts in developing a gratitude-attitude, the more our stress levels will decrease, our resilience-muscles will grow stronger and the brighter our ‘inner sun of happiness’ will shine.

Happiness
I often think that deep within our heart there is a sun of happiness. We all have this inner connection to what some would call ‘the divine in us’ and that is pure light, pure joy, the very essence of happiness. But the ‘undivine’ events in life or our own negative thoughts, mistakes and bad habits tend to bury this ‘inner sun.’ That is why, in my Seven Steps to Happiness programme, I tend to focus on how to reduce stress rather than on how to increase happiness. In my experience, the stresses of life are like dark storm-clouds which blot out the light from our inner sun. As we explore strategies which reduce the stress, our sun of happiness just becomes more visible.

Perfect happiness is
Enthusiasm minus
Expectation.

Sri Chinmoy

I love this quotation and use it a lot. As soon as I notice that my happiness-dial is giving a low reading, I reflect on just two things – enthusiasm and expectation. My enthusiasm level may be low for simple physical reasons. Am I tired or hungry, am I physically uncomfortable, too hot or too cold? What can I do to correct that situation? And if enthusiasm is not the issue, what about expectation. Sometimes it may be my own expectations – such as thinking ‘I can’t even keep my New Year Resolution for one day without slipping up.’ Not a helpful thought at all! Progress is not a smooth curve. Life is full of ups and downs. Even summer doesn’t come in a day, the temperature fluctuating wildly – but none the less, summer days do come – and they are warmer than winter days. Progress in our own life is like that. The more we can become self-aware, the faster we can start consciously working on observing and managing our thoughts, the sooner we will enjoy the results. On this occasion I saw immediately that it was my own expectations which were undermining my happiness, and since my mind is well-trained and positive, it came up with an immediate solution – Seven Short Meditations in the day.

Many people know that Conscious Breathing is a good way of disciplining the mind and reducing stress, but how often do we practise it? What is the use of a book on a bookshelf, that never gets read? What is the use of a strategy which you know is effective in reducing stress, if you rarely practise it? I urge you to allow the fresh energy of the New Year to inspire you to set your own resolutions and take some of the ‘unread books’ from your ‘bookshelf’ and turn them into action.

Start as soon as you wake up in the morning
How about starting by taking the well-known, tried and tested strategy of Conscious Breathing and beginning first thing in the morning, right from the moment you wake up. Then, at any time during the day when you catch yourself feeling stressed – or when you know you have to do something difficult, just practise this exercise again. Start simple, with just one goal, one resolution. As you wake up, just become aware of your breath. Spend a few minutes just watching the inflow and outflow of your breath. And then, when you swing your legs out of bed, you can place your feet on the floor with a conscious emotion of gratitude. Not everyone is blessed with a new day, or with the physical capacity to get out of bed and stand up. There is so much to be grateful for and gratitude is another well-known tried and tested strategy for reducing stress, building resilience and increasing happiness.

Gratitude is the single most important ingredient
To living a successful and fulfilled life.

Jack Canfield

Gratitude
At night, before you go to bed, you can remember the importance of gratitude again. Just reflect on the day and bring to mind some of the things which have gone well. Our mind is so mischievous. When left to its own devices, it tends to remember only the painful or difficult moments, but there will always be some good moments to remember with gratitude. On my Programme we all keep a Success-Gratitude diary and write in it each evening, encouraging our mind to recollect and celebrate some of the positive achievements of the day. (Cultivating a Gratitude-Attitude is another proven strategy for reducing stress, building resilience, and increasing happiness.) Finally, as you stretch out in bed at night and settle down to sleep, you can watch your breath again. You can even combine these two strategies and silently repeat ‘Gratitude’ with each breath, with each inflow and outflow of breath.

The miracle of gratitude is that it shifts your perception
To such an extent that it changes the world you see.

Dr Robert Holden

An exercise in Conscious Breathing
As soon as you wake up in the morning, before leaving your bed, focus on your breathing. Lie on your back and put your hand on your stomach. Breathe deeply, from your diaphragm as well as your chest. Feel your tummy rise and fall with each breath. Be fully aware of your breathing, so your mind is completely absorbed with watching the inflow and outflow of each breath. Make your breathing gentle and slow. Then you can combine this with imagination.
Feel you are breathing in pure energy and sweetness – and breathing out anything that is bothering you, any negative thoughts, or gloomy feelings. Simply allow your awareness to include watching the thoughts as they arise in your mind. In this exercise you are training your mind. Don’t worry when you slip up. Just bring your attention back to the breath. The more you can practise this kind of self-observation, mindfulness and mental discipline, catching the negative thoughts as they arise and directing your mind instead onto something good, the sooner you will become the boss of your mind. This is not meditation, but it will help to calm your mind and begin the day with peacefulness and positive energy. The sooner we can start consciously working on this, the sooner we will enjoy the results. By observing our thoughts in the morning, even before we leave our bed, and transferring our attention from negative thoughts to the flow of our breath, to our conscious breathing, we can slowly train our mind to be ‘on our side,’ all the time and start our day with a real sense of achievement.

Mental Chatter
You are training your mind to listen to you rather than chatter in a random way – or even worse, drag you down with negative thoughts. Some people’s thoughts can become a source of torture. Where did all this mental chatter come from? It is a habit that has built up over years. It will take patience and practise to change, but it is like any other discipline, you simply need to apply some effort, take action and keep at it. It is the same for athletes who want to develop strong muscles. If you want to build up physical strength you have to lift weights. If you want to train your mind, you have to practise watching your thoughts and choosing which to encourage and which to re-direct.

Imagination and Visualisation
Imagination and visualisation are great tools to uses in reducing stress and you can practise these, combining them with your morning conscious breathing exercise. There are many ‘exercise machines’ in your ‘mind-gym’ which you can use. When the negative thoughts appear, simply move your attention to an observation of your breath – Conscious Breathing. Then use your imagination along with your breath, to ‘inhale a quality you want’ and ‘exhale the opposite.’
My favourite exercises are to imagine I am breathing in peace and exhaling all the stress and restless thoughts, to breathe in strength and power and exhale all fear and weakness, and to breathe in pure joy and divine love, and exhale all sadness, pain and loneliness.

You really can train your mind so that any time you feel stress growing you can switch your focus onto your breath, consciously make it deeper and slower and visualise all the stress leaving you each time you exhale. Let it go. And then use your imagination to inhale divine strength, peace, purity, beauty, sweetness, love joy and be fully conscious of this, as if it were a physical fragrance. In this way you can fill your mind with happiness. Reducing stress begins with self-observation and awareness. This one small exercise at the start of each day, will not only reduce the stress but also give you a sense of achievement and of being in control, from the moment you wake up in the morning and it will give you a skill which you can use in countless situations each day.

I now see how owning our story and loving ourselves through that process
Is the bravest thing that we will ever do…

Brene Brown

Some people like rubbishing the very idea of making New Year Resolutions. Fine. They don’t need to make them. But why imply criticism of those who do. And if you, like me, find New Year Resolutions helpful, don’t give up. Just find ways to support your resolutions and renew them each day. They can be a great weapon in our positivity-armoury. Progress is difficult. It is easy to criticise.

Sincerity and Criticism
There is a fashion at the moment to pour scorn on anything good and positive. In the UK, The BBC and The Guardian newspaper, have been on the receiving end of this kind of attack. They not perfect, what is? But they sincerely strive to promote what is good and true. That is why they are attacked. In America, countless people have suffered from the attacks on truth and integrity which has been a damaging part of the political scene in recent years. That cloud is now lifting but we are certainly living in strange times and we need to stand firm. Close your ears to negativity and criticism, just as you avoid all the fear-mongering  and negative news which is constantly assailing us from the media. If you know anything at all about spirituality and genuine new-age philosophy you will know that the fruits of progress are love and oneness, progress does not come easy. Gossip and criticism are among the worst diseases threatening our inner progress, so be vigilant.  For spiritual progress, sincerity hard work and truth are paramount. But there are many forces at work and the average consciousness in the world is woefully low. If you are making progress, some people may feel you are a threat and try to pull you down.

If it is peace you want, seek to change yourself, not other people.
It is easier to protect your feet with slippers
Than to carpet the whole of the Earth.

Anthony de Mello

Be aware and stand strong. Surround yourself with good people and give each other all the support you can. Your life and your progress are in your hands. And it is you alone who will enjoy the fruits of eventual success. You do not need everyone to agree with you or like what you do. Stand tall and be true to your own beliefs and what is giving your life benefit.

The more we practice mindfulness exercises such as Conscious Breathing and developing a strong gratitude-attitude, the more skilful and happier we become. The more we manage our own thoughts, the more we develop a strong gratitude-attitude, the more inner peace and happiness we will feel. The more in command of our lives and peaceful we are, the more peace there will be on our beautiful planet and the more hope there will be to reduce stress and suffering across the globe.

The Butterfly and creating a Peaceful World
It is easy to see that many things are wrong in the world, but the world is a product of all of us, the inhabitants. If we want to see genuine progress in our own lives – in our society and in the wider world, we have to start by looking at ourselves and taking action to raise our consciousness. Just as a butterfly moving its wing on one side of the world is said to create a hurricane elsewhere, so, when we gain more self-control and mindfulness, when we become less stressed, experiencing more inner peace and happiness, this will have a beneficial effect on the lives of others and contribute to the kind of peaceful future that we all long for.

If there is to be peace in the world,
There must be peace in the nations.

If there is to be peace in the nations,
There must be peace in the cities.

If there is to be peace in the cities,
There must be peace between neighbours.

If there is to be peace between neighbours,
There must be peace in the home.

If there is to be peace in the home,
There must be peace in the heart.

Lao tse

Patience and Practice
Mind and body, the physical and mental aspects of life, are inseparably intertwined. Most of what we do begins with thought, begins in the mind, so to reduce stress, we must also begin with the mind. One way to do this is simply by observing the inflow and outflow of our breath for a few minutes, first thing in the morning. Any new exercise, any change in routine, will take time to establish, so don’t worry if you forget sometimes. Just practise as soon as you remember and fit a few extra practises into your day, as I am doing if I am late in my morning meditation. You don’t need to wait for the next New Year to make resolutions. You can renew your resolutions and set new ones, each morning. You can even start from this moment. I love the way that Eckhart Tolle recommends that we live in the present moment, the Now. The past has gone. The future did not arrive yet. There is only the Now. One approach that Tolle recommends is simply to sit still and observe everything around us, use our senses to take us deeply into the present moment. Then the thoughts in our mind will simply subside as we identify totally with a sense of simply being the observer and fully aware of the moment.

Realise deeply that the present moment is all you will ever have.

Eckhart Tolle

Years ago, as a prelude to my morning meditation, I liked to use one breathing exercise. I would visualise breathing in peace and breathing out all my restless thoughts. One morning I thought I would just repeat the exercise five consecutive times, with full concentration. Then I would meditate. Each time my mind slipped sideways I brought my attention back to the breath… Inhale peace, exhale restlessness. Inhale peace… just five times. After half an hour I had to give up. My meditation time had ended and I had still not succeeded in keeping the exercise for five consecutive breaths. My mind was so mischievous. But I did not let the ‘so called failure’ dishearten me. I was happy that I had practised this exercise for half an hour and not given up. With practise I improved. Now I can do this breathing exercise for as long as I like. After years of practise, my mind is now very well-behaved. It is my friend and ally. You will also see great results in time. All we need to transform any aspect of our lives is patience and practise. The mind itself is not bad, but it tends to be limited and cramped by negative thoughts and limiting beliefs. My spiritual Teacher has written much on the subject. For example –

Question: Is it necessary to discard the mind in the spiritual life?
Sri Chinmoy: You have to grab the mind and offer it to the heart. Then the mind will be illumined; it will be obedient. Now the mind is ruling you, but when the mind has been brought under control and offered to the heart, you will rule the mind. When the mind is illumined, it will be able to work most powerfully, in a most fulfilling manner. You are not discarding the mind; you are only trying to take the mind to a proper place, and that is the heart, the heart’s illumination. When the illumination of the heart enters into the mind, the mind becomes a most powerful instrument….
(God) is the Consciousness of the infinite Beyond, which is all the time transcending its own Infinity. With our mind we can never understand this. That is why we do not use the mind to enter into the deepest level of Consciousness. We try with our intuition-light, our intuitive light, or with our aspiration’s light to realise the Highest.
Sri Chinmoy
Transformation-night, Immortality-Dawn, Bhakti Press, Ottawa, 1975

Challenges are what makes life interesting
and
Overcoming them is what makes life meaningful.

Joshua J Marine

Who inspires you?
Find authors who inspire you, words which fill your heart with a warm feeling of identification. When the words are exactly what you needed to hear, you may even feel something deep within your heart ‘leap’ with joy. This is what people sometimes call ‘a lightbulb moment.’ So be true to yourself and be always open to new light and insight. Life is all about learning and growth. If we knew everything, if we had all the answers, we would be enlightened beings. We are not supposed to be perfect – yet. So accept yourself as you are, with all your faults and weaknesses. God accepts us as we are. His Love is unconditional. We need to accept ourselves and learn to love ourselves in a similar way, warts and all.

We need to learn to embrace our struggles and take our failures and mistakes as necessary steps in our journey. So be patient with yourself. Keep your New Year Resolutions even when you break them. Persevere. It is not about success it is all about progress – and that means we embrace our failures and learn from them. Transformation is difficult. These resolutions and New Year Goals are part of a greater journey, taking us closer to the Ultimate Destination which is spiritual fulfilment or Union. How can something so sublime be easy?

Conscious Breathing and Prayer
A Theist is someone who believes in God and there are many different names for this Supreme Being, Creator of all things. In Buddhism, the word Buddha means The Enlightened One – and Buddhists seek their own inner Buddhahood. (Buddhism is neither theist or atheist. The Buddha simply refused to engage in philosophical debate. He was interested in finding a cure for suffering, not wasting time in argument.) In Judaism, the name of God is so sacred that it is not correct to write God’s name at all. One of my favourite quotations about our relationship with ‘God’ is the following – from the Native American Black Elk.

The first peace, which is the most important,
Is that which comes within the souls of people
When they realise their relationship, their oneness
With the universe and all its powers
And when they realise at the centre of the universe
Dwells the Great Spirit,
And that its centre is really everywhere,
It is within each of us.

Black Elk

I love this image – that God (or The Great Spirit) is at the centre of the universe – and that centre is everywhere – it is within the heart of each one of us. Where will we find God? Deep within our own heart and within the hearts of all people – and all of nature. If the idea of God bothers you, just think of Nature or the Universe.

Poetry Symbolism and Music
If you find this idea conflicts with your beliefs or your view of the world, do not worry. When we meet a poem or quotation like this, we do not ask, ‘is it true?’ in the way that a scientific or mathematical question would need a factual or provable answer. Spirituality deals with our inner nature, our inner relationship with life and each other. Spiritual writings are poetic, full of symbolism, because we are not able to approach them directly, with the five senses or intellectual thought. Spiritual truth is more like music or a fragrance. Ask not ‘Is it true? But feel it in your heart. Does it open your mind to new possibilities? Ask not, ‘Is this true?’ But. ‘does it ‘expand’ or ‘raise’ my consciousness help me to better understand my life and the diverse experiences of others in this world?’  When we are spiritually advancing, we feel that we are part of everyone and everyone is part of us – and not just part of all other people but part of all the creatures and plants, part of nature itself, an integral and precious child of God – just as everything in the entire universe is. This is known experientially. It is not something you can compute or prove.

Spiritual Truth
The purest truth abides in the depths of your own heart. Take time to be still and listen. Find authors who inspire you, words which make your heart leap with joy. Our relationship with Life or God is unique. Be true to yourself, but also open to new light and insight. If we knew everything, if we had all the answers, we would not be stressed. We would be enlightened beings. It is not helpful to compare the great Masters or Prophets, figures such as the Buddha, Sri Krishna, Mahavira, Lao tze or the great Sikh Gurus, Christ Jesus and Prophets such as Abraham, Moses and Mohammedpbuh – there is nothing to gain from comparing religions or getting into arguments as to which may be the best. One thing that any study of religion reveals is that some questions can never be answered – such as who was Jesus? It is all a matter of faith. Many if not most Christians will claim Jesus as the Son of God, both fully divine and fully human, born as a sacrifice to save the faithful from sin. Most Muslims will view him as a true Prophet of God. Most Hindus will say that Jesus was indeed an incarnation of God, but he is one of several such Avatars, Sri Krishna and the Buddha being others. We have no way of saying who is right – but we can say that the life of Jesus shines and still offers its light to the world, and the lives of all these figures and many more shine and illumine those who follow their teachings. The messages of all the great Teachers hold truth and the power to guide those who have faith in them and follow their teaching.

We still have a long way to go on our own spiritual journey. It is part of our job to find which path which  our own soul, our deepest inner nature, is in tune with. Nobody needs to feel that they are alone on the great journey of life. Nobody should feel that they have to work out every step for themselves. There is abundant truth in the world. We just need to take the necessary steps for our progress.

Beauty and Mystery
In my Seven Steps to Happiness, we reflect on new ideas and new ways of understanding ourselves and life in all its myriad complexity. We learn from each other and from people whose lives shine – people from many different cultures and religions, experts in their particular fields. Step One is about identity, Steps two and three explore stress relating to the body and mind, Step four relates to emotional issues such as loss, grief and forgiveness. Seeing the world through the eyes of experts in these fields, gives us a better perspective on our own experience of life. I am not the expert. I am the facilitator in this – and I am constantly learning more – as are we all. It is exciting, inspiring and truly transformational.

If there is a God who created our Universe, then one thing we can be sure of is that this Creator (I avoid using He, She or It, because my concept of the Creator is far beyond the limits of gender) must love diversity. Every grass-blade is unique. No two snowflakes are alike. So it seems absurd to me that there would be only one ‘right religion or relationship’ with or route to God.’ I appreciate the insight offered by Sri Ramakrishna (19th Century India) who explored God from the perspectives of Hinduism, Christianity and Islam. He declared that God is both personal and impersonal. God takes the form that the devotee loves best. So every religion is right! I like this model but I am more Buddhist in my approach. I am not keen on philosophical debate and do not want to know all the answers. For me, the Beauty is in the Mystery.

There are only two ways to live your life.
One is as though nothing is a miracle.
The other is as though everything is a miracle.

– Albert Einstein

You may guess that as a teacher I specialised in Religious Education (my second subject is Art.) I had many of these poems and quotations on the wall of my classroom. When it comes to this one, by Albert Einstein, I fit solidly into the second group. To me, all of  life is a miracle, it is all a ‘divine symphony.’ It needs all the notes, all the chords, even the discords. It needs the contrast, the yin and yeng, the black and white and all the colours of the rainbow. We need all the experiences life gives us, even the painful ones. With the right attitude we can learn from them all.

I view life as a school, and like in the film Groundhog-Day, if we don’t learn one way, life will provide us with other opportunities. Often, I learn more from the struggles than the sunny days, more from my mistakes than my moments of victory. With this insight or mindset, it is possible to remain positive almost all the time, even on ‘stormy days.’ And developing this attitude begins afresh each morning. With this approach, I can easily turn my morning conscious breathing exercises into prayers of gratitude.

I have been practicing meditation for many years under the guidance of the spiritual Master Sri Chinmoy (an Indian Teacher who came to the West in the 1960s and passed away in 2007.) The following breathing exercise is adapted from one which he has given us to use before we leave our bed.

A Prayerful Exercise
Observe your breathing and make it conscious, slow, gentle and deep. Imagine you are breathing God’s Breath into your heart – taking from God a flow of absolute purity and divinity into your system. Hold your breath briefly and imagine this flow of purity and divinity circulating and reaching every cell in your body, bathing it in love, peace, light and bliss, all the divine qualities – totally purifying every cell, every fibre of your being. Then as you exhale, feel that you are breathing out all that you feel is negative, anything you view as undivine, anything you do not want to have in your system – any stress, tension, worry or pain, any restless thoughts or sadness. breathe all this out into God’s Heart, where everything undivine is neutralised. It simply dissolves in God’s Light and is gone. I find this a great way to begin the day – starting with this prayer almost as soon as I am conscious.

To begin the day with this purified breath (rather than with a feeling of stress caused by the sound of the alarm-clock and a mind that jumps up to remind you of the pending demands of the day and the weight of past disasters) can make a big difference to how you feel and how your day will unfold.

When we begin the day with power and positive energy like this, we will be in a good mood or high consciousness. This sets us up for a good day. We build our day on this strong foundation. It’s like having money in the bank to draw on when the challenges and problems occur. True, we may not have enough of this inner peace and inner strength (money in our account) to deal with everything that crops up, but we will cope a lot better than if we had not started the day in a strong way. Remember that what we hold in our mind is a choice. It takes time and practise but we can become the boss of our mind. All it takes is a commitment to progress, practise, awareness, effort and patience.

Failures and Mistakes
Mistakes are essential. We learn most from failure. Be gentle with yourself when you slip up. Remember that mistakes are essential. Think how many times a toddler falls down when learning to walk. Everyone in the family is there to encourage the child to get up again and praise it’s struggles. Soon it is running with total joy and confidence. Be your own parent or cheerleader and encourage yourself. Life is like building physical muscles, we just need to ‘lift the weights’ (deal with the challenges, get up when we fall) and keep practising.

Remember the saying, ‘Where focus goes, energy flows and results show.’ I learned it from Sri Akarshana, and I think he was quoting someone else. Whatever the source it is absolutely true. What we practise, or focus on increases. We just need greater awareness of the unhelpful habit, thought or attitude that we want to change and then to maintain the aspiration and determination to keep working to change it, until we see the required progress. Step by step our goal comes closer. If we do that, then eventual success is assured.

We’re all saints!
We all have built into us this interaction –
The capacity for kindness
And creativity and beauty.
It’s a matter of perspective.
As Einstein said:
The single most important decision any of us will ever make is
Whether or not the universe is friendly.
It is your choice.

Wayne Dyer

I know that the time will come when I awake easily and in good time for my 6am meditation every day, just as I no longer have to struggle to quieten or direct my mind. We just have to keep working on our progress, doing our best at each moment but not impatient to arrive at our goal. No pushing or pulling. No expectation. This is sometimes called Spiritual Surrender and is found at the heart of every religion. Our task is to do our utmost to achieve what we believe in – and place the result, success or failure, peacefully and cheerfully at the Feet of God. It is only a matter of time. When we achieve that capacity, then everything is satisfying, everything is joyful. I still have a long distance to travel on this road, but I am seriously walking along it.

Reducing stress, building resilience and achieving more happiness in our lives is not easy but it is not impossible either. We start with self-acceptance, self-observation and awareness. We watch our thoughts and start to train our mind to talk to ourselves in a respectful and affectionate way. Begin with mindfulness. Begin with Conscious Breathing. Begin with Gratitude.

Earthing or Grounding
We tend to take our lives for granted – but we all have only a limited time here on earth. I have a friend who is terminally ill. Each morning he likes to go outside and stretch his arms as high as possible towards the sky, as he says, ‘Thank You God for giving me this new day. Thank You for this one more day. Please show me how I can serve You well in this day.’ He is too tall to do this indoors – and he likes to feel the fresh air in his lungs – and on a stormy day, even the rain on his face. Sometimes he goes out barefoot to connect directly with the earth. He introduced me to the concept of Earthing or Grounding – the benefits of regular skin-contact with the earth. Online I read scientific papers chronicling the benefits: ‘Grounding appears to improve sleep, normalize the day–night cortisol rhythm, reduce pain, reduce stress, shift the autonomic nervous system from sympathetic toward parasympathetic activation, increase heart rate variability, speed wound healing, and reduce blood viscosity.’ A summary has been published in the Journal of Environmental and Public Health.

Choosing to be positive, when the world around us is challenging, frightening, painful, unjust and heartbreakingly sad (this friend is a dad, in his late 30’s) – for me, that is courage. That is nobility. He is one of the most positive and inspiring people I know. He is also expert at living in the moment, like Eckhart Tolle. In my Programme, during Step One, I share several poems and quotations about identity. This is one of my favourites:

I am not my thoughts, emotions, sense perceptions and experiences.
I am not the content of my life. I am Life.
I am the space in which all things happen. I am consciousness.
I am the Now.
I Am.

Eckhart Tolle

We tend to take our lives for granted – but we all have only a limited time here on earth. For my friend, the diagnosis has focussed his awareness of the preciousness of each day. I have read of people who have gone through near death experiences – and they have found something similar. Awareness of our mortality can wake us up to the absolute preciousness of each day.
My spiritual Teacher says, ‘past is dust.’ What does that mean? Quite simply let go of the worries that relate to mistakes we have made in the past. Don’t think about them. Don’t look back. The past is not where your happiness lies. Look ahead. He says, ‘Walk towards the sun and let the shadows fall behind you.’ He also encourages us to feel that each new day is the very first day of our life. A great opportunity to reset those New Year Resolutions and continue to strive for progress.

Physical Exercise

Most health gurus recommend some kind of physical exercise first thing in the morning, whether it’s yoga or taking the dog for a walk. My own spiritual Teacher was an avid athlete and encouraged progress in the outer world of sport to balance our inner spiritual progress. He set up a Marathon Team in our meditation Centres which organises races for the public, especially long-distance challenges as we need endurance stamina and resilience in order to make both inner and outer progress. He asked us all to run two miles as part of our daily discipline. If we are not fit enough for that, he asks us at least to walk for a mile. It certainly is important to build some kind of physical exercise into your routine. We just have to find, by trial and error, what practises and disciplines work best for us. I prefer to go out for exercise in the evening, in the hopes of seeing the sunset. Watching sunrise and sunset – like watching fireworks – fills me with soul-deep happiness.

Sharing these early-morning practises of conscious breathing, developing a gratitude-attitude, mindfulness, meditation and so on, reminds me of one more strategy which you can include in your morning routine. This is also from my spiritual Teacher.

Smile
Every morning look at yourself in the mirror. In the morning you may not be able to keep your eyes open, but you can smile, smile. While smiling, try to keep your eyes open. You will look so beautiful! If you can start smiling right from the morning, you will have a wonderful day.

15 February 1997, New York
Sri Chinmoy

Smiles hold power. Even when we are feeling miserable, if we force a smile on our face it can change how we feel. Try it. You may think it dishonest or fake but it’s not. It is a statement of intent – a form of conscious courage. It is like a secret power and if we persist, we can watch how it changes our inner mood and the energy we project. Happiness is in the daily struggle for progress, in the journey. The goal itself belongs to God and will arrive – or not arrive in its own time and its own way. If we pin our happiness to desire for a certain outcome, then we may be disappointed, but if we find our happiness in each step of the journey, we open the door to the possibility of remaining happy all of the time – and it is contagious.

One of the best ways to reduce stress and increase happiness is to make other people happy. So if you are having a tough day, feeling depressed, see who you can cheer up – and that may be as simple as offering someone an unexpected ear and your own beautiful smile. There is so much loneliness. So many people hunger just to have a friend who will listen to them or simply exchange a smile.

“Every day, think as you wake up, today I am fortunate to be alive,
I have a precious human life, I am not going to waste it.
I am going to use all my energies to develop myself,
to expand my heart out to others;
to achieve enlightenment for the benefit of all beings.
I am going to have kind thoughts towards others,
I am not going to get angry or think badly about others.
I am going to benefit others as much as I can.”

― The Dalai Lama

On the first of January, as I woke up, seeing the time and feeling quite miserable because I had failed to keep my New Year’s Resolution even for a single day, my friendly mind came up with a suggestion. If ever I wake up late and miss my meditation-time, then I can simply draw out seven flower shapes in my Success-Gratitude Diary and use these to record not one but seven meditation-times that day – for at least seven minutes each – and enter the time in the flowers, colouring them in as they are done.

Energy is Everything
When we reduce anything down to its essence it is all a play of energy. Energy is everything and everything is energy. Colour is energy. It has power. So in my work I use colourful, beautiful photos – mostly of nature, with my quotations, because the consciousness of nature reflects the Creator in a powerful way – and in my Programme, as well as sending out a journal and success-gratitude diary, I send out some coloured pens to reinforce the message

On the first of January I did exactly what my clever, positive, helpful mind suggested. I drew seven flowers and meditated seven times that day. The strategy worked beautifully and I actually meditated for longer that day than if I had simply woken up on time. And in the days since then, I have only once overslept – and this time I did not feel disappointed. I just drew the seven flowers and started to fill them in.

What are your own favourite strategies which lift your consciousness, replenish your energy and give you courage to deal with the challenges of each day? We all have a whole basket-full of strategies to help us deal with difficult or stressful situations and we learn most when we share.

I wish you all a very happy new day – and New Year.

Love and Peace

DurgaMata Chaudhuri –

January 2021

If you are interested in my Seven Steps to Happiness Programme and would like to know more, – or if you would like a free copy of my book ‘The Seven Steps to Happiness – please go to my website – www.durgamataoflondon.com

A Gentle Programme
In my online Programme I send each participant a pack of Course Materials which include an A4 Journal, this A5 Success-Gratitude Diary, a Silk-Painting Kit and an assortment of smaller items including coloured pens. There is no compulsion either to write in the journal or update your Success-Gratitude Diary every day. My programme is powerful and truly transformational, but it is also a gentle programme which you follow at your own speed. The last thing I would want is to add stress. But personally I find the Success-Gratitude Diary very helpful in keeping track of important information and helping me to maintain a cheerful and positive Gratitude Attitude, so I write in it several times a day. It’s a cross between my PA and a friend.

For information about the 90 minute zoom review I mentioned earlier, – Enquires to Rosemary Creedy use my email if this link for the New Year Course is no longer active. https://rosemarybritscreedy.as.me/90minbestyearyet