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You Don’t Need A Genie In A Bottle To Manifest Your Dream Life

You Don’t Need A Genie In A Bottle To Manifest Your Dream Life

In this article I share how to manifest your dream life and find your holy grail by revisiting your dharma in meditation…

I discovered the location of the Holy Grail!

Well, perhaps that’s a bit of a stretch. I discovered the map to find your grail! I’m not sure you’d believe me if I told you, but you already have it. It sits within the heart of every human!

Did that peak your interest?

Each year, I revisit my Dharma Intention, with the loving support of my Meditation teacher. In this process, I connect deeply into my heart space in order to create the Sankalpa. In other words, I consult the map that draws me to my Holy Grail — the purest of my essence. My light. My heart spark.

What is a Sankalpa?

According to Kripalu Centre for Yoga and Health, Sankalpa is the Sanskrit word for intention. San means “to become one with” and Kalpa means “time” and “subconscious mind.” In some forms of yoga, the word Sankalpa is used as a way to create an intention, and connect with your heart’s deepest desire.

So instead of creating resolutions for the new year, I create an intention. I use this intentional statement, like a road map, and apply it to my entire year ahead. 

I allow what I discovered in that powerful annual dharma meditation, to continue to direct me and keep me from straying too far from the path of my enlightenment. 

Why Do Resolutions Ultimately Fail?

The western societal tradition of creating a New Year’s Eve resolution is always destined to fail. Every single time.

This is because the act of making a resolution only links to some abstract dream — there’s no planning or action involved. There’s no association with your feelings. It’s just your wish for a dream life. There’s no actual substance.

The connection to the heart spark is missing. The resolution is simply a fantasy.

My 2022 Dharma intention was “I am enough”. 

Everything I did was forged from the foundation of this statement. It was like a permission slip that enabled me to drop the need to justify certain decisions or actions. 

This commitment to self enabled me to take a myriad of small steps forward, that now looking back in reflection look like a giant leap ahead in my life.

Embracing your dharma statement creates a desire, deep within, that keeps you pointed to your true north. Your dharma starts with connecting to your heart space which seeds the energy of positive thoughts. You fertilize those seeds through regular and consistent connection back to your dharma statement of intention.

This is the beginning of the spiritual awakening.

How does it work?

Gandhi’s quote defines what is your Dharma and provides a very simplistic and powerful explanation:

Keep your thoughts positive, because your thoughts become your words.

Keep your words positive, because your words become your behavior.

Keep your behavior positive, because your behavior becomes your habits.

Keep your habits positive, because your habits become your values.

Keep your values positive, because your values become your destiny.” ~ Gandhi

Always remember you really can choose to change. There is no shortage of tools, tips and tricks that you can utilise to clarify your path to enlightenment.

The practice of Dharma Meditation and creation of an annual Sankulpa can lead you into the perfect alignment of your destiny.

Want to read more like this?

This is My Roarsigned copies of my first published book can be purchased from this website.

Self Reflection – A little Look Withinclick here

8 Hot Tips How To Journal – click here

Can You Risk Not Stepping Up To Mother yourself?Click here

For more published Medium Articles click here

About Karen

Change Facilitator

Karen Humphries is a Kinesiology Practitioner, Health & Business Coach, LEAP & NES Practitioner, Intuitive Meditation Facilitator, and published author. She is a self-confessed laughaholic.  She loves being of service to the world with her humorous and positive approach to life, encouraging people to ‘choose to change and bloom from within.’ 

Karen Humphries, Change Chick, Change Facilitator, Kinesiology, Wellness Coach, Australian Bush Flower Essences, LEAP Facilitator, Trauma, Public Speaker, Cancer Ambassador, Blooming From Within, Traralgon, Victoria, Gippsland

Seasons Greetings Or Reflections?

Seasons Greetings Or Reflections?

Could you pause this festive season from all that running and determine what best serves you moving forward?

What could you gain from limiting your festive season celebrations, to pause long enough, to reflect on the year …

I recognise that’s an odd question.But gosh, when you can gift yourself some precious moments to pause, you can find gold, buried deep within.
Could you limit your festive season celebrations to pause long enough to reflect on what worked and what didn’t?
But between all the running around that happens at this time of the year – with kids breakups, work parties, and social gatherings – we so easily deplete ourselves.
With all this running, a great fatigue set in, at the soul level.

Have you paused long enough recently on how you’ve navigated this challenging year?

This year has been challening for so many reasons.  Many have spent a year running back towards their definition of ‘normal’.
Are you one of them?
Our lives changed so drastically during the last two years. They changed to a space whereby they won’t return to what we once knew.
Our need to escape and return to all the old things that there known, certain and reassuring, for some, became an addiction.
Is it time to sit down somewhere comfy, put your feet up with a cup of coffee, and simply reflect on what worked in your life this year and what didn’t?

Have you created an unrealistic expectation that next year will be the best in your life?

If you answered yes to that question, then perhaps we should talk about sabotage patterns!

Can I invite you to use your reflection skills to reframe those expectations? Know this, you’ll need to to generate a certain willingness to make some changes?

I’m not talking rocket science. I’m talking about reflecting on how the simple things in your life like-

🥳 housework
🥳 shopping, or even
🥳 shuffling the kids to all the things.

Out of all of your commitments – can I invite you to reflect on what actually works in your life?

And perhaps whilst you’re at the task of reflection, can I invite you to consider what’s not working?

Take a deep breathe and ask yourself how not working affects you?

Here’s a fabulous reset tool for any overwhelming stress caused. Click the link below.

Reframe your New Year Intention

Considering the things you’ve identified that didn’t work this year, consider now what small changes you could make to restore calm and internal peace?

Could it be as simple as offering family members an experience instead of a present this festive season?

Might you also consider making a stronger commitment to more self care next year?

Perhap you may book a year’s worth of self care appointments?

Conclusion

Whatever your reflection of this year is, can I invite you to reframe anything negative into a motivating force to make slight alterations for the future?

Often it’s just little things, repeated over time, that generates big results.

Want to read more like this?

This is My Roarsigned copies of my first published book can be purchased from this website.

Self Reflection – A little Look Withinclick here

8 Hot Tips How To Journal – click here

Can You Risk Not Stepping Up To Mother yourself?Click here

About Karen

Change Facilitator

Karen Humphries is a Kinesiology Practitioner, Health & Business Coach, LEAP & NES Practitioner, Intuitive Meditation Facilitator, and published author. She is a self-confessed laughaholic.  She loves being of service to the world with her humorous and positive approach to life, encouraging people to ‘choose to change and bloom from within.’ 

Karen Humphries, Change Chick, Change Facilitator, Kinesiology, Wellness Coach, Australian Bush Flower Essences, LEAP Facilitator, Trauma, Public Speaker, Cancer Ambassador, Blooming From Within, Traralgon, Victoria, Gippsland

A Spiritual Awakening Is Just Muggle Speak For …

A Spiritual Awakening Is Just Muggle Speak For …

I recently had a client in my clinical practice, weeping and sobbing.

She’d been accused of changing during the pandemic by her husband. She agreed with him and responded “you’re right, I’ve had a spiritual awakening”.

He didn’t like it. Not one bit. They fought. He told her that she was different now, and he wanted the woman he married before children. He wanted the woman who was once

  • carefree and vivacious
  • liked to have fun
  • had all the time in the world for him
  • loved wild, passionate, hot monkey sex

I told this client that a spiritual awakening is simply muggle speak for loving yourself.

Let’s clarify something — most of us are hot to trot in our twenties.

When we are young, we often lack inhibitions and therefore willing to try all sorts of things in life. And most importantly we are energized to undertake those activities.

There’s a reason for all that energy — it’s not spread out anywhere yet. It’s all yours. All that golden bright light is yours. Your days, your time, your joy is yours to do with as you please.

And then the shift comes as soon as the babies arrive. Your investment in others meanders, causes your heart spark to spread outside of yourself. You are no longer the center of your attention whilst the babes need you for survival and nurturing.

There is a shift within relationships as we share the load of the babies in our home. Traditionally the societal expectation and conditioning infers that the woman remains at home as the home maker and nurturer.

Any parent, regardless of gender, will tell you that active parenting is challenging. Showing up constantly to be the parent you choose to be can be exhausting. And you tend to lose a little of yourself whilst parenting young children.

The act of parenting creates a form of disassociation from your heart — that space deep deep inside. All that giving separates you from that inner part of you, where your calling resides. Where your inner child listens and feels to every experience you have. Whilst this space is physically small, it is energetically enormous.

This sacred space holds your inner treasure and alignment to your soul space.

Sometimes your inner self, (that inner child) can no longer hold onto all the fear, or the pain, or the worry, or the thoughts. All that emotional energy must spill out. This causes us to shed tears and provide some semblance of release.

When we hang onto all that unprocessed emotional energy, we pause our maturation. We pause our growth. Our evolution stalls.

The thoughts, feelings and attitudes that trigger us boil within, much like a rumbling volcano.

This causes the frustration, anger, and rage to build until we explode — volcano eruption.

The bread winner who leaves the home each day for work, may wonder where their partner has disappeared when fronted with these exploding emotions.

It’s quite common for the breadwinner to experience confusion at their mate’s despair. For they are unaware of the cabin fever experienced by their partner. They aren’t observing the lack of adult conversation or stimulation. They are oblivious to the boredom and simple desire for connection -not sex.

It stands to reason, that when one partner leaves the house each day and experiences the joy of stimulation of variety — different places and people. The person left behind has the experience of too much time to think combined with a temporary loss of identity (you become someone’s parent).

And the search for self begins. When you feel so lost and detached from yourself, the motivation to find yourself again is high. You become a seeker, of your own truth.

This is the beginning of the spiritual awakening.

For those entertained with the outside life, the thought of the spiritual awakening can be quite intimidating and often misunderstood. It can feel threatening to pay witness to your partner to evolve and actively become a seeker of truth.

The person on the spiritual awakening can change in front of your eyes.

After all, a spiritual awakening is simply a state of mind and heart harmony whereby you learn to like yourself, accept yourself, respect yourself. Your spiritual awakening is your journey to love yourself.

Want to read more like this?

This is My Roarsigned copies of my first published book can be purchased from this website.

Self Reflection – A little Look Withinclick here

8 Hot Tips How To Journal – click here

Can You Risk Not Stepping Up To Mother yourself?Click here

About Karen

Change Facilitator

Karen Humphries is a Kinesiology Practitioner, Health & Business Coach, LEAP & NES Practitioner, Intuitive Meditation Facilitator, and published author. She is a self-confessed laughaholic.  She loves being of service to the world with her humorous and positive approach to life, encouraging people to ‘choose to change and bloom from within.’ 

Karen Humphries, Change Chick, Change Facilitator, Kinesiology, Wellness Coach, Australian Bush Flower Essences, LEAP Facilitator, Trauma, Public Speaker, Cancer Ambassador, Blooming From Within, Traralgon, Victoria, Gippsland

The Mother Load

The Mother Load

5 Tips How To Embrace The Mother Load

I heard the phrase ‘mother load‘ the other day, and it resonated strongly. It summed up the stress experienced by a mother who so often does for everyone else first, and there’s not much else left for her.
 
So often in clinic I work with women who have lost their identity in being the amazing mother, wife, and employee that they are. I can put my hand up and say I was one of them!
 
Working through my treatment and multiple surgeries, I had a lot of time to reflect and change the way I do life. I had time to review the rituals that keep me energerised.
 
I came to realise that if I don’t honor self first, if I don’t fill my bucket first, then everything else suffers. I choose to allow my own child to see my humanness moments – because I’m not superwoman. I don’t want to emulate that sterotype and perpetuate the pattern to another generation – that women have to be everything.
 
Be yourself. Live your life.
 
Allow your kids to see your full spectrum of life – this is how they learn to regulate themselves!
 
Yes install a filter, because kids don’t need to know everything. However, they do need to see you not be everything for everyone.
Kids do need hear ‘no’.
Kids do need to learn how to mop, vacuum, set the table, stack the dishwasher, wipe down the bench, cook meals, pack up after themselves. It’s called life.
 
Here’s to the mothers (and fathers) who have the patience of a saint and continue to breathe through yet another emotional crisis.
 
Here’s to the mothers (and fathers) who keep trying their best, especially when working through their own stuff whilst juggling all the things in the air.
 
Here’s to everyone who is honest about the intensity of the mother load – you’re freaking rock!

Here’s to everyone who parents with integrity, and passion.

Cheers to everyone who puts the emotional welfare of their children above all else.

So how do we embrace the Mother Load?

1. Learn To Juggle Less

I often relate all of the things we do in a single day, is very similar to juggling balls in the air. More often than not, we feel overwhelmed, when we try to add extra balls to what we are already trying to juggle.

If you’re already at maximum juggle, and trying to add more, something has to fall – right?

Sometimes we need to recongise, that a solution we are seeking can only be found, when we place all of the balls down, and turn our head and see what it is we were looking for.

It’s not failure, if you pause what ball you choose to throw in the air. It’s not failure if you discern what ball to throw, and what to put down.

Sometimes, it’s actually more efficient, and far less stressful to simply juggle one or two things. What’s the worst that can happen – you do those few things really well?

2. Debate  Like A Hostage Negotiator

One of the best things I ever learnt to do was debate like a hostage negotiator (I thank my lucky stars for my eccletic edutcation and technical training).

What I mean by this, is that when you are juggling, you’re using a lot of mental energy to keep all the balls in the air.

A hostage negotiator needs to understand the personal investment needs of everyone involved, so that the discussion can commence. A good discussion will quickly identify who needs what, and in what time frame. But more importantly, you ihighlight the other persons’s why. 

When you understand the emotional response of what is driving someone’s bheaviour, it no longer becomes peronal – it’s just a logistical solution to solve.

So often, family members get involvled in heated discussions, because they have made the a situation personal. They are reacting. They have activated their defence programs.

At the end of the day, you’re the hostage to negativity when you invest in the drama of others! Learn to simply observe amd ask the qurstion – why is this important right now?

3. Identify the Emotion

It’s frustrating when an emotional response drives sub-conscious and reactive behaviours. It leaves us feeling out of control. What’s actually going on is our Inner Child is expressing an unresolved emotional reaction from the past.

Acknowledging the emotion (that is driving the the defensive behaviour), is a present time response. It’s not a reaction. Therefore responding in present time deactivates the old reactive survival pattern so that  you can take immediate action.

I teach how to talk to your inner child in a recent podcast episode.

4. Make Time To Decompress

Life in westernised society is fast paced. It’s choatic. It’s hectic. If you’re lucky enough to be afford activities, life is even busier.

Add kids to the mix, and the juggle at times can feel mental. Its enough to make you want to stay in bed.

I find when I work with parents who struggle with the mother load, they haven’t dedicated any ‘time out‘ to themselves.

Sleep isn’t enough to charge the battery. You need to physically rest. When the body is rested, the mind follows, and can soothe all those thoughts and feelings that are doing laps inside your head.

When you’ve got kids, taking time out can feel like a luxury you can’t afford. Zoning out infront of the TV or social media doesn’t actually count!

When was the last time you walked the dog whilst listenin to a podcast?

When was the last time you sat in your  favourite chair and read a great book – for the fun of it?

What about a trashy magazine that takes you a week to read over each and every coffee break?

It’s worth noting that the Heart Math Institute researced that three minutes of meditation daily (or even practicising mindfulness), resulted in hours of wellbeing felt in the body.

Find what works for you to decompress consistently each day. 

5. Do Good, Not More

It sounds easy enough to do good, not more – but have you made the mind body connection with what actually soothes you?

Most of the time, when we pause the juggle, we have the oportunity to connect with our feelings. It’s at this point we can acknowledge the reactive emotion and do something about it.

It is these moments that we can discover what really matters

Conclusion

Reflection is such a gift to self to evolve the way we do the juggle of life and create opportunity for true life balance.

It’s only when we are present, and not operating a past tense survival program that we can focus on the things you can juggle (rather than drop or do poorly).

For more information about our survival switch and techniques to defuse it, view my book “This Is My Roar – Transform Your Trauma Tale.” Click here for more information.

Want to read more like this?

What Really Matters – click here

Self Reflection – A little Look Within – click here

8 Hot Tips How To Journal – click here

Can You Risk Not Stepping Up To Mother yourself? – Click here

How To Stop Making Excuses & Start Living Your Best Life – Click here

About Karen

Change Facilitator

Karen Humphries is a Kinesiology Practitioner, Health & Business Coach, LEAP & NES Practitioner, Intuitive Meditation & Virtual Gastric Band Hypnosis Facilitator,  and self-confessed laughaholic.  She loves being of service to the world with her humorous and positive approach to life, encouraging people to ‘choose to change and bloom from within.’ 

Karen Humphries, Change Chick, Change Facilitator, Kinesiology, Wellness Coach, Australian Bush Flower Essences, LEAP Facilitator, Trauma, Public Speaker, Cancer Ambassador, Blooming From Within, Traralgon, Victoria, Gippsland

The Art Of Relaxation

The Art Of Relaxation

The Art of Relaxation

I read a fabulous quote the other day, “relaxation is one of the most complex phenomena – very rich, multidimensional“, I just wish I could locate the author to give credit, because this quote is gold!

Right now, we’re experiencing a level of societal stress that hasn’t been experienced since the recession in the 1980’s, or for those still alive, the great depression during the war.

For most people, having experienced two years of uncertainty and unknown during the pandemic, worrying about whether life will return back to normal, has exacerbated our sympathetic nervous system’s flight-fight response. Extended lockdowns has not been kind for most, and from a mental health perspective, damaging and traumatic. Effectively our capacity to feel calm and relaxed has been interupted, and in some cases reduced, due to long term stress.

Everyone on the planet, has something in their past, which is unresolved, and causes them to feel triggered in present day. This trigger drives a neurological survival response.

As a clinical practitioner, I support clients to learn how to recognise when they have activated their neurological survival programs of flight-fight-freeze. I joke that this state of survival makes you look like a meerkat, looking this way and that with crazy eyes.

When you’re in meerkat mode, you have reduced capacity to absorb all of the informaation in your visual field, so you have to turn your head at everything that moves. This leaves you feeling a little ‘hyped-up’. It also uses an incredible amount of physical energy, and leaves you feeling very tired at the end of each day.

To tell someone to relax when they are in meerkat mode is useless, because they have no capacity to undertake any higher ordered thinking (in the neo cortex), or find relaxation solutions (pre-frontal cortex). When you have activated your sympathetic nervous system, and look/feel like a meerkat, you are operating your repitillian brain – you’re doing whatever it takes to survive.

Why relaxation is complex?

1. Need To Feel Safe

There’s a number of emotional investments we have to work through in order for the relaxation effect to work. Taking note that we’ve likely activated our meerkat survival program, we have to be able to firstly feel safe. This sounds a little odd, but understanding that if you feel safe, you are more likely to deactivate the survival program and neurologically return to a state of ‘rest-digest‘ of the parasympathetic nervous system.

When working in clinic, I always advise the client to start with slow and purposeful breathing. I lead the way, and we harmonise our breathing rhythms – it always feels safer to work in pairs or groups. Working in isolation, or infront of a practitioner, can feel intimidating, which perpetuats the meerkat survival behaviours.

The outward breath is always through an open mouth, supports toning of the vagus nerve (longest cranial nerve which influences breathing, heart rate and digestion). Marrying the breath of the practitioner provides you with evidence that you can change, and do have internal resources to achieve relaxation. This builds energy for trust in self.

2. Becoming Present

The breath brings us into the present moment. This is the place in time where you can proactively create change in your life. This is the neurological space that we can switch from being a meerkat and back into rest and digest (of the parasympathetic nervous system). When we activate this switch, we regain access to reintegrate our brain function, to access the neocortex and pre frontal cortex.

3. Learning to Trust

An integrated brain means that your capacity for analysing the issue, identifying solutions to feel safe can begin. When we feel safe in the space of purposeful breath, we are creating capacity for learning to trust in our individual abilities.

Often when I work with employers or teachers, I take them through a variety of relaxtion techniques after revisiting purposeful breath. Actively demonstrating how focus, motivation and memory all improve with these simple mindful breathing activities enables the client to return to their collective tribe of colleagues or students and share their experiences.

4. Learning To Let Go

Many of the corporate presentations I do, involve introducing how the brain works at a very basic level. I actively discuss the survival switch and meerkat mode. It’s worth noting that I’ve never had anyone NOT connect with that anxious or overwhelmed feeling.

At every single presentation, I ask participants to rate their level of stress. We discuss we’re in a safe space, and I invite them to close their eyes. I take them through some basic breathing techniques as well as some guided meditation to identify and let go of stress. We open our eyes and I check in with how they’re feeling.

Re-introducing participants to their relaxed self is often a surprising revelation for the audience. Their perception that relaxation is hard, has been disproved.

Participants quickly learn to recognise that letting go can be as easy as connecting into themselves, registering where they store stress, and breathing it out.

It’s often not until we have physically overridden the nervous system that we realise how much stress our body has been carrying. The use of the quick breathing technique is often all people require as evidence that they can let go of their stuff in their mental and emotional realm. Afterall overanalysis of thoughts and feelings wastes a lot of physical energy.

5. Do Good, Not More

Purposeful breathing is a type of relaxation that is extremely effective when consistently repeated.

At corporate presentations, I find myself discussing strategies with leadership, of the neuro-biological need for regular mindfulness practice to drives higher efficiencies and focus in staff.

Asking staff to do more when there is little to no physical/mental capacity is a receipe for disaster.

Asking staff to do good, and supporting them with resources to be good, is in my opinion an ideal space to start.

Conclusion

Relaxation therefore is art and at times complex, because it requires a consistent commitment to undertaking actions that support you feeling safe, being able to trust, and let go.

It’s only when we are present, and not operating a past tense survival program that we can focus on the things you can embrace (rather than control).

During a typical working day, depending on the type of work, you may need to reset your nervous system at regular intervals. Breathing techniques, getting up for water breaks, and changing your visusal field all contribute to resetting your neurological state.

For more information about our survival switch and techniques to defuse it, view my book “This Is My Roar – Transform Your Trauma Tale.” Click here for more information.

Want to read more like this?

Self Reflection – A little Look Within – click here

8 Hot Tips How To Journal – click here

Can You Risk Not Stepping Up To Mother yourself? – Click here

How To Stop Making Excuses & Start Living Your Best Life – Click here

About Karen

Change Facilitator

Karen Humphries is a Kinesiology Practitioner, Health & Business Coach, LEAP & NES Practitioner, Intuitive Meditation Facilitator, and self-confessed laughaholic.  She loves being of service to the world with her humorous and positive approach to life, encouraging people to ‘choose to change and bloom from within.’ 

Karen Humphries, Change Chick, Change Facilitator, Kinesiology, Wellness Coach, Australian Bush Flower Essences, LEAP Facilitator, Trauma, Public Speaker, Cancer Ambassador, Blooming From Within, Traralgon, Victoria, Gippsland