My 2022 Life Lessons

This time of year I enjoy sitting down with the journals I’ve kept over the last 12 months and capturing the insights that have flowed to me, the wisdom that’s spoken to me and the lessons I’ve learnt – or sometimes re-learnt because I didn’t learn them the first time around!

I’m choosing to share some of my biggest insights and 2022 life lessons with you with the intention that perhaps these give way to your own reflections and there is something of value you can take from them.

1. Stop giving negative energy to what you don’t want

After months and months spent looking for a new property (and my first ever property) to buy, I was fed up! I found the Scottish way of buying a home bonkers. I felt under so much pressure to make the right decision given this was going to be my home for the foreseeable.  People kept telling me ‘you’ll just know when you’ve found the right one’. One day during a conversation with a good coaching friend of mine she highlighted to me that I was giving a lot of negative energy to what I didn’t want!  

For those of you who have worked one to one with me you might find yourself smiling at this because you know I’m like a dog with a bone when it comes to stopping my clients from focusing on what they don’t want!

However in that that moment I realised she was right!  I realised that I’d been telling a story about all the challenges of buying a property in Edinburgh.  I’d moaned about the closed bidding system and told anyone who would listen about the lack of properties on the market where I wanted to buy.   This was me finally getting the opportunity to make a dream come true but if you’d listened to me you wouldn’t think that was the case! I began to change my story about buying my first home and stopped giving negative energy to the situation. A few weeks after I found the perfect place and my offer was accepted. 😊

2. The feeling you are living in is all you have

When faced with a problem, the mind is going to think about it. That stream of thought is the always-on narrator in your mind that is very opinionated and full of problems and solutions. But that narrator is not you and the narration is not the truth. It’s simply noise – and lots of it!

My own Coach and Mentor, Jamie Smart, once said ‘the feeling you are living in is all you have‘.

I was totally blown away by that statement and consistently keep bringing myself back to it.  I’ve even written out the words and have them pinned to my wall in my office.

Everything we are chasing is because we are ‘looking’ for a feeling’. Yet here’s the thing, the feelings we are looking from don’t come from the outside world. The feelings are generated within us because we are choosing to generate them. 

We don’t need anything to create inner happiness, calm, peace of mind, because these feelings are hard wired into us.  It’s more a case of looking at what we are doing that takes us away from our natural state of wellbeing than thinking we have to ‘do’ something or have something to feel a certain way.

3. Emotions are like passing storms

Frustration and impatience are the 2 emotions that I experience more than other emotions such as anxiety or guilt for example.

They are my ‘go to’ emotions and this year I learned that my ego uses these emotions as a way to get fed!

My ego will cleverly manipulate a situation in my mind where I react from a place of frustration and impatience and the ego goes away with a fully belly knowing that it’s done it’s job of keeping me separate from the the truth of who I really am, which is pure connection and consciousness.

The ego is doing this to survive. Since that insight, now when I start to feel frustrated or impatient I see what’s really happening and accept the feelings as passing storms. The more I accept them, the quicker they pass through.  I’m not saying this has been easy! Try renovating a property, getting a brand new kitchen fitter and running a business at the same time!  The ego has had plenty of material to use to get fed and sometimes I’ve fed it thinking I was getting frustrated dealing with trades men!

I know the more I realise what’s happening, the less I go to those emotions and the same is true of any low vibrating emotions the ego is using with you as a way of getting fed.

4. There is nowhere to get to

There is nowhere to get to. This is a biggie and one I have had to ‘re-learn’ many times this year.

The idea that there is somewhere to get to, that somewhere in the future is better than here in this moment comes only from the ego. 

You think of the future and when I’ll be successful, get that promotion, loose 10 pounds, find the perfect partner, get pregnant, the kids are more grown up, have a new job, get divorced, earn more money, get back into shape, work less hours and so on – and convince yourself that once you get there everything is going to be OK! That everything will feel better.  

It’s like the ‘I’ll be happy’ when game.  But there is no future, there is only now.  And when you do get the job, more money, the perfect partner and so on, many people are still discontent! Like chasing the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.

This goes back to the feeling you are living in is all that you have and the best part about that – is that you can create that feeling now!  You don’t have to wait for an external condition to make you feel something. That’s just a trick of the mind. That’s not to say we shouldn’t have goals and dreams and aspirations, but the feeling you are living in right now is all you have.

5. Don’t take life so seriously!

In July I woke up with a sense to not take life so seriously! I’d spent a lot of time in my head thinking about my training company and what direction to take it in that I realised I was preventing myself from enjoying my business!  I saw how caught up we get in doing things ‘right’ instead of allowing our inner wisdom to guide us and that yes, we are here to have fun!

6. Work from rest

There’s a passage in the bible that talks about working from rest rather than having to rest from work.

Juggling a house move, renovating, spending hours with a paint brush in my hand and still running a business left me shattered!

I knew that I couldn’t just ‘hit the ground running’ as soon as I got into my new place, and that I needed to take a few days to simply rest, to nurture myself step away from the masculine energy of ‘do, do do’.

The ego really didn’t like this and kept having a hissy fit, trying to make me feel guilty for not working! But for the most part, I ignored it and leaned into what I knew deep down was right for me. 

I slept, I read, I made nice food and allowed myself to simply ‘be’ in this new home. I know I can’t be at my best for my clients if I’m not truly rested. We spend so much time running on empty, expecting our bodies to keep going when we are running low on reserves so I invite you to hold onto the concept of working from rest and not resting from work.

I’m sitting here in my new office writing this as I look across at the sea and feel a beautiful sense of gratitude for all that this year has given me and taught me.

In the most tricky of situations there is room for growth.  Infact, those are the times when we grow the most!

I hope this has inspired you to reflect on the lessons you have learned and insights you have gained in 2022 ❤️