In life you either get what you want or you get experiences of failing to have what you want. Life is that simple.

Why is that?

When we say we want something and then don’t do what needs to be done, our behaviour isn’t supporting our intention.

Interestingly our behaviour will always align to what we most want or to our fears about what we most want. What do I mean?

What I mean is when we really want something, our behaviour will align to it or to our anxieties about making the transformation.

So some people may currently have a contradiction between what they say they want and what they do to get it.

When we decide what we want, we create a resonance. That resonance can still include resistance or fear. Only when the resistance or fear is overcome we can achieve what we most want.

And it’s no different to where any of us are now. We have a choice to make our life or the world a better place by taking the steps to do that or to accept the status quo.

What makes the change is gentle action… loving action… spirited action… that keeps us on purpose and helps us be all we can be. And that doesn’t mean ignoring a fear, it means understanding it… accepting it… and working with it.

Fear doesn’t have to stop you. It can propel you!

We resonate with what we want when we make accepting second best a thing of the past. We resonate with what we want when we stop making excuses. We resonate with what we want if we accept our responsibility for everything we do and everything we are.

Contrast that with accepting second best… making excuses… not accepting responsibility… there is immediately a different resonance isn’t there?

Can you feel it?

If you are not currently getting what you want, look at where you accept second best, where you make excuses and where you might not be taking responsibility.

Lots of love and good wishes
Neil

Neil Fellowes shows conscious entrepreneurs, coaches, consultants and complementary therapists how to make a difference AND a profit. Visit his website at http://www.communitysoul.co.uk

You may remember David Beckham in 1998, kicking the Argentinian and getting sent off. He had people hanging effigies of him from lamp posts and people sending him hate mail. He came back strong. He almost single handedly qualified England two years later for the Euros.

You look at the German and Japanese economies. Decimated during the war, but by the 70-80′s they had the most productive economies in the world.

What I’m saying is don’t sink when things don’t go quite right.

When things don’t go to plan we’re going to feel the pain or the frustration. Pain and frustration is a reminder to remember who we are and why we are doing things.

It’s important that when we notice things are not going well we take some time out to notice the situation.

A loving attitude, some good grace and some gratitude for the people that are showing you the problems really helps.

Sometimes – often in fact – when things are not going well, we have to put away our ego. We have to recognise that some of our problem might be driven by our fears.

Maybe the way we are communicating is causing conflict as I saw with one organisation I worked with recently, where the person in charge had a dictatorial strategy and had staff leaving often.

Maybe there is something in your marketing messages. Maybe it’s the font, the language or some fundamental aspect you need to include and don’t know you need and you need to invest in some expert help.

There’s no doubt that when you take the time to notice, you can sooth out the edges. Sometimes we can do this alone, sometimes we need help. And you’ll know when it’s time to do what, if you are in tune with who you really are – which really isn’t this frustrated person you might display when things are not going well.

Make a list of 5 people who have been through some tough times and overcome them. Use it as inspiration when things are not going to plan.

Best Wishes
Neil

Neil Fellowes shows conscious entrepreneurs, coaches, consultants and complementary therapists how to make a difference AND a profit. Visit his website at http://www.communitysoul.co.uk

I remember one of my business coaches once saying to me, “What if you met someone who could give you 15 clients – what are your “Buts”?

I said, “but what do they want in return”, “but I don’t feel worthy of that” and “but nobody does something for nothing.”

This is what awareness brings us – it shows us the disparity between what we ask for and what we do to get that.

And it’s the same in a family scenario. We say to our children will you do this or that and we try to get them to do this or that and they don’t want to do this or that; and then we end up feeling fed up and resentful, or we feel like we should chuck in the towel.

But what the pain or frustration or anger or disappointment in our awareness is showing us is something we must address and until we find out how to change it, and start to act on what will work, nothing changes and we just carry on feeling fed up and wanting to throw in that towel.

And every time something like this happens, it brings up thoughts and feelings. And it’s our job to notice it and transform the situation.

Transformation breaks down into two words. Trance and formation. So trance is about the illusion or disillusion we live in… it’s the state of conscious or unconscious thinking and behaviour we live in… and the formation is about what we create as a result of that thinking and behaviour trance that we go about in.

So let’s apply this to taking care of the environment. You know that when we’re using our car or buying food in packaging that we’re doing some harm and we set an intention to do less harm. Then in your awareness, two weeks later you notice that you just drove to the shop in your car and then threw a sackful of plastic wrappers away. So now you have an intention, and in your awareness you notice where you’re not yet living it.

Let’s apply this to living in peace in the world. We want peace and harmony around us and we all know at our core that we shouldn’t cause harm in any way. So we start to notice day-to-day that we harbour a negative thought about another culture, race or neighbour.

So what we’re doing is we’re becoming aware. We’re starting to notice the disparity between what we say we want in our life and what we’re actually getting. We start to sift through the reality of our life and we start to realise our actions might need to change in order for us to have the peace and harmony or the environment we want.

Give it a try this week. We’d love to hear your thoughts.

Best wishes
Neil

Neil Fellowes shows conscious entrepreneurs, coaches, consultants and complementary therapists how to make a difference AND a profit. Visit his website at http://www.communitysoul.co.uk

You’re probably familiar with the term “Fake it till you make it” – but does it work?

Years ago, when I was reconstructing life after a torrid time, I was making some decisions on what I wanted in my life.

I made a list, not just of the things and the people I wanted in my life, but who I would need to become to have those things.

At the time I was around 20st in weight and I wanted to be 13st. So I knew I need to begin to think like a 13st person.

At the time I was also without a relationship and I knew I wanted someone who had certain qualities and it seems only right that in order to attract a person who has those qualities I would need to be showing similar attributes.

If I tried to fake those attributes until I found the person I wanted and then reverted back to type, there would have been a miss-match, so I had to be honest and be sure that the changes I wanted to make would be changes that I really wanted.

And this is about me and you stepping up to be all we can be as we attract into our lives the things we desire most. This is about holding a vision of who we want to be and what we want to have around us.

I lost 7st in 6 months and met Jo days after I made the decision about what I wanted to be and who I wanted in my life.

Something else I used to do was use a back injury to manipulate situations – usually to get others to do things for me or to get out of doing something (I’m sharing this because I know some of you may use injuries in this way too).  But behaving like this no longer served me so I wanted to change. It pinches life from others and it serves no one.

I wanted my back injury to go, so I started to do exercises that supported my back. I had several holistic therapies over a year, all of which helped in various ways.

Sometimes I was in excruciating pain, but I found ways to work around it. I accepted that the pain might be me hitting a new (higher) limit of what I was capable of and I pushed myself a little further – I faked feeling better a little.

Eventually the back problem was no longer a problem (and certainly no longer an excuse).

So does fake it till you make it work. I think yes, if you are being authentic and genuine in that you are acting in new ways to become someone new.

What are your experiences?

Best  wishes
Neil

Neil Fellowes shows conscious entrepreneurs, coaches, consultants and complementary therapists how to make a difference AND a profit. Visit his website at http://www.communitysoul.co.uk

We all have things we want to make a little better.

We all have challenges…

The challenges might come in relationships, at work, with our kids, with our health or something else. So there is always something we want to make a little better.

The first thing to do is the step so many miss. And yet this step really isn’t that profound. In fact it’s simple. It’s profoundly simple. So let me share what it is…

The first thing we have to do to is to make a decision to change things.

I “made” a decision to make my life better in 2002. And it doesn’t matter how good or bad life is, if you want something you don’t yet have, you have to make a decision. If you don’t, nothing changes.

There will be some people reading this article today, who have made a commitment to live life to the full and who will not turn back. These are people who will make a note and who will never look near them and there are people who are ready to make life different – however big or small the change.

In 2002 I was signed off work with a back injury, broke, obese and at this time 33 years old with two kids, and single again after 5 years of abuse. So I couldn’t really go anywhere or do anything much and… to be honest… even if I could… I’d probably have been so depressed no one would have hung out with me for long.

That left me with one focus. That focus was on what would make life better. Nothing else mattered for me at that point and there has been one question that has made a massive difference to me.

The question I ask is, “What is even better than this?”

To ask this question it doesn’t matter how good or bad life is. Asking this question can always make things just a little better.

One afternoon, after a satisfying day, I was laying on the sofa, grinning at the ceiling and I asked, what would make this even better, so I called Jo in for a hug, because sharing my good mood was better than keeping it to myself and it made the moment a bit more special.

Give the question a try…

Best wishes
Neil

http://www.communitysoul.co.uk

As you probably know by now, we’ve been helping people – people just like you and me – to live life with purpose, passion and spirit at work and in everyday life for around five years.

The word community means “coming into unity” and CommunitySoul was inspired by a vision of people coming into unity with your soul… expanding, gently growing, being all you can be… loving life… engaging with the adventure of life.

For a long time I’ve been aware that anger, frustration, pain, fear and the like are just pointers – reminders that we have become disconnected from what’s  most important in life.

I’ve had my fair share of the painful side of life and used it time and again to resolve what’s happening. I’ve also taught others how to do this and have seen their lives changed beyond belief in a short space of time.

It’s using the pain points in life that have helped me create a life I love. I’m living in a place that’s at the base of the Mendip hills in the south west of the UK. I’ve got horse paddocks behind me and hills all around, and in the distance I have what an estate agent would call sea glimpses.

Jo and I got married just over a year ago and and for that I took 6 weeks off. And that’s not something everyone can do.

I have two kids, with who I have great relationships, and I’m one of the blessed parents whose kids tell them what a great dad I am (and it’s not always preceding a request for money or a lift!).

I’m engaged in work that  I  adore and find inspiring, serving people who want to become more… and I love that as human beings we can always expand a little more.

I’m not ever-so wealthy, but I am debt-less, and I could take six months off work without worrying and it feels good to have that kind of security.

And I’m sharing this with you because…

I want you to know that whatever setbacks you have, whatever you go through, you can build the life you want to live, from whatever starting point you are at right now.

When you are unhappy with something, it’s evidence that something needs to change. And you are the one who has to… and who can… change it.

Best wishes
Neil

http://www.communitysoul.co.uk

“Ignorance is the night of the mind, a night without moon or star.” Confucius

Living on the outer edge of my comfort zone has helped me explore the mystery of life a little and I’d like to share some of the experience with you in the hope it provides an added source of inspiration to you.

Do you like to have a plan for the day?

When I used to wake up in the morning I wanted to feel certain about the day. I wanted to know where I had to be, how I would get there, how much everything cost, how much money I’d earn, even what I’d eat. I guess it was little wonder then that almost everyday began to follow a pattern, right down to turning off the TV news at bedtime.

After an horrific head injury in 1995 followed by a divorce, I came to understand that life had an impermanent quality and for several years I rebelled against much of the structure and certainties I’d previously created to feel secure.

It was then that I fell in step with a ‘What’s meant to be, will be’, philosophy.

After drifting for a time I began to wrestle with myself. My home was a mess, my car was in a state, my shoes had holes in them, my hair looked like the birds had been having an all night orgy in it. I was so overweight that my clothes were such a bad fit I looked like a sausage about to burst the skin!

In Honest Reflection…

My life reflected a lack of respect and gratitude for the comforts afforded to someone living within one of the most privileged cultures in the world. And here I was; not caring for my body – the vehicle gifted to me for my journey through this lifetime – and not keeping my home space a clutter-less void that left room for the magic of life, instead it was filled with the old and the battered.

But guess what I did?

Each day I made demands on the world, for more – more money, a better life, for unbounded success and love.

In my first novel Black Water, a Place of No Hope, the two main characters, a soldier and a missionary, are in the worst place on earth – a prison pen, held by terrorists, in a jungle full of cannibals on an island surrounded by sharks (and, before you ask, this place really does exist outside of my imagination). While the soldier is searching for an escape, the missionary is meditating, content she has all she needs in the world. The soldier finds her lack of attention on how to escape annoying and confronts her.

Yet she is focussed on the simplicities of life that are all too easily forgotten…

The missionary’s responds to him. She says she cannot ask God for more until she has honoured what she already has – in this case, air, water, sunlight and a few moments of peace from her captors.

From the small beginnings of honouring the simplicities of life, I have, a step at a time, learned to ‘return the favour’ for all I have, just by appreciating what I now have.

In reply for my gratitude I’ve been shown the world in greater wonder and realised I’ve been living an adventure.

When opportunity is put in my path – and sometimes this is quite scary – it somehow takes me to the edge of my comfort zone then flicks out a helping hand. If I want to hold my breath, take the hand and go with it, usually I’m blown away by what follows.

Life with a sort of plan…

These days when I wake up, I may have a few appointments or some work to get done, but I neither wake up to a regimented life or a ‘whatever will be’ attitude. These days I’ve found the balance – what “Might be and what is”.

Best wishes
Neil

http://www.communitysoul.co.uk

Andrea was 33 years old.

In 16 years she changed jobs nine times. She had two relationship break-ups during that time and was just starting to notice cracks in her third relationship.

She tried getting married once. She even had a baby. She had a nice home. She had a lovely car. She often went out for meals. She watched all the soaps on TV and even went on nice holidays.

But something was still missing…

She often woke up feeling empty. She sometimes felt that the day ahead had no meaning. She would often go for a long bath to try to get to the bottom of why her life felt like it had this void.

She wanted her life to have meaning and purpose…

And what about Tim…

Tim had stuck with the same company for more than a decade, working in a call centre for a bank. He’d been promoted a couple of times. He was married, semi-happy, but often arguing with his wife for no good reason and he felt a growing restlessness.
For almost 8 years, he had felt like life was passing him by. He described his life as a rut and at aged and 35, he knew it was time for life to change before it passed him by.

There are some things we all know…

We all know what we do for a living…

We know our exercise routine, hobbies, habits, things that list of things that needs our attention and even our behaviours.
These are the things that we “do” to try to give our life meaning and purpose.

But are they “who” we are?

Doing  is ‘man’s’ reality…

Doing a job in order to be comfortable in a chosen lifestyle…

Doing well at school so you can be told you are good and go on to University and then earns lots of money…

Doing in accordance with religious beliefs so you can be-long to a group of people..

Doing like your friends and peers so you can be accepted.

Doing so your spouse will be happy with you and continue to love you…

But there’s another reality and it seems to be the reality most people are really searching for…

This is the reality of being. If the words about the do always come before the be.

Below I’ve changed that round and it makes a subtle difference that makes a big difference.

We can Be a certain person or certain way so the job flows with comfort and ease…

Being conscientious so you do well in school; being your spiritual truth so you may do whatever action is of your highest; being who you really are and doing what we know benefits the world and the people who live in it.

We can choose to do our job tomorrow and do the gardening at the weekend or we can be at work during the day and be in the garden on our days off. The difference is subtle, but the change in our reality – in the way we perceive the world – is profound.

Here are a few things about being that I’ve observed:

• ‘Being’ sounds that bit more gentle, distinctively more pleasurable and a lot less like hard work than “doing”.

• Being is about living knowing we have the world inside ourselves and knowing we have the power to create what we want or destroy what we have

• Being is about allowing yourself to become an expression in the world rather than forcing a way

• Being recognises that we are responsible for creating everything in our world and changing what we don’t like

• Being allows us to co-create with God/Universe/Tao/(or what you like to call the greater force that joins everything together)

• Being allows us to exit from painful vicious circles and find solutions

By “being” first – taking the time to think, act and observe – we get the initial sense that life is slowing down. Yet when we look in more detail we see the most rapid movement of incidents and events all leading up to in the moment experiences. Access the information that comes in those in the moment experiences leads us to more desirable outcomes and a life more on purpose.

You can read more on discovering life purpose here:  http://www.communitysoul.co.uk/lifepurpose.htm

Good wishes
Neil

http://www.communitysoul.co.uk

It was 8.45am, on a spring morning during the school run, when I discovered a philosophy that’s served me well ever since. It came courtesy of a conflict between a lorry driver and someone running late for work.

At that time in my life, I was getting things back on track after 6 years of getting things ‘wrong’ and, as I was walking home, I caught one of those perfect, transformative moments.

In life, we create history in every moment. Imagine that right now you’re printing your beliefs, values, understanding, hopes and fears onto a tapestry. And also imagine that what you think and feel about all of those things will create the next moment you live and how you live it.

Point in case….

As the lorry driver turned into a depot in a narrow, village street that was a cut through for rush hour commuters, a car driver got out of his car and began to give the lorry driver a piece of his mind as he reversed his forty tonne vehicle.

It was as the swearing and gesturing mounted that I realised how good my life was. I wasn’t uptight about being late for work. I wasn’t sitting in traffic getting angry. I had no stress in my life.

I worked for myself. I loved what I did and I gained a new appreciation for the pace my life was moving at.

So as the beefy lorry driver gestured from his cab, I walked on, smiling.

That’s when I noted I had no tension. I liked this feeling, and as the months went by, I began to make ‘Dropping tension’ a practice, whenever I felt it in my body.

Back then I didn’t know how I was changing my future when I dropped the tension. I just knew I felt better – more at peace.

During this time I was learning something.

What I began to understand was that you can’t beat the world into the shape you want it to be. Logically, the world is too big for that. So here is what happened…

I began to see that I was at my best when I didn’t feel tense. I made better decisions. I was kinder to myself and others. I began to enjoy the feeling of peace that flowed through me and I wanted more of that feeling.

So my life went on: feel tense, let go; find peace and love, be at my best; feel tense, let it go, and so on…

Then I began to pause at set times of the day to check in with how I felt. I’d find myself in the middle of something and say “breathe”, or “relax” and suddenly I’d find that feeling I was looking for.

My practice taught me that you can’t rush nature. But it also taught me something else – something more profound!

As I became more peaceful I became more in love with life. When this happened the things I’d been struggling to make happen, began to unfold.

What did this tell me?

It told me that and the quickest way to gain what I wanted was to become calmer, more peaceful, more loving.

We can all make our demands in life, like the man who got out of his car and berated the lorry driver. But when we do that, life – like the lorry driver – will gesture back at us.

If we get angry we’ll create a historical path of anger and that anger will ripple out and find more anger and more reasons to be angry and our future will become a reflection of this anger.

Yet if we catch our temper before it snaps in the traffic, or at the kids, or at a customer or bank clerk or at the insurance company, and if we can learn to drop the tension, we create a happier path and a ripple that changes everything we come into contact with.

With good wishes
Neil

Neil Fellowes shows conscious entrepreneurs, coaches, consultants and complementary therapists how to make a difference AND a profit. Visit his website at http://www.communitysoul.co.uk

By dropping judgement we allow love. In fact, when we drop a lot of things, we allow love.

Dropping all the stresses and ‘have to’s’ allows the mind to relax. It lets the body yield and leaves room for the soul to manoeuvre into situations where it can grow.

When we drop judgements, we become more clear on who we are and what we are really doing. Let me give you an example:

When a parent tells a child off, one of the judgements a parent has is that, if I don’t tell them off they’re always going to do that naughty thing. Yet often when a child does that naughty thing, all they have is an unfulfilled need at that moment – and usually it’s a connection to love.

Whenever I successfully manage not to avoid judging my kids behaviour, love flows. Recently my daughter stuck her tongue out at me when I asked her to do something – bless her. I walked away, admiring her strong spirit and hiding a smile. Later, I asked her if I could stick my tongue out at her. She nodded. She then told me she didn’t like it very much.

We agreed, just for a moment – in the name of fun – we’d both give each other permission to stick our tongue out at each other. We ended up rolling around the floor laughing. She said, ‘But dad, dad, you haven’t seen my angriest face yet.’

‘Go on,’ I said.

So she pulled her angriest face and we both howled with laughter, tears rolling over our cheeks and clutching our tummies in a way we’ve probably never done before.

Had I judged her for sticking her tongue out, we’d have missed that wonderful opportunity. We’d also have missed moments when we’ve brought up the memories of that time when we stuck out our tongues.

I hasten to add, she’s not stuck her tongue out at me in anger since – fingers crossed for the future, eh?

What releasing judgement does is this: it takes us from a place of acting out a drama. It then puts us in a situation of knowing and understanding.

Releasing judgement is the difference between fighting the evils of our life and seeing them as opportunities to grow.

That might all sound easier said than done. But when we understand that each event in our life is a calling to return to who we really are, we become more conscious of why it’s happening. How we experience what happens shows us where we are on that journey.

Ultimately all any of us want is to feel love. Dropping judgment is a huge step.

With good wishes
Neil

http://www.communitysoul.co.uk