Mindset Matters
In late March 2014, while chatting with one of my new friends over coffee, we'd been discussing my was going to materialise my future plans regarding how I was going to rebuild myself, my life and my career and perhaps at the time more importantly how I was going to keep the promise I'd made to Gary.
The Power to Achieve Live Weekender was intense and full on… on the first night – we broke wboards – I did mine on the first strike – I was so up for it… and here’s the proofht to see my firends at my favourite live music venue... but I was still feeling somewhat blocked on the insie. Reading my bible was definately helping, working with my Runes for my own healing and development was certainly helping, reconnecting with selected friends was helping but it wasn't enough. At this time my girlfriend Kym was working for Andy Harrington , who had trainined with Tony Robinson and who had been hosting "Mindset Reset" event for entrepreneurs - the event was called The Power to Achieve, band while a part of me was apprehensive, another part of me though "nothing ventured, nothing gained" so I booked my ticket and Hotel room and in May of 2014 off I went , with two other girlfriends ...
I had arrived at the event determined that I would return a non-smoker at the very least … over the years I’d tried with varying degrees of success to quit, but always fell back into old patterns … this time it was going to be different… well that’s what I told myself before I arrived…
The Power to Achieve Live Weekender was intense and full on NLP event. At the end of the first day's training, which included visioning and exercises in brain-rewiring, we were challenged to break our boards. On one sid of the board during the mornings visioning and brain rewiring exercisie we had to write down the things that we wanted to let go of - the things that no longer served us as individuals - this was kind of easy as I've been doing self development all my life and felt that as I was now the best part of 15-months into my grief recovery process, I had a tentative grasp of what it was that I needed to change. On the flip-side of the wooden boards we had to write what we wanted to achieve. Walking away from this event as a non-smoker was top of my list, along with some aspirations about reclaiming my life as The Rune Mistress, and what that would ook like in my future.
So after around -hour of workshop, bisoning, sharing personal expierneces with around 500 total strangers we had to break our wooden boards with one strike ... as you can see from the photo above, I broke my board on the first strike – I was so up for it…
Breaking the boad on the first night was powerful and symbolic which left me feeling a bit more like my old self and I could feel the energy shift inside me a part of the old me which I liked a lot and which Gary had cherished about me and which I had thought I'd lost forever was rediscovers. So day one was a big personal success…
Day two was challenging in a totally different way – I think I experienced every emotion under the sun that day – as we went through what I can only describe as a teardown and rebuild process. I cried a lot that day, as the NLP training required that everyone in the room face their guilt, regrets and waste. Most of my stuff was all about Gary. Thankfully my survivors guilt which I had been working through for months. We floored me was the regrets and the waste. My regret was that I was still struggling to accept that we'd only been together for twent-eight and a half years - we promised each other for ever and twentyeight and a halp years was not forever because here I was on my own in the world having to move forward without his and that brough up a lot of anger for me. I had all sorts of feelings of abandonment that came up that then had to be acknoeledged and worked through... and the feelings of waste - where over the last few years of our lives I had to go out to work to maintain our temporal needs when really all I ever wanted was to be with him.
At the end of day two and the breakdown - build up process we were asked which wastetful habit were we willing to gve up, smoking was one of the habits that the deligates had decided was a common habit that not only wasted money but was damaging to health, so when invited along with other smokers in the room to quite – there and then, that I took my place with two others on the stage in front of 500+ people. We eacch had a waste bin in front of us, we each had our turn to addess the auditorium then take out our cigarettes or tabacco and in my case smash up and cumple my cigs to nothingness and drop it all into the bin. No one last cigarette. Just crumple the cigs, bin them off and stop… I don’t know how many people of the 500+ that were present on day two put their hands up to and admit that they smoked – but I am sure there was more than three of us… from that night to this – I haven’t touched a cig… I can talk about smoking without craving, and I can sit in the company of smokers without craving too… no pills, no patches … just a change in mindset, commitment and a total change in attitude to what smoking was doing to me.
That night when i went back to the hotel room with my friends, I was still experiencing a typhoon of emotions so unlike the first night where we were all happy and chatted away for hours after the event I went into myself, as I had a lot to process. So I journalled, meditated and prayed. Till it was time for bed.
Day Three of the event picked-up where day two had left off and completed the rebuild-process – this ended with a rebar bending exercise which proved in a very practical way that with the right mindset we are capable of really amazing things … It was explained to us that bending a rebar with the soft part of the throat is dangerous and if your mind is not focused you can get hurt... So this final exercise was all about facing and overcoming fear. Somehing I had done many times before, but never quite like this.
For those that knew me before Gary passed, know that I was fearless and was often described as a "force of nature". With Gary I was invincible! However I had lost these parts of myself when Gary passed. Attending the Power to Achieve helped me to reconnect and rediscover those parts of me which I thought I had lost...
The bottom line - NLP can be usefu especially if you are working on overcoming inner blockages very quickly. It doesn't suit everyone but as an add-on to my usual mindset practices which include gratitude, journaling, Rune work, prayer and bible reading this 3-day event dis help me shift the blockers I needed to shift to rediscover that I am strong, a force of nature and I am Invincible!