The renowned theologian, author, coach and overall wise woman Judith McAdam is one of our valued regular contributors, and we love her work. Enjoy her offering in our Winter 2020/21 issue: a reflection on what it means to be sovereign, and ‘in the driver’s seat’ of our own lives.
In our Spring 2020 issue, the amazing holistic coach Judith McAdam wrote about the value of confidence, and we loved hearing her words of wisdom on the subject!
Join us on January 23rd, from 7.30 to 9.30 p.m. in Bewley’s Café, 78/79 Grafton Street, Dublin 2, for what promises to be a radical evening of self-discovery with Jessica Alstrom.
In our Autumn 2017 issue, we took a look at the remarkable career and beliefs of Richard Branson. Here is a sneak peek of our profile on his life and work. To read the full article, pick up a free copy of the magazine in one of our many stockists across Ireland today.
By Alison McEvoy
“Don’t forget the to-do list, but remember to write the to-be list.” – Richard Branson
Richard Branson’s combined material success and maverick style of living and working make him a fascination to entrepreneurs and business leaders worldwide. His message is in fact full of meanings which can empower us all. In an open letter in support of the mental health foundation Mind, he reveals the truth about what lies behind his success – his own ability to find happiness:
“I know I’m fortunate to live an extraordinary life, and that most people would assume my business success, and the wealth that comes with it, have brought me happiness. But they haven’t; in fact it’s the reverse. I am successful, wealthy and contented because I’m happy.”
I get the feeling that his happiness is not the result of a privileged upbringing, but rather that it has been hard won. One of the rare childhood memories he shares is that, as a child, his mother would drop him out of the car, miles from their destination. She wanted him to “learn to stand on his own two feet,” and so he would have to “find his own way to Granny’s house.” He doesn’t speak about how he found his way, or about the gamut of emotions his child-self must have gone through before he picked himself up and started out, putting one foot in front of the other. Very early on in life, faced with an open road and a destination, he learned to innovate and make his way.
In life, such learning is invaluable, yet it is often only through challenges that we learn these lessons. He seems to deliberately choose not to dwell on his hardships, and is more interested that others learn the lessons, without the adversity. He spends most of his time now working on social projects: helping people start businesses in South Africa and the Caribbean; devising ways to protect the earth’s oceans and atmosphere; and backing a whole host of initiatives worldwide that seek to make people’s lives better, all under the umbrella of his newest venture Virgin Unite.
This is a sneak peek from our Autumn 2017 issue’s profile piece on Richard Branson. The issue is available now – pick it up for free in one of our many stockists across Ireland to read the full article.
This is an excerpt from our spring 2015 issue, out now. Read the full article in our print issue or online later on in the spring. Stockists | Subscribe
By Sandy Newbigging
One unexpected benefit of meditation is the befriending of your body. If you are engaged in a fight with your physical form, it can limit your body’s ability to be in balance and enjoy brilliant health. Explore these two principle realities – firstly, that your body is working in your best interests and secondly, that you are not your body.
Battling with your body can be tiring and lead to feelings of confusion or frustration. When your body is presenting physical discomfort as opposed to functioning as you want it to, it is common to feel your body is against you. But your body is constantly responding and adapting to the mental and emotional climate in which it exists. It is always working in your best interests and doing everything it possibly can to heal and sustain life.
Accepting this gives you the right attitude to self-heal. If you believe you are broken then you tend to look to find a lotion, potion or pill to find relief. But if you know your body is adapting to survive, you naturally look within your own mind and life to find the potential causes and solutions. Assuming your body has your back, useful questions to ask yourself might include: What is my body trying to tell me with this physical condition? How might my body be adapting to help keep me safe? How might my body be mirroring something in my mind or life? I invite you to appreciate the wonderful work your body is doing to help you stay alive and then make whatever changes your body needs to return to balance.
This is an excerpt from our spring 2015 issue, out now. Read the full article in our print issue or online later on in the spring. Stockists | Subscribe
This is an excerpt from our Spring 2015 issue. Subscribe here to have our Spring issue delivered direct to your door and read the rest of the article. Or pick up a copy in one of our stockists.
By Mary Berkery
A client came to me after noticing a pattern in her relationships. She would commence by giving much but later resent that she was doing more of this than the other person. People either started to take her for granted, become angry with her or she would pull back or create arguments. In exploring this, we looked at her vulnerability and what could she share of this, instead of her usual habits.
A young man came to ask for help with his girlfriend. She would spend hours getting ready to go out. She was insecure in how she looked and would try on lots of clothes and make-up options to cover up what she thought were her flaws. “She is so beautiful and cannot see it,” he told me.
If I had worked with her, we would have explored ways to practise being her true self in group situations and how her make-up and dress can be in harmony with this. A mentor, Faith Nyquist asked me a question when I embarked on beauty training, “When is a woman most beautiful?” “I do not know,” I answered. “When she is totally herself,” she replied. Carl Rodgers, the famous psychologist, said after years of working with clients “What is most personal is most universal.” What you think is your personal shortcoming, when shared, you realise others have similar fears and concerns. Rene Brown in her TED talk ‘The Power of Vulnerability’, says “What makes you vulnerable makes you beautiful.”
This is an excerpt from our Spring 2015 issue. Subscribe here to have our Spring issue delivered direct to your door and read the rest of the article. Or pick up a copy in one of our stockists.
Mary Berkery works as a professional life coach and speaking educator. mary@maryberkery.com
Clothe yourself in confidence.
By Dee Wallace
There seems to be a cycle of fear when it comes to the feeling of isolation or not belonging. I don’t belong because I judge > I create separation > I am alone > I am isolated. How do we overcome those feelings to create a more positive, comfortable state that can attract even more of those feelings in?
It can seem a daunting task to know we are safe and secure and part of everything and always taken care of. We have plenty of proof to the contrary. But yet we know that the belief always comes first and the apparent ‘truth’ has only been created by the original limiting belief. If that is true, it must follow that when we really change our perception to knowing we are safe and secure and taken care of, the ‘truth’ of that must emerge as our reality.
By saying and believing, “I am loved,” “I am never alone,” “I am safe and secure,” “I am blessed and supported,” we create the realities of just that, and create the lives we want. Which brings us back to love, Divine Love, which supports all of this. Divine Love is a choice, and we are honoured to have that choice, and we are honoured to make that choice. And that choice brings us to personal power.
We must claim our personal power to right the wrongs of perception that have haunted us. Will you stand with me and claim your personal power to choose Divine Love? Allow yourself to know that you are safe and secure and always taken care of. The personal power of the acceptance of yourself as the divine creator will end the fear of isolation. Beautiful souls, it is time to fly free! It is time to know: I Am the One. Which lovingly leads us to..
The Breakthrough?
The perceived outcome and expectation we hold, equals the outcome. That puts even more power back into our creation process.
The challenge is this: ?All our lives we have been telling ourselves lies that were passed down to us and that we accepted. The biggest lie is that we are not sovereign over our own creation and we have lived that as a truth and thus created proof of that lie as truth.
Now we are telling ourselves the real truth: I am sovereign over the creation of me. I am the One. And because it is new, we fear it is a lie but the truth is, the past is the lie. The ‘now awareness’ is the truth.
If you find an antiquated piece of clothing from the sixties hidden in your closet, you laugh, perhaps reminisce, and discard it as outdated and unusable. We need to do the same with any dis-empowered thoughts and perceptions. We need a new ‘Thought Wardrobe’!
Of course, one of those faded, unwearable thoughts is that we are not safe and secure in our power. Old shirts and dress beliefs! Appreciate when you wore them, and acknowledge they are outdated. Instead, welcome new thoughts that fit and suit the new consciousness of You.
“I benefit in a safe and secure way when I step into my Freedom. I am secure in this world to exercise and experience my power.”
The time is now. Regarding every thing you desire to create, what is your perceived outcome and expectation? That is the beginning of your power. Hold yourself firm in the joyful expectation of your successful creation and receivership.
Dee Wallace has worked as an author, teacher, dancer and actress in film, television and the stage for over 30 years. (E.T., Cujo, The Howling). Her book, Bright Light, tells that tale and shares the spiritual lessons she has learned from a life in acting.
In primary and secondary school, she was nicknamed Bugsy because of her fuzzy hair and prominent teeth. As a result, she smiled with lips sealed to hide her teeth, and kept quiet and withdrawn so as not to attract attention. When they called her Bugsy, her body would cringe with shame, hearing internally: “You are ugly.”
At age 16, her name was chosen for a makeover from a visiting make-up artist to the school. She was brought to the top of the class, and seated on a high stool while the rest of the class watched. “Bugsy getting a makeover,” they said, laughing. The beauty specialist (whose name she never knew, but whose hands and words she remembers to this day) commented, as she proceeded to demonstrate how to cleanse and skillfully apply moisturizers and decorative cosmetics: “You have such beautiful skin, eyes, bone structure.” The class, too, expressed much admiration and praise. “Correct skincare,” she said, “accentuates what already is there.”
That evening, instead of the usual donning of jeans and boots to go outside to work with animals, she found a most beautiful silk scarf, draped it over her head and shoulders and sat in front of a mirror. She absorbed, in a way that she never had before, the sight of her made up face, her eyes and skin tone. “You are beautiful,” she found herself repeating, “So beautiful.” She felt like a princess. Inside and outside, waves of sensual loveliness filled and washed over her. The experience was the beginning of her journey to personal transformation. In fact, her first career choice of beauty therapy stemmed from that pivotal event.
An incident of personal change occurred recently in my life, when I cut my foot. I had to have an x-ray, as there was a possible fracture in my instep. Sitting in the room, waiting for results, my foot up, I had nowhere to go but to rest into my being and body. So, when the x-ray was put up on the light box, I was awestruck. The exquisite bones, their perfect shapes fitting together, their elegance – they were works of art. It was as if I was looking at the most beautiful landscape (bodyscape!) hidden beneath my skin.
Familiar with caring for my feet from the outside, this was different. As a reflexologist who taught anatomy and physiology, I felt a reverence and wonder that knowledge alone did not give me. In that awestruck moment, I experienced how wrong it is to put any unhealthy substance into such a holy and perfect place as my body. “I will never drink coffee again,” I could hear my inner voice utter.
I believe that we all have been graced with similar encounters, moving us from states of self-neglect to knowing that there is much life, love and beauty to live and give. What are the pivotal times that awakened you to your essence and deeper knowing of your unique human physical expression?
Suggestion: Look at your face in a mirror. Look with curiosity, and suspend all judgment. Welcome who you see looking back as a work of art. Acknowledge her/him. Look closely at the beautiful coloring, skin formation, facial contours and lived-in eyes. Do this for 10 -20 minutes, releasing all judgments as they arise.
Or, look at your hands, feel them with your eyes closed, stroke them, sense their warmth and your soothing touch. Take your time. With aromatherapy oil, slowly massage each hand and finger as if you were caring for a loved one. Keeping your eyes closed; hold your hand with the other as you would a child or beloveds. Breathe and smile inside and outside!
I would love to know what you experienced, or if you have any questions:
info@MaryBerkery.com
When I go into an audition, I have to have the confidence within me that I can deliver a good read. I have to have confidence in my healing that I can make a difference in someone’s life by the information that comes through. I have to have confidence before I even sit down to write this article. The one common principle in all these adventures: I have learned to trust my channel. Always and without question.
That is, of course, quite the opposite of what we have been taught. The definition of confidence is: full trust. And yet, our society has educated us in the belief that we can never trust our own judgment, and God forbid we really trust anyone outside of ourselves; and it is actually impossible to trust ALL energy. Quite a conundrum, don’t you agree? If creation takes confidence, and confidence is trust, and we are taught we can’t trust, then we can never be the confident vibration that creates. Ergo, the more you go into your mental mind to reason, figure and stay safe, the less confidence you experience in the creation process. And then the pattern of limited creation begins again.
I mean, I couldn’t walk into Mr. Speilberg’s office without any confidence and book E.T. You can’t even have successful love making without confidence. And yet, we ask the Universe to deliver to us when we aren’t confident in the trust within ourselves to create it, or to handle the creation when we do. So, the Universe, being the very wise director it is, must experience your confidence to manifest your desire.
Now there’s the enigma. We have to move into knowing, to have the confidence to create, so we will have more confidence that we can! And that is why turning yourself over to your higher self works better than mentally struggling with the illusion that doing more, and doing it more intensely, creates confidence. When we hold the intention that trust and truth be delivered to us, we can get out of the way and release the doubt that is crippling us.
To do that, we must be balance our masculine, feminine and child energy, and the magnetism within each. Like procreation, the masculine must come together with the feminine IN BALANCE, meet in harmony, and create the child, a.k.a. the creation. The divine idea/instinct/guidance must be taken out into the world with power by the masculine to successfully create. When that happens, confidence is truly in place.
So, ask yourself: do I have a lot of great, inspired ideas that I never do anything with? If the answer is yes, know that you need to balance the masculine so you have more power to deliver your ideas to the world. Or do you push and work and strive doing ANYthing, just to try and create, without a lot of success? Stop and take time to nurture your feminine. Allow your channel to open and receive divine guidance, and then use the power that is in place to radiate that out. Then the creation is automatically in place, and confidence is reinforced.
Confidence is not something you get. Confidence is the vibration of knowing that you are. Be the knowing of the Creative Force that is you, and confidence is a no-brainer. Literally.
Dee Wallace has worked as an author, teacher, dancer and actress in film, television and the stage for over 30 years. Her book, Bright Light, tells that tale and shares the spiritual lessons she has learned from a life in acting.
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