No shoes day 2016

#withoutshoes

Would you like to help a child who doesn’t have shoes? Well, today is no shoes day, and you can help – for free!

It’s a day where you are asked to abandon your shoes to focus your mind on the millions of people around the world who don’t have the luxury of having shoes.

Think about that for a moment.

Forget about a home, with heating or air conditioning. Forget about a computer. Forget about alcohol, caffeine, convenience food or fresh fruit. Forget about fashionable clothes, designer gear or clothes with the right label.

Millions of people don’t have shoes.

Insect bites or small cuts are particularly dangerous on feet as the chances are the people with no shoes are not walking in the most sanitary of conditions. The open wounds mean that they can pick up infections that become ground into the the feet. This can be life threatening.

A lot of these people will be children. Children struggling to survive by scavenging through rubbish tips. Can you imagine having to go through other peoples rubbish in order to find some scraps that you can sell so that you can eat? Now imagine doing it with no shoes on. Scrabbling through broken glass, twisted metal and filthy needles.

TOMS are giving you a chance to help – and it wont even cost you anything. Instagram a picture of your naked feet with #withoutshoes and they’ll give a pair of shoes to a child who needs them. Check it out…  http://www.toms.com/one-day-without-shoes

If you think this is a good idea, share it. Repost it. Write your own post about it.

Make a difference.

 

Word of the Month – Magic

My word for March is Magic.

I read a lot.

A lot of what I read is about magical things.

Fairy tale worlds of science fiction and fantasy.

I’m currently reading Skin Game by Jim Butcher about a wizard in Chicago. It’s ace.

I practice magic a little.

As a hypnotist I help people to make magical transformations in their lives.

I’ve also learned a few card tricks along the way.

I like fantasy and fun, I like tricks and trickery, I like things that astound and amaze.

I sometimes get told that I have a childlike quality.

I choose to take that as a compliment.

Kids see magic everywhere.

I believe you can find magic everywhere if you are willing to look for it.

My idea of what is magical may have changed as I have gotten older, but my love of it hasn’t faded.

Now I can be amazed at what people can do in science and technology.

I can be astounded at how much people do to help and support others.

I can be thrilled by seeing the changes that people achieve.

Be a kid, see the magic and find a way to be amazed today.

How to influence people

My Job is to influence people.

I’m a Hypnotherapist and people pay me to influence the way they think and feel, so I’ve learned a few tricks along the way.

One of the least successful methods to get anyone to change is to tell them to, yet that seems to be what most people do most of the time.

Another thing people think will work is to explain things to people. They believe that if the other person just understands that what they are thinking/doing is wrong then they will change their behaviour. Unfortunately, this rarely works either. Take smoking for instance. We all know that smoking is damaging to us, and that we are likely to suffer ill health if we do it, yet there are still millions of smokers in the world. Telling them so stop doesn’t work. Explaining that it is bad for them doesn’t work. So what does?

Generally speaking, the best way of influencing someone (who isn’t hypnotised) is by leading by example.

If someone has a phobia of spiders there is a pretty good chance they were influenced into this way of thinking by someone close to them who was also scared of spiders. They saw this person freak out and subconsciously decided that this was a good way to react. Conversely if a person with an existing phobia is surrounded by people who are calm and relaxed around spiders, they may start to feel more relaxed themselves.

I had a client the other day who desperately wanted their partner to come for a hypnotherapy session with me. The partner was adamant that it wasn’t for them and refused point blank to even think about it. So my client booked 3 sessions with me to work on an issue she had. She went home after each session and told her partner how good it was making her feel and how much she was gaining from it. By the third session, he was asking if he could take her place.

When I was 11 years old I was told by a headmaster that the best piece of advice he could give me was to choose my friends wisely. It was a great piece of advice. Not only have my friends helped me through some difficult times and made good times better, but they have also influenced me. They have shaped my ideas and beliefs, they have led by example and I have learned so much from them. If I had chosen other friends, who knows where my life would have taken me. My advice to you would be to choose friends you respect. Choose friends you care about. Choose friends you want to be like.

If you want to influence someone be the example. Be their friend and show them by your words and more importantly your actions how good life can be. Show them what it is to be strong, caring, committed, healthy, reliable, responsible, fun, interesting and non judgemental. It may take some time, but you will be amazed at the impact it can have.

Everyone said

Here’s my weekly poem – I hope you enjoy it

It Couldn’t Be Done

BY EDGAR ALBERT GUEST

Somebody said that it couldn’t be done

      But he with a chuckle replied

That “maybe it couldn’t,” but he would be one

      Who wouldn’t say so till he’d tried.

So he buckled right in with the trace of a grin

      On his face. If he worried he hid it.

He started to sing as he tackled the thing

      That couldn’t be done, and he did it!

Somebody scoffed: “Oh, you’ll never do that;

      At least no one ever has done it;”

But he took off his coat and he took off his hat

      And the first thing we knew he’d begun it.

With a lift of his chin and a bit of a grin,

      Without any doubting or quiddit,

He started to sing as he tackled the thing

      That couldn’t be done, and he did it.

There are thousands to tell you it cannot be done,

      There are thousands to prophesy failure,

There are thousands to point out to you one by one,

      The dangers that wait to assail you.

But just buckle in with a bit of a grin,

      Just take off your coat and go to it;

Just start in to sing as you tackle the thing

      That “cannot be done,” and you’ll do it.

Give it up for Lent

We are now in Lent – the period that one is supposed to give up something we enjoy for 40 days and nights – until Easter.

It kicked off yesterday with Pancake day or Shrove Tuesday where it is traditional to eat pancakes as this was seen as the final feast before the fasting of Lent.

Today it is very rare to fast for 40 days and nights, whatever your religion or faith system is based on, but is there any benefit to this ancient practice.

Proponents of the 5-2 diet where you eat drastically reduced calories (500-600) for 2 days a week will tell you that fasting is very good for your body. It reduces the chances of strokes, heart attacks and diabetes but I don’t think any of them would advocate a prolonged fast which would be much more likely to have a negative effect.

So how about giving up other stuff? Well if the thing you are giving up is intrinsically bad for you, such as smoking or self harming in some way, then that would be a good thing to do – and to keep up way past Easter.

What if the thing you are giving up isn’t exactly good for you, but isn’t necessarily bad either, like chocolate or the odd glass of wine. Well, again there appears to be a benefit. Showing a level of self denial or will power helps us to achieve the things we want in life. Psychologists believe that in some ways will power is like a muscle – you have to use it regularly to keep it strong.

How about giving up something you don’t like – for instance worrying or getting upset by things. Giving those up for a while could leave you feeling brilliant!

If you haven’t already given something up for Lent – why not set yourself a little challenge and see how you do?

You could even get people to sponsor you and raise a little money for charity.

Go on – Give it up!

One of those days

Do you ever have one of those days where everyone annoys you?

From the person calling in to the TV show, to the person who has parked awkwardly at the supermarket, the person who wanted to stop to chat and the person who didn’t.

Literally everyone is annoying.

I was having one of those days earlier.

Weirdly the thing that snapped me out of it was someone being genuinely obnoxious.

If I had been in my normal happy go lucky kind of mood they may have irritated me, but I was already in a foul mood (for no good reason at all) and they made me laugh.

Now, I knew from the outset the the problem today was me – I was the one with the issue – not everybody else, but it never really feels that way. It was only when I was confronted with someone who was at fault that I could let go of the anger I was feeling to everyone else- because they all looked so good in comparison!

That got me thinking.

How often are we happy or unhappy with a situation just because we have compared it to others?

Let me give you an example.

If you walked into work tomorrow and the boss called you into the office and told you he was giving you a 10% pay rise, you would probably be pretty pleased. If you later found out that everyone else had been given 15%, how would you feel? You still have the 10% raise that you were happy with, but now it just seems unfair and a bit rubbish.

On the other hand if you found out everyone else was only getting a 5% raise, your 10% would feel even better…even though it’s still the same 10%.

So, If you want to change the way you are thinking or feeling, try to do some comparisons that will make you feel good. There are always people who have it worse or harder than you do and there will always be people who have it better. If you are constantly comparing yourself to those who have what you perceive to be a better time of it, you will leave yourself feeling fed up and hard done by. Compare yourself to the ones who have it worse off and you will elevate your mood. You might even decide to do something to help them, which will make you feel even better (research shows that people doing a good deed get more from it than the people to whom a good deed is done).

If the World were 100 PEOPLE:

50 would be female
50 would be male

26 would be children
There would be 74 adults,
8 of whom would be 65 and older

There would be:
60 Asians
15 Africans
14 people from the Americas
11 Europeans

33 Christians
22 Muslims
14 Hindus
7 Buddhists
12 people who practice other religions
12 people who would not be aligned with a religion

12 would speak Chinese
5 would speak Spanish
5 would speak English
3 would speak Arabic
3 would speak Hindi
3 would speak Bengali
3 would speak Portuguese
2 would speak Russian
2 would speak Japanese
62 would speak other languages

83 would be able to read and write; 17 would not

7 would have a college degree
22 would own or share a computer

77 people would have a place to shelter them
from the wind and the rain, but 23 would not

1 would be dying of starvation
15 would be undernourished
21 would be overweight

87 would have access to safe drinking water
13 people would have no clean, safe water to drink

Word of the Month – Persistence

Persistence

Lets be honest – this is where most of us fall down.

We start off with good intentions, full of enthusiasm for what we are about to do, the mountains we’ll climb, the heights we will reach, the success we’ll achieve.

Then we start to get a bit bored.

It starts to seem like a bit too much work.

We forget what we wanted to achieve in the first place and start to think about what we want to do right at this particular moment.

Maybe a few obstacles have got in our way.

Maybe someone has said something that has demotivated us.

Maybe those mountains seem a bit too high right now.

You haven’t failed until you’ve stopped trying.

Persistence is King

It’s said that experts in a field have failed at it more times than most people have even tried.

Persistence

Mastering a skill – really mastering it – takes about 10,000 hours of practice.

Persistence

So, think back to the start of this year – what did you want to achieve?

Are you still on track?

If not, maybe it’s time to remember why you wanted to do it in the first place.

Pick yourself up, forgive yourself for not being as amazing as you had hoped you would be and get back on it.

Persistence

Make it happen

FRIDAY GOOD NEWS STORY

Jasper the dog found after social media campaign goes viral

Border Collie Jasper vanished on Sunday when out for a walk up Scafell Pike in the Lake District with his owner Adam Nolan.

Adam was desperate when Jasper went missing and posted on Facebook to alert people to keep an eye out for him if they were in the area. This got reposted thousands of times and people came from over 100 miles away to aid in the search.

Adam got up at dawn every day and searched until dark to no avail, but was joined by a mountain rescue team, helicopter, police and dog lovers who continued to search for him and he was found on Thursday at 2.00 a.m. when a mountain rescuer spotted his eyes by torch light. Jasper’s paws were bloodied from scrabbling around on the mountain so the rescuer, a man called Geoff Horky, carried him down to be reunited with Adam.

The love and devotion showed by Adam struck a chord with thousands of others who did what they could to help. Even after he was found this shining example motivated even more to generosity in donating to mountain rescue to help others who may need it in the future.

A JustGiving page set up by Mr Nolan to raise money for the rescue team had raised more than £25,000 by 19:00 GMT.

If you would like to support Mountain Rescue in the UK, please check out the link here to find out more.

Magnificent Malala

Malala Yousafzai Inspires me more than I can say.

She won a Nobel Peace Prize last Friday for her “Struggle against the suppression of children” and her commitment to children’s rights around the world.

After surviving horrific and life-threatening gunshot wounds to the face by the Taliban just two years ago, the 17-year-old Pakistani girl took her fight for peace and gender equality to the world stage, and she was heard. The people that shot Malala wanted to scare young women away from being educated. What they ended up doing was giving an amazing girl the platform she needed to raise awareness and support to ensure that thousands more girls would get an education.

She created the Malala Fund which aims to empower girls everywhere. Her passion for education may have been influenced by her mother. Growing up Malala’s mother was never taught to read, something she is now remedying.

The Global Partnership for Education, which works in low-income countries to ensure basic education for all, has said that a grant from the Malala Fund would support the first-ever youth delegation at a world education conference in Brussels. Malala is quoted as saying “I believe all countries can do more.” At this year’s Clinton Global Initiative, Malala announced that her fund is pledging a $3 million multi year commitment, in partnership with Echidna Giving, toward education in developing countries, according to ABC News. Some of those funds will go toward a girls’ education summit this December.

As well as being a passionate advocate for education Malala has also become a global voice for the Nigerian girls abducted by Boko Haram. She urged the Nigerian President Mr Jonathan to meet with parents of the 219 schoolgirls kidnapped by the terrorist group, and further his commitment to bring the girls home safely. “My birthday wish this year is ‘Bring back our girls’ now and alive, Malala said.

At the start I wrote that I find Malal Yousafzai unbelievably inspiring. If you do too, why not make your Friday act of Kindness one which will help young women in education around the world. Support the Malala Fund or any other organisation that aims to give women the chance to learn, to educate themselves and to have lives that have choices and freedom.

I live in the UK. We can often think that there is injustice between how Men and Women are treated. There may be discrepancies between wages, there may be fewer women politicians and CEO’s than I would like and there may be institutionalised sexism in our forces and police, but we are fighting to change this. Take up the fight for equal rights for all – in the world, in your own country, in your own religion, in your own workplace and in your own home.

The size of these battles varies – fight the ones that make the most difference.

If you have daughters, nieces or granddaughters teach them how lucky they are to have a chance to do anything they want. Show them what an amazing gift an education is.

What they learn, now and for the rest of their lives, is their passport to opportunity.

Have a great weekend.