“Money is just another form of energy, and because giving and receiving are equally important, holding onto money for reasons such as fear of losing it blocks the inflow as well as the outflow.” In this sneak peek from our Spring 2019 issue, Amanda Collins discusses how we can lift our subconscious blocks around money. To read the full article, check out your local stockist or subscribe here.
Amanda Collins
Amanda Collins is an inspirational speaker, self-love guide and Feng Shui Master. She founded the International Feng Shui School and training program, which offers in-person and on-line certification courses. Amanda created the Inner Circle of Wisdom as a source of support, inspiration and friendship to help you find your own joy, invite miracles and live your greatest self. You can access her latest videos, webinars, podcasts, meditations and on-line community anywhere in the world. Amanda also leads sacred journeys around Ireland, tapping into ancient ritual with an uncanny ability to make modern-day magic.
Notable clients such as Bloomingdales, Bank of America, Hewlett-Packard and Dreamworks have reported breakthroughs with her Feng Shui consulting. She is frequently interviewed in the media, and has appeared in Vogue, Yoga Journal, Spirit and Destiny, Irish Examiner, RTE Television in Ireland, Fox News and KSWB-TV. If you are a reader of the Positive Life print magazine, you will also recognise her as our regular Feng Shui columnist!
During this evening, Amanda will share how we can dive deeper into Self love, and from that place, see all of our relationships transform. Healthy relationships, just like areas in your home, depend on positive energy flow. During our time with Amanda, she will reveal the Feng Shui principles necessary to create relationship harmony with self, your love, family members and friends.
Join us from 7.30 to 9.30 p.m. on Thursday September 6th in the Bewley’s Café Theatre, 78/79 Grafton Street, Dublin 2, to learn how you can move deeper into love with the help of Feng Shui. Doors open at 7.00 p.m. Tickets are available via this Eventbrite link.
To join Amanda’s upcoming Feng Shui Master Certification in Wexford during October 2018, click here.
On Thursday September 6th, inspirational Feng Shui and self-love coach (and our very own Feng Shui writer) Amanda Collins will be joining us in the Bewley’s Café Theatre, 78/79 Grafton Street, Dublin 2 from 7.30 to 9.30 p.m. She will share how we can learn to grow in self-love with the help of Feng Shui. Read on to learn more!
Amanda Collins is an inspirational speaker, self-love guide and Feng Shui Master. She founded the International Feng Shui School and training program, which offers in-person and on-line certification courses. Amanda created the Inner Circle of Wisdom as a source of support, inspiration and friendship to help you find your own joy, invite miracles and live your greatest self. You can access her latest videos, webinars, podcasts, meditations and on-line community anywhere in the world. Amanda also leads sacred journeys around Ireland, tapping into ancient ritual with an uncanny ability to make modern-day magic.
Notable clients such as Bloomingdales, Bank of America, Hewlett-Packard and Dreamworks have reported breakthroughs with her Feng Shui consulting. She is frequently interviewed in the media, and has appeared in Vogue, Yoga Journal, Spirit and Destiny, Irish Examiner, RTE Television in Ireland, Fox News and KSWB-TV. If you are a reader of the Positive Life print magazine, you will also recognise her as our regular Feng Shui columnist!
During this evening, Amanda will share how we can dive deeper into Self love, and from that place, see all of our relationships transform. Healthy relationships, just like areas in your home, depend on positive energy flow. During our time with Amanda, she will reveal the Feng Shui principles necessary to create relationship harmony with self, your love, family members and friends.
Join us from 7.30 to 9.30 p.m. on Thursday September 6th in the Bewley’s Café Theatre, 78/79 Grafton Street, Dublin 2, to learn how you can move deeper into love with the help of Feng Shui. Doors open at 7.00 p.m. Tickets are available via this Eventbrite link.
To join Amanda’s upcoming Feng Shui Master Certification in Wexford during October 2018, click here.
In this beautiful article from our Summer 2018 issue, Amanda Collins invites us to open up to the power of allowing ourselves to be vulnerable. You can pick up a copy of the magazine at your local stockist or subscribe here.
Opening to the Gifts of Vulnerability
At peace with being YOU
By Amanda Collins
I was in my late twenties before I really understood what vulnerability meant and the gifts it offered. It was much easier for me to act positively and say that everything was just fine, rather than share that soft and sacred part of myself with anyone.
Over time I saw the benefits of acknowledging my own vulnerability. My introduction to vulnerability came at a time when I had no choice. My dearest girlfriend became ill and died of cancer, and I experienced a domino effect of grief and sadness. I had no choice but to allow myself to be VULNERABLE. Thank goodness I had people who could hold me and show me that I was safe, even if I felt sad, weak and powerless, and therefore vulnerable.
Another time when I had no choice but to acknowledge my vulnerability was after the birth of each of my children. At such a time no woman is able to do it all herself. By acknowledging this fact and accepting the love and support of others I was able to look at this special time as a gift and an opportunity to go deeper into myself.
I understand why being vulnerable and showing it can be scary. It feels that you are opening yourself up to rejection and it’s natural to react by wanting to protect yourself; but really, a defensive reaction brings more hurt mentally, physically, and emotionally. You remain bound, constrained, and unable to heal and to better know yourself.
I still remember those days when I was just beginning to allow myself to be vulnerable. I was sure that I my friends and others would reject me. I imagined that they would not accept me if I revealed any weakness or need. But the more I did precisely that, the more I discovered that people’s reaction was the complete opposite. We became closer and our relationships became more real.
Do you also feel that being vulnerable will make you seem weak or broken? Let me assure you once again that the opposite will actually happen. You will become more confident, for you are no longer feeling like you are hiding parts of yourself and being a fraud. Imagine the relief and release that will bring as the real you–all of you–emerges!
Benefits of Allowing Yourself to Be Vulnerable:
- Becoming at peace with who you are
- Feeling more grounded
- Experiencing more freedom and less pretense
- Sensing the world as a safer place
- Expanding your heart with self-compassion and forgiveness
- Allowing others to offer emotional support
- Strengthening your nervous and immune systems
- Developing trust, confidence, and a greater sense of self-worth.
- Replacing isolation and loneliness with connection
- Taking back your power to be yourself
- Learning to ask for what you need
Practical Tips For Accepting Your Vulnerability
- Know the light and dark in your self
- Accept that you are worthy to be heard, known and loved
- Be willing to risk expressing your thoughts, feelings, and wishes
- Don’t clench when you sense yourself becoming vulnerable; open instead
- Trust that you can deal with the outcome, no matter what
- Stay connected to yourself
- Remember that everyone else is going through something, too
- Practice with people who help you feel safe
How To Know You Are Not Being Vulnerable:
- You do not have close friendships
- You constantly feel like you are hiding
Sharing your vulnerability takes tremendous courage, but it also allows others to share their pain, as well as their joys, and bring you closer. When you stop worrying what others think of you and stop trying to appear perfect, you will be amazed by the gifts that come to you.
Here is a sneak peek of an article in our new Spring issue, written by one of our wonderful regular contributors, Amanda Collins. Here, she discusses the fine line between authentic service and people pleasing, and why it is important for us to learn how to say ‘no.’ You can read the full article in the Spring issue, available now from stockists around the country. You can also subscribe to receive a copy directly to your door!
by Amanda Collins
Being of service is something that should feel joyful and fulfilling. If it does not, that is a clear sign that your motive may be to please someone, not to truly serve. Being of service feeds our soul, while people pleasing depletes us.
When you are being of service, your actions are authentic and nourish you. You know that you are making a difference in someone’s life. You know that you are creating kindness and spreading goodness.
But when you find yourself driving to someone’s home to deliver a meal, or walking someone’s dog, or doing whatever favour you have offered to do, and you begin to feel resentful, even angry, then you are probably motivated by people pleasing. Your motive is negative and so is the energy you bring to the task.
People pleasing depletes us because we are giving away our power. Here are some questions to ask yourself when you feel that your intention and motive might be people pleasing:
- Am I acting out of a lack of self-love?
- Am I doing this because I lack self-esteem or feelings of self-worth?
- Am I worried about what this person will think of me if I say “no”?
- Do I think this person will love and accept me for doing this favour?
- Do I respect my own boundaries while doing this?
- Am I seeking personal validation as a good person while doing this?
If you discover yourself to be a people pleaser, exhausted by constantly saying “yes” to others, you may want to look for the sources of your behaviour in your childhood conditioning.
Read the full article in our newly-released Spring issue, available now from stockists around the country. You can also subscribe to have a copy sent straight to your door.
We wanted to share this powerful article by Amanda Collins from our Winter 2017/18 issue, in which she urges us to stop looking to unknown future events for our happiness, and to live for today instead. She says, “You can choose and claim happiness by living, breathing, and doing everything, every day, from a place of self-love.” The time for us to step into our power and choose our birthright of happiness is NOW.
You are love, pure and simple. Happiness is your birthright. All you have to do is choose it and claim it. “How?” you may wonder. You can choose and claim happiness by living, breathing, and doing everything, every day, from a place of self-love. If that sounds impossible to you, it’s time to begin listening to your self-talk, to look for signs and symptoms of denying the love and self-love that resides at the core of your being.
Do you say things to yourself such as “I’ll be happy when…” and then add an event in the future? When I lose more weight, when I find a boyfriend, when I make more money, when I quit my job: all of these thoughts deny you the happiness you might be feeling in the here and now. You are postponing your happiness when you could be inhaling joy and self-love with every breath instead.
Do you say other things to yourself such as “I wish I were as successful in my love life as I am at my job,” or “If only I were as good a parent as I am a friend”? Such thoughts again deny your ability to bring happiness into every area of your life. Instead of wishing, reframe your thoughts with the belief that you can bring the same ease, flow, and energy to your “weak” areas as to your “strong” ones.
Do you say things to yourself such as “Oh, it’s just my usual bad luck!” or “This kind of thing always happens to me”? Such statements deny your freedom of choice. They make you subject to some past negative idea of fate or destiny controlling your life. Be aware of the ways you criticise yourself or expect the worst. These are strong signs that you do not love yourself unconditionally. At some level you may feel (or have been told) that you do not deserve happiness. If so, you can begin the process of rooting out such self-denying attitudes.
Once you have developed the capacity to hear the negative messages in your self-talk, begin affirming the positive in yourself. Meditate to quiet the chatter so you can hear the deeper voice that knows you are love and that feeling self-love is the first step on the path to feeling deserving of happiness. Then you may choose to be happy. NOW.
Affirmations are a key method of reprogramming your mind— which has the quality of neuroplasticity—by replacing negative thoughts, doubts, fears and expectations with positive ones. State positively, as if it has already happened, your intentions and gratitude for whatever will bring greater positive energy and happiness into your life. Repeat each with full conviction five times in the morning and five in the evening. Here are a few examples to help you create your own:
- I give thanks for my lovely children who bring joy and pleasure to my life.
- I deserve to be respected, valued, loved and honoured.
- I am a magnet of success, grateful that limitless opportunities open for me now.
- I give thanks for my busy career and the clarity to use my time wisely.
- Radiant, vibrant good health is mine in every cell and atom of my being.
- I love myself unconditionally and shine that love into the world.
Examine your morning ritual. When you wake up in the morning, do you immediately reach for your phone or computer? Do you look for distraction or affirmation in the outside world? Change that habit. Tap in first. Tap into your heart and higher self. Ask yourself what you are grateful for. Breathe in and fill yourself with gratitude and the possibilities of abundance that each new day brings. From that place of strength, listen to the gremlins of negative self talk and banish them. Go for a run in nature. Stand in the sun or let the rain bathe you so you can connect yourself with the earth.
Find practices that are really nurturing and nourishing to you: whether it’s reading inspiring books, joining webinars and classes, or perhaps getting the therapy you may need for greater support and healing. If you notice you are depressed or low on energy a lot of the time, that’s a good sign you may need some expert help to heal and grow. I believe that getting expert help is a way of loving ourselves. Know that you deserve that time and that support. Give yourself permission to do what is self-loving by practicing self care each and every day.
Listening to yourself, affirming your strengths, examining your habits, practicing self care: these observances will help you cultivate self-love. Stop looking for happiness outside of yourself. Happiness is an inside job. Self-love is an inside job. Choose happiness, claim it as your birthright. Now!
For more information on Amanda’s work, go to www.AmandaCollins.com or www.InternationalFengShuiSchool.com
The Wonderful Feng Shui Expert Amanda Collins recently interviewed our very own Paul Congdon for ‘The Amanda Collins Podcast’ and we wanted to share it with you!
You can check all the other episodes here: amandacollins.com/podcast and you can follow us on Soundcloud here!