by Una Hearne. The title is a quote from Iyanla Vanzant from her forgiveness course. (Excellent course, not for the faint hearted! Available through www.oprah.com). Forgiveness is one of the hardest lessons we have to learn in life. It is also one of the most rewarding to master. Here's what I've learned about forgiveness so far: Forgiveness IS NOT for the benefit of the other person (or people). It is for you, it gives you back your power, energy, peace of mind and freedom. Forgiving someone does NOT mean you are condoning or endorsing their behaviour in ...
by Una Hearne. Setting good boundaries with other people is about honouring yourself - recognising you are as valuable and worthy as everyone else. Are you the type who always says yes - likes to do anything for anyone? We are hardwired to help each other - survival and flourishing for humans has always meant collaborating. Wanting to help and support others is a wonderful impulse and is good for everyone. When we help others we feel great, right up to the point where it is inappropriate or is taking too much from us. Then we feel ...
by Una Hearne In many of my talks and workshops I deal with the idea of being able to speak positively and confidently about yourself. I talk about building real inner confidence to make this possible. At some point I am always asked if this isn't arrogance or won't it seem like arrogance. Well no, it's not. There is a massive difference. Real confidence in yourself is based on understanding the truth of how fabulous you really are (You are, I've checked). The confusion between arrogance and confidence arises because some insecure people - who are ...
by Una Hearne. In Jill Bolte Taylor's book My Stroke of Insight she talks about the importance of being aware of the energy you bring to patients in hospital. "I realised the some people brought me energy while others took it away. One nurse was very attentive to my needs: Was I warm enough? Did I need water? Was I in pain? Naturally, I felt safe in her care. She made eye contact and was clearly providing me with a healing space. A different nurse, who never made eye contact... This woman brought me a tray with milk ...
by Una Hearne. Just because you feel fearful or anxious does not mean there is anything to be afraid of. Fear is our natural reaction to a variety of things and its purpose is to protect us from harm. Our fight, flight, freeze response kicks in if we sense any kind of threat and it kicks in before conscious thought. In many situations fear, or at least an awareness of danger, is a good thing - think standing on the edge of a cliff, crossing a busy road, dark alleys at night, telling your significant ...
by Una Hearne. It is my practice between Christmas and new year to take a few days out just for myself. No work, no socialising. Just quiet reflective time. I reflect on the past year, where I'm at and what I want next year. It's one of my favourite times of the year. We often only check in with ourselves and take stock of our lives when something goes wrong or we are unhappy with the situation we are in. That's fair enough, but it actually makes more sense to check in occasionally when things are going ...
by Una Hearne. I was hearing a lot about mindfulness and being in the moment recently and I began to think about how it applies to my life. I do experience being fully present in my work. When I am coaching someone, training or writing I find my full focus is on what is going on, the rest of the world could fall around me and I wouldn't notice I am so absorbed. Time disappears and I never want to be anywhere other than where I am right then. I don't really experience that any other time except maybe when I ...
by Una Hearne. Do you take regular time out just for yourself? We all need quiet time to ourselves. The length of time we each need varies a lot. This doesn't matter, it's the quality of time and what it does for you that matters. It also doesn't matter how you do it, what your ritual or practice is. It's just being quiet. Still. Stop. Allow your thoughts to settle. Or think something through, free from distraction. Or just breathe and be. Meditation is a special form of time out. It can be incredibly powerful and even blissful. It ...
by Una Hearne. Yes, lovely friend Sinead, this is rich, coming from me! :-) However, ploughing on... We all know we should. We all want the health benefits. Most of us find it hard to integrate exercise into our lives. To those of you who do, good for you, it does take effort. We often forget that people who keep in shape are making a choice and doing the work. We say things to make excuses for ourselves, 'It's easy for them!' 'They enjoy it' 'They were born skinny!' as if we are exempt because it's not for us, we ...
by Una Hearne. If you knew for certain that something you were going to do or say would make someone's life better, you'd just go ahead and do it - right? What if you knew for a fact that smiling at the person on the checkout would make them feel better, would you spare them a smile? If telling someone how great they are gave them the courage to go and do something brave and brilliant, would you choose to tell them? If you knew you were influencing a child, just by the way you live and what you say, ...
by Una Hearne. Your perception is your reality. There is no such thing as objective 'reality' All of our experience of life happens in our minds. We take in information about the world, other people and events through our senses. This information is filtered by our brains. We make sense of it through the unique lense of our individual values, beliefs and experiences. This is why the same event can mean totally different things to different people and provoke very different feelings. For example, redundancy or business closure is interpreted by some people as a ...
by Una Hearne. So you lost your job, have been in an abusive relationship, are in debt, might lose the house, are facing serious illness, lost a loved one. Sometimes life throws you a big nasty. None of us are exempt. And all you need when you are experiencing one of these is to have some ar**hole come up to you when you are still reeling and tell you 'Every experience is a gift, you should try to find the good in this.' Slap face. It is ridiculous when in the initial stages of ...
by Una Hearne. If you are thinking 'my house' 'my car' 'my cd collection' 'my rare 13th century whatjamacallit' I'll give you a moment to think again. Are we there yet? Good, well done, yes, it is you. Your brain, body, personality, abilities, experience and everything that makes up the unique and fabulous package that is you. How well do you look after your most valuable asset? Physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually? How we care for ourselves in each area impacts naturally on all of the other areas. For example, good food nourishes us physically, makes ...
by Una Hearne. Sometimes it seems to me in the personal development world that people are straining so hard to be POSITIVE and BELIEVE in themselves that I worry for their bowels. It's not actually necessary to burst a blood vessel, being positive and believing in yourself is a matter of choice and practice. Would you like to be more positive and believe in yourself more? For those of you who immediately said 'Yes, BUT...' I'll repeat the question: Would you like it? And sorry to labour the point but just to be ...
by Una Hearne. There are only two reasons we will take action: 1. We enjoy the activity (say, eating chocolate) 2. The result of doing it gives us something we really want (say, taking exercise) Clearly there is no problem with motivation when we enjoy the activity. So how do we make sure the stuff we don't enjoy doing actually happens so that we get the outcome we want? One answer is to have a vision and keep it very much in our conscious mind. We need to be conscious of what we want and why we want ...
by Una Hearne I said in a previous blog that you can choose to become a more positive thinker if you want to. For those of you who would like this in theory and are asking 'YES, BUT HOW?' I would like to share a simple technique I use . It has helped me to develop habitually positive thoughts. It appears too simple to work and so is easy to dismiss, however, I find it to be incredibly powerful. Don't take my word for it, try it out yourself. The concept is simple, the practice ...
by Una Hearne. Habitually positive thinkers are happier than habitually negative thinkers. I'm just going to take that as read and gallop on. Here's the thing, your experience of life (your thoughts and feelings) is created in your brain. Events happen, people behave as they do and you interpret everything that happens around you according to your beliefs, values, previous experience and other unique personal filters. If your thoughts and feelings were created by the events or other people, outside of you, we would all experience the same thoughts and feelings as a result of ...
by Una Hearne. 'What did you do at the weekend?' 'Nothing.' 'Why? What's wrong with you? Why weren't you hiking/ biking/ going to the gym/ golfing/ running and out drinking and dancing till three in the morning?' Why do we have to fill our time with doing to justify our existence? If you have spent time doing nothing and it made you miserable, depressed, frustrated - then yes, I agree that was a waste of time. But if you have spent time doing nothing and it made you happy and relaxed - what could possibly be ...
by Una Hearne. I can't..., I am..., I won't..., I never..., I always..., I do..., I will..., I must..., I can..., I'm not..., I don't..., I must not... If you take a page and finish each of the above as a sentence (without thinking too much) it will show up much of the truth of what you think and believe about yourself and your life at this moment in time. Go on, get a pen and paper, write quickly, no editing. I'll wait... Done? How did that go for you? Interesting isn't it? What we believe about ourselves, the world and each other, colours our expectations ...
by Una Hearne. ABSOLUTELY NOT. Every time I heard someone say 'You have to believe in yourself if you want to make it', I felt a knot in my stomach. 'What' I thought 'If I just don't?' Should I just give up now? When I first dreamed of being a coach, trainer and writer, I couldn't see how it was possible. I didn't have the qualifications, any relevant experience, didn't know any of the right people, had no money to study, little energy at the end of every working day and I had to keep my crappy ...
by Una Hearne. I remember a lot of funerals when I was a child. Two grandparents and three uncles anyway. Large gatherings of extended family, ham sandwiches and fizzy drinks. My dad told me people are afraid of death, that's why they don't want to talk about it. People spoke of death in hushed tones. I understood the reverence, after all it is a huge thing. But afraid of it? I never truly understood that. Death always seemed pretty natural to me, inescapably part of life. Ok, I was an odd kid, I'll ...
by Una Hearne. Does it bug you when coaches and inspirational speakers tell you that you can do anything you want? Absolutely anything, with no limits? It really bugged me over the years. We all know there are limits. Time, for example, is a hard limit, we cannot create any more of it than we have. We have to prioritise what we spend our time on because we simply cannot do everything. No matter how many secrets we read. Having said that, the idea that life is just the way it is and ...
