Permission to panic

I have found myself thinking about birth a lot recently. Last week I was explaining to Bill that there was a moment during the birth of each of my three children when I totally “lost the plot.” I experienced a moment when if I could have changed my mind, I would have! As each contraction became more intense than the last one, I felt I could not bear one more but I couldn’t stop the process....I couldn’t go back, I couldn’t change my mind. I had no alternative but to experience more pain.

When I was pregnant with Faith, I found a wonderful private midwife called Dorothy and Faith was delivered at home into water. Dorothy explained to me there was a name for the point when I lost the plot....it was called the transition and very shortly after that point I would feel the urge to push and deliver the baby.

So why am I revisiting all of this now? Well three reasons. The first was a  passage I read in a recent World Puja Newsletter when Maureen Moss was describing the birth of her grandson.

“I haven't a full conception as to what really occurred in those moments of his entry, other than it was profoundly Divine in its nature, spanned many dimensions, and clarified without a doubt more than I had anticipated.”

I was struck for the first time by a real sense of what a miracle birth is and how I had never really appreciated it before. Although I have given birth three times I did not have any sense of wonder around the process....fear certainly, excitement possibly but never wonder and that made me rather sad.

The second was a beautiful film Carole Senogles sent through which I have re-posted on our Facebook page. It is of Thalasso baby bath and is delightful. I was though also struck by Caroles comment, “What would it take for all our beautiful babies to experience this after their birth into physicality?”

The third reason was listening to Kendall Summerhawk describing the fear she still experiences when taking a leap with her business. I have found this so reassuring. She explains how she has come to recognise the fear and feel it as confirmation that she is taking a leap and is about to experience a breakthrough. Making a leap means leaving behind old beliefs that are comfortable but no longer serve you. You have to be willing to see and feel things in a new way and there may well be a part of you that is not prepared to make that change. But this is growth. You are stepping into a new version of yourself.

It also reminded me of something Bob Geldorf said about organising Live Aid. Apparently he used to go to sleep at night with a pile of towels next to the bed because he would wake up in the night sweating with fear about what he had taken on.

I suspect that when I feel that fear I tend to pull back. When I was giving birth I couldn’t pull back, I had to move through the fear and this produced three beautiful babies. I wonder what else is waiting for me the other side of fear. Gas and air anyone....?

The Secret Power of Power Secrets

I was once told the way to produce a bestseller is to include the word Power or Secret in the title.


I decided to investigate these words and as a reult have discovered the way to world peace, total abundance and instant manifestation. There is an obvious temptation to withold this information and describe it as a secret but that would be both childish and predictable.


Truth is I didn't get very far with the word secret. People seemed to know all about it but wouldn't tell me.


However, power was a revelation. I structured a workshop called Power Living and in attempting to define power I came to see how the perception of personal power was in fact the root of our disempowerment.


The simplest and perhaps cleanest definition of power is the ability or capacity to perform or act effectively, and indeed this was the intention behind the workshop.

The next defintion I found was a big 'aha' for me as it exposed the flawed thinking which has ultimately disempowered us all. That definition was of persoanl power which is described as your ability to control your environment including others in your environment.

It is precisely the belief that your power lies in your ability to control circumstances and other people which causes us to lose our power. True power is the ability to be OK regardless of external conditions.
  
If you look at those able to work successfully with horses or children they both demonstrate a similar characteristic. They manage their own energy first, thereby creating the possibilty of genuine communication and co-creation.

It may have been true in the past that controlling others has been a route to an illusory state of power, be it through the blunt instrument of war or the subtle control of marketing and media. However, I believe that we are in a seminal point in our evolution where power over others is becoming as impossible as it is undesirable.

Any attempt to project energy or power over another takes you away from self and denies you the state of presence in which the new authentic power lies. Marketing, politicians and businesses are beginning to experience this new reality and will increasingly lose power as resonance replaces dominance.


When flying you are instructed to put on your own oxygen mask first in an emergency, for it is only then that you can be of use to others. Extend that metaphor to life and amazing things will happen.

What is acreativespace?

I had a very humbling experience on Thursday night when I was interviewed by Sandie Sedgbeer on the Awakening Zone.

The past ten years of my life have been absorbed in the world of frequency and the past three in the construction of the consciousness which we know as acreativespace. 

Given the opportunity to talk about it for an hour and a half to an educated audience with a knowledgable and enthusiastic host would seem to be a dream come true. 

I came out of the conversation somewhat dispirited and frustrated. I left the interview with one question nagging away at me and it was the very question I was there to answer. 

That question was WHAT IS ACREATIVESPACE? 

If I left asking that question, what on earth must anybody listening be thinking?

So...What is acreativespace?

What is interesting is in the opening section of this blog I described acreativespace as a consciousness as opposed to a business and this, I think, is where the answer to my question lies. Smarter questions do work! 

Early in the history of acreativespace Ltd we realised that to fulfil its potential acreativespace should not be organised as a traditional business. Its function was to create a space in which all those interacting with it could become a full expression of their essence. 

This included ourselves. It was not the task of acreativespace to provide us with a living but to create the environment in which our true expression would allow us to create the lives we love, in a place we love, with people we love.

At a practical level this meant it needed a presence within the current paradigm of survival. It had to pay the rent and keep us warm. It had to embody. But behind that it's real function was to be the space which allows authentic expression... a physical space; an energetic space; a spiritual space.

The true essence of acreativespace is an intelligence and organizing principle behind the arising of form. It is the un-manifest, the eternal. I borrow these words from Eckhart Tolle and they are, in part, his definition of consciousness. 

To define acreativespace as consciousness may seem crazy, but that is how I perceive it. My journey with acreativespace has been a trip into consciousness itself. 

How do you market consciousness?  

Quite simply you don't. 

My frustration on Thursday was my inability to communicate what acreativespace can do for you, your family, your business or whatever your perceived needs. 

But therein lies the problem. Perceived needs.

Within the current paradigm of lack, we operate a business by identifying, or more commonly, creating a demand or need, and then providing the goods or services which solve the problem or satisfies the demand.

Basically we are told that we are not enough and that there is a something available which will make you enough. This applies as much to many spiritual teachers as it does to the cosmetics industry.

What if the message is that you are enough?  You do not need to buy my product. Engage with us and nothing in your experience will change. Pretty tricky sale that! But at its core it is the truth of our message at acreativespace.

So what do we offer? 

Simply stated we are selling space. In effect we are selling nothing. In that space your essence will be able to breathe, be able to express and will connect you to the infinite abundance that you are. You will see through the illusion of lack and there is literally no price tag on that.

Do not engage with acreativespace to remove a problem. Engage as a demonstration that all problems are an illusion. 

Each time you buy something to remove a perceived lack, to remove a concern or surpress a fear you are cementing the reality of lack and buying into the fiction that there is something to fear.

Be brave enough to buy something because there is no lack and that the something you buy will make no difference to your external world. Shattering the illusion of lack will release you to create any experience you choose, it will catapult you into the void, or into a truly creative space.

Do you believe in Father Christmas?

Last week Charlotte and I decided to set ourselves an outrageous target for The Happy Home Stone. I can see no logical way in which we can achieve it and that is why we set it. One way of getting me to “let go”. Since then it feels as though the Universe’s response has been,  “OK, if you want to reach this target we need to look at a few small limiting beliefs...”

Later that day I listened to a call on a programme called the Money Breathrough Method I have recently signed up for. This is a programme by Kendall Summerhawk and I signed up when I heard her say “How you do money is how you do everything.” During the call she took us through her Money Breakthrough Method which is a series of nine questions designed to help you discover your underlying belief about money. After the call I was eager to apply it to myself so I wrote down the questions and took myself off for a bath...the only guaranteed place to find any peace and quiet in my house. An hour and a number of top ups of hot water later I had it and WOW! It was like toppling dominoes!

I realised that I believed you have to work hard to make money. All my family stories are about my grandmother working extremely hard to save £100 to start the family business etc. I then realised that if this is my belief then it will create my experience and my experience will of course reinforce my belief. I could see, however, that the belief came first and I had stumbled upon a belief that was so deep seated that I regarded it as truth. This sent me off in search of my other “sacred cows”.

I uncovered a whole raft of beliefs which I had inherited from my parents. Beliefs so deep seated that each time I uncovered one it was like finding out Father Christmas wasn’t real. I began to see how perfect the Father Christmas story is. Adults you trust fill your head with stories of an old man climbing down the chimney to leave you presents. You don’t question it and then one day you find out it’s a pack of lies. Do you think the Universe is perhaps giving us a hint for later in life?

Where else could I find deep-seated beliefs which if I could change might change my experience of life? I recently embarked, very reluctantly, on a major programme of dental work. If I could uncover the underlying belief that was creating this experience could I change the experience.....i.e. avoid it. I have tried everything else, Matrix Energetics, The Programme, mandalas, you name it I have given it a go. So I dug around for the beliefs and found some great ones and the date of my next appointment approached.

Well, two and a half hours later after a lot of drilling and root canal treatment I emerged. Sitting on the train home with a very sore jaw I pondered what I was getting wrong. Then I got it. Everything I was doing was to avoid the experience because of fear. I was trying to change a belief to change an experience because I was afraid. When I am no longer afraid of the dentist then I suspect suddenly I will no longer need to go - but I won’t mind because I am no longer trying to avoid it. Suddenly I could see the gift in the experience, I stopped resisting it and I felt that wonderful peace I am coming to know as presence.

So I don’t believe in Father Christmas....but as for the Tooth Fairy....at least she seems to have money sorted!

with love

Tracy

The Faith Point

Back in December Bill had a dream in which he saw a triangle with the e-pendant in one corner, the Happy Home Stone in another and the word faith at the top. I was intrigued because at the time I felt that I was experiencing something I had started to call a Faith Point.

I looked up the meaning of faith and found "belief that is not based on proof". This was exactly where I felt. It was the run up to Christmas and although I felt that something significant had changed over the past few months I found myself looking at a set of events and circumstances that looked exactly the same as the year before. Had anything changed or was I just deluding myself?

It was the time of the solstice - the shortest day, the time of greatest darkness. I kept thinking of the expression, "The darkest hour is just before the dawn." I also got the sense that it was the point where I often lose hope and give up. Looking at it in terms of the Law of Attraction I could see that I would have an idea and start to implement it with great enthusiasm. At some point though my doubts would overwhelm my enthusiasm. I suspect that just at the very moment when my initial idea was about to be realised, my frequency would change to frustration and hey presto -  my experience to one of frustration.

Over the solstice it bordered on despair. As I relayed my woes one evening to my daughter she said, “Mum, I hate to say this but I think it’s a faith point.” I agreed with her and said that I just wish I understood what was going on ..... at which point she said, “But then it wouldn’t be a faith point!” Smarty pants!!

Undeterred, I have been trying to make sense of the Faith Point.  After Christmas, I read Neale Donald Walsh’s book, The Storm Before the Calm and I found the following:

“ The trick is to stay positive in a sea of negativity. The trick is to know that the process is working even when it looks as if it is not.”

Then last night I read in a great book called The Science of Getting Rich (free to download from the internet):

“Every individaul has the natural and inherent power to think what he wants to think, but it requires far more effort to do so than it does to think the thoughts which are suggested by appearances. To think according to appearances is easy; to think truth regardless of appearances is laborious and requires the expenditure of more power than any other work we are called upon to perform.
.....Every appearance in the visible world tends to produce a corresponding form in the mind which observes it, and this can only be prevented by holding the thought of the TRUTH.”

Belief not based on proof, to know that the process is working even when it looks as though it is not, to think truth regardless of appearances....that for me is the Faith Point and as 2012 progresses I am beginning to feel that we may have collectively crossed it!

Tracy

Is your skip full or empty?

Last Saturday’s full moon had quite an effect on me and from the conversations I have had over the last two days, it seems I might not be the only one.

For me it seems to have dredged up loads of stuff I thought I had said goodbye to some time ago and watching it playing out once more has been unpleasant to say the least! I wanted though to share something that happened to me on Tuesday morning.

We have been having building work done at home and as I was looking out my bedroom window on Tuesday morning I saw the lorry arrive to take away the full skip. It had an empty skip on it and I wondered if we were going to be getting yet another one to fill. I found myself wondering how the driver would swap them over. Would he unload the empty skip and then take away the full one....leaving the builders to manoeuvre the empty one into place? Would he take away the full one and them come back with an empty one later?

I watched intrigued as he lifted up the full skip and placed it inside the empty skip on the truck. He then moved the chains onto the empty skip and lifted the full skip inside the empty skip back on to the drive. Finally he move the chains again and lifted the full skip back onto the truck and drove away. Magic!!

As I stood there marvelling at the solution, I got the impression I was being shown something about how change happens. Yes, I know, some people have guides who are angels....I have skip drivers! I imagined how I would feel standing at street level on the drive. I would watch the rubbish in the full skip being taken away.....great. But then, “Oh no! What’s this? Here it comes back again!” Would I see the empty skip carrying it.....or would it just look like all the rubbish returning?

I wonder if that is what this recent full moon has been like. Bringing to the surface a lot of rubbish we thought we had got rid of. But underneath there is something new we can’t quite see yet. Is it the arrival of something new that is sweeping away the old. It could feel pretty awful if we just look at the rubbish but if we wait a few moments longer the rubbish is going to be taken away leaving something new..... hopefully not another empty skip to be filled with yet more rubbish!


with love

Tracy

Are you asking smart questions?

When you find things a little tough or a familiar pattern plays out do you find yourself asking the same old questions? "Why is this happening again?", "Why me?", "When will this stop?"

If you do, you are not alone. And if you do you will continue to experience the very thing you are so tired of.

These types of question are open requests to the universe to give you more of that experience. If there is a lesson in every experience, asking why something is happening will bring about more of that experience, perhaps dressed up in a different way or presenting as a different person, but you will have that experience again.

Giving attention to what you do not want is a sure fire way to make it show up again. This is why people find themselves stuck in the same old patterns year after year.

Victims remain victims as much through the "why me?" question as through anybody else's actions. The perpetrators are simply players in that person's game fulfilling the Why me request.

With all that is happening in the world on a collective and personal level it is really important to get some discipline with the questions you ask. There is a lot of free floating anxiety around and even though that anxiety may not be yours, it is easy to try to give it a context and go straight to your personal data bank of anxiety stories: my kids wont get a job, they dont like me, I will run out of money, my bum looks big in this!

As your awareness grows and you find life a little tricky do not get stuck in the loop with sloppy thinking and perserverative questions.

One of the most powerful tools we use is to ask a smarter question. The open ended question gives the universe the opportunity to show you something new or closer to your chosen feeling. Questions starting with "how would it feel...?" or "what would it look like..." are very effective, although you require awareness and maybe non-linear thinking to interpret the answer.

What about "If there is something here that might be helpful what would that be?" "How would it feel to be the abundance that I am?"

We use these type of questions frequently and would encourage you to do so.

Remember, the answer always lies where the question is asked. Our job at the moment is to ask smarter questions. That is one reason I love working with kids, their questions are normally fearless and creative and the ones we overlook!

To play with this tool please send us examples of your open ended smarter questions.

We will publish a list of them all and reward the one we like the best with a free Happy Home Stone worth £49.95 (visit www.happyhomestone.com ) .

Please send your suggestions to mail@acreativespace.org or post on our Facebook page .

How would it feel to get a great response to this blog?

Bill